Title: Cooney v. Park County

State: wyoming

Issuer: Wyoming Supreme Court

Document:

Cooney v. Park County1990 WY 40792 P.2d 1287Case Number: 88-174Decided: 04/18/1990Supreme Court of Wyoming
THOMAS RUSSELL COONEY AND 
LORA JOHN COONEY,

 APPELLANTS 
(PLAINTIFFS),

v.

PARK COUNTY, WYOMING; THE 
STATE OF WYOMING; THE WYOMING DEPARTMENT OF PROBATION AND PAROLE; CHRIS J. 
WHITE; AND ROBERT MAYOR,

 APPELLEES (DEFENDANTS).

Appeal from the District 
Court of Park County, John T. Dixon, J.

Lawrence B. 
Cozzens, Billings, for appellants. 

Joseph B. Meyer, 
Atty. Gen., Sylvia Lee Hackl, Sr. Asst. Atty. Gen., Cheyenne, for appellee 
Chris J. White.

Edward G. Luhm 
of Scott, Shelledy & Luhm, Worland, for appellees State of Wyo., Dept. of 
Probation and Parole, and Robert Mayor.

Before 
THOMAS, URBIGKIT, MACY, GOLDEN, JJ., and GRANT, District 
Judge.

GOLDEN, Justice.

[¶1]      Appellants Thomas 
Russell Cooney and Lora John Cooney (Cooneys) appeal from the district court's 
W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) dismissal of their complaint against appellees Deputy Park 
County Attorney Chris J. White, the State of Wyoming, the Wyoming Department of 
Probation and Parole (Department), and probation officer Robert Mayor, 
(appellees) alleging a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982), and 
various state claims under the Wyoming Governmental Claims Act, W.S. 1-39-101 
through 1-39-108 (Cum.Supp. 1985) (Claims Act)1, arising out of probation 
revocation proceedings. The trial court dismissed all counts in the Cooneys' 
complaint against White on the basis that he, as a deputy county attorney, had 
absolute prosecutorial immunity from civil liability. It further dismissed the 
Cooneys' counts alleging liability under the Claims Act against the State of 
Wyoming, the Wyoming Department of Probation and Parole, and Robert Mayor, 
because it found no waiver of immunity under the Claims Act as to those 
parties.

[¶2]      The Cooneys 
challenge both of these rulings. We are asked to decide (1) what level of 
immunity under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 will we extend to a deputy county attorney who 
performs activities associated with those proceedings and (2) whether under the 
Claims Act there has been a specific waiver of sovereign immunity as to the 
state claims.

[¶3]      We 
affirm.

I. FACTS

[¶4]      In 1985, Thomas 
Cooney pled guilty to writing bad checks in Park County, Wyoming. The district 
court accepted his guilty plea and sentenced him to five years of supervised 
probation, which required him to stay in regular contact with officers of the 
Wyoming Department of Probation and Parole. When sentenced, Mr. Cooney lived in 
Riverton, Wyoming, where his parole officer was Cindy Johnson. In September 
1985, Mr. Cooney requested permission from the Department to move with his wife 
and child to Baroil because of a change in his job. Johnson granted Mr. Cooney 
permission to move and told him that he would be contacted by a Department 
officer in Rawlins for continued supervision under the terms of his 
sentence.

[¶5]      The Cooneys moved 
to Baroil in October 1985, and Johnson forwarded Thomas Cooney's file to Tracy 
Reinke, a Department officer in Rawlins. Unknown to the Cooneys, however, 
Johnson erroneously advised Reinke that Thomas Cooney and his family were now 
living in La Barge, Wyoming, instead of Baroil. Because of this erroneous 
advice, Reinke returned the Cooney file to Johnson in Riverton and instructed 
Johnson to forward it to the Department office in Evanston, Wyoming, the 
Department office with jurisdiction over probationers living in La Barge. On 
October 21, 1985, Johnson mailed the Cooney file to the Department office in 
Evanston where it was assigned to appellee Robert Mayor. After receiving the 
file, Mayor made unsuccessful attempts to locate Mr. Cooney in La Barge because 
the Cooneys were in Baroil.

[¶6]      In the meantime, 
Mr. Cooney, still unaware of the Department's foul-ups, contacted Johnson 
several times by telephone inquiring about the contact he expected to receive 
from a Department officer in Rawlins. Based on those calls, Johnson filed 
reports verifying Mr. Cooney's compliance with the terms of his probation in 
October and November of 1985. During December 1985, Mr. Cooney telephoned the 
Department office in Rawlins to contact Reinke about his probation.

[¶7]      In mid-January, 
1986, Mayor contacted Johnson to inform her that he could not locate Mr. Cooney 
in his area. Unexplainably, Johnson told Mayor that Mr. Cooney had relocated to 
La Barge, Wyoming, in October 1985, and that she had not heard from him since 
his move. This incorrect information prompted Mayor on January 24, 1986, to call 
appellee Chris White, who was then deputy county attorney for Park County, 
Wyoming; Mayor told White that Mr. Cooney had not been in contact with his 
probation officers as required by the terms of his sentence and that he had 
moved from Riverton without Department permission. White asked Mayor to prepare 
a petition revoking Mr. Cooney's probation.

[¶8]      On January 29, 
1986, Johnson telephoned Mayor and told him that the Cooneys lived in Baroil, 
had permission from the Department to be there, and that Mr. Cooney had been in 
contact with her office during October and November 1985. Mayor then telephoned 
White and relayed those facts to him. Despite this information, White reiterated 
his request that Mayor draft the petition to revoke Mr. Cooney's probation. 
Mayor followed White's instructions and prepared a document entitled "Petition 
for Revocation of Probation and Bench Warrant" dated January 29, 1986. In that 
document, and despite his contrary knowledge, Mayor swore under oath that Mr. 
Cooney changed his address without the Department's permission and failed to 
maintain contact with the Department after he moved. Mayor then forwarded the 
petition to White who presented it to the district court. Based on the petition, 
the district court issued a bench warrant for Mr. Cooney's arrest on February 7, 
1986.

[¶9]      On February 10, 
1986, Mr. Cooney sent a letter to Reinke in an effort to comply with the terms 
of his probation. Similar contacts between Mr. Cooney and Reinke occurred during 
February and March 1986. In early March, Mr. Cooney requested permission from 
Reinke to move to Glasgow, Montana, to accept permanent employment. On March 11, 
1986, Reinke sent Mr. Cooney written permission to move. Having received this 
permission, the Cooneys packed their belongings and prepared to move to Montana. 
On March 15, 1986, a highway patrol officer stopped Mr. Cooney, his wife, and 
child and arrested him pursuant to the bench warrant issued because of the 
information provided to the district court by Mayor and White. Mr. Cooney was 
taken to the Park County jail; Mrs. Cooney and their child were left stranded in 
Baroil with all of their belongings.

[¶10]   Mr. Cooney remained in the Park 
County jail until April 21, 1986, when the district court released him after 
denying the petition to revoke his probation. During his incarceration White and 
Mayor did nothing to inform the district court of their knowledge concerning Mr. 
Cooney's compliance with the terms of his probation. They also did nothing to 
help get Mr. Cooney out of jail. In fact, during the time that Mr. Cooney was 
incarcerated, an attorney with the Park County Public Defender's office 
requested that Mr. Cooney be released from jail until a hearing could be held to 
determine the accuracy of the information underlying the arrest warrant. White 
refused to honor that request.

[¶11]   After the Cooneys filed the 
necessary claim2 under the Claims Act, they filed 
suit. The defendants responded with motions to dismiss under W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6). 
The district court granted the motions. The Cooneys appealed.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of 
Review

[¶12]   When reviewing a W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) 
dismissal, we accept the facts alleged in the complaint as true and view them 
more favorably toward the party opposing the motion below. Mummery v. Polk, 770 P.2d 241, 243 (Wyo. 1989). A motion under this rule tests the legal sufficiency 
of the complaint, should be granted sparingly by the district courts and 
generally is not favored on appeal. Id. We recognize that a § 1983 action should 
not be dismissed upon the pleadings "unless it appears beyond doubt that 
plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle 
him to relief." Joseph v. Patterson, 795 F.2d 549, 551 (6th Cir. 1986) (citing 
Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S. Ct. 99, 1001-02, 2 L. Ed. 2d 80, 84 
(1957)).

B. Absolute Immunity 
for White

1. Imbler and 
Blake

[¶13]   The district court dismissed the § 
1983 claim against White under W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) after ruling that White's 
status as a prosecuting attorney made him absolutely immune from suit, 
regardless of whether his actions actually deprived Mr. Cooney of a 
constitutional right, privilege, or immunity. The district court relied on 
Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 96 S. Ct. 984, 47 L. Ed. 2d 128 (1976) and this 
court's application of Imbler in Blake v. Rupe, 651 P.2d 1096 (Wyo. 1982), cert. 
denied, 459 U.S. 1208, 103 S. Ct. 1199, 75 L. Ed. 2d 442 (1983). It interpreted 
both of those cases as granting prosecutor White absolute immunity from civil 
liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for public policy reasons.3 

[¶14]   The plain language of 42 U.S.C. § 
1983 is deceptively simple because it makes no mention of immunity from 
liability.4 The appellate history of the 
provision, however, reveals that its application necessarily invokes traditional 
common-law defenses of official immunity which extend absolute immunity to 
prosecutors in certain situations. Imbler, 424 U.S.  at 418, 96 S. Ct.  at 989, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 136 (citing Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 71 S. Ct. 783, 95 L. Ed. 1019 (1951)). See also Yaselli v. Goff, 275 U.S. 503, 48 S. Ct. 155, 72 L. Ed. 395 
(1927).

[¶15]   Imbler involved a § 1983 action in 
which Imbler, an exonerated criminal defendant, sought damages against a 
prosecuting attorney for the prosecutor's alleged knowing use of false testimony 
and suppression of material evidence to obtain an illegal conviction. Imbler, 
424 U.S.  at 415-16, 96 S. Ct.  at 987-88, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 134-35. The prosecutor 
successfully moved for dismissal under F.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) on the ground that he 
was absolutely immune from civil liability and the Ninth Circuit affirmed. Id., 
424 U.S.  at 416, 96 S. Ct.  at 988, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 135. On certiorari review of 
that dismissal, the United States Supreme Court addressed the issue of whether a 
prosecutor is absolutely immune from civil liability under § 1983 by focusing on 
the various functions that a prosecutor serves in society and the balance which 
must exist between protecting the integrity of those functions and protecting 
private citizens from prosecutorial abuse. Id., 424 U.S.  at 421-24, 96 S. Ct.  at 
990-92, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 138-40. After completing this review, the Court 
held:

     It remains to 
delineate the boundaries of our holding. As noted, the Court of Appeals 
emphasized that each of respondent's challenged activities was an "integral part 
of the judicial process." The purpose of the Court of Appeals' focus upon the 
functional nature of the activities rather than respondent's status was to 
distinguish and leave standing those cases, in its Circuit and in some others, 
which hold that a prosecutor engaged in certain investigative activities enjoys, 
not the absolute immunity associated with the judicial process, but only 
good-faith defense comparable to the policeman's. We agree with the Court of 
Appeals that respondent's activities were intimately associated with the 
judicial phase of the criminal process, and thus were functions to which the 
reasons for absolute immunity apply with full force. We have no occasion to 
consider whether like or similar reasons require immunity for those aspects of 
the prosecutor's responsibility that cast him in the role of an administrator or 
investigative officer rather than that of advocate. We hold only that in 
initiating a prosecution and in presenting the State's case, the prosecutor is 
immune from a civil suit for damages under § 1983.

Id., 424 U.S.  at 
430-31, 96 S. Ct.  at 994-95, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 143-44 (citations and footnotes 
omitted).

[¶16]   Courts and commentators generally 
agree that this holding structured a functional analysis. Cleavinger v. Saxner, 
474 U.S. 193, 201, 106 S. Ct. 496, 501, 88 L. Ed. 2d 507, 514 (1985). This court 
adopted the functional analysis in Blake. In Blake this court extended absolute 
immunity to a county and prosecuting attorney who employed and supervised an 
investigator to check both court and penitentiary records, investigated matters 
preliminary to initiating the prosecution, and presented the prosecution of the 
state's case of perjury charges against a juror. Blake, 651 P.2d  at 1104. 
Relying on Imbler and decisions following that case, this court determined that 
the prosecutor's challenged activities were intimately associated with the 
judicial phase of the criminal process. In that regard, this court found it 
significant that the ill-fated prosecution concerned possible "perjury by a 
prospective juror, arising in a judicial proceeding by failure to disclose [on 
voir dire examination] a conviction of felony." Id. at 1106. In this court's 
view, the integrity of the judicial process was at stake in the prosecutor's 
performing the investigative function. Therefore,

not only do we have an 
investigation involving the initiation of a criminal prosecution, but a 
prosecution resulting from alleged in-court perjury. We therefore find a greater 
involvement of the judicial function than the usual investigation by a 
prosecutor in preparation for initiation of the criminal process by filing of a 
complaint and trial.

Id. at 
1106.

[¶17]   The functional analysis requires a 
cautious judicial application because "[a]bsolute immunity flows not from rank 
or title or `location within the Government,' but from the nature of the 
responsibilities of the individual official." Cleavinger, 474 U.S.  at 201, 
106 S. Ct.  at 501, 88 L. Ed. 2d  at 514 (emphasis added; citation omitted). It 
probes the character of the ultimate decisions required by any prosecutor 
who would make decisions in the situation in question; allegations of malice, 
self-interest, vindictiveness and the like will not defeat absolute immunity for 
protected prosecutorial functions. Myers v. Morris, 810 F.2d 1437, 1446 (8th 
Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 828, 108 S. Ct. 97, 98 L. Ed. 2d 58 (1987); Ybarra v. 
Reno Thunderbird Mobile Home Village, 723 F.2d 675, 678 (9th Cir. 1984), and 
numerous cases cited therein. Therefore, the reviewing court must not allow its 
focus on the functional character of the prosecutorial conduct at issue to be 
skewed by an emotional response to a particularly abusive fact situation. There 
is no bad faith exception to absolute prosecutorial immunity for prosecutorial 
conduct that meets the Imbler requirements. See Imbler, 424 U.S.  at 427, 96 S. Ct.  at 993, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 141. See also Taylor v. Kavanagh, 640 F.2d 450, 452 
(2d Cir. 1981), cert. denied sub nom. Barbera v. Schlessinger, ___ U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 1338, 103 L. Ed. 2d 808 (1989) (soliciting and suborning perjured testimony 
does not create liability in damages for prosecutorial conduct functionally 
qualifying for absolute immunity under Imbler); Lee v. Willins, 617 F.2d 320, 
322 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 861, 101 S. Ct. 165, 66 L. Ed. 2d 78 (1980) 
(falsifying evidence and coercing perjured testimony); Campbell v. State of 
Maine, 787 F.2d 776, 778 (1st Cir. 1986).

[¶18]   The functional approach has proven 
to be a somewhat difficult standard to apply because of the limited scope of the 
Imbler holding. In Imbler, the Court recognized there would be administrative 
and investigative prosecutorial conduct not done in furtherance of a 
prosecutorial function that demands the protection of absolute immunity. Imbler, 
424 U.S.  at 430-31, 96 S. Ct.  at 995, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 143-44. See also Butz v. 
Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 513-16, 98 S. Ct. 2894, 2914-16, 57 L. Ed. 2d 895, 920-22 
(1978) (certain federal administrative officers are entitled to absolute 
immunity when they function analogous to prosecutorial functions protected under 
Imbler). However, the Court expressly reserved an explanation of the difference 
between the two classes of conduct noting only that: "Drawing a proper line 
between these functions may present difficult questions, but this case does not 
require us to anticipate them." Id., 424 U.S.  at 431, 96 S. Ct.  at 995, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 144 n. 33.5 As the following discussion will 
illustrate, federal and state courts have been wrestling with those difficult 
questions ever since. The Eleventh Circuit recently remarked "[t]he dividing 
line is amorphous, and the process of determining on which side of the line 
particular kinds of conduct fall has proceeded on a case-by-case basis." Marx v. 
Gumbinner, 855 F.2d 783, 789 (11th Cir. 1988). The Cooneys' § 1983 action 
against prosecutor White requires that we venture into this difficult legal 
terrain.

[¶19]   In their appeal the Cooneys contend 
that the deputy county attorney's wrongful conduct was his decision to have Mr. 
Cooney arrested and detained in jail for thirty-eight days. They argue that the 
deputy county attorney's activities of assisting the Department, of using the 
perjured probation revocation petition to obtain a bench warrant for Mr. 
Cooney's arrest, and of causing Mr. Cooney to be arrested and detained were 
administrative in nature and not the functional equivalent of the prosecutor's 
role as an advocate in a criminal proceeding. If they are correct, the deputy 
county attorney enjoys qualified, not absolute, immunity in their civil rights 
action.

2. Application of Imbler 
and Blake

[¶20]   Against the backdrop of Imbler and 
Blake, we must determine whether the deputy county attorney's challenged 
activities "were intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal 
process," and, therefore, were "functions to which the reasons for absolute 
immunity apply with full force." Imbler, 424 U.S.  at 430, 96 S. Ct.  at 995, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 143.

Probation Revocation as 
part of Criminal Proceedings

[¶21]   Without question, the sentencing 
court's granting of probation, supervision of the probationer's service of 
probation, and involvement in probation revocation proceedings are well within 
the judicial phase of the criminal process. "Probation" is defined as "a 
sentence not involving confinement which imposes conditions and retains 
authority in the sentencing court to modify the conditions of the sentence 
or to resentence the offender if he violates the conditions." W.S. 
7-13-401(a)(x) (emphasis added). To assist the sentencing judge in his 
consideration of whether to grant probation to an offender, the judge may direct 
the prosecuting attorney or the state probation and parole officer to 
investigate and report to him concerning factors which he may weigh. W.S. 
7-13-303. The sentencing judge may place the offender on probation under such 
terms as the judge deems appropriate. W.S. 7-13-302, 304, 305. "The sentencing 
judge has continuing jurisdiction over a probationer and inherent power to 
revoke probation granted. Knobel v. State [576 P.2d 941, 943 (Wyo. 1978)]; State 
v. Reisch ([491 P.2d 1254, 1255 (Wyo. 1971)]) * * *." Smith v. State, 598 P.2d 1389, 1390 (Wyo. 1979). In Smith we recognized, "a trial judge's sentencing 
duties in a particular case are not over and a criminal case wherein probation 
is granted not closed until a defendant has satisfactorily served his probation 
period or his probation revoked." Id. at 1391. We further observed 
that

probation is a matter 
over which the sentencing judge takes a personal hand. His decision is one that 
he has made upon the basis of his own judgment of the defendant's potential. He 
has retained control over the defendant's conduct because of an intimate 
acquaintance with defendant as a person gained through his own observation in 
the courtroom and a special study of his background. No one is in a better 
position than the sentencing judge to accomplish the objects of probation and 
keep track of its progress. The supervision of probation, through his probation 
officers, is one of the most important duties performed by the trial judge. It 
is one of his functions in which he cannot be completely impersonal. So there 
are compelling reasons for the particular judge allowing probation to trace and 
retain an individual concern over each defendant in whom he has placed his 
confidence.

* * * * * *

     The probation 
revocation proceeding of February, 1979, was only a continuation of the guilty 
plea proceedings held in June, 1978 * * *.

Id.

[¶22]   With respect to the institution of 
probation revocation proceedings, if either the state probation and parole 
officer or a county attorney determines that consideration should be given to 
retaking or reincarcerating a probationer who allegedly has violated a condition 
of probation, then that officer or county attorney shall notify the court. W.S. 
7-13-408(a). Gronski v. State, 700 P.2d 777, 778 (Wyo. 1985); Minchew v. State, 
685 P.2d 30, 31 (Wyo. 1984); Weisser v. State, 600 P.2d 1320, 1323 (Wyo. 1979); 
Smith, 598 P.2d  at 1390; and Knobel v. State, 576 P.2d 941, 943 (Wyo. 1978). 
Either a probation officer or a county attorney may initiate the revocation 
proceedings:

in both instances the 
request for revocation [is] directed to the judge and, based upon the showing in 
the petition, it [is] the judge who [decides] whether or not to issue a warrant 
for the apprehension of the defendant. Furthermore, in both instances, it [is] 
the court that [decides] the ultimate revocation issue.

Weisser, 600 P.2d  at 1323. Just as the granting of probation is addressed to the sound 
discretion of the sentencing judge, so is its revocation. Gronski, 700 P.2d  at 
778.

[¶23]   Our statutory provisions and our 
case law provide the proper due process protections to which a probationer faced 
with possible probation revocation is entitled. Among the many safeguards which 
our law affords the probationer in that circumstance are rights to written 
notice of the nature and content of the allegations, a probable-cause hearing 
before a judge, an opportunity to consult with any persons whose assistance he 
reasonably desires, confront and examine any person who has made allegations 
against him, counsel, present evidence on his own behalf, and a decision on the 
merits by the sentencing judge who makes a conscientious judgment after hearing 
the facts. See W.S. 7-13-305, 408; W.S. 7-6-104; Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 93 S. Ct. 1756, 36 L. Ed. 2d 656 (1973); Minchew, 685 P.2d  at 31-32. Although 
the decision to revoke probation is not based upon a "beyond a reasonable doubt" 
standard of proof, the sentencing judge's revocation decision is reviewable 
under an abuse of discretion standard. Longwell v. State, 705 P.2d 336, 338 
(Wyo. 1985); and Minchew, 685 P.2d  at 32.

[¶24]   In light of this review of the 
nature and substance of the imposition, supervision and revocation of probation 
under Wyoming law, we reject the Cooneys' arguments that Mr. Cooney's criminal 
case was closed and his criminal proceedings were at an end when deputy county 
attorney White performed his challenged activities. Although it is true that 
"[a] probation revocation hearing is not a trial on a new criminal charge," we 
recognize it is "an extension of the sentencing procedure resulting from 
conviction of the basic charge, coupled with" the probationer's due process 
entitlements. Minchew, 685 P.2d  at 31. As we have shown, from the granting of 
probation through the supervision of probation to the revocation of probation, 
the sentencing judge has continuing jurisdiction over the probationer during the 
sentencing stage of the criminal proceeding. Without a doubt, this sentencing 
stage is an integral part of the judicial phase of the criminal process. We 
emphasize and add to that said earlier: "The supervision of probation, through 
his probation officers [and, we would add, the county attorney] is one of the 
most important duties performed by the trial judge." Smith, 598 P.2d  at 
1391.

Intimate Association of 
Prosecutor's Activities With Judicial Phase of Criminal 
Process

[¶25]   In our foregoing review of this 
important sentencing stage of the judicial phase of the criminal process, we 
have specifically referred to the roles played by the probation officer and the 
county attorney. As we have shown, under Wyoming law these officials perform 
vital activities of informing the sentencing judge of possible probation 
violations and of presenting them to the judge under the probation revocation 
procedures. Due process safeguards abound during this stage when the judge 
receives the petition for revocation from the county attorney "and, based 
thereon, gives probable-cause consideration to the issuance of an arrest 
warrant, and thereafter conducts a hearing with the probationer present." 
Weisser, 600 P.2d  at 1323. Viewing deputy county attorney White's challenged 
activities in this perspective, we reject the Cooneys' argument that his 
challenged activities are not the functional equivalent of the prosecutor's role 
as an advocate in a criminal proceeding. We are convinced that his challenged 
activities are advocatory and "intimately associated with the judicial phase of 
the criminal process" and, therefore, "are functions to which the reasons for 
absolute immunity apply with full force." Imbler, 424 U.S.  at 430, 96 S. Ct.  at 
995, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 143.

[¶26]   We find substantial support for our 
conviction in several decisions in the federal circuit courts of appeal. In 
Harris v. Menendez, 817 F.2d 737 (11th Cir. 1987), an action under 42 U.S.C. § 
1983, the court relied on Imbler and extended absolute immunity to a state's 
attorney who allegedly perjured himself and conspired with the judge and a 
deputy sheriff to have the probationer arrested without probable cause and to 
have his probation revoked. In Allen v. Thompson, 815 F.2d 1433 (11th Cir. 1987) 
(per curiam), a civil rights action, the court extended absolute immunity to a 
United States Attorney and an assistant United States Attorney who, at the 
Federal Parole Commission's request, wrote a letter to the Bureau of Prisons and 
the Parole Commission allegedly falsely advising that a prisoner was guilty of 
additional drug trafficking for which he had not been charged or convicted, 
which resulted in the prisoner's parole eligibility date being enlarged and the 
prisoner's being reclassified to receive special monitoring. Finding that the 
federal prosecutor's activity of submitting information to the Federal Parole 
Commission falls within Imbler's protection, the Court explained:

a probation officer is 
entitled to immunity when preparing and submitting a presentence report in a 
criminal case. We noted that "[t]he report is an integral part of the sentencing 
process, and in preparing the report the probation officer acts at the direction 
of the court."

Here, the prosecutor 
responsible for [the prisoner's] case forwarded information about [the prisoner] 
to the Parole Commission at the Commission's request. This duty is assigned to 
the U.S. attorney's office as part of its role in the prosecution and sentencing 
of federal cases. Parole decisions are the continuation of the sentencing 
process, and the Assistant United States Attorney's reports to the Parole 
Commission are part of that process. While not undertaken literally at the 
direction of the court, these activities are so intimately associated with the 
judicial phase of the criminal process as to cloak the prosecutors with absolute 
immunity from suits for damages.

Id. at 
1434.

[¶27]   In Hamilton v. Daley, 777 F.2d 1207 
(7th Cir. 1985), an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the court gave absolute 
immunity to an assistant state's attorney who allegedly forced two complaining 
witnesses to testify although he knew their testimony would be false and who 
allegedly caused an arrest warrant to issue for an alleged probation violation. 
Relying on Imbler, the court said: "Probation revocation is a criminal 
proceeding. Prosecutors are absolutely immune from suit for initiating a 
prosecution and presenting the state's case." Hamilton, 777 F.2d  at 1213. 
Addressing the probationer's claim about the arrest warrant, the court observed, 
"* * * we have long held that securing the attendance of witnesses is associated 
with the judicial process and that any claim against a prosecutor arising from 
that activity is barred by absolute immunity. Daniels v. Kieser, 586 F.2d 64, 69 
(7th Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 931, 99 S. Ct. 2050, 60 L. Ed. 2d 659 
(1979)." Id. See also, Taylor v. Jones, 121 Cal. App. 3d 885, 175 Cal. Rptr. 678 
(1981), where the court extended absolute immunity to county district attorneys 
who, allegedly motivated by racial prejudice, were involved in revoking 
probation.

[¶28]   In our review of the more recent 
decisions of the federal circuit courts of appeals, we find the following courts 
extending absolute immunity to prosecutors who make decisions in connection with 
the initiation of criminal proceedings:

First 
Circuit

Campbell v. State of 
Maine, 787 F.2d 776 (1st Cir. 1986) (prosecutor withholding exculpatory 
information in presenting case; bad faith exception does not exist).

Malachowski v. City of 
Keene, 787 F.2d 704 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 828, 107 S. Ct. 107, 93 L. Ed. 2d 56 (1986) (city attorney prosecuting juvenile delinquency 
proceeding).

Second 
Circuit

Baez v. Hennessy, 853 F.2d 73 (2d Cir. 1988), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 805, 102 L. Ed. 2d 796 (1989) (assistant district attorney mistakenly initiated grand jury 
indictment and filed it with the court which later dismissed it when mistake was 
discovered).

Barr v. Abrams, 810 F.2d 358 (2d Cir. 1987) (assistant state attorney general initiated criminal contempt 
proceeding and obtained arrest warrant leading to an unlawful arrest and 
imprisonment before charges dropped).

Sixth 
Circuit

Joseph v. Patterson, 795 F.2d 549 (6th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 481 U.S. 1023, 107 S. Ct. 1910, 95 L. Ed. 2d 516 (1987) (state prosecutors allegedly knowingly obtained issuance of 
criminal complaints and arrest warrants based on false, coerced 
statements).

Seventh 
Circuit

Henderson v. Lopez, 790 F.2d 44 (7th Cir. 1986) (assistant state's attorney on whose legal advice county 
sheriff unwarrantedly arrested and jailed plaintiff who had earlier satisfied a 
contempt citation for failure to pay child support).

Eighth 
Circuit

Casey-El v. Hazel, 863 F.2d 29 (8th Cir. 1988) (state prosecutor allegedly withheld ballistics test 
results that would have established accused's innocence).

Williams v. Hartje, 827 F.2d 1203 (8th Cir. 1987) (county prosecutor allegedly concealed autopsy report 
and threatened an eyewitness into giving false testimony at coroner's inquest 
into a black prisoner's death at the hands of his white jailers).

Myers v. Morris, 810 F.2d 1437 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 828, 108 S. Ct. 97, 98 L. Ed. 2d 58 (1987) 
(county prosecutor allegedly knowingly offered false, misleading or perjured 
testimony and destroyed evidence, and without adequate investigation initiated 
and presented case in child sexual abuse proceedings).

Ninth 
Circuit

McCarthy v. Mayo, 827 F.2d 1310 (9th Cir. 1987) (special deputy attorneys general initiated criminal 
proceedings allegedly with knowledge that the statute of limitations had 
run).

Ashelman v. Pope, 793 F.2d 1072 (9th Cir. 1986) (alleged conspiracy between judge and prosecutor to 
predetermine outcome of a judicial proceeding).

Demery v. Kupperman, 735 F.2d 1139 (9th Cir. 1984) (state deputy attorney general allegedly induced 
witnesses to testify falsely in connection with medical license revocation 
administrative proceedings).

Tenth 
Circuit

Meade v. Grubbs, 841 F.2d 1512 (10th Cir. 1988) (state attorney general failed to initiate a civil or 
criminal complaint against certain state officials for their alleged physical 
violence toward and denial of medical care for a prisoner in their 
custody).

Martinez v. Winner, 771 F.2d 424 (10th Cir. 1985) (prosecutor failed to investigate independently a 
suspect's guilt).

Lerwill v. Joslin, 712 F.2d 435 (10th Cir. 1983) (city attorney initiated a prosecution for violations 
of state law he was not authorized to invoke; procured an arrest warrant from a 
justice of the peace who did not follow required state procedure in issuing the 
warrant, and advocated excessive bail before a magistrate).

Eleventh 
Circuit

Marx v. Gumbinner, 855 F.2d 783 (11th Cir. 1988) (state attorney and assistant state attorney caused 
father to be arrested and jailed without probable cause when later blood tests 
revealed father could not have been the one who had sexually assaulted his 
four-year old daughter).

[¶29]   With reference to the level of 
immunity accorded probation officers involved in probation revocation 
proceedings, we note that the Fifth Circuit recently extended absolute immunity 
to parole officers.6 In Farrish v. Mississippi State 
Parole Board, 836 F.2d 969 (5th Cir. 1988), an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 
the parolee was arrested on warrant issued by a municipal judge. A few days 
later, the parolee's parole officer issued a paroled prisoner arrest warrant 
causing the parolee to be detained without bond. At his informal preliminary 
hearing the parolee requested the presence of the complaining witness. The 
parole officer and hearing officer said they could not compel the witness's 
appearance. That witness did not appear; however, that witness's hearsay 
statement was presented along with other evidence. The hearing officer found 
probable cause to exist. The parolee was held in custody for the final 
revocation hearing before the state parole board. At that final hearing, held a 
month after preliminary hearing, the complaining witness did not appear and the 
parole board found no reasonable cause to revoke the parolee's parole. The court 
concluded that the parole officer's challenged activities were prosecutorial in 
nature and deserving of absolute immunity. Using Imbler's "functional" approach, 
the court determined that "the parole revocation process is indistinguishable 
from the initial parole process and, arguably, is even more adjudicatory in 
nature." Id., at 974. Contra, Ray v. Pickett, 734 F.2d 370 (8th Cir. 1984) 
(federal probation officer who allegedly falsified parole violation report given 
only qualified immunity; however, the federal probation revocation scheme in 
question was administrative in nature and substance, unlike Wyoming's, which is 
judicial); and Galvan v. Garmon, 710 F.2d 214 (5th Cir. 1983) (the court held 
that a state probation officer, who mistakenly prepared a motion to revoke 
probation and caused the probationer to be arrested and jailed for twenty days, 
was entitled to only qualified immunity). The Galvan court failed to explain 
satisfactorily why it believed the probation revocation stage of the criminal 
process was less intimately associated with the judicial phase than the 
presentence stage. Both the presentence stage and the probation revocation stage 
are intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process under 
Wyoming law.

[¶30]   As we are not called upon in this 
case to decide the appropriate level of immunity to which a probation officer is 
entitled, under the circumstances of this case we need not further discuss Ray, 
Galvan, or the similar case of Wolfel v. Sanborn, 691 F.2d 270 (6th Cir. 1982) 
(per curiam), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 1115, 103 S. Ct. 751, 74 L. Ed. 2d 969 (1983), 
urged on us by the Cooneys as analogically supportive of their position. As we 
have explained, in view of the nature and substance of the sentencing procedure 
and the probation, supervision and probation revocation stages within that 
procedure, and in view of the closely related roles within that procedure played 
by the sentencing judge, the probation officer and the county attorney, the 
county attorney's challenged activities are advocatory, not administrative, and 
are intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal 
process.

[¶31]   Because both the probation 
revocation stage and the presentence stage of the sentencing procedure are 
intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process, we find 
further substantial support for our holding in the numerous decisions extending 
absolute immunity to probation officers involved in the presentence stage of the 
sentencing process. Federal probation officers have been held absolutely immune 
in their preparation and submission of presentence reports. See Dorman v. 
Higgins, 821 F.2d 133 (2d Cir. 1987); Tripati v. United States Immigration and 
Naturalization Service, 784 F.2d 345 (10th Cir. 1986), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1028, 108 S. Ct. 755, 98 L. Ed. 2d 767 (1988); Spaulding v. Nielsen, 599 F.2d 728 
(5th Cir. 1979). State probation officers have been held absolutely immune for 
their preparation and submission of presentence reports in other courts. Turner 
v. Berry, 856 F.2d 1539 (D.C. Cir. 1988); Demoran v. Witt, 781 F.2d 155 (9th 
Cir. 1985); Burkes v. Callion, 433 F.2d 318 (9th Cir. 1970); Friedman v. 
Younger, 282 F. Supp. 710 (C.D.Cal. 1968) (also extending absolute immunity to 
district attorneys); Hughes v. Chesser, 731 F.2d 1489 (11th Cir. 1984), Shelton 
v. McCarthy, 699 F. Supp. 412 (W.D.N.Y. 1988). The Shelton court identified 
three factors which justify absolute immunity for state probation officers acts 
involving presentence reports: (1) the nature of the function performed, (2) the 
impossibility of guaranteeing the accuracy of the information to be reported, 
and (3) the routine adversary review and judicial scrutiny of the reports. We 
think these last mentioned factors are equally applicable to the probation 
revocation stage and lend support to extending absolute immunity to the county 
attorneys who prepare and present petitions for revocation of probation to the 
judge. Shelton, 699 F. Supp.  at 415.

[¶32]   The Ninth Circuit's reasoning in 
Demoran which afforded immunity to a state probation officer who allegedly 
deliberately falsified a presentence report, applies as well to the deputy 
county attorney in this case. This reasoning is closely paralleled by the Tenth 
Circuit's Tripati opinion, which involved a federal probation officer. Applying 
that reasoning here, we believe that the deputy county attorney's challenged 
activities serve a function integral to the independent judicial process. He 
acts as an arm of the sentencing judge. He is required by law to investigate and 
report to the judge upon the circumstances of any possible probation violation. 
The prospect of damage liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 would seriously erode 
the county attorney's ability to carry out his independent fact-finding function 
and thereby impair the sentencing judge's ability to carry out his judicial 
duties.

[¶33]   A plethora of procedural safeguards 
surrounds the filing of a probation revocation petition. The petition is 
reviewed by the judge who makes an ex parte probable-cause determination. The 
probationer receives a copy of the petition and is entitled to counsel, to 
consult with persons whose assistance he reasonably desires, to confront 
complaining witnesses, to present evidence on his own behalf and to the 
sentencing judge's decision on the merits after conscientiously hearing the 
facts. In addition to that first level of judicial review, the probationer is 
afforded review by this court to ensure that the sentencing judge's revocation 
decision was not the result of an abuse of sound discretion.

[¶34]   We believe it evident that a deputy 
county attorney who assists the court in making these determinations during the 
sentencing process is performing activities which are exclusively for the 
benefit of the court. We hold, therefore, that these challenged activities are 
intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process and are 
functions to which the reasons for absolute immunity apply with full force.7 

[¶35]   We close our discussion of this 
issue with these words:

The purpose of absolute 
immunity is to protect the function of the prosecutor as the key participant in 
the criminal process. The doctrine involves a choice between protecting all 
prosecutors from harassing lawsuits over their official acts and providing 
redress for all injuries occasioned by those acts. When such a choice is made in 
the law, it is inevitable that someone will be hurt. But the choice must be 
made, and it has been long decided that it is better to allow a few wrongs to go 
unredressed than to expose all prosecutors to the risk of retaliation for their 
occasional honest mistakes. Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F.2d 579, 581 (2d Cir. 1949) 
(L. Hand, J.), cert. denied, 339 U.S. 949, 70 S. Ct. 803, 94 L. Ed. 1363 
(1950).

Williams, 827 F.2d  at 1208.

C. Claims Act Immunity 
for All Appellees

[¶36]   The district court dismissed the 
Cooneys' state tort claims against all of the appellees after it concluded that 
no statutory waiver of sovereign immunity existed under the Claims Act upon 
which those claims could be based. The Claims Act did not create new causes of 
action against the State of Wyoming, its employees, agencies, or political 
subdivisions; rather, it statutorily affirmed the idea that those parties 
generally enjoy sovereign immunity from civil liability with the exception of 
certain conduct for which that immunity is specifically waived. Pickle v. Board 
of County Commissioners of County of Platte, 764 P.2d 262, 266 (Wyo. 1988). Cf. 
Oroz v. Board of County Commissioners of Carbon County, 575 P.2d 1155, 1159 
(Wyo. 1978). The Claims Act provides a "close-ended" waiver of immunity from 
liability, and an injured party suing an arm of the State of Wyoming under the 
Act must first establish that the conduct complained of fits into a specific 
statutory waiver of immunity for liability. W.S. 1-39-104(a); Abelseth v. City 
of Gillette, 752 P.2d 430, 433 (Wyo. 1988) (citing Boehm v. Cody Country Chamber 
of Commerce, 748 P.2d 704, 709 (Wyo. 1987)). 

[¶37]   Appellees rested their motion to 
dismiss the Cooneys' state tort claims on the assertion that the conduct 
complained of did not fit into any of the enumerated exceptions to immunity. 
They argued that the only applicable exception the Cooneys could assert would be 
the one set out in W.S. 1-39-112 (Cum.Supp. 1985), which provided: "A 
governmental entity is liable for damages resulting from tortious conduct of 
law enforcement officers while acting within the scope of their duties." 
(emphasis added). See 1986 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 74, § 2. Appellees also argued 
that a plain interpretation of this statute would be proper in light of this 
court's opinion in Hurst v. State, 698 P.2d 1130, 1132-33 (Wyo. 
1985).

[¶38]   In Hurst, we faced the issue 
whether the plain language of the same statute subjected members of the Wyoming 
State Board of Parole or its parole officers to civil liability for their 
alleged negligence in allowing a parolee to leave the state, after which he 
committed numerous murders. This court's analysis in Hurst noted that the 
legislature had not given the phrase "law enforcement officers" a statutory 
definition. Hurst, 698 P.2d  at 1133. This court resolved that problem by looking 
to the plain meaning of "law enforcement officer" which led us to the phrase 
"peace officer." Id. That phrase indicated a legislative intent to limit peace 
officers to those persons with the direct authority to make arrests or keep the 
peace, and this court upheld the trial court's determination that parole 
officers were not vested with that kind of authority. That interpretation of the 
plain language of W.S. 1-39-112 (Cum.Supp. 1985) was also compared with case law 
from other jurisdictions defining the class of persons considered law 
enforcement officers, which case law generally supported that distinction. Id. 
at 1134. Relying on this information this court held that the waiver of 
sovereign immunity under the phrase "law enforcement officer" did not extend to 
the Parole Board or its officers. Id. Appellees have asserted that under either 
the unambiguous language of W.S. 1-39-112, or the holding in Hurst, or both, no 
statutory waiver of immunity existed to allow the Cooneys' state tort 
claims.

[¶39]   The Cooneys have countered those 
arguments by urging a broader waiver of sovereign immunity under W.S. 1-39-112, 
premised on a review of its subsequent legislative history. They explained that 
this court published its opinion in Hurst in April 1985. In the next year, 
during the 1986 legislative session, the legislature amended W.S. 1-39-112 by 
substituting the phrase "peace officers" for "law enforcement officers." That 
amendment became effective on March 18, 1986, three days after Mr. Cooney was 
incarcerated. The Cooneys further noted that the amendment went on to provide 
for an automatic repealer that would change the phrase "peace officers" back to 
"law enforcement officers" effective June 16, 1988. See 1986 Wyo. Sess. Laws ch. 
74, § 4. The Cooneys theorized that this legislative maneuver was intended to 
create a two year time period during which the legislature could set up a state 
self-insurance program to provide monies to be available to pay for the 
liability of a "peace officer." See W.S. 1-41-101 through 1-41-111 (Cum.Supp. 
1986). They also argued that the 1986 amendment's automatic resuscitation of the 
phrase "law enforcement officer" into the current version W.S. 1-39-112 stands 
as evidence of legislative intent to give that phrase a broader meaning than the 
one articulated by this court in Hurst. Under this line of reasoning, they 
concluded that the legislature intended the phrase "law enforcement officers" in 
W.S. 1-39-112 to have a broader meaning from the inception of the statute and 
that it waived tort sovereign immunity for the appellees in this case and any 
other governmental officials who assert a more general authority to enforce the 
laws.

[¶40]   The district court considered the 
arguments of both parties on this issue and ruled for appellees. In its decision 
letter it rejected the Cooneys' approach to statutory interpretation of W.S. 
1-39-112, and dismissed their state tort claims against all appellees finding 
them to be barred by sovereign immunity. 

[¶41]   In this appeal, the Cooneys advance 
essentially the same arguments they made before the district court and candidly 
request that we overrule our decision in Hurst to reach the result they desire. 
The Cooneys' theory is creative, but, stripped of its trappings, advocates 
placing this court in the role of legislative clairvoyant when the unambiguous 
language of the controlling statute, W.S. 1-39-112, plainly does not waive tort 
immunity for persons who are not "law enforcement officers" as we defined that 
phrase in Hurst. The legislative intent that might have been lurking 
behind recent changes to the language in W.S. 1-39-112 is not a substitute for 
upholding a plain reading of an unambiguous statute. Hurst does that, and 
stare decisis demands that we follow Hurst in this case. We do not see 
any statutory waiver of sovereign immunity for appellees under the plain 
language of W.S. 1-39-112. We affirm the district court's W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) 
dismissal of the appellants' complaint.

[¶42]   URBIGKIT and MACY, 
JJ., filed dissenting opinions.

URBIGKIT, Justice, 
dissenting.

I. THE ISSUE IN 
PERSPECTIVE

[¶43]   This case questions whether society 
provides a remedy when public officials commit perjury, suborn perjury and 
acknowledge commission of perjury in the pointless and almost random 
incarceration of a person without justification. In refusing to consider only 
disbarment, censure or criminal prosecution, none of which will occur, I will 
not reject civil damages for at least an attainable alternative. This is civil 
war; not by members of the society against the government, but by 
representatives of government against its citizens. This is statism1 at its worst. This is the story of 
Thomas Russell Cooney who was unjustly arrested and thrown into jail for 
thirty-eight days without any court appearance upon a complaint intentionally 
based on false if not perjurious statements of government employees. This is 
absolute immunity for official misconduct defined as "`entitlement not to have 
to answer for * * * conduct in a civil damages action.'" Murphy v. Morris, 849 F.2d 1101, 1103 (8th Cir. 1988) (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 525, 
105 S. Ct. 2806, 2815, 86 L. Ed. 2d 411 (1985)).

[¶44]   Finally, it is a travesty and 
tragedy of rules of law that protect governmental misconduct from 
responsibility. By that, it is a strange and paranoid lemming like march, 
universally criticized by academic review which was accurately described 
thirty-one years ago to be justified by "arguments [which] offer a wry blend of 
fairy tale and horror story." Gray, Private Wrongs of Public Servants, 47 
Cal.L.Rev. 303, 339 (1959).2 "This development has occurred in 
the context of logical inconsistencies and often with only cursory reasoning." 
Grimm v. Arizona Bd. of Pardons & Paroles, 115 Ariz. 260, 564 P.2d 1227, 
1231 (1977). Immunity for responsibility for public officials is not mandated by 
the constitution nor even statute, but rather a public policy where the 
public to be protected is the miscreant public official at the 
loss and damage of the injured innocent citizen. Society cannot be sustained in 
a democratic system if arbitrary, malicious and perjurious conduct is not 
considered to be both reprehensible and punishable.

[¶45]   Initially, in fairness to Chris J. 
White, assistant county prosecuting attorney, and Robert Mayor, probation 
officer for the Wyoming Department of Probation and Parole, this case does not 
"prove" why they did what they did or what in fact they may have done. In 
choosing to escape a full factual review, they are faced in concepts of the law 
with the stage where this case did progress which provides tactical assumptions 
of guilt to allegations whether in fact true.3

[¶46]   I would concur with the majority 
that the occurrence could be further explored in disciplinary action against the 
attorney which could lead to disbarment and criminal prosecution against both 
the attorney and the parole officer. However, realistically, neither will occur. 
Actually, far better in fairness and justice to everyone, would be a responsible 
review in civil litigation.4 Privileges and immunities against 
responsibility are an anathema for democratic society and most appropriately 
correctable by civil damage responsibility. The proper office of immunity should 
be constrained to protect governmental operation and not to insulate needlessly 
abject misconduct.

[¶47]   Alleged official misconduct, 
corruption, and perjury is hidden here behind the dirty skirts of immunity. From 
these denigrations of rights guaranteed not only by the United States 
Constitution but also the Wyoming Constitution, which was written in the vigor 
of a young society for a new state, I impassionately dissent. It is time to look 
again whether our foundational documents are written to be found only as blank 
pages when governmental personnel misconduct occurs. Statism's uncaring autonomy 
in denied relief from oppression simply should not be acceptable within the 
clear mandate of the Wyoming Constitution. In response by caricatures of 
immunity for absolution from oppressive misconduct, malfeasance and perjury, we 
now write "no" for the state's adjudicatory future and to the Wyoming 
Constitution for protection of our citizens in whose protective interests the 
sacred and unalienable rights were provided.

II. WE WRITE AS WYOMING 
JURISTS WITHIN A WYOMING CONSTITUTION

[¶48]   I cannot retreat to find justice 
only for punishment of the miscreant where recompense to the victim could more 
appropriately serve society's interests. Consequently, I dissent from affirming 
the grant of the W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss. We misplace responsibility 
and improvidently auger out criminal conduct by the majority opinion. I am also 
unwilling to accept fear of responsibility as the basic justification of 
operational failures of government. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 96 S. Ct. 984, 47 L. Ed. 2d 128 (1976) was a bad case, a statistic derivation lacking 
accurate historical base and need not be extended further than the empirical 
sweep of the United States Supreme Court broom and not so far now to deny rights 
to this victim.5 A deterrence to sloganistic 
extension is called to our attention by the state constitution where it is 
stated:

     All power is inherent 
in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and 
instituted for their peace, safety and happiness; for the advancement of these 
ends they have at all times an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter, 
reform or abolish the government in such manner as they may think 
proper.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 1.

     The right of the 
people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against 
unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no warrant shall 
issue but upon probable cause, supported by affidavit, particularly describing 
the place to be searched or the person or thing to be seized.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 4.

     No person shall be 
deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 6.

     Absolute, arbitrary 
power over the lives, liberty and property of freemen exists nowhere in a 
republic, not even in the largest majority.

Wyo. Const. art. 
1, § 7.

     All courts shall be 
open and every person for an injury done to person, reputation or property shall 
have justice administered without sale, denial or delay. Suits may be brought 
against the state in such manner and in such courts as the legislature may by 
law direct.

Wyo. Const., 
art. 1, § 8.

     No law shall be 
enacted limiting the amount of damages to be recovered for causing the injury or 
death of any person.

Wyo. Const. art. 
10, § 4.

     Not unobtrusively 
involved is the oath of office which surely should include an assistant 
prosecuting attorney where, under sacred oath, the governmental official states 
in part:

"I do solemnly swear (or 
affirm) that I will support, obey and defend the constitution of the United 
States, and the constitution of this state, and that I will discharge the duties 
of my office with fidelity; * * *."

Wyo. Const. art. 
6, § 20.

[¶49]   In obedience to that sacred trust, 
I do not draw down the insulative curtain of Imbler to so closely protect 
malefactors by simply accepting what the majority says that "the reviewing court 
must not allow its focus on the functional character of the prosecutorial 
conduct at issue to be skewed by an emotional response to a particularly abusive 
fact situation. There is no bad faith exception to absolute prosecutorial 
immunity for prosecutorial conduct that meets the Imbler requirements." I do not 
reject the function analysis upon which the majority so strongly relies; I 
resist characterizing perjury from another public official as a function of the 
prosecutorial responsibilities in order to fulfill the most weighty position in 
the criminal justice delivery system. The function of the prosecutor does not 
include the commission of a crime. B. Gershman, Prosecutorial Misconduct (1989). 
See also the rule that the knowing use of perjured testimony by the prosecution 
denied a defendant due process of law and requires that the defendant be granted 
a new trial. People v. Foster, 190 Ill. App.3d 1018, 138 Ill.Dec. 311, 547 N.E.2d 478 (1989). See also Tiersma, The Language of Perjury: "Literal Truth," 
Ambiguity, and the False Statement Requirement, 63 So.Cal.L.Rev. 373 
(1990).

[¶50]   It is unacceptable by whatever 
justification to demean due process and fairness to the accused, Phillips v. 
State, 774 P.2d 118 (Wyo. 1989); Harvey v. State, 774 P.2d 87 (Wyo. 1989), in 
order now to cover up suborned perjury committed by the public official. Cf. 
Blake v. Rupe, 651 P.2d 1096 (Wyo. 1982), cert. denied 459 U.S. 1208, 103 S. Ct. 1199, 75 L. Ed. 2d 442 (1983). Unfortunately, the majority gives immunity to the 
alleged criminal behavior in this instance by moving parole and probation 
decisions into the prosecutor's criminal prosecution function. Likewise, the 
majority obliterates the Wyoming Constitution in seeking justification from the 
federal courts where those officials did not achieve office by allegiance to the 
constitution of this state.

III. FACTS 
PRESENTED

[¶51]   Lacking any adequate development of 
the factual record, it is impossible to understand not only why but what 
happened resulting in the issuance of the arrest warrant and the consequent 
incarceration of Cooney.6 To answer as we can requires 
examination of these facts to establish where this course of conduct properly 
fits into immunity absolution. This is not a typical malicious prosecution, it 
is a criminal conspiracy to commit official perjury and deny constitutional 
rights to the victim. Basic documents, including a petition for revocation and 
warrant are not included in the official record. The decision letter of the 
trial court was confined to the factual allegations of the complaint. Briefing 
in trial court by the defendants obviously extended the contravention of facts 
and complexity of allegations without any records or documents produced to 
support the statements made.

[¶52]   We do know that on January 24, 1986 
when Mayor contacted White to state that Cooney had failed to contact his 
probation officers, the prosecutor directed the probation officer to prepare a 
petition for revocation. Five days later, Mayor was advised that Cooney was 
residing in Bairoil, Wyoming in accordance with permission granted and was in 
contact with probation personnel. Cooney alleges that Mayor contacted White with 
this new information and was again directed to prepare a petition to revoke 
anyway, even though the revocation statement would be knowingly false and 
perjurious in effect. Mayor prepared the petition and a bench warrant containing 
the false statements and forwarded the documents to White who presented the 
petition to the trial court and obtained a bench warrant. On this record for 
motion purposes, both state officials conspired to obtain the arrest of Cooney 
by use of false statements made under oath.

[¶53]   I have trouble fitting this 
scenario into prosecutorial discretion and state statutory provisions for 
revocation. Something is missing in the translation and remains missing when the 
public defender later requested Cooney's release and White refused so that the 
improperly incarcerated individual languished in jail without any court 
hearing or appearance for thirty-eight days.7 See Morrissey v. Brewer, 408 

IV. PROBATION REVOCATION 
PROCESS

[¶54]   The Wyoming statute providing for 
revocation was, in its explicit terms, obviously not applied in context or 
intent for the arrest and incarceration of Cooney.

     (a) Where supervision 
of a probationer, parolee or other conditional releasee is being administered 
pursuant to directive of any court having criminal or juvenile jurisdiction, the 
board of parole, any of the state's correctional institutions or the state 
probation and parole agents shall notify the appropriate court, board or 
institution whenever, in their view, consideration should be given to retaking 
or reincarceration for a violation of probation, parole or other conditional 
release. Prior to notification, a hearing shall be held in accordance with this 
act [§§ 7-13-409, 7-13-410] within a reasonable time, unless a hearing is waived 
by the probationer, parolee or conditional releasee. The appropriate officer or 
agents shall as soon as practicable, following termination of any hearing, 
report to the court, board or correctional institution, furnish a copy of the 
hearing record, and make recommendations regarding the disposition to be made of 
the probationer, parolee or conditional releasee by the court, board or 
correctional institution. Pending any proceeding pursuant to this section, the 
appropriate agents may take custody of and detain the probationer, parolee or 
conditional releasee involved for a reasonable period of time prior to the 
hearing and, if it appears to the hearing officer or agents that retaking or 
reincarceration is likely to follow, for such reasonable period after the 
hearing or waiver as may be necessary to arrange for the retaking or 
reincarceration.

     (b) Any hearing 
pursuant to this section may be before the state probation and parole officer, 
his designated hearing officer or any other person authorized pursuant to the 
laws of this state to hear cases of alleged probation, parole or conditional 
release violations, except that no hearing officer shall be the person making 
the allegation of violation.

     (c) With respect to 
any hearing pursuant to this act [§ 7-13-409, 7-13-410], the probationer, 
parolee or conditional releasee:

     (i) Shall have 
reasonable notice in writing of the nature and content of the allegations to be 
made including notice that its purpose is to determine whether there is probable 
cause to believe that he has committed a violation that may lead to a revocation 
of probation, parole or conditional release;

     (ii) Shall be 
permitted to consult with any persons whose assistance he reasonably desires, 
prior to the hearing;

     (iii) Shall have the 
right to confront and examine any person who has made allegations against him, 
unless the hearing officer determines that the confrontation would present a 
substantial present or subsequent danger of harm to the person or 
persons;

     (iv) May admit, deny 
or explain the violation alleged and may present proof, including affidavits and 
other evidence, in support of his contentions.

     (d) A record of the 
proceedings shall be made and preserved either by stenographic means or through 
the use of a recording machine.

W.S. 7-13-409 
(1977) (renumbered in 1987 to W.S. 7-13-408). Simply stated, no hearing by the 
executive agency, the state probation and parole officer was ever provided. If 
Justice Powell was correct in Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 790, 93 S. Ct. 1756, 1763, 36 L. Ed. 2d 656 (1973), there was no requirement for the prosecution 
to become involved in the non-adversary proceeding.

[¶55]   It is apparent that this court has 
created a further pathway for probation and parole revocation as a judicial 
revocation,8 Knobel v. State, 576 P.2d 941 (Wyo. 
1978), in application of W.R.Cr.P. 33(f):

The court shall not 
revoke probation except after a hearing at which the defendant shall be present 
and apprised of the grounds on which such action is proposed. The defendant may 
be admitted to bail pending such hearing.

[¶56]   What is first found missing here is 
a notice to appear without arrest, second was any immediate court appearance by 
the incarcerated defendant, and finally, any opportunity for consideration of 
bail pending hearing. The only "conduct" established for the prosecutor was 
first suborning a perjured petition for revocation; second, presentation to the 
trial court of a false document; and finally, denial of a bail arraignment for 
release of the incarcerated individual. Compare Knobel, 576 P.2d 941, where a 
bond was posted. None of these functions9 are within the prosecutorial 
discretion even within any Imbler gambit.

[¶57]   Actually, nothing is found in 
statute, except by implication, that the office of the county attorney 
represents the state probation officer in revocation proceedings where that 
office has a function or responsibility for parole violation revocation. There 
is no record that determines White filed a motion for parole revocation. State 
v. Reisch, 491 P.2d 1254 (Wyo. 1971). This case develops from an executive 
department petition for revocation under W.S. 7-13-409 (1977) and there was 
apparently no order to show cause as recognized in Murphy v. State, 592 P.2d 1159 (Wyo. 1979), where other offenses became the basis presented for revocation 
and not internal rule non-compliance which was implicated here. See likewise 
Smith v. State, 598 P.2d 1389 (Wyo. 1979). Weisser v. State, 600 P.2d 1320 (Wyo. 
1979) cannot be compared since there, the petition was filed by the department 
and not by the county attorney and a hearing was held within six days following 
arrest. It is interesting to observe that in this official record, we do not 
even have original probation office records of activities or a copy of the 
petition to revoke. (See, however, n. 7, supra.) See Mason v. State, 631 P.2d 1051 (Wyo. 1981), Rooney, J., specially concurring. Clearly, revocation 
addressed conditions and not other law violations. This is peculiarly a function 
of the probation department within which the proper involvement of the 
county attorney is totally undisclosed. Not knowing what documents exist, it is 
impossible to determine whether a mailman could have equally served the same 
function as performed by White, except not to convince the probation officer to 
commit perjury. Not even proper or official discretional decision of the 
prosecutor is authenticated in this record.

[¶58]   Within the facts of this 
misbegotten occurrence, one also is called to question White's authority and 
discretion to retain Cooney in jail without bond or appearance before a 
commissioner for thirty-eight days. Non-release in itself is separate misconduct 
- moral and legal. Sullivan v. Los Angeles County, 12 Cal. 3d 710, 117 Cal. Rptr. 241, 527 P.2d 865 (1974). Intrinsic to either the judicial or administrative 
revocation process is an immediate opportunity for hearing or establishment of 
reasonable bail. See Weisser, 600 P.2d 1320 and Knobel, 576 P.2d 941.

V. ALTERNATIVE REMEDIES 
AS JUSTIFICATION FOR NON-LIABILITY, PROFESSIONAL DISCIPLINE OR CRIMINAL 
PROSECUTION

[¶59]   Before I attenuate the anger that 
morality requires by discussion of why the majority is wrong on the law in 
absolving serious prosecutorial misconduct from financial responsibility for 
damage, reference is required to the alternative remedies gratuitously advanced, 
as buried in footnote 7 of the majority opinion, suggesting disciplinary action 
and criminal prosecution. The State, for the purposes of a motion to dismiss 
defense, filed a pleading which has the effect of admitting suborning perjury 
and execution of a document under a false oath by a public official on January 
29, 1986. That was now four years ago. One would search in vain for either 
criminal prosecution or disciplinary action. White is shown in the current bar 
directory to be a member of the Wyoming State Bar and now a resident in 
Bakersfield, California. Wyoming State Bar Directory (1990). Mayor is no longer 
with the Department of Probation and Parole.

[¶60]   The most disturbing part of the 
majority opinion is the dissertation considering rather than providing economic 
repayment to the victim for damage sustained that alternative remedies for 
injury responsibility exist. It is argued that a chill upon proper performance 
is created by the requirement to defend against obligation to repay for damage 
inflicted by malevolent or malicious conduct. Otherwise, it is suggested that if 
the immunity is not provided, government cannot work. Immunity is, of course, 
only excused irresponsibility and denied liability for intentional wrongdoing in 
the use of a public office. Compare Foster, 190 Ill. App.3d 1018, 138 Ill.Dec. 
311, 547 N.E.2d 478, if we are now also going to apply that same philosophy to 
similar misconduct of the private attorney.

[¶61]   These alternative remedies 
providing responsibility to the immunized public official for his bad conduct 
in order to avoid the chilling result of monetary responsibility would 
substitute either criminal prosecution or professional sanction as the 
punishment. Kentucky Bar Ass'n v. Lovelace, 778 S.W.2d 651 (Ky. 1989). The 
over-powering speciosity arises with a concurrent knowledge that in the justice 
delivery system, these alternatives are seldom if ever actually applied. It is 
an unacceptable fraud on the public since prosecutors seldom prosecute 
prosecutors and bar associations infrequently take punitive action to correct 
prosecutorial suborned perjury. Compare State v. Ramseur, 106 N.J. 123, 524 A.2d 188, 290 (1987), where the New Jersey Supreme Court gave notice that it would 
not hesitate to refer breaches of prosecutors (death case) to bar disciplinary 
committees. See People v. Green, 405 Mich. 273, 274 N.W.2d 448 (1979). See, 
however, Matter of Price, 238 Kan. 426, 709 P.2d 986 (1985) for more than 
conduct in just one case, but see State v. Smith, 245 Kan. 381, 781 P.2d 666 
(1989).

[¶62]   This case provides an ordinary but 
predominating example of non-action. Before we consider what should have been 
done, we only prove the rule by recognition that the alternatives are only idle 
words not to be pursued as a remedy for the admitted evil perpetrated by the 
public official upon the wronged but hapless private individual. We do raise, 
however, question whether these alternatives, involving either prosecutor 
conviction and incarceration for a criminal charge and/or suspension or 
disbarment to practice the profession of law which is the public official's 
livelihood, if really existent and pursued, would be preferred by the public 
official in avoiding damage responsibility.10 This analysis, if we accept the 
generally quoted concept of Judge Learned Hand in Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F.2d 579 (2nd Cir. 1949), cert. denied 339 U.S. 949, 70 S. Ct. 803, 94 L. Ed. 1363 
(1950), provides the only means of punishment for public officials who have been 
wrongful in their performance of responsibilities of a criminal complaint or 
professional discipline instead of economic repayment for the unjustified 
damage.

[¶63]   In the simplest terms within a 
motion to dismiss status, the facts presented could show criminal conduct where 
the assistant prosecuting attorney, White, told the probation officer, Mayor, to 
sign and swear to a false statement. The false affidavit was intentionally 
prepared by the probation officer in agreement with the prosecuting attorney. 
Then by direction and agreement, an affidavit was executed by Mayor. This 
perjurious document was next used by the prosecution in court filing to secure 
the issuance of an arrest warrant from the trial court. Pursuant to the 
conspiratorial agreement and planned use of the perjurious testimony, Cooney was 
arrested and held in jail for thirty-eight days without an opportunity for bond. 
The prosecuting attorney was advised by a third party that Cooney was innocent 
of any wrongdoing, but the conspiratorial conduct continued in denying an 
appearance before a court or arrangements for bond until the trial court hearing 
was finally provided and a release order obtained.11 What crimes do the foregoing 
course of conduct infold? Clearly, perjury is first implicated, W.S. 6-5-301, 
against either or both of the participants, but additionally available for 
multiple charging, W.S. 6-5-107, official misconduct; W.S. 6-5-202, accessory 
after the fact; W.S. 6-5-305(b), obstruction or impedance of the administration 
of justice; W.S. 6-2-203, false imprisonment; and, of course, the inchoate 
offenses, W.S. 6-1-303, conspiracy and W.S. 6-1-201, aiding and abetting as an 
accessory before the fact.12 If exposure to damage claims 
chill, then this is the criminal responsiveness as the alternative suggested. It 
is not a chill, it is pneumonia and virus flu combined.

[¶64]   Next for inquiry is the 
disciplinary code and ethical conduct "answer." First, of course, conviction of 
a felony requires an automatic suspension of the practice of law. Disciplinary 
Code for the Wyoming State Bar, Rule XVI. Also implicated as a standard of 
conduct, we are required to address rules of professional conduct for the 
lawyer:

Preamble: A Lawyer's 
Responsibilities

[1]   A lawyer is a representative of 
clients, an officer of the legal system and a public citizen having special 
responsibility for the quality of justice.

* * * * * *

[12]   Lawyers play a vital role in the 
preservation of society. The fulfillment of this role requires an understanding 
by lawyers of their relationship to our legal system. The Rules of Professional 
Conduct, when properly applied, serve to define that relationship.

Rules for 
Professional Conduct for Attorneys at Law.

     A lawyer shall not 
bring or defend a proceeding, or assert or controvert an issue therein, unless 
there is a basis for doing so that is not frivolous, which includes a good faith 
argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law. A lawyer 
for the defendant in a criminal proceeding, or the respondent in a proceeding 
that could result in incarceration, may nevertheless so defend the proceeding as 
to require that every element of the case be established. The signature of an 
attorney constitutes a certificate by him that he has read the pleading, motion, 
or other court document; that to the best of his knowledge, information, and 
belief, formed after reasonable inquiry, it is well grounded in fact and is 
warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, 
modification, or reversal of existing law; and that it is not interposed for any 
improper purpose such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless 
increase in the cost of litigation.

Rule 3.1, Rules 
for Professional Conduct for Attorneys at Law.

(a) A lawyer shall not 
knowingly:

(1) make a false 
statement of material fact or law to a tribunal;

(2) fail to disclose a 
material fact to a tribunal when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a 
criminal or fraudulent act by the client;

(3) fail to disclose to 
the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer 
to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by 
opposing counsel; or

(4) offer evidence that 
the lawyer knows to be false. If a lawyer has offered material evidence and 
comes to know of its falsity, the lawyer shall take reasonable remedial 
measures.

(b) The duties stated in 
paragraph (a) continue to the conclusion of the proceeding, and apply even if 
compliance requires disclosure of information otherwise protected by Rule 
1.6.

(c) A lawyer may refuse 
to offer evidence that the lawyer does not know to be false but reasonably 
believes is false.

(d) In an ex parte 
proceeding, a lawyer shall inform the tribunal of all material facts known to 
the lawyer which will enable the tribunal to make an informed decision, whether 
or not the facts are adverse.

Rule 3.3, Rules 
for Professional Conduct for Attorneys at Law.

The prosecutor in a 
criminal case shall:

     (a) refrain from 
prosecuting a charge that the prosecutor knows is not supported by probable 
cause;

     (b) prior to 
interviewing an accused or prior to counselling a law enforcement officer with 
respect to interviewing an accused, make reasonable efforts to assure that the 
accused has been advised of the right to, and the procedure for obtaining, 
counsel and has been given reasonable opportunity to obtain counsel;

     (c) not seek to obtain 
from an unrepresented accused a waiver of important pretrial rights, such as the 
right to a preliminary hearing;

     (d) make timely 
disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information known to the prosecutor 
that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense, and, in 
connection with sentencing, disclose to the defense and to the tribunal all 
unprivileged mitigating information known to the prosecutor, except when the 
prosecutor is relieved of this responsibility by a protective order of the 
tribunal; and

     (c) exercise 
reasonable care to prevent investigators, law enforcement personnel, employees 
or other persons assisting or associated with the prosecutor in a criminal case 
from making an extrajudicial statement that the prosecutor would be prohibited 
from making under Rule 3.6.

Rule 3.8, Rules 
for Professional Conduct for Attorneys at Law.

In the course of 
representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly:

     (a) make a false 
statement of material fact or law to a third person; or

     (b) fail to disclose a material 
fact to a third person when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a 
criminal or fraudulent act by a client, unless disclosure is prohibited by Rule 
1.6.

Rule 4.1, Rules 
for Professional Conduct for Attorneys at Law.

     I would wonder in 
consideration of the concept of chilling honest performance of professional 
responsibilities whether White or Mayor would prefer testing their contended 
wrongful conduct on a damage platform, and particularly so if protected by 
insurance or someone else's financial responsibility, or be faced with the 
permanency embodied in criminal prosecution or professional disenfranchisement. 
The answer is, of course, that the alternatives are almost never and certainly 
seldom ever really considered and, if considered, never anticipated to be an 
actual risk. That parenthetical question emerges - how often is a prosecutor 
prosecuted or censured for a wrongful arrest or malicious prosecution? The 
answer is, of course, next to never.13 We are afforded in this wisdom by 
events and circumstances that occurred in the earlier litigation resulting in 
this court's decision in Blake, 651 P.2d 1096.14 Anger and ego not to be assuaged 
by legal knowledge or morality, the prosecutor in Blake, through her friend the 
investigator, arranged to file charges challenging Rupe by criminal attack and 
press release dissertation as a response to a horror of a jury trial acquittal. 
After arrest, the criminal charges were appropriately dismissed in preliminary 
hearing. The lawsuit which was filed, although initially involving a civil 
rights proceeding (Section 1983), went to the jury on malicious prosecution 
where the jury obviously adopted the testimonial perspective of the plaintiff in 
awarding a jury verdict against the prosecutor of $40,000 actual damage and 
$105,000 punitive damage and $20,000 actual damage and $35,000 punitive damage 
against the investigator. Blake, 651 P.2d  at 1097-98. This court, in a belated 
appeal on an immunity absolution, absolved the vicious, malicious and wrongful 
conduct which had clearly incensed the civil jury.

[¶65]   In Blake, 651 P.2d 1096, this court 
stretched inordinately in the belated appeal to reverse the jury verdict. The 
problem, however, continues if we assess realities to the available 
alternatives. The reader should not be surprised that the prosecutor did not 
prosecute herself criminally nor prosecute the investigator. Members of this 
court are, of course, lawyers and may be themselves insulated from 
responsibility by appellate posture from required action pursuant to Rule 8.3, 
entitled Reporting Professional Misconduct, as a particularly important 
provision of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys at Law. Recognizing 
that this court makes final decisions on disciplinary proceedings and should not 
normally file complaints, I would only ask if the alternatives of prosecution or 
professional discipline are intended to be anything but non-applied 
justifications for denial of economic justice. If that is not true, then where 
does the trial court, the state bar itself and particularly the office of the 
attorney general come to grips with the responsibilities of Rule 8.3.15 Members of the office of the 
attorney general are also subject to the constraints and requirements of the 
Rules of Professional Conduct for Attorneys at Law as members of the Wyoming 
State Bar.16

[¶66]   A standard of morality is assumed 
for insulation of the public official (prosecutor) for liability from 
constitutional injury that cannot be constitutionally constrained within the 
function versus conduct dichotomy. A clear recognition is afforded by Ryland v. 
Shapiro, 708 F.2d 967 (5th Cir. 1983), where allegations involved prosecutorial 
falsification of death certificate and a cover up of a murder. "Characterizing 
these actions as akin to those traditionally undertaken by officers of the court 
(which would entitle them to assert absolute immunity) would make a mockery of 
the judicial system." Id. at 975. I would likewise reflect that conspiracy to 
and suborning perjury for issuance of a probation revocation warrant is no less 
a mockery of both the judiciary and the lawyers who serve with distinction as 
the state's prosecutorial attorneys. Control of the unusual misconduct promotes 
both the image and the justification for the entire profession. Id. at 
976.

[C]laims of mental and 
emotional distress, if proven, can support an award of compensatory damages. * * 
* Moreover, the societal interest in deterring or punishing violators of 
constitutional rights supports an award of punitive damages even in the absence 
of actual injury. * * * Finally, an award of nominal damages may support an 
award of attorney's fees under section 1988.

Id. at 
976.

[¶67]   The federal court creation of 
immunity to carve out an exception to Section 1983 liability for prosecutorial 
violation of an individual's civil rights, although very new in time in 
adjudicatory history, now has a complex definitional outer perimeter. In 
concept, it is defined as the core proceeding for prosecution requiring the 
application of the advocate's particularized responsibility. The broad language 
used obviously implemented to similarly continue to justify judicial immunity 
belies the necessity to confine and characterize where the advocate loses his 
mantle in collateral functioning. In the cases, words get in the way of 
reasoning and logic.

[¶68]   The principle of justified 
immorality for the prosecutor by the beneficial insulation of absolute immunity 
is stated in Demery v. Kupperman, 735 F.2d 1139, 1144 (9th Cir. 1984), cert. 
denied 469 U.S. 1127, 105 S. Ct. 810, 83 L. Ed. 2d 803 (1985):

The fact that inducing 
false testimony is wrongful and indefensible is not relevant to the question 
whether immunity attaches. Underlying the doctrine of absolute immunity is a 
recognition that the advancement of broader public policies sometimes requires 
that concededly tortious conduct, no matter how reprehensible, go unremedied, at 
least by means of a civil action for damages.

In my 
unwillingness to accept this standard of conduct for Wyoming lawyers, one is 
called to wonder when the author of the opinion last read the statutes of the 
State of California, the federal code relating to crimes which can be committed, 
even by public officials, and the code of ethics which relate both to judges and 
lawyers. See ABA Code of Judicial Conduct § 3 D(2) (Discussion Draft Revisions 
May 1, 1989), which states:

A judge having knowledge 
that a lawyer has committed a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct * * 
* should take appropriate action and, if the violation raises a substantial 
question as to the lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in 
other respects, shall inform the appropriate authority.

See also the 
comparable version found in Wyoming's Code of Judicial Conduct, 3 B(3) and 
Commentary (1979):

     (3) A judge should 
take or initiate appropriate disciplinary measures against a judge or lawyer for 
unprofessional conduct of which the judge may become aware.

* * * Disciplinary 
measures may include reporting a lawyer's misconduct to an appropriate 
disciplinary body.

[¶69]   One would also wonder, if looking 
at the examination of the next seated applicant during the admission examination 
is cause for a lifetime denial of opportunity to practice law, Application of 
Corrigan, 47 Ohio St.3d 32, 546 N.E.2d 1315 (1989), what would be the proper 
relative responsibility for the wrongful and indefensible conduct recited in 
Demery, 735 F.2d 1139?

[¶70]   My justification for mucking 
through the morass of the law of alleged governmental agent misconduct and 
judicial self-justification as defined first for Section 1983 when applied in 
Wyoming and secondly for the Wyoming Constitution when applied in Wyoming is to 
establish some boundary criteria. Analysis requires two different resolutions 
since a character of lawyer advocate conduct sanitized by the federal courts 
cannot necessarily be acceptable in the state judiciary where this court, 
constitutionally, has the primary responsibility for the application and 
preservation of the Wyoming Constitution, supervision of the Wyoming practice of 
law and the general responsibility for the justice delivery system within the 
three branches of government pursuant to Wyo. Const. art. 2, § 1, Distribution 
of Powers. Consequently, the standards of behavior for lawyers and advocacy is 
the direct responsibility of this court and, as such, is identically applicable 
not only to lawyers in private practice, but also to governmental lawyers in 
advocacy in behalf of the state of Wyoming in general, prosecuting attorneys in 
representation of the state for criminal proceedings and the defense bar in 
criminal cases who are state agents by virtue of participation under the public 
defender program.

VI. WHY THE MAJORITY IS 
WRONG

[¶71]   I find the majority wrong first in 
its application of this case to Section 1983 federal standards and more 
expressly wrong about standards of advocacy conduct acceptable within the 
Wyoming Constitution. Finally, I assess judicial error in ignored direct 
responsibility for the state constitution and its preservation.

[¶72]   In analysis, we need to repeat the 
factual scenario with which this case is elucidated by a motion to dismiss 
status.

     1. A knowingly 
perjurious statement in official form was prepared by a parole 
officer.

     2. The perjured 
statement was knowingly prepared by the parole officer at the direction of the 
assistant county attorney.

     3. The document was 
prepared within the jurisdiction of the parole officer to accomplish the arrest 
and confinement of a person on parole who was not within the jurisdictional 
responsibility of that particular parole officer.

     4. The parole officer 
sent the perjured document to the prosecuting attorney for the prosecuting 
attorney's purpose in filing an order to secure an immediate arrest and a 
subsequent revocation of probation.

     5. The prosecuting 
attorney knowingly filed the perjured document in order to, and did, secure a 
warrant for the arrest of the damaged individual.

     6. The individual was 
arrested and taken to the jail in Cody.

     7. The prosecuting attorney 
was advised that the individual should be released since the proceeding was 
improper.

     8. Without hearing or 
appearance before any member of the judiciary, the individual was held in jail 
for thirty-eight days before appearance and release by judicial 
action.

[¶73]   If these facts are accurate in 
addition to clear felonies committed by both the parole officer and the 
prosecuting attorney plus serious ethical misconduct of various kinds by the 
prosecutor, there should be no doubt of a constitutional violation of a 
protected right under the Wyoming Constitution guaranteed to Cooney. I do not 
believe that even if the federal courts generally countenance commission of 
felonies by prosecutors, cf. United States v. Omni Intern. Corp., 634 F. Supp. 1414 (D.Md. 1986), the outer limits of the immunity umbrella would be extended 
to the prosecutor's solicitation of the preparation, execution and 
acknowledgement of a false government document by another governmental 
official.

[¶74]   I establish the external line even 
for Section 1983 at a point later than when the prosecutor directs and solicits 
the execution of a false and perjurious document before arrest and the 
initiation of proceedings has ever commenced. Within this continuum, even 
under Section 1983, the prosecutorial conduct of White in initiation and 
direction for document preparation to secure arrest is not immunized when based 
on facts included which were knowingly false and perjurious. It is not believed 
that even the federal courts will accept that character of felonious conduct by 
a public official to be a core proceeding as an advocate in the prosecuting of a 
criminal case. Hampton v. Hanrahan, 600 F.2d 600 (7th Cir. 1979), rev'd on other 
grounds 446 U.S. 754, 100 S. Ct. 1987, 64 L. Ed. 2d 670, reh'g denied 448 U.S. 913, 
101 S. Ct. 33, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1176, reh'g denied 448 U.S. 913, 101 S. Ct. 33, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1177 (1980); Joseph v. Patterson, 795 F.2d 549 (6th Cir. 1986), cert. 
denied 481 U.S. 1023, 107 S. Ct. 1910, 95 L. Ed. 2d 516 (1987).

[¶75]   The second difference I take with 
the majority is to ever extend immunity in Wyoming where violation of the 
Wyoming Constitution is considered for conduct which is either criminal or 
constitutes a serious violation of legal ethics by the governmental official. In 
other words, I will not accept immunizing, suborning perjury, blackmail, 
alteration of documents, etc. even if within the context of trial preparation 
and presentation as a criteria of the core proceeding. In this regard, I would 
apply the same rule for defense counsel representing the state in criminal 
defenses, state's attorneys representing the state in any general litigation, 
and the prosecuting attorney representing the state in criminal 
proceedings.

     We note, however, that 
this cloak of immunity is limited to the attorney's performance of regular 
advocacy functions, and like the immunity afforded prosecutors, does not extend 
to intentional misconduct accomplished outside of the scope of the attorney's 
function as an advocate for the state. See Imbler, 424 U.S.  at 429, 96 S. Ct.  at 
994; Tower v. Glover, 467 U.S. 914, 923, 104 S. Ct. 2820, 2826, 81 L. Ed. 2d 758 
(1984) (state public defenders are not afforded absolute immunity for 
intentional misconduct by virtue of alleged conspiratorial action which deprives 
their clients of federal rights). The immunity envisioned by the common law, and 
discussed by the Supreme Court, attaches only to those activities within 
counsel's normal duties as an advocate for his or her client. When an attorney 
goes beyond those boundaries and commits an act of intentional misconduct, the 
protections of absolute immunity no longer apply. Tower, 467 U.S.  at 921, 104 S. Ct.  at 2825. See Williams v. Hartje, 827 F.2d 1203, 1208-10 (8th Cir. 1987) 
(The advocacy function entails preparatory and other activity outside of the 
courtroom undertaken "within the role of advocate." In drawing the line between 
absolutely immune and other activities, the important consideration is not 
whether the act was one which could be done only by an advocate but whether an 
act is closely related to the role of the advocate.)

Murphy, 849 F.2d  
at 1105.

[¶76]   I argue that this court should not 
adopt the Imbler litany of excused misconduct where criminal or serious ethical 
misconduct exists, except to the most confined extent required to apply federal 
criteria to the federal statute and then only to the Section 1983 claim. 
Consequently, this court is in error in extending the assumed Imbler immunity to 
a state responsibility under the state constitution.

[¶77]   There is yet a third reason why the 
majority is in error within these particularized facts. The statutory provision 
for probation revocation is not a direct prosecuting attorney 
responsibility. Admittedly, this court has created a judicial revocation process 
independent of statute where the prosecutor becomes a direct player. However, in 
this case, the revocation proceeding chosen was statutory and, as such, could 
have been processed without any involvement of the prosecuting attorney through 
parole officer direct filing. This was not a prosecution where the prosecuting 
attorney had sole responsibility. Consequently, here, that Park County official 
only served as an adviser and volunteer assistant in a proceeding initiated by a 
state office and official for which he did not necessarily have to take any 
direct responsibility. I do not accept contention that the prosecuting attorney 
has immunity in telling the parole officer to prepare, sign and swear to a false 
document which, within the parole officer's responsibility, will serve to obtain 
the incarceration of someone who both participants know is not at fault or 
subject factually to probation revocation.

[¶78]   Consequently, for three reasons, 
the majority is substantively in error. First by extending Imbler beyond core 
proceedings; second by extending the outer reaches of Imbler to the Wyoming 
constitutional protection; and third by extending Imbler to a probation officer 
revocation document where the prosecutor was not directly responsible for 
providing the initial action.

[¶79]   It is fair to rationalize that if 
something like this ever occurred before, and if it really did happen here, it 
will not reoccur after this opinion. In 1989 and 1990, the lawyer disciplinary 
process of Wyoming is more organizationally attenuated to respond to the 
misconduct of the profession and recognition has occurred for the potential 
criminal responsibility when an attorney participates in the preparation of 
false documents. State v. Neilson, Seventh Judicial District, Natrona County, 
State of Wyoming. This case may not bring justice or equity to Tom and Lora 
Cooney nor even properly determine what did occur and what responsibility did 
exist, but a message should be indelibly communicated that if civil liability 
responsibility is denied for official misconduct of an egregious nature, worse 
punishment may and should be provided.

VII. ALTERNATIVE RIGHT 
FOR REGRESS WHEN A PUBLIC OFFICIAL CAUSES DAMAGE IN VIOLATION OF THE STATE 
CONSTITUTION

[¶80]   There is a basic reason why this 
court is in error by affirming the dismissal of the case by sustaining the 
motion to dismiss without leave reserved to Cooney to file an amended complaint. 
Admittedly, Cooney only indirectly alleged facts which directs attention to a 
course of conduct implicating a violation of rights guaranteed by the Wyoming 
Constitution. I would perceive that with arguable violations of the United 
States Constitution and consequent disposition of the Section 1983 claim by a 
motion to dismiss, Cooney should have been reserved a further right to amend to 
protest violations of his state constitutional interests which could not have 
been substantively extinguished by the state tort claims act which, in its 
terms, is not addressed to a constitutional rights violation.

[¶81]   The near magnetic attraction to 
the federal judiciary, including categorically the United States Supreme Court 
for statism,17 over individual rights is here 
personified in this occupational immunity. This is not only in contravention of 
Chief Justice John Marshall's directive in Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 5 U.S. 137, 163, 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803), in disregard of English law precedent, but 
also in apparent ignorance of world history even as more recently provided by 
the saga of totalitarian government emergence post-World War I with 
disintegration of the old order. Factually unjustified and precedentially 
unsupported, except as an accelerating growth, occupational immunity from 
responsibility for injury defines primarily only by its expansive growth any 
justification for its intrinsic existence. The comparable systematology within 
government to human cancer is not unnoticeable.

[¶82]   Governmental immunity or public 
officer privilege rests on a faulty and fallacious conceptual justification as 
only recently growing like thistles on the American governmental and judicial 
landscape. Error was initiated by judicial creation of judicial immunity and 
followed by that cancerous expansion as, for example here, to the prosecutorial 
function as pseudo-judicial. The proper foundational justification for 
non-liability of agents of government arises from the discretional nature of the 
responsibilities performed. The judge's judicial decision, Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S. Ct. 1213, 18 L. Ed. 2d 288 (1967), cf. Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U.S. 522, 104 S. Ct. 1970, 80 L. Ed. 2d 565 (1984); the parole board's release decision, 
Hurst v. State, 698 P.2d 1130 (Wyo. 1985), cf. Grimm, 564 P.2d 1227; the 
president's national welfare decision, Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 102 S. Ct. 2690, 73 L. Ed. 2d 349 (1982); and the legislator's legislative activities, 
Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, 71 S. Ct. 783, 95 L. Ed. 1019, reh'g denied 342 U.S. 843, 72 S. Ct. 20, 96 L. Ed. 637 (1951); Clear Lake City Water Authority v. 
Salazar, 781 S.W.2d 347 (Tex. App. 1989), are properly protected from litigative 
attack because of the nature of the decisional responsibilities and not because 
the officer holder has been given a stature above the constitution as the basic 
law of society.

[¶83]   Exhaustive scholastic examination 
of the institutional expansion of the individualized privilege to harm without 
responsibility within the government by the general immunities, qualified and 
absolute, has attracted comprehensive scholastic analysis. The frustration and 
disdain of writers for the adversarial effect of immunity on individual rights 
is personified by the titles. Representative writings not otherwise specifically 
cited in this dissent include Barrett, Police Practices and the Law - From 
Arrest to Release or Charge, 50 Calif.L. Rev. 11 (1962); Beermann, Government 
Official Torts and the Takings Clause: Federalism and State Sovereign Immunity, 
68 B.U.L.Rev. 277 (1988); Burke & Burton, Defining the Contours of Municipal 
Liability Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: Monell Through City of Canton v. Harris, 18 
Stetson L.Rev. 511 (1989): Eisenberg & Schwab, The Reality of Constitutional 
Tort Litigation, 72 Cornell L.Rev. 641 (1987); Gressman, The Unhappy History of 
Civil Rights Legislation, 50 Mich.L.Rev. 1323 (1952); Hundt, Suing 
Municipalities Directly Under the Fourteenth Amendment, 70 N.W.U.L.Rev. 770 
(1975); Jaron, The Threat of Personal Liability Under the Federal Civil Rights 
Act: Does it Interfere with the Performance of State and Local Government?, 13 
Urb.Law. 1 (1981); Kates & Kouba, Liability of Public Entities Under Section 
1983 of the Civil Rights Act, 45 So.Cal.L.Rev. 131 (1972); Mead, 42 U.S.C. § 
1983 Municipal Liability: The Monell Sketch Becomes a Distorted Picture, 65 
N.C.L.Rev. 517 (1987); Schnapper, Civil Rights Litigation After Monell, 79 
Colum.L.Rev. 213 (1979); Shapo, Constitutional Tort: Monroe v. Pape, and the 
Frontiers Beyond, 60 N.W.U.L. Rev. 277 (1965); Zagrans, "Under Color of" What 
Law: A Reconstructed Model of Section 1983 Liability, 71 Va.L.Rev. 499 (1985); 
Comment, Civil Rights. Malley v. Briggs: Application to the Harlow Objective 
Reasonableness Test to Section 1983 Liability for Police Officers, 29 Ariz.L. 
Rev. 333 (1987); Comment, Oregon's Discretionary Interpretation of Discretionary 
Immunity, 22 Willamette L.Rev. 147 (1986); Comment, Civil Rights: Discarding 
Section 1983 Municipal Immunity - Is That Enough? Monell v. Department of Social 
Services, 98 S. Ct. 2018 (1978), 30 U.Fla.L.Rev. 979 (1978); Note, Qualified 
Immunity - Public Officials Will Lose Qualified Immunity Where the 
Constitutional Rights Were Clearly Established at the Time of the Violation But 
Not For Violation of a Statute or Regulation Unless the Statute or Regulation 
Itself Creates the Protected Right. - Davis v. Scherer (U.S. 1984), 34 Drake 
L.Rev. 873 (1984-85); Note, Monell v. Department of Social Services: A Supreme 
Court Adoption of Lower Court Exceptions, 1979 Utah L.Rev. 251 (1979); Note, 
Municipal Liability Under Section 1983: The Meaning of "Policy or Custom" 79 
Colum.L.Rev. 304 (1979); Note, From Monroe to Monell: Eliminating Absolute 
Municipal Immunity Under § 1983, 30 Mercer L.Rev. 747 (1979); Note, Limiting the 
Section 1983 Action in the Wake of Monroe v. Pape, 82 Harv.L.Rev. 1486 (1969); 
and Recent Development, Lynch v. Cannatella: An Inconsistent Application of 
Qualified Immunity, 62 Tulane L.Rev. 820 (1988).

[¶84]   A couple of lines from Gressman, 
supra, 50 Mich.L.Rev. at 1358 (quoting To Secure These Rights 149-173 (1947)), 
as a distinction from the idealism of Marbury, may be charismatic in 
description:

"[I]n one sense, the 
actual infringements of civil rights by public or private persons are only 
symptoms. They reflect the imperfections of our social order, and the ignorance 
and moral weaknesses of some of our people."

[¶85]   After assessment of this quantum of 
research, analysis and composition, one has cause to wonder where we are and why 
we got here with privilege to injure - immunity from responsibility as related 
to what Justice Miller said just over a century ago in United States v. Lee, 16 
Otto 196, 106 U.S. 196, 220, 1 S. Ct. 240, 27 L. Ed. 171 (1882):

No man in this country is 
so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at 
defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to 
the lowest, are creatures of the law, and are bound to obey it.

[¶86]   Most recent law journal and legal 
periodical scholarship include Gildin, Immunizing Intentional Violations of 
Constitutional Rights Through Judicial Legislation: The Extension of Harlow v. 
Fitzgerald to Section 1983 Actions, 38 Emory L.J. 369 (1989); Manak, Update on 
Absolute/Good Faith Immunity, 23 The Prosecutor 5 (1989); Schwartz & 
Mahshigian, In the 1990's the Government Must be a Reasonable Person in its 
Workplaces: The Discretionary Function Immunity Shield Must be Trimmed, 46 Wn. 
& Lee L.Rev. 359 (1989); Tribe, Revisiting the Rule of Law, 64 N YU.L.Rev. 
726 (1989); Comment, Anderson v. Creighton and Qualified Immunity, 50 Ohio 
St.L.J. 447 (1989); Comment, Qualified Immunity for Law Enforcement Officials in 
Section 1983 Excessive Force Cases, 58 U.Cinn.L. Rev. 243 (1989); Note, The 
Yonkers Case: Separation of Powers as a Yardstick for Determining Official 
Immunity, XVII Fordham Urb.L.J. 217 (1989) (see, however, Spallone v. United 
States, ___ U.S. ___, 110 S. Ct. 625, 107 L. Ed. 2d 644 (1990), demonstrating that 
the author guessed totally wrong); Note, Section 1983: Absolute Immunity For 
Pretrial Police Testimony, XVI Fordham Urb.L.J. 647 (1988); and The D.C. Circuit 
Review September 1987-August 1988, 57 Geo.Wash.L.Rev. 1342 (1989).

[¶87]   The authoritative text, B. 
Gershman, supra, should not be ignored. In introduction, Gershman 
states:

     This book is about the 
use and abuse of power by one of the most influential figures in the American 
governmental system. Although not a member of the legislative or judicial 
branches, this official exercises broad lawmaking and adjudicative powers. 
Although technically a member of the executive branch, this official operates 
autonomously and independently and is usually accountable only to the public. 
Whether rural or urban, local or federal, elected or appointed, this official is 
glamorized by the media and diabolized by his foes. This figure is the public 
prosecutor, and he has the power to make decisions that control and even destroy 
people's careers, reputations, and lives. Any comprehensive and systematic 
understanding of the criminal justice system must take account of the central 
role of the prosecutor.

     A study of the 
prosecutorial process is fascinating and frustrating. As a long-time prosecutor, 
defense attorney, and law professor, I have always believed that the 
prosecutor's task is more exacting than that of any other public officer. More 
than any other official, the prosecutor is required to serve two masters - 
society and justice. * * *

* * * * * *

Two major themes emerge 
from this book. First, it becomes inescapably clear that the prosecutor, for 
good or ill, is the most powerful figure in the criminal justice system. * * 
*

The second theme is 
probably the most significant in terms of long-range reform. Restraints on 
prosecutorial misconduct are either meaningless or nonexistent. Relatively few 
judicial or constitutional sanctions exist to penalize or deter misconduct; the 
available sanctions are sparingly used and even when used have not proved 
effective. Misconduct is commonly met with judicial passivity and bar 
association hypocrisy.

Id. at 
vii-ix.

[¶88]   Considering this comprehensive 
history and exhaustive scholarly authority, it is time that state courts 
recognize a requirement of fidelity to the state constitution in principal 
responsibility to assure validity to the guarantees to the state's citizens. 
Cursory supplication to the waning protection afforded by the United States 
Constitution through current decisions of the highest court of the federal 
system can no longer meet the fealty demanded by the oath of office of what the 
state supreme court justices owe to the state constitution. Consequently, when 
addressing suborned perjury to incarcerate an innocent victim by a public 
official, I cannot escape personal responsibility to the Wyoming State 
Constitution or surrender by temporizing denial by unthoughtful adaptation of 
whatever temporary mores may be applied by the United States Supreme Court to 
federal legislation.

[¶89]   I am led in this persuasion by an 
unquestionable bedrock principle of constitutional government that the 
legislature need not, and in fact cannot, act contrarily in order to deny to the 
judiciary the right to provide a remedy for government violation of 
constitutional rights. In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau 
of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S. Ct. 1999, 29 L. Ed. 2d 619 (1971), by 
foundational construction of the original philosophy initially developed by 
Chief Justice Marshall, the United States Supreme Court provided a direct 
constitutional remedy for violations by the government of constitutional 
guarantees afforded in the United States Constitution.

[¶90]   I find no need for the application 
of W.S. 1-31-101 through 1-31-130, and, in fact, no exclusion by whatever such 
an act may or may not do to discern that this court, in exercise of its oath, 
must provide a right for protection to our citizens from constitutional 
depravation by the government or its employees.18 Consequently, we can only meet 
that responsibility by providing a state Bivens right for redress of 
constitutional violation.19 The Section 1983 remedy is, today, 
in its nadir, if not in obsolescence and impotency. Call then reoccurs for the 
state judiciary to recognize the empirical responsibility required within the 
state constitution. The non-legislative answer of the federal system of Bivens 
is an obvious answer to accord real meaning to the state constitutional 
guarantees and imperatives. Any constitution which can be ignored by judicial 
inaction or legislative denial of implementing processes is no constitution and 
the action or inaction will prostitute and demean the government itself. The 
clarion question of why we so often need to apply to Uncle Fed to provide can 
more persuasively and justiciably be answered by our own activity and ingenuity. 
The thesis presented that citizen's rights within the state constitution are not 
without substance, even if not enforced by federal legislation, has realistic 
precedent by previous use of the Bivens remedy for the state court to enforce 
the rights independent of the federal civil rights action and proceeding. These 
concepts, although not yet to have predominated because of the preferential 
posture of past federal remedies, can now be cultivated to further the 
well-being of our citizens in a realistic recognition of the state's function in 
the federal system for the mutual protection of the state's constitutional 
guarantees.

[¶91]   What this means is that for the 
protection of state constitutional rights, if depravation or denigration from 
state employees occurs, the state Bivens cause of action should be available 
under the constitutional imperatives of our state constitution. Immunity cannot, 
in itself, as a non-constitutional function, amend out of societal rights for 
protection the guarantees which are provided within the state constitution. This 
is true no less nor no more than a like thesis which was developed in the 
federal judiciary by adaptation of a process and right for justiciability in 
Bivens. To paraphrase the oracle or ogle of the professional immunities, if it 
would be monstrous for the federal government not to protect citizens from 
denudation by federal employees, it is no less monstrous for this court to 
reject its willingness and our oath of office to provide a similar right within 
the state against denudation of constitutional rights by employees of the 
state.

[¶92]   We should then look, as Cooney was 
unconstitutionally incarcerated by conspiratorial perjury of public employees, 
where the contours of a Bivens state cause of action could be most adequately 
illuminated and implemented. In Bivens, a model was created by announcement that 
a federal right of action was defined for which damage was recoverable from 
federal agent violation of constitutional guarantees (Fourth Amendment rights in 
that case). In denial of the governmental posture that no right to enforce 
existed, the opinion said:

     We think that 
respondents' thesis [that rights to redress could only be found under state tort 
law] rests upon an unduly restrictive view of the Fourth Amendment's protection 
against unreasonable searches and seizures by federal agents, a view that has 
consistently been rejected by this Court. Respondents seek to treat the 
relationship between a citizen and a federal agent unconstitutionally exercising 
his authority as no different from the relationship between two private 
citizens. In so doing, they ignore the fact that power, once granted, does not 
disappear like a magic gift when it is wrongfully used. An agent acting - albeit 
unconstitutionally - in the name of the United States possesses a far greater 
capacity for harm than an individual trespasser exercising no authority other 
than his own. Cf. Amos v. United States, 255 U.S. 313, 317 [41 S. Ct. 266, 
267-68, 65 L. Ed. 654] (1921); United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 326 [61 S. Ct. 1031, 1043, 85 L. Ed. 1368] (1941). Accordingly, as our cases make clear, 
the Fourth Amendment operates as a limitation upon the exercise of federal power 
regardless of whether the State in whose jurisdiction that power is exercised 
would prohibit or penalize the identical act if engaged in by a private citizen. 
It guarantees to citizens of the United States the absolute right to be free 
from unreasonable searches and seizures carried out by virtue of federal 
authority. And "where federally protected rights have been invaded, it has been 
the rule from the beginning that courts will be alert to adjust their remedies 
so as to grant the necessary relief." Bell v. Hood, 327 U.S., at 684 [66 S. Ct. 773, 777, 90 L. Ed. 939 (1946)] (footnote omitted); see Bemis Bros. Bag Co. v. 
United States, 289 U.S. 28, 36 [53 S. Ct. 454, 457, 77 L. Ed. 1011] (1933) 
(Cardozo, J.); The Western Maid, 257 U.S. 419, 433 [42 S. Ct. 159, 161, 66 L. Ed. 299] (1922) (Holmes, J.).

Bivens, 403 U.S. 
at 391-92, 91 S. Ct.  at 2002.

[¶93]   In reciprocity, I now find 
equivalent opportunity and responsibility for adjustment of remedies by the 
state judiciary and particularly so since one would be foolhardy to confine 
remedial expectations only to the fortuities of the federal civil rights act as 
now under the severest of pressure in current adjudicatory direction. The Bivens 
constitutional tort was considered but not applied in Melbourne Corp. v. City of 
Chicago, 76 Ill. App.3d 595, 31 Ill.Dec. 914, 920, 394 N.E.2d 1291, 1297 (1979) 
by analysis "to constitute a so-called `constitutional tort,' defendant's 
actions must constitute a knowing or malicious violation of Melbourne's clearly 
established constitutional rights." The failure to allege malicious action or 
invalid ordinance denied effectuation of the remedy. The outline for state use 
of a constitutional right remedy in state court was provided in Kewin v. Bd. of 
Ed. of Melvindale Northern Allen Park Public Schools, 65 Mich. App. 472, 237 N.W.2d 514 (1975) and T & M Homes, Inc. v. Mansfield Tp., 162 N.J. Super. 
497, 393 A.2d 613 (1978), and in New Jersey, Strauss v. State, 131 N.J. Super. 
571, 330 A.2d 646 (1974) and Cashen v. Spann, 125 N.J. Super. 386, 311 A.2d 192 
(1973), cert. granted 65 N.J. 290, 321 A.2d 251 (1974), aff'd in part, modified 
in part and remanded 66 N.J. 541, 334 A.2d 8, cert. denied 423 U.S. 829, 96 S. Ct. 48, 46 L. Ed. 2d 46 (1975).

[¶94]   A school teacher mandatory maternal 
leave complaint was addressed in Kewin, 237 N.W.2d  at 519-20, where the court 
sustained the damage award by statement in denying the challenge to 
reversal:

     We reject these 
challenges to the judgment but admit that we are not entirely satisfied in 
requiring the Board to pay damages. We would, however, be less satisfied in 
denying plaintiff compensation. Her rights were clearly violated; she suffered 
economic loss as a result, losses well established in the court below. Even 
though the constitutional claim may be one of first impression, courts should 
award compensation where there is an infringement of personal interests in 
liberty. Cf., Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 
403 U.S. 388, 91 S. Ct. 1999, 29 L. Ed. 2d 619 (1971).

[¶95]   The court in T & M Homes, Inc., 
393 A.2d 613 similarly applied the Bivens concept to provide "another remedy." 
That case also has value in the analysis that constitutional rights cannot be 
denied by passage of state legislation, albeit in that case founded upon the 
existence of the federally guaranteed constitutional interest. It should be 
similarly recognized here that state tort claim acts do not amend the state 
constitution to deny nor denigrate basic guarantees inculcated into our 
society's basic structure by the constitutional declaration.20

[¶96]   Immunity cases of whatever brand of 
weed grow from a common seed fertilized by denial of rights to the injured from 
depravation or injury committed by agents of the state.21 The basic thesis of the intrinsic 
constitutional tort is that inaction by legislature or executive cannot deny the 
judicial responsibility under the state constitution to support, obey and defend 
the constitution, Wyo. Const. art. 6, § 20, as the oath of office. Wyo. Const. 
art. 1, § 8 cannot be applied to permit constitutional extinguishment by 
legislative inaction where the rights granted as in themselves are at stake. As 
Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 6, Due Process of Law, states: "No person shall be 
deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law." That due 
process and the right of Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 8 that "[a]ll courts shall be 
open and every person for an injury done to person, reputation or property shall 
have justice administered without sale, denial or delay," are the societal 
heritage of the judiciary by which our rights are defined and our oath of office 
is taken. A similar analysis was developed in Smith v. Whitehead, 436 A.2d 339 
(D.C.App. 1981) (reh'g granted and opinion vacated 1/5/82) in adaptation of 
Bivens for a District of Columbia remedy. The case is interesting in analysis 
but questionable in precedent by virtue of its succeeding history of the panel 
trial court affirmance and subsequent en banc equally divided posture in review, 
but the Bivens issue was not the subject of the extensive judicial disagreement 
reflected in the divergent judicial views.

[¶97]   I do not perceive that the majority 
thoughtfully extends sovereign immunity or even prosecutorial immunity to 
actions of the public official that violates the constitution of a state under 
which the oath of office is taken by not only the jurist but by the office 
holder. The contours of this consideration and its persuasion for present 
application requires analysis of the recent case, Smith v. Department of Public 
Health, 428 Mich. 540, 410 N.W.2d 749 (1987), cert. granted sub nom. Will v. 
Michigan Department of State Police, 485 U.S. 1005, 108 S. Ct. 1466, 99 L. Ed. 2d 696 (1988), judgment aff'd sub nom. Will v. Michigan Department of State Police, 
___ U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 2304, 105 L. Ed. 2d 45 (1989). What the Michigan Supreme 
Court did must be distinguished from what was included in the affirming United 
States Supreme Court decision. Leaving aside the Will v. Michigan Dept. of State 
Police, ___ U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 2304, 105 L. Ed. 2d 45 (1989) issue of the state 
as a person under Section 1983, the Michigan Supreme Court, in a very splintered 
decision, resolved in memorandum statement within the opinion:

     5) Where it is alleged 
that the state, by virtue of custom or policy, has violated a right conferred by 
the Michigan Constitution, governmental immunity is not available in a state 
court action.

     6) A claim for damages 
against the state arising from violation by the state of the Michigan 
Constitution may be recognized in appropriate cases.

* * * * * *

* * * We affirm the Court 
of Appeals affirmance of the denial of summary judgment as to the plaintiff's 
Michigan constitutional claims, and direct the Court of Claims, on remand, to 
determine whether a violation of the Michigan Constitution by virtue of a 
governmental custom or policy has been alleged; whether such a violation 
occurred; and, if it occurred, whether it is one for which a damage remedy is 
proper.

Smith, 410 N.W.2d  at 751. A majority of four of the court determined that governmental 
immunity did not apply to violations of the Michigan Constitution. Despite the 
stridency of the lead opinion which did not garner a majority of concurrence, 
that writer and the justice concurring lost a battle with the majority of the 
court maintaining and affirming the motion for summary judgment on the issue of 
non-immunity for constitutional violation of the Michigan Supreme Court. Justice 
Boyle, concurring in part and dissenting in part, stated:

     The defendant moved 
for summary judgment on the basis that the state is immune from liability for 
plaintiff's injuries. The Court of Claims found governmental immunity 
inapplicable to the constitutional tort * * *. We agree * * *.

* * * * * *

     Assuming the plaintiff 
proves an unconstitutional act by the state which is otherwise appropriate for a 
damage remedy, the question which confronts this Court is whether sovereign or 
governmental immunity shields the state from liability for damages for its 
alleged acts which violate our state constitution. We would hold that neither 
common-law sovereign immunity nor the governmental immunity * * * bars 
recovery.

     In our constitutional 
form of government, the sovereign power is in the people, and "[a] Constitution 
is made for the people and by the people." Michigan Farm Bureau v. Secretary of 
State, 379 Mich. 387, 391, 151 N.W.2d 797 (1967) (quoting Cooley, Constitutional 
Limitations [6th ed.], p. 81). The Michigan Constitution is a limitation on the 
plenary power of government, and its provisions are paramount. * * * It is so 
basic as to require no citation that the constitution is the fundamental law to 
which all other laws must conform. All state public officers, legislative, 
executive, and judicial, are required by Const. 1963, art. 11, § 1, to swear or 
affirm to support that same document.

* * * * * *

     Neither does 
common-law sovereign immunity immunize the state from liability for its alleged 
unconstitutional acts. This Court abrogated common-law sovereign immunity in 
Pittman v. City of Taylor, 398 Mich. 41, 247 N.W.2d 512 (1976). Even absent such 
general abrogation, however, we would decline to apply sovereign immunity to 
violations by the state of our state constitution. The curious doctrine of 
sovereign immunity in America, subject to great criticism over the years, see, 
generally, Jaffe, Suits against governments and officers: Sovereign immunity, 77 
Harv.L.R. 1 (1963), should, as a matter of public policy, lose its vitality when 
faced with unconstitutional acts of the state. The primacy of the state 
constitution would perforce eclipse the vitality of a claim of common-law 
sovereign immunity in a state court action for damages.

* * * * * *

     In a case involving an 
alleged unconstitutional act by the state government, neither sovereign nor 
statutory immunity should bar liability. The injury arises from violation of a 
constitutionally protected right by the government, a right engendered by "the 
basic law which created and seeks to control that government." Dellinger, Of 
rights and remedies: The constitution as a sword, 85 Harv.L.R. 1532, 1557 
(1972). The primacy of the constitution must eclipse the power of immunity to 
countenance constitutional violations by the state without concomitant 
liability.[22]

 

Smith, 410 N.W.2d  at 793-95 (footnotes omitted).

[¶98]   Obviously, the principal effort of 
civil right and constitutional guarantee protection has not been directed to 
state constitutional implementation. However, at no time since the In re 
Slaughter-House Cases, 16 Wall 36, 83 U.S. 36, 21 L. Ed. 394 (1872), see also the 
Virginia Coupon Cases, 114 U.S. 269, 5 S. Ct. 903, 29 L. Ed. 207 (1885) and, in 
particular, White v. Greenhow, 114 U.S. 307, 5 S. Ct. 923, 29 L. Ed. 199 (1885) 
and their protegee of more than a century ago, has the basic commitment of the 
federal judiciary to maintenance of constitutional guarantees been so completely 
in doubt. It is now time for the state jurists to look first at their oath of 
office and then renew responsiveness and responsibility of the system to the 
state constitution and the rights that it directly guarantees. Gerhardt, The 
Ripple Effects of Slaughter-House: A Critique of a Negative Rights View of the 
Constitution, 43 Vand.L.Rev. 409 (1990).

[¶99]   Overtly, the decision is to define 
the level of responsibility of public officials where misconduct is no longer 
insulated. Affixed to that decision is the corollary decision whether we are 
bound or abjectly follow the decisions of the United States Supreme Court in its 
attitudinal application of federal remedies. The Supreme Court of Hawaii has 
said no and to a degree, other cases are found to provide a similar persuasion. 
It is neither novel nor new in this era for recognition to be afforded that 
state courts provide greater protection for constitutional rights of citizens 
than can be expected or is provided by the federal authority. The call was 
issued by a United States Supreme Court Justice, William J. Brennan, State 
Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 Harv.L.Rev. 489 
(1977). See also Blackmun, Section 1983 and Federal Protection of Individual 
Rights - Will the Statute Remain Alive or Fade Away?, 60 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 1 
(1985).

[¶100] In my analysis, the foundational justification 
for immunity is totally without validity, logic or adjudicatory responsibility. 
The more basic concepts of duty, responsibility and discretion should be 
addressed to limit and define liability for fault by any actor within a public 
responsibility and not to create an unlimited barrier of responsibility to be 
assessed against public employees and governmental authorities for wrongful and 
unconstitutional conduct. Within these concepts, the line of protection from 
responsibility for wrongful injury is exceeded where malice, bad faith and 
malevolence is exhibited.23 There is a further fiction of 
undemonstrable justification found to pervade these prosecutorial and judicial 
immunity cases which, in essence, speaks not to justice but to prevention of the 
actor's exposure from the justice delivery system. Fearfulness about being sued 
is afforded the luxury of a security blanket only to be available to certain 
performers in our society without recognition that the business man and the 
doctor equally share the same chill, and sometimes suffer pneumonia as well.24

[¶101] I also argue it is possible that the United 
States Supreme Court, even for the Section 1983 action, could hold Imbler more 
dependent on a particular state's common-law than the treatment Imbler was 
accorded in Blake, 651 P.2d  at 1099. Imbler, 96 S. Ct.  at 990-95 holds that a 
state prosecutor is civilly immune because Congress could not have meant to 
alter state common-law immunities and defenses in passing what is today Section 
1983, while Blake looks to Imbler25 to complete the circular reasoning 
and holds a prosecutor absolutely immune to civil suit, no matter the basis of 
the suit. If Imbler applies to all state prosecutors because of state common-law 
immunity,26 then the common-law in Hawaii 
would have to be disregarded for Section 1983 suits arising in Hawaii if Imbler 
applies to all states, since Hawaiian common-law rejects absolute immunity for 
prosecutors. A wholesale discounting of Hawaiian common-law would make the 
reasoning to Imbler vacuous. Obviously, the United States Supreme Court is the 
final voice in deciding what is federal law and the extent to which federal law 
overpowers state law. Imbler is a product of that court. It is left unexplained 
how a federal court can grant state common-law immunity to prosecutors, if it 
does, for a Section 1983 action if the state in which the action arises does not 
grant absolute immunity to prosecutors.27

[¶102] There are three Wyoming cases which relate but 
do not mandate the decision made by the majority in this case. The principal 
case, invested in the broad language of Imbler, is Blake, 651 P.2d 1096. My 
disdain and antipathy for the decision is otherwise expressed, but the case 
itself can be clearly distinguished within its facts on the determinative 
decision made. Blake, for whatever reason, as county attorney, filed a criminal 
complaint against the individual who had served as a juror on her earlier 
trials. This conduct, as a function, is within the prosecutorial core 
responsibility of the prosecuting attorney not only under Imbler, but also the 
longer existent principle that public prosecutors are not subject to malicious 
prosecution actions for filing within their elective office responsibility. 
Blake was not a Section 1983 case, but the jury verdict was adverse to the 
prosecutor in the issues of negligence in hiring and supervising her friend, the 
investigator, negligence in her investigation of the ex-juror, intentional 
infliction of emotional distress, violating the juror's right to privacy and the 
quiet enjoyment of life by publicizing his prosecution.

[¶103] Extending Blake to conduct suborning perjury in 
order to obtain a complaint for arrest does not appear justified here even by 
the broad language there used. I find no supposition in that case after my 
review of the appellate briefs and a careful consideration of the decision that 
any of the brief writers of this court in decision envisioned immunity for 
felonious conduct. No matter how efficiently this court acted to reverse that 
substantial, actual and punitive jury verdict against the prosecutor and her 
investigator, no rule within its ratio decidendi now extends to similarly 
insulate either White or Mayor. Imbler and Blake do not go to suborning perjury 
in initial complaint which constitute a police or probation officer function, 
not a prosecutorial responsibility. Robichaud v. Ronan, 351 F.2d 533 (9th Cir. 
1965). Coordinately, no discussion was provided in the negligence-malicious 
engendered complaint environment of Blake about criminal prosecution or 
disciplinary evaluation. See Harper v. Merckle, 638 F.2d 848 (5th Cir.), cert. 
denied 454 U.S. 816, 102 S. Ct. 93, 70 L. Ed. 2d 85 (1981).

[¶104] Hurst, 698 P.2d 1130 comes no closer to 
providing persuasive authority. The discretionary activities of the parole board 
in Hurst, although not universally granted absolute immunity, cf. Grimm, 564 P.2d 1227, are not comparable to preparing false affidavits by public officials 
which is involved here. Hurst was decided on governmental immunity under the 
Wyoming Tort Claims Act by decision that these public officials - near volunteer 
as they are - were not law enforcement officers.

[¶105] Petition of Padget, 678 P.2d 870 (Wyo. 1984), 
where a constitutional inquiry was involved, moves no closer. Petition of Padget 
held that the prosecutorial charging function assigned to the executive branch 
of government could not be inhibited by legislative grant of authority to the 
judiciary under the provence of Wyo. Const. art. 2, § 1, defining separation of 
powers. The case reveals that the legislature could not attach judicial 
supervision constituting an administrative responsibility on the prosecuting 
attorney who is an executive official. Consequently, the Wyoming statute 
disregarding that the charging decision is properly within the scope of duty to 
the executive branch, constituted a violation of Wyo. Const. art. 2, § 1 when 
grant was made for decision by the judiciary. Once the decision to prosecute has 
been made, then the judiciary becomes involved but not before. Right to obtain 
action when the prosecutor fails can be invested in an executive officer, but 
not the judicial branch. This standard recognition of the status and merits of 
separation of powers does not in itself provide immunity for misfeasance or 
malicious wrongfulness. That case does denigrate this present majority opinion 
since the judicial function is confined to a time later than initiation of 
prosecution - false affidavit to secure arrest warrant.

[¶106] By historical development, the premiere case 
recognizing the responsibility of state enforcement of rights of the state 
constitution is Widgeon v. Eastern Shore Hosp. Center, 300 Md. 520, 479 A.2d 921, 923-24 (1984), which states:

     By Article 5 of the 
Maryland Declaration of Rights, all "Inhabitants of Maryland are entitled to the 
Common Law of England . . . and to the benefit of such of the English statutes 
as existed on the Fourth day of July, Seventeen hundred and seventy-six. . . ." 
Under the common law of England, where individual rights, such as those now 
protected by Article 26, were preserved by a fundamental document (e.g., the 
Magna Carta), a violation of those rights generally could be remedied by a 
traditional action for damages. The violation of the constitutional right was 
viewed as a trespass, giving rise to a trespass action.

The review is 
initiated with reference to an early England case:

     One of the earliest 
cases to illustrate this point was Wilkes v. Wood, Lofft's 1, 98 Eng.Rep. 489 
(1793). In Wilkes, supra, the plaintiff recovered damages in a trespass action 
brought against an official in the office of the Secretary of State who entered 
his home and seized his papers upon an unlawful general warrant. Lord Pratt, in 
his instructions to the jury, acknowledged that the official had acted "contrary 
to the fundamental principles of the constitution," id. at 19, and stated that 
the jury could consider the illegal conduct in assessing damages.

Id. at 924 
(emphasis in original). Widgeon continues with recognition of a constant 
principle of Maryland law to then find a Bivens analysis appropriate. It is 
stated with many supporting cases that "many state courts have recognized that 
an individual may redress a state or federal constitutional deprivation by 
instituting a damage action." Widgeon, 479 A.2d  at 928. Quoted in Widgeon, 479 A.2d  at 928 is Marbury, 5 U.S.  at 163, that "`[t]he very essence of civil 
liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the 
protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury.'" (Citing Butz v. 
Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 485-86, 98 S. Ct. 2894, 2899-2900, 57 L. Ed. 2d 895 
(1978).) The court concluded that "`[h]istorically, damages have been regarded 
as the ordinary remedy for an invasion of personal interests in liberty.'" 
Widgeon, 479 A.2d  at 928 (quoting Bivens, 403 U.S.  at 395-97, 91 S.Ct. at 
2004-05).

[¶107] The thoughtful thesis of the responsive courts 
is illustrated by the Illinois Supreme Court in a search and seizure case, 
People v. Martin, 382 Ill. 192, 46 N.E.2d 997, 1002 (1942):

It is our duty and the 
duty of all the officers of the state to enforce these constitutional rights 
preserved to the People, and especially so at a time when the exigencies of the 
country require the exercise of vast executive powers.

The philosophic 
purview of Martin was followed in Walinski v. Morrison & Morrison, 60 Ill. 
App.3d 616, 18 Ill.Dec. 89, 377 N.E.2d 242 (1978), but the court first 
recognized that no action should be dismissed by a motion to dismiss for failure 
to state a cause of action unless it clearly appears that no set of facts can be 
proven under the pleadings which would entitle a plaintiff to relief. The court 
then found that money damages were available as a remedy for the violation of a 
provision of the state constitution, even if the provision did not specifically 
provide for the remedy of damages. See likewise Newell v. City of Elgin, 34 Ill. 
App.3d 719, 340 N.E.2d 344 (1976) which references Bivens for favorable 
authority to support a state remedy and also repeats the United States Supreme 
Court's citation of Marbury. Similar authority is found in Bull v. Armstrong, 
254 Ala. 390, 48 So. 2d 467 (1950); Mayes v. Till, 266 So. 2d 578 (Miss. 1972); 
and Terranova v. State, 111 Misc.2d 1089, 445 N.Y.S.2d 965 (1982). In State v. 
Haley, 687 P.2d 305, 318 n. 10 (Alaska 1984) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 815, 102 S. Ct. 2727, 2737, 73 L. Ed. 2d 396, 408 (1982)), in finding a 
state remedy for a legislative branch employee termination, the court found that 
"`[q]ualified or "good faith" immunity is an affirmative defense that must be 
pleaded. . . .'" The California Supreme Court stated in Gay Law Students Ass'n 
v. Pacific Tel. & Tel. Co., 24 Cal. 3d 458, 156 Cal. Rptr. 14, 20, 595 P.2d 592, 598 (1979), "although our court will carefully consider federal state 
action decisions with respect to the federal equal protection clause insofar as 
they are persuasive, we do not consider ourselves bound by such decisions in 
interpreting the reach of the safeguards or our state equal protection clause." 
The court found that a cause of action was stated against the public utility 
under the purview of a constitutional violation of the California Constitution 
referencing Bivens. A right of action to redress a constitutional deprivation in 
damage was also found by the Florida court in Schreiner v. McKenzie Tank Lines 
& Risk Management Services, Inc., 408 So. 2d 711, 714 (Fla.App. 
1982):

     The test to determine 
whether or not a constitutional provision is self-executing was clearly set out 
by our Supreme Court in Gray v. Bryant, 125 So. 2d 846 (Fla. 1960), and has been 
reaffirmed on numerous occasions. * * * In essence, we are directed by Gray to 
determine whether or not the sentence, "No person shall be deprived of any right 
because of race, religion or physical handicap," sufficiently delineates "a rule 
by means of which the right or purpose which it gives or is intended to 
accomplish may be determined, enjoyed, or protected without the aid of 
legislative enactment." Gray, supra, at 851. In our view, this provision of the 
constitution is quite direct and in need of no implementing 
legislation.

[¶108] In Phillips v. Youth Development Program, Inc., 
390 Mass. 652, 459 N.E.2d 453, 457 (1983), the court stated "[w]e would grant, 
however, that a person whose constitutional rights have been interfered with may 
be entitled to judicial relief even in the absence of a statute providing a 
procedural vehicle for obtaining relief."28

[¶109] I specifically do not accept the supposition 
that absolute immunity attends to the conduct of any public official in 
soliciting preparation of the perjurious document to accomplish an arrest or 
otherwise. Neither did the Nevada Supreme Court. In Edgar v. Wagner, 101 Nev. 
226, 699 P.2d 110, 112 (1985), the court applied a proper rule of review for a 
motion to dismiss that "[t]he complaint cannot be dismissed for failure to state 
a claim unless it appears beyond a doubt that the plaintiff could prove no set 
of facts which, if accepted by the trier of fact, would entitle him to relief." 
Then, in distinguishing Imbler, that court said:

Assuming, as we must at 
this juncture, respondent participated in the preparation of the affidavit with 
malice, and in a deliberately structured effort to deprive appellant of due 
process, the allegations of the complaint state a claim which, if accepted by 
the trier of fact, could entitle appellant to relief. The district court erred 
in concluding such an act was a prosecutorial function cloaked with absolute 
immunity. Respondent cites no direct authority for the contention that the 
behavior at issue here falls within the scope of the absolute immunity endorsed 
by Imbler. We are persuaded that prosecutors will not be adversely affected in 
their discharge of public duties by the application of the qualified immunity 
where the allegations suggest malicious prosecution.

Edgar, 699 P.2d  
at 112.

[¶110] The allegation stated that the district 
attorney assisted an agent of the Nevada Department of Wildlife in the 
preparation of an affidavit supporting the issuance of a warrant for arrest with 
contents demonstrating malice. It surely cannot be questioned that a 
constitutional interest of freedom from incarceration and liberty is invaded by 
conspiratorial conduct which causes a false arrest. The constitutional right 
infringed of personal liberty is clearly established. Harlow, 457 U.S.  at 807, 
102 S. Ct.  at 2732; Schlegel v. Bebout, 841 F.2d 937 (9th Cir. 1988). The United 
States Supreme Court has substantively and specifically addressed this subject 
in considering probation and parole. Gagnon, 411 U.S. 778, 93 S. Ct. 1756, 36 L. Ed. 2d 656; Morrissey, 408 U.S. 471, 92 S. Ct. 2593, 33 L. Ed. 2d 484; Mempa v. 
Rhay, 389 U.S. 128, 88 S. Ct. 254, 19 L. Ed. 2d 336 (1967).29 Likewise for the qualified 
immunity, the objective standard of bad faith is met. Harlow, 457 U.S.  at 807, 
102 S. Ct.  at 2732, 73 L. Ed. 2d  at 403. As an example of objective reasonableness 
in the use of deadly force, see Zuchel v. Spinharney, 890 F.2d 273 (10th Cir. 
1989).

[¶111] I believe that immunity from public 
responsibility for injury to a citizen can be confined to a proper perspective 
under the Wyoming Constitution. Suborning, creating or knowingly using perjury 
cannot be countenanced is our justice delivery system is to be accorded 
legitimacy and particularly so when conduct is authorized by one of our own as a 
member of the supervised bar. The morals of the gutter or excesses of the 
political arena cannot be justification for introduction as a standard in 
justice delivery for the sanctified jurist and the certified attorney. See 
Fanale v. Sheehy 385 F.2d 866 (2nd Cir. 1967). "[T]he decisions of this court 
cited by my brothers do establish a broad rule of immunity. However, if we were 
writing on a clean slate, I feel that there would be some situations - although 
this case is not one of them - in which even `official' acts of a prosecuting 
officer should not be protected by absolute immunity from civil liability." Id. 
at 869, Feinberg, J., concurring. See also Bauers v. Heisel, 361 F.2d 581, 594 
(3rd Cir. 1966), cert. denied 386 U.S. 1021, 87 S. Ct. 1367, 18 L. Ed. 2d 457 
(1967) (footnote omitted), Freedman, J., dissenting, speaking to a conferred 
quasi-judicial recognition within the prosecutor's function:

I am not prepared to hold 
that a prosecutor, as such, enjoys the full privilege of a judicial officer. A 
prosecutor, although a public official, is in the actual trial of a case simply 
the government's lawyer, just as his adversary is the defendant's lawyer. Both 
of them are bound by the standards of professional ethics, although the 
prosecutor often is called a quasi-judicial officer, a characterization which 
describes his obligation to his client, the State, not to seek to win a case 
against an innocent defendant or to win a good case by unfair means.

I would not equate the 
trial conduct of a prosecutor with the adjudicatory role of a judge, whose 
duties involve a process so delicate that it would be undesirable to subject him 
to inquiry by suit under the Civil Rights Act. An advocate stands in a totally 
different position and I do not believe that the state's advocate should be any 
more immune than the defendant's advocate, who is licensed by the State, or its 
police officers. I therefore dissent from the view that a prosecutor is in all 
cases immune from liability under the Civil Rights Act.

On the other hand, there 
may well be aspects of the duties of a prosecutor in which he must exercise his 
judgment in a manner which is truly quasi-judicial in nature. That area 
therefore should be included within the scope of a partial, quasi-judicial 
immunity. The prosecutor's decision as to the appropriate court in which 
prosecution should be had is a matter in which I would hold a prosecutor immune 
unless there appears an intentional and malicious abuse of his authority. It is 
in such an area, and to this extent only, that I would give recognition to the 
quasi-judicial aspect of the prosecutor's function.[30]

See also 
Comment, Civil Rights - Section 1983 - Prosecuting Attorney Held Immune From 
Civil Liability for Violation of Civil Rights Act, 42 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 160 (1967). 
The author suggested a test from Kelley v. Dunne, 344 F.2d 129 (1st Cir. 1965) 
to "recognize a qualified or conditional immunity by permitting an action only 
upon a clear showing of `"malice, corruption or cruelty"' and `ruthless 
indifference to a citizen's rights.'" Comment, supra, 42 N.Y.U.L.Rev. at 165 
(quoting Kelley, 344 F.2d at 135). The author anticipated that this "test would 
protect the reliable time of the official by providing for a summary judgment 
for the defendant unless the plaintiff could produce solid evidence that the 
officer's acts were in excess of his powers and inspired by bad faith." Comment, 
supra, 42 N YU.L.Rev. at 165-66 (emphasis added.) Unfortunately, the author's 
anticipated rule never found favor when the progression moved past qualified 
immunity for conduct to absolute immunity for function.

[¶112] Without regard for the provinces of the federal 
Section 1983 action, a state remedy when a state official ignores or violates 
the state constitution should not be left by this court uncorrected and 
unaddressed by any ameliorative remedy.

VIII. WRONG ON SECTION 
1983 PRECLUSION FOR THIS CHARACTER OF PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT

[¶113] The perspective of this case and the general 
character of prosecutorial misconduct raises two generic objections. I first 
recognize that the scope of Section 1983 embraces federal law as defined by 
federal courts, but involves state action and state limitations of permissible 
conduct. Consequently, I extend the constraints against responsibility of public 
officials for injury damage no further than absolutely required by the federal 
cases for Section 1983 only. Secondly, I find little theoretical providence in 
any general limitation imposed within the Section 1983 cases by the federal 
courts to reduce case load as their assumed responsibility in order to establish 
a state court standard addressing obligation of the state jurist to support, 
protect and obey the state constitution.

[¶114] These theoretical postulates directly address 
whether a state official who occupies the powerful position provided by a 
democratic government should be immunized by immunity from responsibility for 
his or her commission of a significant criminal offense and/or a substantial 
breach of ethics as an officer in the court and in the practice of law. This 
means in introduction, since I do not accept immunizing suborned or solicited 
perjury before, during or after a trial, that I will not accept excuse by 
concepting solutions in non-expected criminal prosecution or professional 
disciplinary proceedings. The ancestor of the anything-goes-immunity defense was 
derived from a flight of language used in Gregoire, 177 F.2d  at 581, where it 
was "monstrous to deny recovery" but necessary to protect the wrongdoer. The 
court then said:

     It does indeed go 
without saying that an official, who is in fact guilty of using his powers to 
vent his spleen upon others, or for any other personal motive not connected with 
the public good, should not escape liability for the injuries he may so cause; 
and, if it were possible in practice to confine such complaints to the guilty, 
it would be monstrous to deny recovery. The justification for doing so is that 
it is impossible to know whether the claim is well founded until the case has 
been tried, and that to submit all officials, the innocent as well as the 
guilty, to the burden of a trial and to the inevitable danger of its outcome, 
would dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible, 
in the unflinching discharge of their duties. Again and again the public 
interest calls for action which may turn out to be founded on a mistake, in the 
face of which an official may later find himself hard put to it to satisfy a 
jury of his good faith. There must indeed be means of punishing public officers 
who have been truant to their duties; but that is quite another matter from 
exposing such as have been honestly mistaken to suit by anyone who has suffered 
from their errors. As is so often the case, the answer must be found in a 
balance between the evils inevitable in either alternative. In this instance it 
has been thought in the end better to leave unredressed the wrongs done by 
dishonest officers than to subject those who try to do their duty to the 
constant dread of retaliation. Judged as res nova, we should not hesitate to 
follow the path laid down in the books.

Id. at 
581.

[¶115] Although Gregoire was written in 1949, the 
author unfortunately failed to confine the decision to the factual pathway of 
the case. Unfortunately, it was the Gregoire characterization inviting 
"monstrous" concomitant from which the societal damage resulted as deified in 
Imbler and not the clean issue of particularized war time related attorney 
general exercised responsibility. Gregoire was a bad post-war syndrome case, but 
as explainable then as was the Japanese relocation during the same 
war.

[¶116] To understand the moral conviction and ethical 
persuasion of the vast parade of federal court cases, Gregoire invites relation 
to Omni Intern. Corp., 634 F. Supp. 1414 which involved a tax fraud indictment 
which, although resulting in extended court proceedings, never reached trial 
juncture. In discussion of the conduct of the internal revenue agents and the 
AUSA (Assistant United States Attorney) where the indictment was dismissed 
without prejudice, the words and phrases attributable to prosecution in the 
opinion included obstruction of justice, perjury, breach of attorney-client 
privilege, lack of candor, prosecutorial misconduct, altered records, 
investigative techniques, untrue and incorrect testimony, conflicting testimony 
(perjury in more blase terms), outrageous conduct, lack of recollection and 
failure to inform did in general or by combination appear near if not more than 
100 times in the twenty-seven page opinion.31 What was the total apparent 
punishment for observed criminal and ethical violations? All we know 
is:

     In the event that the 
Government decides to seek another indictment in this matter, an issue 
undoubtedly will arise about whether any of the Government prosecutors or 
investigators should be disqualified. Based on the misconduct described in 
detail throughout the opinion, this Court has determined that the Special Agent, 
the Revenue Agent, and the AUSA involved in this litigation must not participate 
further in the prosecution of the case.

Id. at 1440. As 
a "prophylactic sanction for the consistent course of entrenched and flagrant 
misconduct," the "`law in its majesty . . . [cannot] be equally slimy.'" Id. at 
1440 (quoting United States v. Valencia, 541 F.2d 618, 621 (6th Cir. 1976)). 
Omni Intern. Corp. can be considered to be the Gregoire standard of 
prosecutorial excused conduct and shows its results for a practical application 
in the real world of the justice delivery system.

[¶117] The reaffirmation of government responsibility 
first introduced in constitutional law by Marbury, then re-examined by adoption 
of the Fourteenth Amendment and the passage of the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, 
Section 1983 has encountered an endemic climate by 1990.32 It is almost a progression from 
here to there starting with Ex parte State of Virginia, 10 Otto 339, 100 U.S. 339, 346-47, 25 L. Ed. 676 (1879) (emphasis in original):

     Nor does it make any 
difference that such legislation is restrictive of what the State might have 
done before the constitutional amendment was adopted. The prohibitions of the 
14th Amendment are directed to the States, and they are to a degree restrictions 
of state power. It is these which Congress is empowered to enforce, and to 
enforce against state action, however put forth, whether that action be 
executive, legislative, or judicial. Such enforcement is no invasion of state 
sovereignty. No law can be, which the people of the States have, by the 
Constitution of the United States, empowered Congress to enact. This extent of 
the powers of the General Government is overlooked, when it is said, as it has 
been in this case, that the Act of March 1, 1875, interferes with state rights. 
It is said the selection of jurors for her courts and the administration of her 
laws belong to each State; that they are her rights. This is true in the 
general. But in exercising her rights, a State cannot disregard the limitations 
which the Federal Constitution has applied to her power. Her rights do not reach 
to that extent. Nor can she deny to the General Government the right to exercise 
all its granted powers, though they may interfere with the full enjoyment of 
rights she would have if those powers had not been thus granted. Indeed, every 
addition of power to the General Government involves a corresponding diminution 
of the governmental powers of the States. It is carved out of them.

     We have said the 
prohibitions of the 14th Amendment are addressed to the States. They are: "No 
State shall make or enforce a law which shall abridge the privileges or 
immunities of citizens of the United States, * * * nor deny to any person within 
its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." They have reference to 
actions of the political body denominated a State, by whatever instruments or in 
whatever modes that action may be taken. A State acts by its legislative, its 
executive, or its judicial authorities. It can act in no other way. The 
constitutional provision, therefore, must mean that no agency of the State, or 
of the officers or agents by whom its powers are exerted, shall deny to any 
person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Whoever, by 
virtue of public position under a state government, deprives another of 
property, life, or liberty without due process of law, or denies or takes away 
the equal protection of the laws, violates the constitutional inhibition; and as 
he acts in the name and for the State, and is clothed with the State's power, 
his act is that of the State. This must be so, or the constitutional prohibition 
has no meaning. Then the State has clothed one of its agents with power to annul 
or to evade it.

That philosophy 
is now singularly confined by the progression to Will, 109 S. Ct. 2304. See 
Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S. Ct. 2018, 56 L. Ed. 2d 611 (1978); Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 187, 81 S. Ct. 473, 484, 5 L. Ed. 2d 492 (1961), overruled on other grounds 436 U.S. 658, 98 S. Ct. 2018, 56 L. Ed. 2d 611 (1978) ("Section 1979 [now Section 1983] should be 
read against the background of tort liability that makes a man responsible for 
the natural consequences of his actions"); Barr v. Matteo, 360 U.S. 564, 79 S. Ct. 1335, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1434 (1959); Screws v. United States, 325 U.S. 91, 65 S. Ct. 1031, 89 L. Ed. 1495 (1945); McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S. Ct. 608, 87 L. Ed. 819, reh'g denied 319 U.S. 784, 63 S. Ct. 1322, 87 L. Ed. 1727 
(1943); and Spalding v. Vilas, 161 U.S. 483, 16 S. Ct. 631, 40 L. Ed. 780 (1896); 
but then the trend for increasing protection of the individual ended and the 
converse movement then significantly started its continued movement to date, 
City of Canton, Ohio v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 109 S. Ct. 1197, 103 L. Ed. 2d 412 
(1989); DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dept. of Social Services, ___ U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 998, 103 L. Ed. 2d 249 (1989); Mitchell, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S. Ct. 2806, 86 
L.Ed.2d 411;33 Baker v. McCollan, 443 U.S. 137, 
99 S. Ct. 2689, 61 L. Ed. 2d 433 (1979). Will, 109 S. Ct. 2304, as the last outpost 
to date, completes the tidal wave of adjudicatory activities which demean and 
diminish the protection of individual right against acts of government. The 
cancerous dehabilitation provided by the official immunities has conjunctively 
overrun the rights to recover while the basic rights have sustained the 
devastation of the continued barrage of attack. Philosophically enunciated as a 
give-up by Judge Hand in Gregoire, 177 F.2d 579 and delineated in individual 
right benefit deterrent in Barr, 360 U.S. 564, 79 S. Ct. 1335, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1434,34 official immunities are a 
historically recent creation by federal judicial action which developed with no 
accurate precedent that can be accurately described as a historical evolvement 
when compared to either the United States Constitution or the civil rights 
legislation of the 1870's.

[¶118] Contrails of the legislative and judicial 
immunity can only, among the quantities of occupational immunities now 
enunciated, be traced any distance into American historical and English law, and 
not then to justify present developments. Otherwise, the entire development of 
official immunity can only be found as a product of case to case creations as 
adjudicatory legislation. Unfortunately, the state of Wyoming, in one long jump 
through the decision of this court in Blake, 651 P.2d 1096 and now re-engineered 
here in Cooney, does not only adopt for the federal remedy what the decisional 
law of the federal system controls, but also creates exceptions to the 
constitutional rights enumerated by the Wyoming Constitution as non-bendable 
principles. This court simply ignores the Wyoming Constitution by caressing 
statism and rejecting individual rights through its creation of official 
immunities.

[¶119] That historical development in American law is 
informative, albeit philosophically unconvincing and distressing. More than 
eighty years after the adoption of the United States Constitution and shortly 
after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, judicial immunity was first 
created by recognition for federal law in Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall 335, 80 U.S. 335, 20 L. Ed. 646 (1871). Even in that initial case, the dissent recognized 
the disconsonance in the holding:

     I agree that judicial 
officers are exempt from responsibility in a civil action for all their judicial 
acts in respect to matters of controversy within their jurisdiction. I agree, 
further, that judges of superior or general authority are equally exempt from 
liability, even when they have exceeded their jurisdiction, unless the acts 
complained of were done maliciously or corruptly. But I dissent from the rule 
laid down by the majority of the court, that a judge is exempt from liability in 
a case like the present, where it is alleged not only that his proceeding was in 
excess of jurisdiction, but that he acted maliciously and corruptly. If he did 
so, he is, in my opinion, subject to suit the same as a private person would be 
under like circumstances.

Id. 13 Wall at 
357, Davis, J., dissenting. Bradley was followed ninety-six years later by the 
rather ordinary judicial decision case of Pierson, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S. Ct. 1213, 
18 L. Ed. 2d 288 and the not so ordinary dissent of Justice Douglas in recognition 
of the congressional prerogatives for legislating to be found in passage of the 
Ku Klux Klan Act as the Civil Rights Act of 1871.

     I do not think that 
all judges, under all circumstances, no matter how outrageous their conduct are 
immune from suit under 17 Stat. 13, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Court's ruling is not 
justified by the admitted need for a vigorous and independent judiciary, is not 
commanded by the common-law doctrine of judicial immunity, and does not follow 
inexorably from our prior decisions.

     The statute, which 
came on the books as § 1 of the Ku Klux Klan Act of April 20, 1871, 17 Stat. 13, 
provides that "every person" who under color of state law or custom "subjects, 
or causes to be subjected, any citizen . . . to the deprivation of any rights, 
privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable 
to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper 
proceeding for redress." To most, "every person" would mean every person, 
not every person except judges. Despite the plain import of those words, 
the Court decided in Tenney v. Brandhove, 341 U.S. 367, [71 S. Ct. 783, 95 L. Ed. 1019] that state legislators are immune from suit as long as the deprivation of 
civil rights which they caused a person occurred while the legislators "were 
acting in a field where legislators traditionally have power to act." Id., at 
379 [71 S. Ct.  at 789]. I dissented from the creation of that judicial exception 
as I do from the creation of the present one.

 Pierson, 
386 U.S.  at 558-59, 87 S. Ct.  at 1219-20 (emphasis in original), Douglas, J., 
dissenting.

[¶120] The third judicial immunity case was not so 
ordinary where the judge ex parte, without any adjudicatory protection for the 
individual, "judicially" authorized sterilization of a teenage girl. By 
philosophic and moralistic agreement with what the dissent then said, I believe 
that "the scope of judicial immunity is limited to liability for `judicial 
acts,' and I think that what Judge Stump did on July 9, 1971 [in authorizing the 
sterilization], was beyond the pale of anything that could sensibly be called a 
judicial act." Stump v. Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, 365, 98 S. Ct. 1099, 1109, 55 L. Ed. 2d 331, reh'g denied 436 U.S. 951, 98 S. Ct. 2862, 56 L. Ed. 2d 795 (1978), 
Stewart, J., dissenting. Justice Stewart further said in answer to the five 
member majority opinion of the Burger court:

     The Court finds two 
reasons for holding that Judge Stump's approval of the sterilization petition 
was a judicial act. First, the Court says, it was "a function normally performed 
by a judge." Second, the Court says, the act was performed in Judge Stump's 
"judicial capacity." With all respect, I think that the first of these grounds 
is factually untrue and that the second is legally unsound.

Id. at 365, 98 S. Ct.  at 1109. The last case addressing judicial immunity is Pulliam, 466 U.S. 522, 104 S. Ct. 1970, 80 L. Ed. 2d 565, where even the supposition of injunctive 
contradiction of constitutional violation by the judicial fraternity and 
consequent responsibility for payment of attorney fees has provided a continuing 
firestorm particularly among the membership of the federal bench. Pulliam at 
least teaches that the all inclusive immunity is confined to a lawsuit for 
damages.

[¶121] The preclusive judicial immunity established in 
Bradley, 80 U.S. 335 was followed by legislative immunity in Tenney, 341 U.S. 367, 71 S. Ct. 783, 95 L. Ed. 1019 and created eighty years after passage of the 
Civil Rights Act. A parade of cases then followed either seeking absolute 
immunity or enhanced protectiveness in qualified immunity. This included school 
administrators in Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 95 S. Ct. 992, 43 L. Ed. 2d 214, reh'g denied 421 U.S. 921, 95 S. Ct. 1589, 43 L. Ed. 2d 790 (1975); state 
officials who directed the action of the National Guard against college 
students, some of whom were killed at the Kent State University shooting, 
Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 94 S. Ct. 1683, 40 L. Ed. 2d 90 (1974); and action 
of a cabinet official, Butz, 438 U.S. 478, 98 S. Ct. 2894, 57 L. Ed. 2d 895. Butz, 
438 U.S.  at 490-91, 98 S. Ct.  at 2902-03 (footnote omitted), in review of the 
cases, was founded on the rather realistic sounding principle:

     As these cases 
demonstrate, a federal official was protected for action tortious under state 
law only if his acts were authorized by controlling federal law. "To make out 
his defence he must show that his authority was sufficient in law to protect 
him." Cunningham v. Macon & Brunswick R. Co., 109 U.S. 446, 452 [3 S. Ct. 292, 297, 27 L. Ed. 992] (1883); Belknap v. Schild, 161 U.S. 10, 19 [16 S. Ct. 443, 446, 40 L. Ed. 599] (1896). Sine an unconstitutional act, even if authorized 
by statute, was viewed as not authorized in contemplation of law, there would be 
no immunity defense. See United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196, 218-223 [1 S. Ct.  at 
258-63, 27 L. Ed. 171] (1882); Virginia Coupon Cases, 114 U.S. 269, 285-292 [5 S. Ct. 903, 911-915, 29 L. Ed. 207] (1885).

That 
supposition, as a principle of responsibility, was not long to last when Harlow, 
457 U.S. 800, 102 S. Ct. 2727, 73 L. Ed. 2d 396 and Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325, 
103 S. Ct. 1108, 75 L. Ed. 2d 96, cert. denied 460 U.S. 1037, 103 S. Ct. 1426, 75 L. Ed. 2d 787 (1983) followed. Harlow was surely one of the most significant 
appliances to affect a confinement of official responsibility for improper 
injury to the citizens in addressing the scope of immunity available for senior 
aids to the president of the United States as following Nixon, 457 U.S. 731, 102 S. Ct. 2690, 73 L. Ed. 2d 349. In Nixon, the president was given absolute immunity 
and in Harlow, it was discerned that qualified immunity should constitute the 
norm. The significance of the case was to analyze both subjective and objective 
aspects of good faith. By assessment that subjective good faith could seldom be 
resolved by summary judgment and to make the litigative proceedings summary 
judgment prone, Harlow adopted the test of reliance on the objective 
reasonableness of the official's conduct as measured by reference to a clearly 
established rule of law. Unfortunately then with the most minimal perceptiveness 
of the real world, the majority author added:

     By defining the limits 
of qualified immunity essentially in objective terms, we provide no license to 
lawless conduct. The public interest in deterrence of unlawful conduct and in 
compensation of victims remains protected by a test that focuses on the 
objective legal reasonableness of an official's acts. Where an official could be 
expected to know that certain conduct would violate statutory or constitutional 
rights, he should be made to hesitate; and a person who suffers injury caused by 
such conduct may have a cause of action. But where an official's duties 
legitimately require action in which clearly established rights are not 
implicated, the public interest may be better served by action taken "with 
independence and without fear of consequences." Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 
554, 87 S. Ct. 1213, 1218, 18 L. Ed. 2d 288 (1967).

Harlow, 457 U.S. 
at 819, 102 S. Ct.  at 2739 (footnote omitted). Briscoe, 460 U.S. 325, 103 S. Ct. 1108, 75 L. Ed. 2d 96 provided witness immunity even for perjury at a criminal 
trial. In immunity creation, the court established a functional 
premise:

[O]ur cases clearly 
indicate that immunity analysis rests on functional categories, not on the 
status of the defendant. A police officer on the witness stand performs the same 
functions as any other witness; he is subject to compulsory process, takes an 
oath, responds to questions on direct examination and cross-examination, and may 
be prosecuted subsequently for perjury.

     Moreover, to the 
extent that traditional reasons for witness immunity are less applicable to 
governmental witnesses, other considerations of public policy support absolute 
immunity more emphatically for such persons than for ordinary witnesses. 
Subjecting government officials, such as police officers, to damages liability 
under § 1983 for their testimony might undermine not only their contribution to 
the judicial process but also the effective performance of their other public 
duties.

Id. at 342-43, 
103 S. Ct.  at 1119 (footnote omitted). This is sarcastically identified as the 
license to lie, witness immunity justification. There may have been 
justification in the nature of the process and required participation, but the 
conjecture that if they lied, they should be immunized is hardly an inspiring 
answer. The pervasive fear of increased court business of public officials who 
demean and dishonor their profession became a hallmark of the Burger/Rehnquist 
court adaptation of immunity which then carried forward to Davis v. Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 104 S. Ct. 3012, 82 L. Ed. 2d 139, reh'g denied 468 U.S. 1226, 105 S. Ct. 26, 82 L. Ed. 2d 919 (1984), when the requirement was interdicted that invasion of 
a constitutional or statutory violation be made by the clear showing of the 
injured citizen. However, in Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 106 S. Ct. 1092, 89 L. Ed. 2d 271 (1986), the absolute immunity of the witness committed perjury was 
not extended to the complainant officer whose statement resulted in issuance of 
a warrant and the arrest of the citizen.

[¶122] Now we have Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 107 S. Ct. 3034, 97 L. Ed. 2d 523 (1987) where the reasonable person test for 
legitimatizing improper arrest would suffice to create the preclusive immunity 
from injury and damage to the arrested person. That court said:

Although we have in 
narrow circumstances provided officials with an absolute immunity, see, Nixon v. 
Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 73 L. Ed. 2d 349, 102 S. Ct. 2690 (1982), we have been 
unwilling to complicate qualified immunity analysis by making the scope or 
extent of immunity turn on the precise nature of various officials' duties or 
the precise character of the particular rights alleged to have been violated. An 
immunity that has as many variants as there are modes of official action and 
types of rights would not give conscientious officials that assurance of 
protection that it is the object of the doctrine to provide. With that 
observation in mind, we turn to the particular arguments advanced by the 
Creightons.

Id. 483 U.S.  at 
642-43, 107 S. Ct.  at 3040-41. The court then in result adopted the widest and 
least procrustean adaptation logically possible and effectively reversed the 
burden of proof stricture of Gomez v. Toledo, 446 U.S. 635, 100 S. Ct. 1920, 64 L. Ed. 2d 572 (1980) in the process for denial of damages for a nighttime invasion 
by police officers in the home of an innocent citizen. See Shapiro, Public 
Officials' Qualified Immunity in Section 1983 Actions Under Harlow v. Fitzgerald 
and its Progeny: A Critical Analysis, 22 U.Mich.J.L.Ref. 249, 265 (1989). The 
court's redirection of summary judgment was then applied to a lawsuit initiated 
in a state court within the Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 106 S. Ct. 2505, 91 L. Ed. 2d 202 (1986) and Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 
106 S. Ct. 2548, 91 L. Ed. 2d 265 (1986) postulation.35 Finally came the significant 
destruction of remedies for governmental agency caused injury to the rights of 
citizens under Section 1983 by Will, 109 S. Ct. 2304, where confinement of the 
ameliorative remedy for acts of government was disconnected from the state by 
definition of a person to exclude the state and its official representatives 
(whatever that may come to mean).

[¶123] Embodied within this changing morass of 
perceptible movement against the protection of an individual's right from 
injuries by government invading statism, is the 1976 case of Imbler. Imbler, for 
the purposes of civil rights proceedings, then dated nearly two centuries after 
the adoption of the United States Constitution and one century after the passage 
of the civil rights legislation, enacted judicial legislation to provide 
absolute prosecutorial immunity. In combining hope, despair, and disdain, the 
majority stated:

     The ultimate fairness 
of the operation of the system itself could be weakened by subjecting 
prosecutors to § 1983 liability. Various post-trial procedures are available to 
determine whether an accused has received a fair trial. These procedures include 
the remedial powers of the trial judge, appellate review, and state and federal 
post-conviction collateral remedies. In all of these the attention of the 
reviewing judge or tribunal is focused primarily on whether there was a fair 
trial under law. This focus should not be blurred by even the subconscious 
knowledge that a post-trial decision in favor of the accused might result in the 
prosecutor's being called upon to respond in damages for his error or mistaken 
judgment.

     We conclude that the 
considerations outlined above dictate the same absolute immunity under § 1983 
that the prosecutor enjoys at common law. To be sure, this immunity does leave 
the genuinely wronged defendant without civil redress against a prosecutor whose 
malicious or dishonest action deprives him of liberty. But the alternative of 
qualifying a prosecutor's immunity would disserve the broader public interest. 
It would prevent the vigorous and fearless performance of the prosecutor's duty 
that is essential to the proper functioning of the criminal justice 
system.

Imbler, 424 U.S. 
at 427-28, 96 S. Ct.  at 993-94 (footnote omitted).

[¶124] Imbler was first faulty in recitation about a 
similar preclusive rule at common law. Any such broad rule could only be traced 
back to the language in Gregoire, 177 F.2d 579 and not to any existence in case 
law predating passage of the Civil Rights Act. In almost abysmal naivety, as 
apropos here, Imbler related:

     We emphasize that the 
immunity of prosecutors from liability in suits under § 1983 does not leave the 
public powerless to deter misconduct or to punish that which occurs. This Court 
has never suggested that the policy considerations which compel civil immunity 
for certain governmental officials also place them beyond the reach of the 
criminal law. Even judges, cloaked with absolute civil immunity for centuries, 
could be punished criminally for willful deprivations of constitutional rights 
on the strength of 18 U.S.C. § 242, the criminal analog of § 1983. O'Shea v. 
Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 503 [94 S. Ct. 669, 679, 38 L. Ed. 2d 674] (1974); cf. 
Gravel v. United States, 408 U.S. 606, 627 [92 S. Ct. 2614, 2628, 33 L. Ed. 2d 583] 
(1972). The prosecutor would fare no better for his willful acts. Moreover, a 
prosecutor stands perhaps unique, among officials whose acts could deprive 
persons of constitutional rights, in his amenability to professional discipline 
by an association of his peers. These checks undermine the argument that the 
imposition of civil liability is the only way to insure that prosecutors are 
mindful of the constitutional rights of persons accused of crime.

Imbler, 424 U.S. 
at 428-29, 96 S. Ct.  at 994 (footnotes omitted).

[¶125] Justice White, concurring in the judgment, 
correctly recognized that general absolute immunity for prosecutors did not 
exist at common law.

     There was no absolute 
immunity at common law for prosecutors other than absolute immunity from suits 
for malicious prosecution and defamation. There were simply no other causes of 
action at common law brought against prosecutors for conduct committed in their 
official capacity. There is, for example, no reported case of a suit at common 
law against a prosecutor for suppression or nondisclosure of exculpatory 
evidence. Thus, even if this Court had accepted the proposition, which it has 
not, Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232 [94 S. Ct. 1683, 40 L. Ed. 2d 90] (1974), that 
Congress incorporated in 42 U.S.C. § 1983 all immunities existing at common law, 
it would not follow that prosecutors are absolutely immune from suit for all 
unconstitutional acts committed in the course of doing their jobs. Secondly, it 
is by no means true that such blanket absolute immunity is necessary or even 
helpful in protecting the judicial process. It should hardly need stating that, 
ordinarily, liability in damages for unconstitutional or otherwise illegal 
conduct has the very desirable effect of deterring such conduct. Indeed, this 
was precisely the proposition upon which § 1983 was enacted. Absent special 
circumstances, * * *, with respect to actions attacking the decision to 
prosecute or the bringing of evidence or argument to the court, one would expect 
that the judicial process would be protected - and indeed its integrity enhanced 
- by denial of immunity to prosecutors who engage in unconstitutional 
conduct.

Id. at 441-42, 
96 S. Ct.  at 1000 (footnote omitted).

[¶126] I have addressed in detail the meandering of 
official immunity in the decisions of the United States Supreme Court as not 
either to authenticate how fast it changes or how little is left for civil right 
remedies under Section 1983. First, I find our adaptation in Blake, 651 P.2d 1096 to have been less than justified, but even with the mill-weight of that 
case, no present extension to deny protection of the state constitution to the 
citizens of the state by the state judiciary can be justified under our oath and 
judicial responsibilities. Such extension does not have the slightest moral or 
legal justification in reason or intrinsic rightfulness. Reading every one of 
these cases provides no basis for me to believe that a lawyer acting as an 
assistant prosecutor should be immune from responsibility in damages if he 
knowingly and maliciously uses perjury to accomplish the arrest and retention in 
jail of an innocent citizen.

[¶127] There is a line of federal cases that should 
cause opinion writers in the judiciary great concern. Those are the cases where 
the prosecutorial dismissal of a criminal complaint is conditioned in some 
fashion upon the improperly charged accused signing a liability release in favor 
of the police or governmental agency. Apparently, that prosecutorial blackmail 
of a person with threatened confinement or continued prosecution unless a civil 
damage release is signed does not appear to be bothersome to the judiciary in 
absolving the prosecutor by the insulation of absolute immunity. For example, 
see the blackmail statute, W.S. 6-2-402, and the official misconduct statute, 
W.S. 6-5-107, neither of which contains a prosecutorial exception. Ignorance or 
inattention to blackmail statutes relating to the pursuit of this activity by 
the prosecuting attorney is obvious, e.g., W.S. 6-2-402, blackmail; United 
States Fidelity & Guaranty Co. v. Cook, 43 Wyo. 356, 5 P.2d 294 (1931); 
31(a) Am.Jur.2d Extortion, Blackmail, Etc., § 31 at 609 and § 50 at 619 (1989). 
The problem will always be created where the prosecutor commits what is in 
effect blackmail by leveraging a civil dispute settlement into a prosecutorial 
decision and plea negotiation.

[¶128] Unfortunately, when a difference cannot be 
discerned between plea bargaining and negotiations to settle civil liability at 
threat of prosecution, the judiciary itself is in trouble. See Schloss v. Bouse, 
876 F.2d 287 (2nd Cir. 1989) and Boyd v. Adams, 513 F.2d 83 (7th Cir. 1975). In 
McGruder v. Necaise, 733 F.2d 1146 (5th Cir. 1984), there was a threat to the 
plaintiff that he would get a life sentence for a minimal offense unless he 
civilly settled for injuries in a jail fire. At least for Wyoming application, I 
do not find public immunity insulation from criminal blackmail.36

[¶129] Coercion of a significant witness to give false 
testimony by threatening the witness in the jail house was "just prosecution" in 
Williams v. Hartje, 827 F.2d 1203 (8th Cir. 1987), where the prosecutor 
participated in an inquest which absolved his fellow county employees from a 
contended jail house homicide. A conspiratorial cover-up was alleged in the 
conduct of the coroner's inquest. How a conspiratorial arrangement to cover up a 
jail house murder fits within the broad character of a prosecuting attorney's 
public duty responsibility is not clarified in the opinion. In historical 
result, the coroner's inquest in which the prosecutor assisted, delayed the 
trial for the victim for over twenty-four years and then resulted in acquittal 
of the police officers who alleged to have beat the victim to death in the jail. 
In Campbell v. State of Maine, 787 F.2d 776 (1st Cir. 1986), in result contrary 
to Hilliard v. Williams, 465 F.2d 1212 (6th Cir.), cert. denied 409 U.S. 1029, 
93 S. Ct. 461, 34 L. Ed. 2d 322 (1972), it was determined that prosecutorial 
withholding of exculpatory evidence was acceptable in an immunized Section 1983 
damage context. As was apparently the master conspiracy to discredit and harass. 
See likewise Lee v. Willins, 617 F.2d 320, 321 (2nd Cir.), cert. denied 449 U.S. 861, 101 S. Ct. 165, 66 L. Ed. 2d 78 (1980), where plaintiff alleged that the 
prosecution

had (1) induced a defense 
witness, * * *, to render herself unavailable to testify in return for dropping 
felony charges against her, (2) compelled a witness, * * *, to perjure herself 
by arresting and incarcerating her for fifteen days without cause and 
threatening to "take away" her baby, (3) coerced false testimony from Joseph Cox 
by imprisoning him and depriving him of methadone, (4) sought and obtained five 
indictments for the same crime, and (5) supervised police officers who "planted" 
a pistol in Lee's possession. Judge Nickerson granted a motion to dismiss the 
complaint as against defendants Gold and Davenport, * * *, relying upon the 
prosecutorial immunity recognized in Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 96 S. Ct. 984, 47 L. Ed. 2d 128 (1976); and entered final judgment under Fed.R.Civ.P. 
54(b).

[¶130] A letter threatening prosecution if the 
attorney did not stop advertising legal services was immunized for the 
prosecutor in Goldschmidt v. Patchett, 686 F.2d 582 (7th Cir. 1982). The court 
said in justification that "the prosecutor in exercising this quasi-judicial 
function is immune from civil rights liability for damages." Id. at 585. With 
considerably more logic, the judge in special concurrence denied entitlement to 
absolute immunity. "If defendant believed that plaintiff had violated state law, 
he could have initiated a prosecution of plaintiff. A prosecutor's decision to 
prosecute or not is protected by absolute immunity. The letter sent by the 
defendant here was not connected with his decision to charge plaintiff with a 
violation of state law." Id. at 586, Swygert, J., concurring. In further 
discussing his disagreement with the majority that the prosecuting attorney is 
immune from the suit, he reiterated that:

"[T]he Supreme Court in 
Imbler did not hold that all official actions of the state prosecutor are 
absolutely immune from section 1983 liability. Imbler held only that a 
prosecutor has absolute immunity `in initiating a prosecution and in prosecuting 
the State's case.'" * * * "Decisions in this and other circuits have established 
that prosecutors are entitled to only qualified immunity when performing 
investigative or administrative functions. * * * When a prosecutor's activities 
are not connected with his role as an advocate for the Government, the reasons 
for extending absolute immunity are absent."

Id. at 586 
(quoting Hampton, 600 F.2d 600, 631 (7th Cir. 1979)), Swygert, J., 
concurring.

[¶131] The broadly thrusted case rivaling Imbler in a 
general enunciation of excused wrongfulness is Taylor v. Kavanagh, 640 F.2d 450, 
452 (2nd Cir. 1981):

Thus, a prosecutor is 
insulated from liability where his actions directly concern the pre-trial or 
trial phases of a case. For example, the swearing of warrants to insure a 
witness's attendance at trial, * * *, the falsification of evidence and the 
coercion of witnesses, * * *, or the failure to drop charges until immediately 
before trial, * * * have been held to be prosecutorial activities for which 
absolute immunity applies. Similarly, because a prosecutor is acting as an 
advocate in a judicial proceeding, the solicitation and subornation of perjured 
testimony, the withholding of evidence, or the introduction of illegally-seized 
evidence at trial does not create liability in damages.

The 
justification given was:

The rationale for this 
approach is sound, for these protected activities, while deplorable, involve 
decisions of judgment affecting the course of a prosecution. The efficient, and 
just, performance of the prosecutorial function would be chilled if Government 
attorneys were forced to worry that their choice of trial strategy and tactics 
could subject them to monetary liability, or at best, the inconvenience of 
proving a "good faith" defense to a § 1983 action.

Id. at 452. The 
vice of the argument is where does criminal responsibility and ethical standards 
fit into the excuse fulfilling characterizations? Is the prosecutor to be more 
fearful that the state, his insurance company or even himself might have to 
monetarily right a wrong rather than he might be incarcerated for felonious 
misconduct or disbarred for ethical legal activities?

[¶132] To be compared is the level of responsibility 
for investigative activities resulting from warrantless electronic surveillance 
considered in balancing "the deprivation to the individual denied a remedy 
against the interest of governmental efficiency, * * *" in Forsyth v. 
Kleindienst, 599 F.2d 1203, 1210 (3rd Cir. 1979), cert. denied 453 U.S. 913, 101 S. Ct. 3147, 69 L. Ed. 2d 997, reh'g denied 453 U.S. 928, 102 S. Ct. 892, 69 L. Ed. 2d 1025 (1981). Wire tapping is questionable, suborning perjury is apparently not 
so bad. Forsyth was followed by a personnel discharge case in the prosecutor's 
office in Mancini v. Lester, 630 F.2d 990 (3rd Cir. 1980). Participation in an 
illegal search and seizure and engaging in slander fell outside the Imbler 
umbrella in Marrero v. City of Hialeah, 625 F.2d 499 (5th Cir. 1980), cert. 
denied 450 U.S. 913, 101 S. Ct. 1353, 67 L. Ed. 2d 337 (1981).

[¶133] Another relatively early case, Henzel v. 
Gerstein, 608 F.2d 654, 657 (5th Cir. 1979), provides no happier 
characterization of morality where the stated misconduct included

filing an information 
without investigation, filing charges without jurisdiction, filing a baseless 
detainer, offering perjured testimony, suppressing exculpatory evidence, 
refusing to investigate Henzel's complaints about the prison system, threatening 
Henzel with further criminal prosecutions, and attempting to persuade Henzel not 
to sue state officials in return for parole.

The court then 
resolved:

"[E]ven where the 
prosecutor knowingly used perjured testimony, deliberately withheld exculpatory 
information, or failed to make full disclosure of all facts [is provided 
immunity]." Prince v. Wallace, 568 F.2d 1176, 1178-79 (5th Cir. 
1978).

Id. at 
657.

[¶134] Henzel could have been resolved for all charged 
defendants, including past defense counsel, as it ultimately was by the absence 
of necessary evidence of malice, bad faith or anything other than bare 
allegations of conspiracy. Consequently, any broad need for an immunity defense 
was not existent. Insufficient bare allegations of conspiracy would have 
adequately sufficed for all defendants and not just some. The prosecutorial 
activities in Morrison v. City of Baton Rouge, 761 F.2d 242 (5th Cir. 1985), 
alleged to have been directed in grand jury presentation to cover up a police 
killing of a black teenager, were granted immunity. The litany is stated for the 
Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals that "[p]rosecutors have absolute immunity 
from civil damages suits under section 1983 for actions intimately associated 
with the judicial phase of the criminal process," which is stated to include 
claims that "they offered false testimony or suppressed material at trial, filed 
charges without investigation or jurisdiction, filed groundless detainers, 
suppressed exculpatory evidence, refused to investigate prison complaints or 
threatened defendants with vindictive criminal prosecutions." Wahl v. McIver, 
773 F.2d 1169, 1173 (11th Cir. 1985).

[¶135] The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, after a 
course of cases assessing legality, venality and criminality, Beard v. Udall, 
648 F.2d 1264 (9th Cir. 1981) and Rankin v. Howard, 633 F.2d 844 (9th Cir. 
1980), cert. denied 451 U.S. 939, 101 S. Ct. 2020, 68 L. Ed. 2d 326 (1981), 
extended the umbrella in Ashelman v. Pope, 793 F.2d 1072, 1079 (9th Cir. 
1986):

     Our examination of the 
doctrines of judicial and prosecutorial immunity convinces us to construe more 
broadly the availability of immunity. Although a few may suffer because of the 
loss of seemingly meritorious claims against judges and prosecutors, the 
policies in support of immunity can only be fulfilled if immunity is freely 
granted and the exceptions are few and narrowly drawn. Allegations of conspiracy 
between judge and prosecutor to predetermine the outcome of a judicial 
proceeding are insufficient to overcome those immunities.

[¶136] The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals followed 
suit in Jones v. Shankland, 800 F.2d 77, 80 (6th Cir. 1986), cert. denied 481 U.S. 1048, 107 S. Ct. 2177, 95 L. Ed. 2d 834 (1987), where the plaintiff 
argued

that many of the claims 
charged against those in the prosecutor's office relate to their role as 
administrator or investigative officers, rather than as advocates. His complaint 
contains essentially allegations of failing to disclose exculpatory and other 
information concerning witnesses, procuring false testimony, failing to correct 
perjured testimony, causing a conflict of interest for defense counsel, not 
disclosing that conflict to Jones, putting a "spy" in the defense camp, and 
"covering up" those allegedly unconstitutional actions.

That court then 
said:

     The foregoing actions 
appear to us to be clearly within the scope of immunity contemplated by the 
Supreme Court in Imbler. The use of perjured testimony and the non-disclosure of 
exculpatory information are certainly entitled to absolute immunity. See Imbler, 
424 U.S.  at 431 n. 34, 96 S. Ct.  at 995 n. 34. The conflict of interest problems 
and the spy allegations would also seem to be related to the acts of an advocate 
and thus come within the area of prosecutorial immunity as do the cover up 
allegations which merely appear to be restatements of the prosecution's claimed 
failure to disclose exculpatory information.

Id. at 
80.

[¶137] Perhaps the strangest justification for 
prosecutorial immunity was stated in dissent in Schlegel, 841 F.2d  at 945 by a 
paraphrase from a questionable statement in Imbler. The author said, in citing 
Imbler, "[t]he prosecutor is immune because the merits of his actions cannot 
be examined without shaking public confidence in his office and his own 
confidence in his work." Schlegel, 841 F.2d  at 945 (emphasis added), Noonan, 
J., dissenting.37

[¶138] The prosecutorial misconduct civil suit claims 
fall into three general classes differentiated by the factors that create the 
claimed misconduct. In the first group is the convicted individual with 
conviction normally, although not always, unreversed by any direct proceedings 
where, in effect, the civil action constitutes a collateral attack. These cases 
are summarily subject to disposition without insulation of the prosecuting 
attorney by an immunity blanket. Unfortunately, over-extended language is 
frequently applied in decisions which are essentially dicta where an easy 
disposition is appropriate.38 Wahl, 773 F.2d 1169.

[¶139] Category two is what I will define as the hard 
ball or the hard rider cases of questionable action introduced by uncontrolled 
prosecutorial effort to secure conviction. These are the ethics and overreaching 
cases where the contended conduct certainly is professionally improper 
and may frequently, in itself, constitute a crime of suborning perjury or misuse 
of office. Rex v. Teeples, 753 F.2d 840 (10th Cir.), cert. denied 474 U.S. 967, 
106 S. Ct. 332, 88 L. Ed. 2d 316 (1985); Lee, 617 F.2d 320.

[¶140] The third category is the ulterior purpose 
cases where the prosecuting official uses his power and his office for other 
purposes such as monetary benefit, revenge or protection of someone, 
governmental or private. Morrison, 761 F.2d 242; McGruder, 733 F.2d 1146; 
Jennings v. Shuman, 567 F.2d 1213 (3rd Cir. 1977); United States ex rel. Rauch 
v. Deutsch, 456 F.2d 1301 (3rd Cir. 1972). See, however, United States v. Davis, 
890 F.2d 1373 (7th Cir. 1989), extortion prosecution.

[¶141] The problem with the foregoing categorizations, 
which define the real occurrences, is that they do not fit into the 
dichotomies for decision generally followed by the federal courts. Whether the 
challenged conduct is pretrial (investigatory or administrative) within the 
trial (suborning, conspiracy, altering documents, etc.) or after trial does not 
determine the category of generic class of behavior involved or the reason for 
its incurrence. The malum in se or malum prohibitum function of 
conduct is consequently not considered. The political and sociological failure 
of Imbler is in result to detach reason for behavior from test of 
responsibility. As a result, commission of crimes and egregious breach of 
standards of conduct when fit into a certain time and performance zone39 are immunized, while what may have 
been reasonable conduct in intent and performance in another sequence, loses the 
protection that may be otherwise given to the commission of the crime or 
professional misconduct. Hampton, 600 F.2d 600; Lee, 617 F.2d 320.40

[¶142] The federal courts, commencing with Yaselli v. 
Goff, 12 F.2d 396 (2nd Cir.), cert. granted 273 U.S. 677, 47 S. Ct. 101, 71 L. Ed. 835 (1926), aff'd 275 U.S. 503, 48 S. Ct. 155, 72 L. Ed. 395 (1927), have not been 
hospitable to malicious prosecution suits against federal or state prosecutors. 
The initial justification introduced was the quasi-judicial function involved. 
Basic authority in American law seems to be derived from Bradley, 80 U.S. 335. 
These conventional malicious prosecution cases, many of which are cited by the 
majority, do not generally speak to the subject here presented of conspiratorial 
production and use of perjured material to secure the arrest and continued 
incarceration of a known innocent person. The paranoia fear of the suit itself 
is self-evident in the text of the opinions. Bauers, 361 F.2d 581 directly 
extended the malicious prosecution immunity for prosecutors to the damage suits 
under Section 1983 overruling its prior contrary decision in Picking v. 
Pennsylvania R. Co., 151 F.2d 240, reh'g denied 152 F.2d 753 (3rd Cir. 1945). 
Generally, these cases include Schloss, 876 F.2d 287, not to prosecute; Murphy, 
849 F.2d 1101, introduction of evidence at trial; Hamilton v. Daley, 777 F.2d 1207 (7th Cir. 1985); Fullman v. Graddick, 739 F.2d 553 (11th Cir. 1984); Ybarra 
v. Reno Thunderbird Mobile Home Village, 723 F.2d 675 (9th Cir. 1984); Cook v. 
Houston Post, 616 F.2d 791 (5th Cir. 1980); Henzel, 608 F.2d 654; Heidelberg v. 
Hammer, 577 F.2d 429 (7th Cir. 1978); Prince v. Wallace, 568 F.2d 1176 (5th Cir. 
1978); McDonald v. State of Illinois, 557 F.2d 596 (7th Cir. 1977); Conner v. 
Pickett, 552 F.2d 585 (5th Cir. 1977); Fanale, 385 F.2d 866; Gabbard v. Rose, 
359 F.2d 182 (6th Cir. 1966); Sires v. Cole, 320 F.2d 877 (9th Cir. 1963); and 
Kenney v. Fox, 232 F.2d 288 (6th Cir.), cert. denied 352 U.S. 855, 77 S. Ct. 84, 
1 L. Ed. 2d 66, cert. denied 352 U.S. 856, 77 S. Ct. 84, 1 L. Ed. 2d 66 
(1956).

[¶143] There is, however, a limit beyond a very 
indistinct line where even the federal courts do not throw the misconduct 
absolving mantle off immunity. I believe this case would fit beyond that line. 
Statements to the press by prosecution justifies only qualified immunity as an 
administrative function. England v. Hendricks, 880 F.2d 281 (10th Cir. 1989); 
Gobel v. Maricopa County, 867 F.2d 1201 (9th Cir. 1989); Lerwill v. Joslin, 712 F.2d 435 (10th Cir. 1983); Marrero, 625 F.2d  at 506; Hampton, 600 F.2d  at 633. 
To be compared is Borucki v. Ryan, 827 F.2d 836 (1st Cir. 1987), where United 
States prosecutor Michael Ryan first dismissed the criminal charges and then 
held a press conference where he openly discussed mental commitment examination 
details ordered to determine plaintiff's competency. The resulting civil rights 
lawsuit was based on invasion of privacy by a disclosure to the press of 
psychiatric report contents. After the appellate court applied qualified 
immunity, it was held that prosecutorial release to the press of psychiatric 
reports did not violate a clearly established right of privacy and, 
consequently, qualified immunity was justified. One is called to question what 
quality of legal education provided this level of abysmal ignorance. Surely a 
freshman in law school would know better and clearly so. The activity of the 
prosecutor was in best light blatant politicking in contravention of the 
constitutional rights of a helpless human being. Perhaps a 120 day suspension 
from the practice of law would have provided a level of knowledge and deterrence 
to the prosecutor educating against this character of misbehavior.

[¶144] In addition to the press release cases, see 
also Butz, 438 U.S. 478, 98 S. Ct. 2894, 57 L. Ed. 2d 895, other limits to excused 
prosecutorial misconduct are actually found in some federal court cases. In 
Lewis v. Brautigam, 227 F.2d 124 (5th Cir. 1955), removal from the county jail 
facility to the state prison, a 300 mile distance, and other conduct to force 
the plaintiff to plead guilty was not determinable on a motion to dismiss 
whether the acts were within the scope of prosecutorial authority or authorized 
by law. Robichaud, 351 F.2d 533 denied the immunity umbrella to actions 
confining a teenager in the drunk tank and subsequent removal to the crime scene 
in the absence of her lawyers in order to secure a confession. In Hilliard, 465 F.2d  at 1218, the court, after first recognizing the existence and text of the 
code of professional responsibilities, refused to extend immunity to the alleged 
facts:

     We hold that factual 
averments of the complaint as summarized above, considered in a light most 
favorable to plaintiff, charge the District Attorney General with acts which 
were outside his quasi-judicial capacity and beyond the scope of "duties 
constituting an integral part of the judicial process." We are not willing to 
extend the doctrine of quasi-judicial immunity to a complaint charging 
deliberate suppression of an FBI laboratory report establishing the innocence of 
the defendant.

In the case, 
stains on the defendant's jacket were not human blood as argued by the 
prosecution, but rather hog blood as contended by the defense. The jacket 
disappeared before trial while in state custody but not before an FBI 
examination confirmed the defense, which report was withheld by the prosecution 
during trial.

[¶145] In a Connecticut grand jury investigation of 
the plaintiff as a state official, Powers v. Coe, 728 F.2d 97, 103 (2nd Cir. 
1984), claims for injury in the Section 1983 complaint included "(1) leaked 
information to the media, (2) wiretapped his telephone calls, (3) breached an 
agreement not to prosecute, (4) entrapped him to commit new crimes, and (5) 
misused the grand jury." The appellate court granted an immunity defense to the 
three contentions, misuse of the grand jury, breach of the agreement not to 
prosecute and entrapment, and held, although immunity did not apply, that the 
claims relating to the alleged illegal wiretap were not available and reversed 
the decision of the trial court granting a general summary judgment to determine 
if prosecutorial leaking of secret information to the media might state a claim 
on a deprivation of a fair trial basis (denied due process interest). See 
likewise McSurely v. McClellan, 697 F.2d 309 (D.C. Cir. 1982), which involved 
the release of illegally obtained information to a state legislative committee 
where absolute immunity was not provided for activities which included initial 
acquisition of documents, safekeeping and release contrary to an injunctive 
order.

[¶146] Alleged direction to hold a prisoner in a cell 
that was "dirty, infested with roaches and bugs and that [plaintiff] was given 
no food, water or showers during that four day period," Price v. Moody, 677 F.2d 676, 677 (8th Cir. 1982) (footnote omitted), was not subject to absolute 
immunity favoring the defendant prosecutor. See likewise Forsyth, 599 F.2d 1203, 
wiretapping case. Hampton, 600 F.2d 600, as well advertised and publicized, 
followed Butz, 438 U.S.  at 482, 98 S. Ct.  at 2898 in determining that no 
unqualified immunity existed for publicity campaigns. The Hampton court did, 
however, accept a constitutional Imbler immunity application for loss, 
falsification and destruction of evidence by the prosecution in conjunction with 
the police citing Heidelberg, 577 F.2d 429.41

[¶147] Wiretap usage by the district attorney during 
his investigation was administrative and not judicial and not cloaked with 
absolute immunity in Jacobson v. Rose, 592 F.2d 515 (9th Cir. 1978), cert. 
denied 442 U.S. 930, 99 S. Ct. 2861, 61 L. Ed. 2d 298 (1979). A congressman who 
alleged that the United States attorney deliberately leaked false information in 
abuse of the grand jury process stated a claim for activities outside of any 
proper performance of the prosecutor's job. Helstoski v. Goldstein, 552 F.2d 564 
(3rd Cir. 1977). Obviously, press releases by prosecutors have not been highly 
favored for immunity protection.

[¶148] The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in Rex, 753 F.2d 840 concluded that a deputy district attorney in assisting to obtain an 
involuntary coerced confession was beyond the Imbler umbrella. Likewise, 
assistance in making the arrest is not immunized as a prosecutorial function. 
Wethers v. Ebert, 505 F.2d 514 (4th Cir. 1974), cert. denied 424 U.S. 975, 96 S. Ct. 1480, 47 L. Ed. 2d 745 (1976); Apton v. Wilson, 506 F.2d 83 (D.C. Cir. 
1974).

Freedom from arbitrary 
arrest and detention are among our most cherished liberties. Their infringement 
has warranted a remedy in damages inferred from the Constitution itself in cases 
where Congress has failed to provide it by statute. Bivens v. Six Unknown Named 
Agents, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S. Ct. 1999, 29 L. Ed. 2d 619 (1971). The infringement 
alleged here is substantial, carrying overtones of physical abuse. Elements of 
the assault upon individual liberty remain unredressed even if reverberation of 
harm into the future is contained by such relief as the expungement of arrest 
records.

Apton, 506 F.2d  
at 93 (footnote omitted). See similarly the practice for arresting with a 
warrant, Crane v. State of Texas, 759 F.2d 412, aff'd as modified 766 F.2d 193 
(5th Cir.), cert. denied 474 U.S. 1020, 106 S. Ct. 570, 88 L. Ed. 2d 555 (1985). 
Joseph, 795 F.2d 549 recognized that advocacy did not necessarily include the 
acquisition of coerced statements in investigatory interrogation. Likewise not 
included was sitting on a concealed weapons licensing board. Limits that can be 
realistically found differentiating conduct from the core proceeding in advocacy 
conduct is demonstrated by Mairena v. Foti, 816 F.2d 1061, 1066 (5th Cir. 1987), 
cert. denied 484 U.S. 1005, 108 S. Ct. 697, 98 L. Ed. 2d 649 (1988):

A reasonable juror could 
have concluded that the major responsibility for the violation of Mairena's 
constitutional rights lay with the district attorney's office, since it issued 
the warrant for Mairena's arrest without proper safeguards. Moreover, it was the 
district attorney's office that was responsible for advising the other 
defendants, i.e., the sheriff and clerk, that the warrant for arrest was no 
longer required and should be cancelled. We therefore conclude that the district 
attorney has not shown that the evidence indicates that the jury's factual 
determination on the damages issue was subject to reversal under the 
reasonableness standard.[42]

[¶149] A differentiated test appears in Jennings, 567 F.2d  at 1221-22 (quoting United States ex rel. Rauch, 456 F.2d at 1302) where "a 
prosecutor is entitled to absolute immunity `while performing his official 
duties,' * * *, as a[n] officer of the court, even if, in the performance of 
those duties, he is motivated by a corrupt or illegal intention." The relation 
of corrupt and illegal intention while performing official duties as an officer 
of the court was again not explained in criminal, ethical or moral 
terms.

[¶150] The court in Corsican Productions v. Pitchess, 
338 F.2d 441, 444 (9th Cir. 1964), stated:

[P]rosecutors are not 
immune from suit under the Act simply as a matter of status wholly without 
regard to the nature of their conduct. * * * The county attorney did not submit 
the present contention to the district court. If he had, and if the district 
court had held the allegations of the complaint insufficient under the immunity 
rule, appellants would have been entitled to an opportunity to amend, no 
responsive pleading having been filed. In these circumstances, we will not 
consider the adequacy either of the allegations as they now read or as they 
might be supplemented by amendment.

See also Lewis, 
227 F.2d  at 129, where the opinion noted that the status of a motion to dismiss 
afforded an insufficient basis for factually dismissing the claim, since "[o]n 
motion to dismiss, it cannot be held that such acts were either within the scope 
of his jurisdiction as State's Attorney, or were authorized by law." See 
likewise Breier v. Northern Cal. Bowling Proprietors' Ass'n, 316 F.2d 787 (9th 
Cir. 1963).

[¶151] State cases, although recognizing levels of 
immunity, are not so condescending to the factors of morality and responsibility 
involved. The Iowa cases, Gartin v. Jefferson County, 281 N.W.2d 25 (Iowa App. 
1979) and Blanton v. Barrick, 258 N.W.2d 306 (Iowa 1977), as state cases, are 
frequently cited as providing absolution to the prosecuting attorney from his 
responsibility for misconduct. These cases do not present the conspiracy to 
violate the constitutional rights issue under the state constitution. In 
Blanton, it was an ethical violation and in Gartin, the court did not define how 
perjury could constitute an official act under the state constitution. To be 
compared is Johnson v. Morris, 445 N.W.2d 563, 570 (Minn.App. 1989), where the 
court first recognized that excessive force in arrest may be unconstitutional 
and "[q]ualified immunity of public officials for purposes of a section 1983 
action does not automatically confer immunity from state law claims." The court 
stated in Elwood v. Rice County, 423 N.W.2d 671, 676-77 (Minn. 1988) (quoting 
Creighton, 107 S.Ct. at 3041):43

[D]efendants urge that 
qualified immunity for purposes of Section 1983 also applies to state law 
claims. We disagree, rejecting the proposition that federal immunity principles 
under Section 1983 also control state law. While qualified immunity under 
Section 1983 had its origin in public officials' defenses available at common 
law, the doctrine has since been "completely reformulated * * * along principles 
not at all embodied in the common law." * * * We decline to simply apply the 
federal standard in all state tort actions.

[¶152] Scholastic analysis and criticism has not 
ignored this subject. Exceptional, analytical and authoritative consideration is 
found in Friesen, Recovering Damages for State Bills of Rights Claims, 63 Tex.L. 
Rev. 1269 (1985) and Wolcher, Sovereign Immunity and the Supremacy Clause: 
Damages Against States in Their Own Courts for Constitutional Violations, 69 
Cal.L.Rev. 189 (1981). See also Matasar, Personal Immunities Under Section 1983: 
The Limits of the Courts Historical Analysis, 40 Ark.L.Rev. 741 (1987). Wolcher, 
supra, 69 Cal.L.Rev. at 314-16, in his conclusion, states:

     The idea that there 
are some wrongs without remedies, whatever its force may be in the field of 
private law, has no place in regulating the rights of individuals against 
government in a system with a written constitution like our own. When the 
Constitution tells a state that it shall not, for instance, deprive persons of 
life, liberty, or property without due process of law, the consequence ought to 
be either compliance by the state or a remedial system designed to redress fully 
and adequately the harm caused by noncompliance.

* * * * * *

     The one thing that is 
no longer admissible, if it ever was, is the notion that sovereign immunity bars 
all claims against the states, of whatever source and wherever litigated. 
Instead, the nature of the claim and the court where it is heard are both 
important, if not determinative, criteria, as the Court held in Nevada v. Hall, 
[440 U.S. 410, 99 S. Ct. 1182, 59 L. Ed. 2d 416 (1979)] and Maine v. Thiboutot, 
[448 U.S. 1, 100 S. Ct. 2502, 65 L. Ed. 2d 555 (1980)]. It is now more appropriate 
than ever to reaffirm that state courts of general jurisdiction share with 
federal courts the duty to enforce the Constitution, and to recognize that that 
duty is strongest of all when constitutional claimants have no other forum in 
which to vindicate their rights.

Friesen, supra, 
63 Tex.L.Rev. at 1318, as a determined advocate of a state right remedy for 
state constitutional violation, also concludes:

     This Article suggests 
practical and theoretical reasons for the creation of adequate state law 
remedies for bills of rights violations: enhancing state law's theoretical 
development, compensating deserving plaintiffs, and deterring disregard of the 
state constitution through education and enforced responsibility of private and 
public lawbreakers. * * *

     Ultimately, the state 
legislatures must respond to the need for private enforcement of public norms by 
creating remedies for constitutional claims, along with waivers of sovereign 
immunity provisions for full compensation, including attorney fees and 
authorization of punitive damages when appropriate. Until that time, the 
courtrooms of the fifty states' trial and appellate judges will be the testing 
grounds for this new wave of the not-so-new federalism. These judges may be the 
ones to decide whether, at least for civil plaintiffs, our state bills of rights 
offer more than an empty flirtation.

See also Note, 
Rethinking Sovereign Immunity After Bivens, 57 N YU.L.Rev. 597 (1982). Compare 
the exhaustive review in Developments in the Law, Section 1983 and Federalism, 
90 Harv.L.Rev. 1133, 1361 (1977), where, in conclusion, it is said "it seems 
clear that Congress can and should constrict the scope of personal immunities, 
and eliminate the absolute immunities enjoyed by governmental bodies." It is as 
inevitable as the continued existence of democratic government with the teaching 
of Marbury revealing the responsibility of government that if the individual 
state fails in this task to protect their citizens from constitutional 
depravation, federalism will once again move the responsibility to Congress and 
the federal judiciary.

[¶153]  The non-firm foundation which purports 
to be implanted from historical analysis is well considered in Coleman, 42 
U.S.C. Section 1988: A Congressionally-Mandated Approach to the Construction of 
Section 1983, 19 Ind.L.Rev. 665 (1986); Jaffe, Suits Against Governments and 
Officers: Damage Actions, 77 Harv.L.Rev. 209 (1963); Jaffe, Suits Against 
Governments and Officers: Sovereign Immunity, 77 Harv.L.Rev. 1 (1963); and 
Matasar, supra, 40 Ark.L.Rev. 741.

     Damage actions for 
misconduct, as we know, have been available for hundreds of years against the 
wrongdoing officer. It is this liability which appeared to Dicey to justify his 
famous formulation of the "rule of law:"

"In England the idea of 
legal equality, or of the universal subjection of all classes to one law 
administered by the ordinary Courts, has been pushed to its utmost limit. With 
us every official, from the Prime Minister down to a constable or a collector of 
taxes, is under the same responsibility for every act done without legal 
justification as any other citizen."

This statement contains 
an important truth, but whether viewed doctrinally, functionally, or 
historically, it can be seen as misleading, and even inaccurate. The 
availability of suit against an officer did not flow from a given principle of 
"legal equality," but rather, as we have shown in an earlier article, was the 
result of a deliberate effort to protect the citizen from governmental misuse of 
authority.

Jaffe, supra, 77 
Harv.L.Rev. at 215-16 (footnote omitted and quoting Dicey, The Law of the 
Constitution 189 (8th ed. 1915)).

     Past weaknesses in the 
Court's treatment of section 1983 cases, however, may pale in comparison to 
present weaknesses in the Court's understanding. Its decisions to date suggest 
an inadequate grasp of the past; some current Justices' premises reflect an 
incomplete understanding of the present.

Eisenberg, 
Section 1983: Doctrinal Foundations and an Empirical Study, 67 Cornell L.Rev. 
482, 483 (1982). See Beermann, A Critical Approach to Section 1983 with Special 
Attention to Sources of Law, 42 Stan.L.Rev. 51 (1989); Bradford, "Changed Only a 
Little": The Reconstruction Amendments and the Nomocratic Constitution of 1787, 
24 Wake Forest L.Rev. 573 (1989); and Kreimer, The Source of Law in Civil Rights 
Actions: Some Old Light on Section 1988, 133 U.Pa.L.Rev. 601 (1985). See also 
Clarkson & Muris, Civil Liability of Government Officials, 42 Law & 
Contemp.Probs. 1 (1978). Society and the American justice delivery system could 
hope that Professor-Justice Leflar was right in his essay, Leflar, Honest 
Judicial Opinions, 74 N.W.U.L.Rev. 721, 741 (1979), when he said "[i]ntellectual 
honesty [in opinion writing] is more fashionable today than it once 
was."

IX. 
CONCLUSION

[¶154] There is a pervasive thread throughout the 
panorama of prosecutorial immunity cases which must, in assessing integrity and 
responsibility, mirror the self-image of at least some of those jurists. It is 
variously stated as going back to Gregoire, 177 F.2d 579 that immunity is 
required so that honest prosecutors do not shirk from fearless advocacy. 
Lerwill, 712 F.2d 435. This supposition of provided right to be irresponsible in 
order to do the job for which the office is held demeans the office-holder and 
insults the lawyer who holds it. Protection for discretionary decisions and the 
historical insulation from pure malicious prosecution proceedings should surely 
suffice for both the honest prosecutor and the fearless advocate. If a level of 
economic responsibility is required for the conduct of the practicing lawyer and 
the committed physician, one then wonders why not for the public official of 
either or both professions. Each time that kind of comment is written into 
opinion, the inquiry is academically raised whether the writer would perform his 
responsibilities only if also free from responsiveness for violations of the 
constitutional rights of another person with wilfulness or malice. It is not my 
view that we in the judiciary are required to balance evils. Better to do what 
is right. Cf. Imbler, 424 U.S. 409, 96 S. Ct. 984, 47 L. Ed. 2d 128.

     We recognize that Mr. 
Joslin, rather than mistakenly citing the wrong statute in prosecuting the 
Lerwills, might have intentionally or even maliciously done so in order to harm 
them. While the Lerwills' inability to sue him under section 1983 is unfortunate 
if this is true, it is a cost required by Imbler to be paid so that honest 
prosecutors do not shrink from fearless advocacy. As the Supreme Court stated in 
Imbler,

"As is so often the case, 
the answer must be found in a balance between the evils inevitable in either 
alternative. In this instance it has been thought in the end better to leave 
unredressed the wrongs done by dishonest officers than to subject those who try 
to do their duty to the constant dread of retaliation."

424 U.S.  at 428, 96 S. Ct. 
at 994 (quoting Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F.2d 579, 581 (2d Cir. 1949) (Learned 
Hand, J.), cert. denied, 339 U.S. 949, 70 S. Ct. 803, 94 L. Ed. 1363 
(1950)).

Lerwill, 712 F.2d  at 441.

[¶155] Despite the arguments carefully advanced to the 
contrary, I do not find myself persuaded that absolute civil immunity for 
prosecutors is necessary to the policy concerns for which it is fitted. The 
principal objection to the claim that governmental officers should be civilly 
liable for civil wrongs intentionally committed against citizens44 is the supposed chill on a 
vigorous pursuit of the public trust. Relocating this claim as it applies to 
prosecutors, the objection reforms into a variety of patterns.45

[¶156] Those who argue all prosecutors must be 
shielded by absolute civil immunity recognize their claim as no more than a 
particular choice picked from the competition between the need for vigorous 
prosecution of the law and the fundamental fairness in allowing those 
intentionally wronged to seek redress. Schneider v. Shepherd, 192 Mich. 82, 158 N.W. 182 (1916). A persuasive comparison is found in Briggs v. Goodwin, 569 F.2d 10 (D.C. Cir. 1977), cert. denied 437 U.S. 904, 98 S. Ct. 3089, 57 L. Ed. 2d 1133 
(1978), where the prosecutor was ordered to take the witness stand and then lied 
under oath, with Barbera v. Smith, 836 F.2d 96 (2nd Cir. 1987), cert. denied ___ 
U.S. ___, 109 S. Ct. 1338, 103 L. Ed. 2d 808 (1989), where no effort was made to 
protect the critical witness who, despite a request for help, went unprotected 
and was consequently murdered.

[¶157] An argument that absolute civil immunity is 
required should explain why only absolute immunity satisfies the policy concerns 
traditionally advanced. Such an explanation would need to give due account for 
which is illustrated by Hawaiian common-law,46 which has for many decades held 
prosecutors civilly liable for malicious acts with no apparent chill upon the 
actions of honest and decent prosecutors. "Public prosecuting officers are 
entitled to protection against claims growing out of the discharge of their 
duties done in good faith though with erroneous judgment, but private 
individuals are entitled to the protection of the law against any conduct of 
such officers which is at once reckless, malicious and damaging." Leong Yau v. 
Carden, 23 Haw. 362, 369 (Hawaii 1916).47 But even a rejection of the 
Hawaiian solution to flagrant abuse of public power would not make absolute 
civil immunity the only alternative. Because "policy considerations which compel 
civil immunity for certain governmental officials [do not] place them beyond the 
reach of the criminal law," Imbler, 424 U.S.  at 429, 96 S. Ct.  at 994, both the 
vigorous pursuit of a prosecutor's public trust and a redress for intentional 
violations of that trust would be accommodated if a civil suit were initially or 
alternatively allowed. This solution would align with the majority language that 
"we are incapable of policing prosecutorial abuses properly investigated and 
presented to this court by the Wyoming Bar, or that a majority of Wyoming 
prosecutors necessarily would violate their constitutional oaths rather than 
prosecute another lawyer."

[¶158] Although great cases may make bad law; 
certainly, this is just a bad case that makes bad law "by reason of [its] real 
importance in shaping the law of the future * * *." Northern Securities Co. v. 
United States, 193 U.S. 197, 400, 24 S. Ct. 436, 468, 48 L. Ed. 679 (1904), 
Holmes, J., dissenting.

A democratic society, in 
which respect for the dignity of all men is central, naturally guards against 
the misuse of the law enforcement process. Zeal in tracking down crime is not in 
itself an assurance of soberness of judgment. Disinterestedness in law 
enforcement does not alone prevent disregard of cherished liberties. Experience 
has therefore counseled that safeguards must be provided against the dangers of 
the overzealous as well as the despotic. The awful instruments of the criminal 
law cannot be entrusted to a single functionary. The complicated process of 
criminal justice is therefore divided into different parts, responsibility for 
which is separately vested in the various participants upon whom the criminal 
law relies for its vindication.

McNabb, 318 U.S. 
at 343, 63 S. Ct.  at 614.

[¶159] I would reverse the order granting the motion 
to dismiss Cooney's claim for relief from his unjustified and improper arrest 
and thirty-eight day incarceration. Error of the majority in two regards is 
discerned:

     1. Imbler does not 
authenticate this conduct nor immunize this behavior; and

     2. A state remedy for 
constitutional violation by public officials offending the Wyoming Constitution 
must be provided in our courts as a basic responsibility of the judicial branch 
of government.

MACY, Justice, 
dissenting.

[¶160] I dissent. No one should be immune from civil 
liability for intentionally committing a criminal act, especially a public 
official who has taken an oath to uphold the constitution and the laws of the 
State of Wyoming. I agree with and adopt the reasoning articulated in the 
closing remarks of Justice Urbigkit's dissenting opinion.

 

FOOTNOTES

1 Their claims included 
malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, abuse of probation revocation 
process, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

2 The Cooneys commenced 
this action with a May 15, 1986, letter to appellee State of Wyoming as mandated 
by the Claims Act. That letter claim was filed on May 19, 1986, and denied by 
the State of Wyoming on September 5, 1986. The Cooneys filed a Claims Act claim 
against appellee Park County on March 13, 1987. They filed the complaint in this 
case on May 14, 1987. Appellees White and Park County filed a W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6) 
motion and an accompanying brief on June 15, 1987. By stipulation of the 
parties, appellees the State of Wyoming, the Department, and Mayor filed their 
motion to dismiss and supporting materials on July 15, 1987. The Cooneys filed a 
brief in opposition to those motions on July 30, 1987. The district court filed 
its decision letter on the appellees' motions on November 10, 1987, in which it 
dismissed all claims against White and the Claims Act claims against Park 
County, the State of Wyoming, the Department, and Mayor for failure to state 
claims upon which relief could be granted under W.R.C.P. 12(b)(6). A 
corresponding order was filed on December 7, 1987. The Cooneys then moved the 
district court to finalize its order on the motions to dismiss under W.R.C.P. 
54(b) on December 15, 1987. The district court gave the parties notice 
concerning this motion and responses in opposition were filed by appellees the 
State of Wyoming, the Department and Mayor. The district court held a hearing on 
the matter on January 13, 1988, after which it granted the Cooneys' motion and 
entered an order to that effect on January 25, 1988. The Cooneys appealed that 
final order on February 1, 1988.

On 
its own motion, this court dismissed that appeal because the district court's 
W.R.C.P. 54(b) certification did not contain at least a brief explanation for 
the district court's conclusion to take that action. See Tader v. Tader, 737 P.2d 1065 (Wyo. 1987). On remand the Cooneys made a W.R.C.P. 60(a) motion for a 
revised order. A revised final order was entered on June 7, 1988; this appeal 
was taken from that order.

3 Imbler identified those 
reasons as:

1) a prosecutor is more 
likely to be sued when he decides, rather than declines, to prosecute; thus, the 
desire to avoid liability would always slant a prosecutor's conduct toward fewer 
prosecutions. This result clashes with the prosecutor's public duty to enforce 
the law vigorously;

2) the volume of 
potential lawsuits poses a serious threat to a prosecutor's decision making. 
Each time a prosecutor moves against an individual, he is exposed to an 
identifiable potential plaintiff. Conventional wisdom informs that, generally, 
criminal defendants are unlikely to view prosecutorial actions as having been 
taken in good faith. Consequently, any overturned action could generate a 
lawsuit. These damage claims against prosecutors may drain a disproportionately 
large amount of prosecutorial time - which would be better spent serving the 
criminal justice system;

3) qualified 
professionals may choose not to serve in the high-profile post of prosecutor 
because of an increased likelihood of untoward influences on the exercise of 
prosecutorial discretion and the increased drain on prosecutorial time caused by 
lawsuits;

4) prosecutors may be 
more reluctant to admit weaknesses in their cases or to produce later-discovered 
exculpatory evidence. Appellate judges may be more reluctant to reverse 
convictions if to do so might spark damage suits;

5) in-place judicial 
review mechanisms satisfactorily operate to deter prosecutorial misconduct. 
Moreover, prosecutors are subject to professional discipline, formal removal 
proceedings and criminal liability; and

6) reexamination in a 42 
U.S.C. § 1983 action of the many prosecutorial decisions made under time and 
information constraints would involve a retrying of the criminal charge before a 
jury different from the one who decided the criminal charge and would run the 
risk of conflicting decisions.

Id., 424 U.S.  at 424-29, 
96 S. Ct.  at 992-94, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 139-43.

4 42 U.S.C. § 1983 
provides:

Every person who, under 
color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or 
Territory, subjects or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States 
or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any 
rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be 
liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper 
proceeding for redress.

5 In Imbler, a plurality 
of the Court expressly stated:

We have no occasion to 
consider whether like or similar reasons require immunity for those aspects of 
the prosecutor's responsibility that cast him in the role of an administrator or 
investigative office rather than that of advocate.[33]

* * * * * *

"[33] We recognize that 
the duties of the prosecutor in his role as advocate for the State 
involve actions preliminary to the initiation of a prosecution and 
actions apart from the courtroom. A prosecuting attorney is required constantly, 
in the course of his duty as such, to make decisions on a wide variety of 
sensitive issues. These include questions of whether to present a case to a 
grand jury, whether to file an information, whether and when to prosecute, 
whether to dismiss an indictment against particular defendants, which witnesses 
to call, and what other evidence to present. Preparation, both for the 
initiation of the criminal process and for trial, may require the obtaining, 
reviewing, and evaluating of evidence. At some point, and with respect to 
some decisions, the prosecutor no doubt functions as an administrator rather 
than as an officer of the court. Drawing a proper line between these functions 
may present difficult questions, but this case does not require us to anticipate 
them.

Imbler, 424 U.S.  at 
430-31, 96 S. Ct.  at 995, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 144 (quoted in Blake, 651 P.2d  at 1101-02 
(emphasis added)).

6 For revocation purposes 
no distinctions have been drawn between offenders on parole or offenders on 
probation. Gagnon v. Scarpelli, 411 U.S. 778, 782, 93 S. Ct. 1756, 1759, 36 L. Ed. 2d 656, 661 (1973).

7 Safeguards against 
prosecutorial misconduct, other than damages actions within 42 U.S.C. § 1983, 
exist outside the judicial process in the form of professional sanctions and 
criminal prosecutions. In Imbler, the Court made it a point to remind 
prosecutors that:

This Court has never 
suggested that the policy considerations which compel civil immunity for certain 
governmental officials also place them beyond the reach of the criminal law. 
Even judges, cloaked with absolute civil immunity for centuries, could be 
punished criminally for willful deprivations of constitutional rights on the 
strength of 18 U.S.C. § 242, the criminal analog of § 1983. The prosecutor would 
fare no better for his willful acts. Moreover, a prosecutor stands perhaps 
unique, among officials whose acts could deprive persons of constitutional 
rights, in his amenability to professional discipline by an association of his 
peers. These checks undermine the argument that the imposition of civil 
liability is the only way to insure that prosecutors are mindful of the 
constitutional rights of persons accused of crime.

Id., 424 U.S.  at 429, 96 S. Ct.  at 994, 47 L. Ed. 2d  at 142-43 (citing ABA Code of Professional 
Responsibility § EC 7-13. and ABA Standards, supra, n. 24, §§ 1.1(c), (e), and 
Commentary, pp. 44-45) (other citations and footnotes omitted). Abusive Wyoming 
prosecutors are always subject to professional sanctions and criminal 
prosecutions. See Wyoming Rules for Professional Conduct of Attorneys at Law 
3.3, 3.4, 3.8, 4.1, and 8.4 (1986).

Once 
properly investigated, these cases should be pursued by the Wyoming Bar and the 
Attorney General's office with zeal. The deterrence to abusive prosecution that 
results from a proper disbarment and/or conviction is logically much more 
effective than a large punitive damages award in a § 1983 action. When analyzing 
prosecutorial immunity cases, we will not arbitrarily conclude that these 
contemporaneous remedies are necessarily ineffective or inadequate. Doing so 
would require this court to hold that we are incapable of policing prosecutorial 
abuses properly investigated and presented to us by the Wyoming Bar, or that a 
majority of Wyoming prosecutors necessarily would violate their constitutional 
oaths rather than prosecute another lawyer. Conclusions of that character are 
untenable and must not be based on speculation. Compare Gray v. Bell, 712 F.2d 490, 501 (D.C. Cir. 1983) (judicial supervision under the exclusionary rule and 
professional sanctions are often too attenuated from the judicial process to 
provide more than "hollow and ineffectual remedies."). See also Higgs v. 
District Court In and For the County of Douglas, 713 P.2d 840, 856 (Colo. 1985). 
They must come from the record or from judicially noticeable sources. Accord 
Briggs v. Goodwin, 569 F.2d 10, 24 (D.C. Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 437 U.S. 904, 
98 S. Ct. 3089, 57 L. Ed. 2d 1133 (1978) (where the record indicated a four and 
one-half year lapse since the alleged prosecutorial misconduct without any 
official inquiry). Without record evidence to the contrary, we must assume that 
professional sanctions and criminal prosecution are remedies available to an 
aggrieved private citizen as a deterrent to prosecutorial 
abuses.

FOOTNOTES for the 
Dissent

1 Superiority of 
government, inferiority of citizens, rejection of predominance of rights 
guaranteed by amendment to the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights of 
the Wyoming Constitution, e.g., Wyo. Const. art. 10, § 4. "Concentration of all 
economic controls and planning in the hands of a highly centralized government." 
Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2230 (1971). Cf. White v. Towers, 
37 Cal. 2d 727, 235 P.2d 209, 211 (1951). Immunity is not a "major step toward 
`statism.'" Id. 235 P.2d  at 211.

2 Gray, supra, 47 
Cal.L.Rev. at 303 initiates this composition by quotation from William 
Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene 2:

"O! It is excellent To 
have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it like a giant. . . 
."

If 
monstrous is substituted for tyrannous, the philosophical battle lines become 
clarified. See Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F.2d 579 (2nd Cir. 1949), cert. denied 
339 U.S. 949, 70 S. Ct. 803, 94 L. Ed. 1363 (1950).

3 The vice of this case is 
in writing bad law on assumed facts. One could peripherally hope that the real 
facts were not actually so bad as what we now assume them to be by the state of 
this record. Suborning perjury by a prosecutorial official is unlimited 
meanness. Since the law that we will write is based on the assumption of the 
facts that were made by disposition in the motion to dismiss, we write with an 
assumption of validity but with a prayer that somehow lawyers, professionals and 
governmental agents must have some better explanation for the perpetration of 
cruelty than intentional criminality upon the hapless victims, Tom and Lora and 
their small child. Suborning perjury by a public official is infinitely worse in 
malum prohibitum than whatever may have occurred when Cooney, as a teenager, 
wrote insufficient fund checks which, as a societal activity for anyone with 
knowledge of banking activities, is commonplace.

4 An interesting 
observation is found in ABA Monogram, The Judicial Role in Identifying Referring 
Prosecutorial Misconduct I.12-I.13 (1989):

Any case in which a court 
has ordered a reversal of a conviction because of prosecutorial misconduct 
should, as a matter of court policy, be referred to the disciplinary body for 
investigation, whether or not the referral is mentioned in the opinion. Even 
when prosecutorial misconduct is not sufficient to require reversal of a 
conviction, if a court sees fit to comment adversely on a prosecutor's conduct, 
it should also refer the matter to the disciplinary body for 
investigation.

An 
inextricable rule of this character would create its own danger in that the 
appellate court might be reluctant to reverse if the necessities of disciplinary 
review would automatically follow. It is apparent within the heavy volume of 
prosecutorial misconduct complaints that not even in a small percentage of total 
cases providing a finding of fault (not necessarily reversible error) was any 
disciplinary reference by the court made.

Perhaps the only 
meaningful substitute for compensation would be the application of Hammurabi's 
Code, 1792 to 1750 B.C., where White and Mayor would spend thirty-eight days in 
the Park County jail as prisoners without access to a court and while their 
families, if any, wait without funds or home for some other bureaucratic 
majordomo to end the incarceration. It should be recognized that we write at a 
time where economic harm responsibility can be asserted painfully against 
attorneys under a Rule 11 assessment. See Kapco Mfg. Co., Inc. v. C & O 
Enterprises, Inc., 886 F.2d 1485 (7th Cir. 1989), where counsel failed in 
defense of his $46,780.07 Rule 11 penalty on the basis of a family's contended 
needs for their "children in college." Compare, however, Freeman v. Myers, 191 
Ill. App.3d 223, 138 Ill.Dec. 419, 547 N.E.2d 586 (1989), which shows how this 
non-responsibility for irresponsibility has wandered. Counsel, by deliberately 
ignoring court direction, incited a mistrial. The trial court, upon granting the 
mistrial, also granted attorney's fees to the other litigant. The appellate 
court in reversal, even though finding the misconduct to have been a violation 
of the court order, stated:

Such a sanction [awarded 
attorney's fees] could have a dangerous chilling effect upon an attorney's 
ability to represent his client. Trial tactics should not be constrained with 
the fear a mistake or vigorous advocacy could result in severe financial 
penalty. There may be cases where it would be difficult to judge between 
mistaken tactics and deliberate and premeditated conduct. * * * Additionally, in 
clearly intentional situations a court may be able to fashion appropriate relief 
pursuant to contempt proceedings.

Freeman, 138 Ill.Dec. at 
422, 547 N.E.2d  at 589.

5 Prosecutorial immunity 
can only be dated to 1896 or twenty-five years after the enactment of the 1871 
Ku Klux Klan Act, Act of April 20, 1871, chapter 22, § 1, 17 Stat. 13 (codified 
at 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1982)). The initiating case was Griffith v. Slinkard, 146 
Ind. 117, 44 N.E. 1001 (1896). See Imbler, 424 U.S.  at 421, 96 S. Ct.  at 990 and 
Kreimer, The Source of Law in Civil Rights Actions: Some Old Light on Section 
1988, 133 U.Pa.L.Rev. 601, 609, n. 35 (1985). For this very obvious reason, a 
reconstruction by historical analysis of immunities in the application of 
Section 1983 has clear invalidity. See Coleman, 42 U.S.C. § 1988: A 
Congressionally-Mandated Approach to the Construction of Section 1983, 19 
Ind.L.Rev. 665, 677 (1986), which states that "[n]owhere in the debates 
accompanying the passage of the Ku Klux Klan act of 1871 did members of Congress 
state that common law was incorporated into the 1871 Act. The Court has 
nevertheless attempted to deduce a rationale for implying such incorporation." 
See also Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 93, 103 S. Ct. 1625, 1659, 75 L. Ed. 2d 632 
(1983) (O'Connor, J., dissenting). Coleman, supra, 19 Ind.L.Rev. at 691, 
discerns "from the crazy-guilt interplay of policy, common law, and the purposes 
of section 1983 that the Court in the immunity cases has engaged in the creation 
of common law." The English law has long since excised the inequality of the 
citizen against his public official. Dicey, The Law of the Constitution 189 (8th 
ed. 1915) (quoted in Jaffe, Suits Against Governments and Officers: Damage 
Actions, 77 Harv.L. Rev. 209, 215 (1963)). See also Gray, supra, 47 Cal.L.Rev. 
303.

In 
current sarcasm - but accuracy - for so-called historical analysis, see Massey, 
The Jurisprudence of Poetic License, 1989 Duke L.J. 1047 (1989).

6 Use of the motion to 
dismiss to dispose of absolute or qualified immunity cases provides its own 
singular disability. The record, as developed, is singularly unsatisfactory to 
either factually justify trial court decision or to provide protection to the 
accused official from what may be unsubstantiated allegations. The author in 
Kinports, Qualified Immunity in Section 1983 Cases: The Unanswered Questions, 23 
Ga.L.Rev. 597, 599-600 (1989), in recognition of the entire problem of court 
developed immunity to require a reasoned application, approached this 
problem:

On a procedural level, 
Harlow [v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S. Ct. 2727, 73 L. Ed. 2d 396 (1982)] 
should not be interpreted as jettisoning years of judicial experience in dealing 
with comparable issues: Like other affirmative defenses, therefore, qualified 
immunity is something the defendant should be required to plead and prove. 
Similarly, the courts should treat claims of qualified immunity like other 
pretrial motions and should afford the plaintiff an opportunity to conduct 
limited discovery relevant to the qualified immunity analysis before ruling in 
favor of the defendant on that issue.

Thoughtful authority has 
followed this view. Maxey By Maxey v. Fulton, 890 F.2d 279 (10th Cir. 1989); 
Gomez v. City of Nashua, N.H., 126 F.R.D. 432 (D.N.H. 1989). In Maxey By Maxey, 
890 F.2d  at 282, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals discerned that Mitchell, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S. Ct. 2806, 86 L. Ed. 2d 411 did not "sweep so broadly" to deny 
proper discovery. "[D]iscovery is permissible" for which it is "`narrowly 
tailored to uncover only those facts needed to rule on the immunity claim * * 
*.'" Maxey By Maxey, 890 F.2d  at 282-83 (quoting Lion Boulos v. Wilson, 834 F.2d 504, 507-08 (5th Cir. 1987)). How much more satisfying this present case would 
be if we had an adequate evidentiary base where the prosecuting attorney and 
parole officer testified under oath in cross-examination as to why they did what 
they did in securing the arrest and continuing the confinement of Cooney, when 
he had done nothing wrong for which that result was even arguably 
justified.

We 
now need to determine if we have abandoned the principle stated by the United 
States Supreme Court over a century ago, to regress to a present result which is 
antithetical to the basic notion of public accountability on which our 
government is premised.

"No man in this country 
is so high that he is above the law. No officer of the law may set that law at 
defiance with impunity. All the officers of the government, from the highest to 
the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it."

Kinports, supra, 23 
Ga.L.Rev. at 610-11 (quoting United States v. Lee, 16 Otto 196, 106 U.S. 196, 
220, 1 S. Ct. 240, 27 L. Ed. 171 (1882)).

To this end, Harlow and 
its progeny should be read to deny qualified immunity to a public official who 
is guilty of acting in violation of the Constitution if she actually realized 
that her conduct was unconstitutional, or if the reasonable public official 
acting under the same circumstances would have recognized the 
unconstitutionality of that conduct. In addition, this affirmative defense 
should be available only if the defendant is able to establish the requisite 
elements of the defense, and only after the plaintiff is given a reasonable 
opportunity to conduct the discovery necessary to support her opposition to the 
defendant's claim of immunity. This accommodation of the competing 
considerations will shield those public officials deserving of protection from 
"insubstantial lawsuits," while at the same time ensuring that government 
officials may not "with impunity discharge their duties in a way that is known 
to them to violate the United States Constitution or in a manner that they 
should know transgresses a clearly established constitutional rule."

Kinports, supra, 23 
Ga.L.Rev. at 661-62 (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 814, 102 S. Ct. 2727, 2736, 73 L. Ed. 2d 396 (1982) and Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 507, 98 S. Ct. 2894, 2911, 57 L. Ed. 2d 895 (1978)).

7 For the information of 
the reader, I judicially notice what the criminal file, No. 3035, Park County, 
Wyoming, shows as facts known to the probation personnel and file information in 
the possession of the prosecutor.

Russ Cooney was charged 
in a December 1983 criminal complaint involving multiple checks written with 
"insufficient funds" in an aggregate amount sufficient to constitute a felony 
when totalling more than $500. He was returned by extradition from Colorado and 
the Information was filed August 22, 1984. Arraigned in September, he appeared 
before the court and entered a guilty plea. On January 24, 1985, he was 
sentenced apparently following a plea agreement. By then, much of the bad check 
indebtedness had been paid, leaving only $446.92 remaining.

Cooney was sentenced to a 
term of five years under W.S. 7-13-203 (1977) as probation before sentence and 
restitution of the remaining $446.92. The importance to him of the W.S. 7-13-203 
(1977) probationary process is that "[a]t any time after the expiration of one 
(1) year from the date of the original parole, the court shall have the power in 
its discretion to terminate parole and finally discharge the person and annul 
the verdict or plea of guilty." This presentence probationary arrangement has 
the effect of avoidance of a conviction for a felony for the individual to avoid 
loss of citizenship and associated adverse effects including federal firearm 
possession exposure. Obviously, it was of great moment to Cooney that he comply 
with the probationary requirements to protect his future career and maintain his 
family of his wife and small child. Actually, following dismissal of the 
revocation by hearing April 21, 1986, which is the subject of this civil damage 
suit, an early petition for discharge was filed by the Department of Probation 
and Parole and followed by an order entered December 18, 1989 "that said 
defendant, Russ Cooney, be and he is hereby granted a full and complete 
discharge from probation in this matter."

Cooney was a drilling rig 
deck hand and, at sentence, was living in Worland and employed by Corbin Well 
Service. Two payments were made on the restitution order as mailed from Riverton 
where his probation file had been transferred because of his work status. On 
August 12, 1985, Chris White, for the county attorney's office in Park County, 
filed a first petition for revocation alleging restitution payment of only 
$225.00, leaving a remaining balance of about $221.92. The petition for hearing 
was set on a notice of motion scheduled to be heard November 4, 1985. The 
Riverton case worker was contacted by her superior and arrangements were made 
between her and Cooney for payment of that balance. At about the same time, 
Cooney also made arrangements for his transfer of residence to Bairoil, where he 
was employed. He had been working on a rig at Bairoil and commuting from 
Riverton, a distance of approximately eighty miles each way. Finding housing 
available, he wanted to move to Bairoil to be with his family instead of the 
commuting arrangements. Bairoil is in Sweetwater County, but is served by the 
parole office in Rawlins, Carbon County, the closest adjoining town. The case 
file was transferred to Rawlins in October. On October 15th, the Riverton agent 
received a call from Cooney in which she believed he said his address was at a 
box number in LaBarge. She stated that she furnished the Rawlins office that 
information.

As 
a result of that mistake however made, the case file was transferred from 
Rawlins to Evanston, 200 miles away, as the servicing office for LaBarge in 
Lincoln County. Apparently, the August petition to revoke just went away and, on 
November 6, 1985, it was officially dismissed by another member of the county 
attorney's staff.

What then occurred 
between and among the Rawlins, Evanston and Riverton offices of probation and 
parole and Chris White, assistant prosecutor in Cody, is undisclosed in any 
record, except what was alleged in the present pleadings. We do know that Cooney 
was told to wait for contact from Rawlins personnel and that on January 29, 
1986, Riverton received two monthly reports with advice from Cooney that no one 
from Rawlins had contacted him. The agent sent additional report forms which 
were completed by Cooney and mailed to the Rawlins office. Cooney then got 
permission from the Rawlins office to move to Montana since his job at Bairoil 
had terminated. Following the layoff, he found available work in Montana for 
which permission to move was requested and granted (by the Rawlins 
office).

What we do not know is 
when both White and the Evanston probation officer, Mayor, knew that Cooney was 
in Bairoil and making regular and proper efforts to comply with the requirements 
of his probation. Cooney brings this case by alleging that on February 7, 1986, 
before he was arrested and when the petition for revocation was filed and 
thereafter thrown in jail for thirty-eight days, both White and Mayor knew what 
he was doing and where. It is apparent from the transcript of the probation 
revocation hearing that was held April 21, 1986 following arrest of March 15, 
1986, that White and his boss, the county attorney, were taking a tough 
defensive stand in attempting to excuse and justify what occurred despite the 
known actual facts.

The 
petition for revocation and bench warrant form designated Uinta County 
(Evanston), dated January 29, 1986 and filed February 7, 1986, included the 
following attestation:

Robert Mayor, Probation 
and Parole Agent, Department of Probation and Parole, being duly sworn according 
to law, deposes and says that he is the petitioner herein; that he has read the 
above and foregoing Petition; that he knows the contents thereof; and that the 
same is true as he verily believes.

And 
in substance for revocation, the petition stated:

3. That said Defendant 
has failed to maintain contact with the Wyoming Department of Probation and 
Parole and has changed his address without prior notification.

4. That the Park County 
Attorney's office has been notified of the above probation violations and has 
recommended that the Defendant's probation be revoked.

This petition, prepared 
at the direction of White, was executed by Mayor and mailed to Park County as 
the result of which the bench warrant was issued and Cooney was consequently 
arrested in Bairoil and jailed in Cody over 250 miles distant.

Unquestionably, paragraph 
three of the petition was completely false. The factual issue denied resolution 
by this record was what occurred between Mayor and White before January 29, 1986 
and thereafter before February 7, 1986 and did either or both know where Cooney 
was and what he was doing as information clearly available to both the Rawlins 
and Riverton parole offices. If they did know, I ask why was the perjurious form 
signed and why was continued action taken for probation revocation? Additionally 
on this record, one wonders why the same form of an order to show cause was not 
used as had previously been prepared rather than the bench warrant.

8 Nothing of record or in 
available literature establishes a normal practice. Cf. Gless, Nebraska 
Probation Revocation: A Primer, 68 Neb. L.Rev. 516 (1989). The usual practice is 
by petition to revoke and notice to appear. "Most alleged violators appear 
voluntarily in response to the notice to appear." Id. at 521.

9 Obviously, the intended 
sort of fairness addressed in Knobel, where incarceration was limited to eight 
days before the bond was established and the probationer released, is not found 
here.

10 In review of the many 
current prosecutorial misconduct absolute immunity cases, it is incomprehensible 
to me why the charged individual permits defenses on a motion to dismiss or 
judgment on the pleadings so that answering statements are not at least 
established in the record as a factual defense to the allegation of misbehavior. 
In this case, either or both the prosecutor and the probation officer may have 
some answers to the conspiracy to perpetrate perjury which caused not only 
arrest, but also retention of the innocent victim. By emplacing defense on a 
motion to dismiss immunity, further perjury may have been avoided, but the other 
side of the story is lost from the factual record.

I 
do not find any conceivable excuse for the retention of Cooney in jail for 
thirty-eight days except ignorance, stupidity or simple malicious wrongdoing, 
but there may be some justification for the action initially taken as a result 
that perhaps only one if not both of the perpetrators are not perjurers and 
liars or not both. It may have even been a case of negligence and bad memory. 
Within the nature of the record and the majority opinion, we are required to 
assume the worst and will never know, factually, otherwise. I cannot imagine an 
attorney permitting decision on a record where there is unchallenged attacks on 
his character and honor to remain unanswered by permitting the intervention of 
the unwholesome armament of absolute immunity (unless the allegations are true). 
Ignored were both the Wyoming statute and also the United States constitutional 
Gagnon right to preliminary hearing and bond.

11 Much or even most of the 
foregoing may be subject to answer or response, but the use of immunity as a 
defense rather than a denial of wrongdoing denies assessment of a factual 
dispute.

12            
a) A person commits 
perjury if, while under a lawfully administered oath or affirmation, he 
knowingly testifies falsely or makes a false affidavit, certificate, 
declaration, deposition or statement, in a judicial, legislative or 
administrative proceeding in which an oath or affirmation may be required by 
law, touching a matter material to a point in question.

(b) Perjury is a felony 
punishable by imprisonment for not more than five (5) years, a fine of not more 
than five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), or both.

W.S. 6-5-301.

(a) A public servant or 
public officer commits a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than five 
thousand dollars ($5,000.00), if, with intent to obtain a pecuniary benefit or 
maliciously to cause harm to another, he knowingly:

(i) Commits an 
unauthorized act relating to his official duties;

(ii) Refrains from 
performing a duty imposed upon him by law; or

(iii) Violates any 
statute relating to his official duties.

(b) A public officer 
commits a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not more than seven hundred fifty 
dollars ($750.00) if he intentionally fails to perform a duty in the manner and 
within the time prescribed by law.

W.S. 6-5-107.

(a) A person is an 
accessory after the fact if, with intent to hinder, delay or prevent the 
discovery, detection, apprehension, prosecution, detention, conviction or 
punishment or another for the commission of a crime, he renders assistance to 
the person.

(b) An accessory after 
the fact commits:

(i) A felony punishable 
by imprisonment for not more than three (3) years, a fine of not more than three 
thousand dollars ($3,000.00), or both, if the crime is a felony and the person 
acting as an accessory is not a relative of the person committing the 
crime;

(ii) A misdemeanor 
punishable by imprisonment for not more than six (6) months, a fine of not more 
than seven hundred fifty dollars ($750.00), or both, if:

(A) The crime is a felony 
and the person acting as an accessory is a relative of the person committing the 
crime;

(B) The crime is a 
misdemeanor and the person acting as an accessory is not a relative of the 
person committing the crime; or

(C) The principal is a 
minor.

(iii) No violation of the 
crime is a misdemeanor and the person acting as an accessory is a relative of 
the person committing the crime.

W.S. 6-5-202.

(b) A person commits a 
misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than one (1) year, a fine of 
not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00), or both, if, by threats or 
force, he obstructs or impedes the administration of justice in a 
court.

W.S. 
6-5-305(b).

(a) A person is guilty of 
false imprisonment if he knowingly and unlawfully restrains another so as to 
interfere substantially with his liberty.

(b) False imprisonment is 
a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for not more than one (1) year, a fine 
of not more than one thousand dollars ($1,000.00), or both.

W.S. 6-2-203.

(a) A person is guilty of 
conspiracy to commit a crime if he agrees with one (1) or more persons that they 
or one (1) or more of them will commit a crime and one (1) or more of them does 
an overt act to effect the objective of the agreement.

(b) A person is not 
liable under this section if after conspiring he withdraws from the conspiracy 
and thwarts its success under circumstances manifesting voluntary and complete 
renunciation of his criminal intention.

(c) A conspiracy may be 
prosecuted in the county where the agreement was entered into, or in any county 
where any act evidencing the conspiracy or furthering the purpose took 
place.

W.S. 6-1-303.

(a) A person who 
knowingly aids or abets in the commission of a felony, or who counsels, 
encourages, hires, commands or procures a felony to be committed, is an 
accessory before the fact.

(b) An accessory before 
the fact:

(i) May be indicted, 
informed against, tried and convicted as if he were a principal;

(ii) May be indicted, 
informed against, tried and convicted either before or after and whether or not 
the principal offender is indicted, informed against, tried or convicted; 
and

(iii) Upon conviction, is 
subject to the same punishment and penalties as are prescribed by law for the 
punishment of the principal.

W.S. 6-1-201.

13 An exception is found in 
Ramsey v. Board of Professional Responsibility of Supreme Court of Tennessee, 
771 S.W.2d 116 (Tenn.), cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 110 S. Ct. 278, 107 L. Ed. 2d 258 (1989), where the district attorney was suspended for 180 days, with 135 
days of that sanction suspended. The case involved fighting with and contempt 
for the trial judge, but nothing as serious as alleged here.

14 Two interesting facets 
of the Blake opinion are immediately apparent. First, the case was not a civil 
rights action, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in appellate submission since that issue had 
not been submitted to the jury within the verdict obtained. Additionally, in the 
opinion, this court made reference that "[t]he evidence is in dispute * * *." 
Blake, 651 P.2d  at 1098. This is directly contrary to our normal appellate rule 
where, with the entry of a jury verdict, the evidence supporting the successful 
participant should only be considered. In Blake, the prosecutor and her friend, 
the investigator, were extremely angry because of one adverse jury verdict by 
acquittal and another by mistrial. Giving vent to anger, damaged ego and adverse 
professional reflection, a victim was sought to assuage anger and erase a blight 
on her reputation. Unfortunately, the victim was Thomas Rupe who had served on 
the juries. The Wyoming statute then in effect provided a near automatic pardon 
result after successful conduct of criminal sentence confinement. Any casual 
review of the Wyoming statutes would have alerted the prosecutor to the state of 
Wyoming. Unfortunately, however, Rupe, who had once been convicted, 
appropriately answered the questions asked that he was clearly entitled to sit 
as a juror since, with pardon, his citizenship had been restored.

15            
a) A lawyer having 
knowledge that another lawyer has committed a violation of the Rules of 
Professional Conduct that raises a substantial question as to that lawyer's 
honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects, shall inform 
the appropriate professional authority.

(b) A lawyer having 
knowledge that a judge has committed a violation of applicable rules of judicial 
conduct that raises a substantial question as to the judge's fitness for office 
shall inform the appropriate authority.

(c) This Rule does not 
require disclosure of information otherwise protected by Rule 1.6.

Rule 8.3, Rules for 
Professional Conduct for Attorneys at Law.

16 What this means is that 
the blase justification for denial of economic responsibility cannot be 
sustained against the prosecuting attorney unless explanation is provided why 
the alternatives of criminal prosecution or disciplinary action were not 
pursued. Admitting in pleading that the prosecutor may have suborned perjury 
provides a heavy burden of other responsibilities to the membership of the 
office of the attorney general in performance of correlative responsibility as 
an employee of the law enforcement executive branch and as a lawyer within each 
participant's disciplinary responsibilities as established by the rule adopted 
by this tribunal. There is just nothing quasi-judicial about committing breaches 
of legal ethics or directly participating in the commission of perjury. A motion 
to dismiss is ill-mannered to provide an escape from all responsibilities for 
contended malfeasance, malice or criminal conduct.

In 
defining this absolution from responsibility for misconduct as quasi-judicial, 
we are faced with a strongly stated characterization of American law by Gray who 
was a Canadian:

The law relating to 
judges is at the root of many of the problems afflicting the law of officer's 
tort liability. The judge has truly been the pampered child of the law, for he 
is among those privileged few who are allowed to fulfill their duties not only 
stupidly, or negligently but wilfully, maliciously, corruptly or just plain 
dishonestly, yet escape liability to those damaged by his conduct. A cynic might 
be forgiven for pointing out just who made this law. However, it would be to 
give the judges much less than their due to suggest that self-protection is the 
clue which explains the theory of judicial immunity.

Before attempting an 
explanation of this special status, it is wise to note there are limits to it. 
First of all it is not the personal immunity of the King, who is in fact 
absolutely immune from the reach of the courts for any and all tortious conduct. 
Rather the privilege of the judge extends only to acts done in his judicial 
capacity. So if, on the street, he punches a citizen in the nose, or runs him 
down in his automobile, if he has another maliciously prosecuted, or if he keeps 
a leaky dam that floods his neighbor, the judge, unlike the King, will be liable 
for damages. Second, even if he is acting in a judgelike capacity, the matter of 
jurisdiction may arise, depending on what category of judge he be, to dilute his 
immunity.

Finally, while it is 
little solace to the individual injured thereby, the judge is open to possible 
criminal prosecution and liable to impeachment or removal for his mala fide or 
corrupt acts.

However, it is ordinarily 
a complete answer to a complaint charging tortious conduct to a judge for him to 
answer, "I am a judge and the act complained of was done while I acted as a 
judge within my proper jurisdiction." Suggested rationale of this sweeping 
immunity are numerous. Prof. Edward Jennings' leading article suggests no less 
than nine reasons that have combined to establish it. Yet, none are truly 
satisfactory as explanations of why a person alleging injury by a corrupt act 
should be barred from compensation without any consideration on the merits of 
the case.

Gray, supra, 47 
Cal.L.Rev. at 309-10 (footnotes omitted and citing Jennings, Tort Liability of 
Administrative Officers, 21 Minn.L.Rev. 263 (1937)).

17 The delineation of 
immunity's relation to statism is not original with me. See White v. State, 784 P.2d 1313 (Wyo. 1989), Urbigkit, J., dissenting. In addition to law journal 
references, see Davidson v. O'Lone, 752 F.2d 817, 839 (3rd Cir. 1984), cert. 
granted 471 U.S. 1134, 105 S. Ct. 2673, 86 L. Ed. 2d 692 (1985), aff'd 474 U.S. 344, 106 S. Ct. 668, 88 L. Ed. 2d 677 (1986), Gibbons, J., dissenting. See also 
Meachum v. Fano, 427 U.S. 215, 230, 96 S. Ct. 2532, 2541, 49 L. Ed. 2d 451, reh'g 
denied 429 U.S. 873, 97 S. Ct. 191, 50 L. Ed. 2d 155 (1976), Stevens, J., 
dissenting. Man is not a creature of the state; the state is a creature of 
man.

18 In recognizing the 
extended discussion of the majority about the state tort claims act, although 
not completely in agreement, I abjure that subject in professing that a right to 
correct constitutional violations exists independent of any confined statutory 
process relating primarily to recovery for injury caused by negligent 
misconduct.

19 Historical review 
demonstrates that development of state remedies was delayed both by availability 
of the federal Section 1983 remedy and by the innate inaction of most state 
court systems. Some states such as Hawaii and New Jersey reached for an answer 
to provide a similar result by recognition of the general invalidity of the 
preclusionary immunities as a total justice denial device. Other states move 
forward legislatively by a more realistic general tort claims act. Generally, 
however, the action was federal where both the remedy and attorney's fees could 
be obtained.

20 The concept presented 
here has similarities to but is different from the governmental-sovereign 
immunity addressed in White, 784 P.2d 1313. White did not consider depravation 
of a constitutionally protected right, but contrarily addressed the 
extinguishment of any remedy for injury. Here, the right is constitutional and 
the consequent inquiry is requirement to provide a structure for 
protection.

21 It could be 
said that the state needs an effective weed killer which should be the Wyoming 
Constitution as enforced by the Wyoming judiciary.

22 It is a curious fact to recognize 
that in the majority opinion in Will, 109 S. Ct. 2304, no cognizance was taken of 
the decision in the state court that the state enjoyed no common-law immunity 
for violation of its own constitution. This subject of decision was recognized 
only by Justice Brennan in dissent. Justice Stevens, in dissent, additionally 
discerned:

Legal doctrines often flourish long 
after their raison d'etre has perished. The doctrine of sovereign immunity rests 
on the fictional premise that the "King can do no wrong." Even though the plot 
to assassinate James I in 1605, the execution of Charles I in 1649, and the 
Colonists' reaction to George III's stamp tax made rather clear the fictional 
character of the doctrine's underpinnings, British subjects found a gracious 
means of compelling the King to obey the law rather than simply repudiating the 
doctrine itself. They held his advisors and his agents responsible.

Id. at 2320-21 (footnotes 
omitted).

I am not unaware of the 
relationship of the Section 1983 claim against Mayor to Will, 109 S. Ct. 2304. 
That issue is not here before us since summary judgment was denied in the trial 
court and an appellate issue on that basis is not presented. Cf. Buseck v. 
State, 785 P.2d 855 (Wyo. 1990). The prosecuting attorney is not a state 
official within the office of local election and county responsibilities. Crane 
v. State of Texas, 759 F.2d 412, aff'd as modified 766 F.2d 193 (5th Cir.), 
cert. denied 474 U.S. 1020, 106 S. Ct. 570, 88 L. Ed. 2d 555 (1985); Orso v. City 
& County of Honolulu, 56 Haw. 241, 534 P.2d 489 (1975); Kovarik v. Banner 
County, 192 Neb. 816, 224 N.W.2d 761 (1975). Will does not apply to the 
predominate issue of this appeal. See W.S. 18-3-301 through 18-3-303 and compare 
W.S. 9-1-801 through 8-1-811. In Park County, the office holder was an assistant 
county attorney with his superior elected as a county official under the 
provence of W.S. 18-3-301. I am also aware of the fact that the initiating 
complaint in this case pleaded essentially a Section 1983 federal right of 
action and only made claim under state law through the state tort claims act, 
W.S. 1-39-101 through 1-39-112. The answer is simplistic but direct. Allegations 
of the complaint touch the subject of guarantees afforded by the Wyoming 
Constitution and the defense came on a motion to dismiss. Cooney should have 
been given an opportunity to replead to state more forcefully and directly a 
claim requesting damages for the alleged violation of his constitutional 
rights.

23 It is easy to agree that no personal 
liability should lie for innocent errors in judgment, nor is there any 
indication in the cases that judges [or prosecuting attorneys] ever have been 
subject to liability for this type of injury. By definition, the world over, 
judges [or prosecuting attorneys], acting within their jurisdiction, are allowed 
an honest mistake. But the explanation of immunity for corrupt acts is a 
distinct and different matter, hanging by an ancient thread that is as out of 
place in the cloth of modern democracy as the theory of sovereign immunity of 
government has recently been discovered to be.

Gray, supra, 47 Cal.L.Rev. at 310-11.

24 In Blake, 651 P.2d 1096, the 
innocent juror had been maliciously damaged. I suffer from no particular 
distress if the insurance companies involved had been called to pay for the 
tortious damages which had been appropriately assessed by the jury verdict. It 
is also fair to assume that the prosecutor in that case has not now to date and 
will not in the future file criminal actions against jurors without bothering to 
read the applicable statutes and to get transcripts of proceedings to determine 
suitably what had occurred and whether any factual basis for the vented anger 
and ego assault could be justified. She also is no longer in this state in legal 
practice. Wyoming State Bar Directory (1990).

25 "We are satisfied that the touchstone 
authority for the basis of our disposition of this appeal rests in Imbler v. 
Pachtman, * * *." Blake, 651 P.2d  at 1099.

 

26 It is "well settled that a statute 
should not be considered in derogation of the common law unless it expressly so 
states or the result is imperatively required from the nature of the enactment." 
Bauers v. Heisel, 361 F.2d 581, 587 (3rd Cir. 1966), cert. denied 386 U.S. 1021, 
87 S. Ct. 1367, 18 L. Ed. 2d 457 (1967) (accord Mobile Gas Service Corp. v. Federal 
Power Commission, 215 F.2d 883 (3rd Cir. 1954), cert. granted 348 U.S. 950, 75 S. Ct. 446, 99 L. Ed. 742, cert. granted 348 U.S. 950, 75 S. Ct. 447, 99 L. Ed. 742 
(1955), aff'd, 350 U.S. 332, 76 S. Ct. 373, 100 L. Ed. 373 
(1956)).

 

27 A good faith argument that a federal court is so 
enabled would need to place into the context of such a result the principles 
established by Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Electric Cooperative, 356 U.S. 525, 78 S. Ct. 893, 2 L. Ed. 2d 953, reh'g denied 357 U.S. 933, 78 S. Ct. 1366, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1375 (1958); Guaranty Trust Co. of New York v. York, 326 U.S. 99, 65 S. Ct. 1464, 
89 L. Ed. 2079, reh'g denied 326 U.S. 806, 66 S. Ct. 7, 90 L. Ed. 491 (1945); and 
Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64, 58 S. Ct. 817, 82 L. Ed. 1188 (1938), as 
well as those which argue for comity.

28 Supplementing the statement, the 
court, in a comprehensive footnote, stated:

It seems uncontroverted that 42 
U.S.C. § 1983 does not provide a statutory vehicle for the enforcement of State 
constitutional rights. See Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 535, 101 S. Ct. 1908, 
1912, 68 L. Ed. 2d 420 (1981); Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 700-701, 96 S. Ct. 1155, 1160-1161, 47 L. Ed. 2d 405 (1976). There was, therefore, no statutory 
vehicle available, at the time of her discharge, pursuant to which the plaintiff 
could seek redress for the alleged violation of her State constitutional 
rights.

The absence of a statutory remedy 
for the violation of constitutional rights cannot absolutely and in all cases 
bar judicial protection of those rights. The Supreme Court of the United States 
has recognized this principle and, in the absence of special factors or an 
explicit alternative statutory remedy, has allowed direct actions to protect 
rights under the Federal Constitution. See Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 18-19, 
100 S. Ct. 1468, 1471, 64 L. Ed. 2d 15 (1980); Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 
242-243, 99 S. Ct. 2264, 2275-2276, 60 L. Ed. 2d 846 (1979); Bivens v. Six Unknown 
Named Agents of the Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 396-397, 91 S. Ct. 1999, 2004-2005, 29 L. Ed. 2d 619 (1971).

Phillips, 459 N.E.2d  at 457 
n. 4. Also cited in support was Cooper v. Nutley Sun Printing Co., 36 N.J. 189, 
197, 175 A.2d 639 (1961).

29Even though the revocation of parole 
is not a part of the criminal prosecution, we held that the loss of liberty 
entailed is a serious deprivation requiring that the parolee be accorded due 
process. Specifically, we held that a parolee is entitled to two hearings, one a 
preliminary hearing at the time of his arrest and detention to determine whether 
there is probable cause to believe that he has committed a violation of his 
parole, and the other a somewhat more comprehensive hearing prior to the making 
of the final revocation decision.

Petitioner does not contend 
that there is any difference relevant to the guarantee of due process between 
the revocation of parole and the revocation of probation, nor do we perceive 
one.

Gagnon, 411 U.S.  at 781-82, 93 S. Ct.  at 
1759.

30 The broad academic differentiation 
of remedies where the injunction is available to deter invasion of 
constitutional rights by the prosecutor, Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 85 S. Ct. 1116, 14 L. Ed. 2d 22 (1965), but the remedial remedy of damage considering 
Imbler, remains unclear in American jurisprudence. The anomalies do not there 
end. The United States Supreme Court, in finding that a public defender did not 
exist in 1871, provides no immunity. Tower v. Glover, 467 U.S. 914, 104 S. Ct. 2820, 81 L. Ed. 2d 758 (1984). Likewise, although not generally observed, there 
was no prosecutorial immunity in 1871 either since first created years later in 
Yaselli v. Goff, 12 F.2d 396 (2nd Cir.), cert. granted 273 U.S. 677, 47 S. Ct. 101, 71 L. Ed. 835 (1926), aff'd 275 U.S. 503, 48 S. Ct. 155, 72 L. Ed. 395 (1927) 
and for the United States constitutional right action by Imbler at a date one 
century later. Another interesting anomaly is that the state action requirement 
for Section 1983 can be maintained even though the only state actor is the trial 
judge alleged to have conspired with the litigants. Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24, 101 S. Ct. 183, 66 L. Ed. 2d 185, cert. denied 449 U.S. 1021, 101 S. Ct. 588, 66 L. Ed. 2d 483 (1980). As such, the judge is exposed in all regards like his 
co-conspirators to some extent including the requirement to be a witness, except 
from being named as a party and being subjected to repayment responsibilities 
from the injury resulting from his conspiracy. Sykes v. State of California 
(Dept. of Motor Vehicles), 497 F.2d 197 (9th Cir. 1974). What is consequently 
presented is the anomaly that the prosecutor is given immunity from 
conspiratorial denial of a person's civil rights, but the public defender is 
not. Apparently, if the public defender conspires with the prosecutor, the 
public defender is subject to a Section 1983 claim and the prosecutor is not. 
This dichotomy is overtly senseless and, as such, although conceptionally 
applicable to federal civil rights under Section 1983, should not be applied to 
state court defenses of the state constitutional guaranteed rights. This litany 
of unjustified absolution of official misconduct has an edge of acceptability 
that is singularly undefined.

31 The name of the AUSA, perhaps in the interest of his 
or more likely her sensibilities, was never given. No indication of attorney 
conduct reference to a disciplinary agency appears. Obviously, an immunity 
defense would have been asserted if a Bivens proceeding against this prosecutor 
had ever been instituted.

32 In historical perspective, as 
related in Davidson, 752 F.2d 817 (Gibbons, J., dissenting), the Civil Rights 
Act of 1871 was anesthetized by the United States Supreme Court as administered 
principally by White, 114 U.S. 307, 5 S. Ct. 923, 29 L. Ed. 199 and then finally 
come back to life sixty years later.

33 An observation made in Mitchell, 
472 U.S.  at 522-23, 105 S. Ct.  at 2813 that "the judicial process is largely 
self-correcting: procedural rules, appeals, and the possibility of collateral 
challenges obviate the need for damages actions to prevent unjust results" is 
undemonstrable in general occurrence as a nature of events in this country and 
clearly wrong here. Thirty-eight days in jail is proof of the erroneous 
observation. A most striking article is Greengard, Lawyer Discipline Today, 17 
Barrister 11 (1990). Every appellate judge and lawyer involved in attorney 
discipline should read this article.

34 In Barr, 360 U.S.  at 564-65, 79 S. Ct.  at 1336, the dilemma and weighing process was described:

We are called upon in this case to 
weigh in a particular context two considerations of high importance which now 
and again come into sharp conflict - on the one hand, the protection of the 
individual citizen against pecuniary damage caused by oppressive or malicious 
action on the part of officials of the Federal Government; and on the other, the 
protection of the public interest by shielding responsible governmental officers 
against the harassment and inevitable hazards of vindictive or ill-founded 
damage suits brought on account of action taken in the exercise of their 
official responsibilities.

One of the major 
curiosities of this entire academic exercise of reading the writings of the 
multitude of the jurists who deal in the merchandise of lawsuits is their 
paranoic like fear of claims or litigation against themselves to then be applied 
to other functionaries of the government establishment. It is a fear of being 
involved, not the comfort of being right. It is not unlike the supposition that 
the skilled surgeon for his own medical attention should go to a witch doctor or 
a medicine man, because of fear of the profession in which his skills have been 
entrusted. Observedly, it is no different from the predominating feature of the 
so-called medical malpractice insurance crisis, which has entered stage two of 
current time, where sincere and severe academic analysis reveals it is neither 
the cost of insurance nor the problem of patient recovery which magnifies the 
concern, but essentially the possibility, if not more than that of the filing of 
a lawsuit, whether well founded or not.

The unanswerable question that is 
created within the authenticated supposition is that the justice delivery system 
has no confidence in the merchandise of justice for which its existence is 
created to provide. Anybody in business in the era of this litigious society 
knows that litigation is an inconvenience, but the real concern is first, 
litigative costs (primarily attorney fees) and secondly, availability for resort 
if a judgment of substance might be lost. Why the businessman, the private 
professional individual and, for that matter, the automobile driver should be 
subject to exposure, but the publicly supported governmental official demands 
insulation and insolation has never been persuasively or cogently explained 
within the mass of conclusory comments justifying an expansion of statism at the 
price of individual rights.

 

35 The concept of Liberty Lobby, Inc. today finds 
almost no judicial approval in the state courts and certainly has been 
explicitly uninvited to the Wyoming adjudicatory system, although out-of-state 
lawyers continue to brief and argue Liberty Lobby, Inc. and Creighton without 
state authority and with undiscernible benefit. See Berner v. Caldwell, 543 So. 2d 686 (Ala. 1989) and Comment, Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc.: Federal 
Rules Decision or First Amendment Case?, 59 U.Colo.L.Rev. 933 
(1985).

36 An incomprehensible immorality and 
venality is demonstrable from the concepts:

The decision to initiate, maintain, 
or dismiss criminal charges is at the core of the prosecutorial function. These 
defendants allegedly used their prosecutorial powers to threaten McGruder into 
dismissing his damages suit. McGruder therefore argues that their activities 
were not those of a prosecutor seeking to punish and deter crime, but of an 
agent of the county seeking to intimidate a citizen in his exercise of 
constitutional rights. Such a motivation would be reprehensible and such threats 
abhorrent, but they do not lift the decision to maintain a criminal prosecution 
from the prosecutorial activities protected by Imbler. See Boyd v. Adams, 513 F.2d 83 (7th Cir. 1975) (anticipating Imbler test; dismissal of charges in 
return for release was within immunity).

Our language in Henzel v. 
Gerstein, 608 F.2d 654, 657 n. 4 (5th Cir. 1979), is not to the contrary. The 
prosecutor in that case allegedly acted with the same motive as Necaise and 
Henry - to intimidate Henzel into agreeing not to sue state officials. But the 
Henzel prosecutor's activities - conditioning parole on an agreement not to sue 
- were not those protected by Imbler. In contrast, Henry and Necaise sought to 
"persuade" with their prosecutorial power, and therefore remained within the 
field of their prosecutorial immunity.

McGruder, 733 F.2d  at 1148. 
This conduct would not fit comfortably without the Wyoming extortion statute. 
Perhaps a differentiated sense of legal ethics and criminal misconduct exists in 
other jurisdictions. Cf. United States v. Davis, 890 F.2d 1373 (7th Cir. 
1989).

37 This means to those cognizant of 
the First Amendment that the prosecutor cannot function unless he can hide his 
criminal, unethical or slothful actions from public review and only a lawsuit 
can be expected to provide a searching public review. Even more curious is the 
fact that the case involved the membership and immunity of the California Public 
Service Commission.

What Imbler, 424 U.S.  at 424-25, 96 S. Ct.  at 992 actually stated was:

The public trust of the prosecutor's 
office would suffer if he were constrained in making every decision by the 
consequences in terms of his own potential liability in a suit for damages. Such 
suits could be expected with some frequency, for a defendant often will 
transform his resentment at being prosecuted into the ascription of improper and 
malicious actions to the State's advocate. * * * Further, if the prosecutor 
could be made to answer in court each time such a person charged him with 
wrongdoing, his energy and attention would be diverted from the pressing duty of 
enforcing the criminal law.

 

38 There are fringe cases, e.g. filed before trial, 
Ashelman, 793 F.2d 1072, or filed after ultimate acquittal for retribution or 
revenge, Joseph, 795 F.2d 549.

39 Illustrative of a time zone 
pretrial case is Rex, 753 F.2d at 843-44:

A prosecutor is absolutely immune 
only for those activities "intimately associated" with "initiating a prosecution 
[and] presenting the State's case." Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 430-31, 96 S. Ct. 984, 995, 47 L. Ed. 2d 128 (1976). Absolute prosecutorial immunity extends 
no further than necessary to protect those activities. See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 
457 U.S. 800, 811, 102 S. Ct. 2727, 2735, 73 L. Ed. 2d 396 (1982). Consequently, a 
prosecutor acting as an investigator has only qualified immunity. See id. 457 U.S.  at 811 n. 16, 102 S. Ct.  at 811 n. 16. Although identifying those acts 
entitled to absolute immunity is not always easy, the determinative factor is 
"advocacy" because that is the prosecutor's main function and the one most akin 
to his quasi-judicial role. See, e.g., Lerwill v. Joslin, 712 F.2d 435, 437 
(10th Cir. 1983); Gray v. Bell, 712 F.2d 490, 500-02 (D.C. Cir. 1983), cert. 
denied, 465 U.S. 1100, 104 S. Ct. 1593, 80 L. Ed. 2d 125 (1984).

In Atkins v. Lanning, 556 F.2d 485, 
488 (10th Cir. 1977), this court distinguished between the prosecutor's 
quasi-judicial role warranting absolute immunity, and his "police-related" work 
not accorded such immunity. We there cited cases making this distinction: 
Hampton v. City of Chicago, 484 F.2d 602, 609 (7th Cir. 1973) (planning a raid 
to obtain evidence of criminal activity not covered by prosecutorial immunity), 
cert. denied, 415 U.S. 917, 94 S. Ct. 1413, 39 L. Ed. 2d 471 (1974); Apton v. 
Wilson, 506 F.2d 83, 91 (D.C. Cir. 1974) (prosecutorial immunity not available 
when a civil rights claim "focuses on a prosecutor's actions in the course of 
directing police investigative activity"); and Weathers v. Ebert, 505 F.2d 514, 
517 (4th Cir. 1974) ("Making an arrest is a police function, not a judicial one. 
. . ."), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 975, 96 S. Ct. 1480, 47 L. Ed. 2d 745 (1976). Other 
courts have held that the preliminary gathering of evidence which may blossom 
into a potential prosecution is investigatory activity receiving only a 
qualified immunity. McSurely v. McClellan, 697 F.2d 309, 320 (D.C. Cir. 1982). 
"[A] prosecutor who assists, directs or otherwise participates with, the police 
in obtaining evidence prior to an indictment undoubtedly is functioning more in 
his investigative capacity than in his quasi-judicial capacities. . . ." Marrero 
v. City of Hialeah, 625 F.2d 499, 505 (5th Cir. 1980).

See also Crane v. State of 
Texas, 759 F.2d 412, aff'd as modified 766 F.2d 193 (5th Cir.), cert. denied 474 U.S. 1020, 106 S. Ct. 570, 88 L. Ed. 2d 555 (1985) (which involved a practice of 
arresting for misdemeanors without issuance of a warrant) and Apton v. Wilson, 
506 F.2d 83 (D.C. Cir. 1974). A converse example is the post-conviction 
treatment and jail conditions addressed in Wahl, 773 F.2d 1169. See also Joseph, 
795 F.2d 549.

40 In reality, the Second Circuit 
Court of Appeals seems to have created the singular principle explained by 
variant statements of prosecutorial immunity without regard for criminality, 
morality or venality. Prosecutorial conduct is absolved by immunity. Lee is a 
good example of a different statement that prosecutorial misconduct is absolved 
by actual prosecution so no harm, no foul, whether criminal misconduct or 
not.

41 Reaching the absolutely outer reefs 
for claimed judicial immunity is found in the claimed details of conduct of 
Judge Arden Mays Merckle in the Florida case with a verdict for the judge which 
was reversed in favor of the plaintiff in Harper, 638 F.2d 848. The case teaches 
that even for a judge in a Section 1983 term, there can be conduct which is 
unacceptable and without immunity. See likewise Beard, 648 F.2d 1264 (although 
at a later date, Beard was essentially reversed by the Ninth Circuit Court of 
Appeals in Ashelman, 793 F.2d 1072).

Where a prosecutor may have 
caused criminal charges to be filed in order to further a civil suit in which he 
was involved, the conduct reached beyond absolute immunity. The court 
held:

Udall's alleged activities, unlike 
those of the prosecutor in Imbler, were performed to further a private purpose. 
His conduct, therefore, went beyond merely performing his official duties. Beard 
alleges that Udall caused the criminal charge to be filed in order to further 
the civil suit Udall had filed on Crabtree's behalf, and that he filed the 
criminal charges while knowing the charges were baseless. A prosecutor who faces 
a conflict of interest is in as poor a position to act impartially as a judge 
who predetermines a judicial proceeding. See Rankin [v. Howard], supra, [633 F.2d 844 (9th Cir. 1980), cert. denied 451 U.S. 939, 101 S. Ct. 2020, 68 L. Ed. 2d 326 (1981)]. Therefore, assuming Beard's allegations against Udall are true, we 
conclude that Udall was acting beyond the scope of his authority and thus does 
not enjoy absolute immunity.

Beard, 648 F.2d  at 1271 (footnote omitted). However, 
the morality expressed in the case did not last in the Ninth Circuit Court of 
Appeals. Ashelman, 793 F.2d 1072.

42 Conduct of a prosecutor conjunctive 
to a child abuse complaint in seizing a child from a parent was not a "core" 
proceeding justifying absolute immunity. Robison v. Via, 821 F.2d 913 (2nd Cir. 
1987).

 

  43 The attendant duty to deter a 
constitutional violation should also include the duty to speak which is 
attendant upon others who may be involved in malicious prosecution responses to 
the institution of criminal proceedings. Simmons v. Telcom Credit Union, 177 
Mich. App. 636, 442 N.W.2d 739 (1989).

  44 Omni Intern. Corp., 634 F. Supp. 
at 1423, 1428, 1432 (altering material documents, repeating untrue testimony, 
misrepresentations to the court); People v. Groh, 57 A.D.2d 389, 395 N.Y.S.2d 212 (1977) (after grand jury voted to dismiss charges against defendant, the 
prosecutor and the judge appeared in the grand jury room to deliver a further 
charge after the prosecutor discussed the grand jury's failure to indict). See 
generally B. Gershman, supra.

45 "[H]arassment by unfounded 
litigation would cause a deflection of the prosecutor's energies from his public 
duties, and the possibility that he would shade his decisions instead of 
exercising the independence of judgment required by his public trust." Imbler, 
424 U.S.  at 423, 96 S. Ct.  at 991. "There is no great danger that abuse of power 
will be fostered by this exemption from civil liability, for the prosecutor is 
at all times under the wholesome restraint imposed by the risk of being called 
to account criminally for official misconduct * * *, or of being ousted from 
office on that account * * *." Yaselli, 12 F.2d  at 404. Cf. B. Gershman, supra. 
"The prosecuting attorney enjoys the same immunity as that which protects the 
judge." Gabbard, 359 F.2d  at 185. "The immunity rule is designed to promote 
`principled and fearless decision-making' by removing a judge's [and county 
district attorney's] `fear that unsatisfied litigants may hound him with 
litigation charging malice or corruption.'" Fanale, 385 F.2d  at 868 (quoting 
Pierson, 386 U.S.  at 554, 87 S.Ct. at 1218). "`[P]rosecutors performing their 
official duties are quasi-judicial officials, not non-judicial functionaries and 
should be able to vigorously proceed with their tasks unhampered by the fear of 
unlimited civil litigation.'" Gartin, 281 N.W.2d  at 30. Accord Blanton, 258 N.W.2d  at 309. See Bauers, 361 F.2d 581; Sires, 320 F.2d 877; Kostal v. Stoner, 
292 F.2d 492 (10th Cir. 1961), cert. denied 369 U.S. 868, 82 S. Ct. 1032, 8 L. Ed. 2d 87, reh'g denied 370 U.S. 920, 82 S. Ct. 1559, 8 L. Ed. 2d 500 (1962); 
Peckham v. Scanlon, 241 F.2d 761 (7th Cir. 1957); and Kenney, 232 F.2d 288.

46 New Jersey statutes generally 
protect a public official for the performance of duties that statutory immunity 
"does not extend to conduct amounting to a crime or constituting actual malice, 
actual fraud or willful misconduct." Cashen, 334 A.2d  at 13 n. 4.

New Jersey case law to date has not 
equated prosecutorial immunity with its judicial counterpart and reflects the 
philosophy that there are indeed circumstances in which a prosecutor will incur 
civil liability for his official conduct. We wish to make it clear that we 
believe that this is the preferable approach to future problems involving the 
civil immunity of prosecutors in this State. The public interest is best served 
by recognizing that prosecutors enjoy only a limited form of 
immunity.

Id. at 13. See Zalewski v. Gallagher, 150 N.J. Super. 
360, 375 A.2d 1195, 1200-01 (1977).

47 Hawaiian common-law had not backed 
away from this stance during the intervening seventy-four years it has had to do 
so. "[W]e firmly rejected the view advanced in the federal courts, * * *, that 
non-judicial governmental officers [prosecutors] are absolutely immune from tort 
actions. This rejection of the federal approach was predicated on our desire to 
effectuate a balance between the interest of a maliciously injured plaintiff and 
a good faith public official." Towse v. State, 64 Haw. 624, 647 P.2d 696, 701 
(1982). See Seibel v. Kemble, 63 Haw. 516, 631 P.2d 173 (1981); Kajiya v. 
Department of Water Supply, 2 Haw. App. 221, 629 P.2d 635 (1981); Lane v. 
Yamamoto, 2 Haw. App. 176, 628 P.2d 634 (1981); Orso, 534 P.2d 489; Runnels v. 
Okamoto, 56 Haw. 1, 525 P.2d 1125 (1974); and Medeiros v. Kondo, 55 Haw. 499, 
522 P.2d 1269 (1974).