UNITED STATES CO URT OF APPEALS
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ ALBERT DEWAYNE BANKS, Pl aintiff - Appellant,

v. STEVEN L. OPAT , Former Geary County District Attorney in his individual capacity; GLEN F. VIRDEN, Senior Special Agent, Kansas Bureau of Investigation, in his individual capacity; TIMOTHY BROWN, Former Chief of Junction City Police Department, in his individual capacity.
De fendants - Appellees.

–––––––––––––––––––– ––––––––––––––– ANTHONY CARLYLE THOMPSON, Pl aintiff - Appellant,

v. GLEN F. VIRDEN, Senior Special Agent, Kansas Bureau of Investigation, in his individual capacity; TIMOTHY BROWN, Chief, Junction City Police Department, in his individual capacity; TONY WOLF, Sheriff, Geary County Sher iff’s Department, in his individual and official capacity,
De fendants - Appellees. No. 23-3102 (D.C. No. 5:15- CV-03093-HLT) (D. Kan.)

No. 23-3103 (D.C. Nos. 5:15 -CV-03117-HLT & 5:15-CV-03093-HLT) (D. Kan.) FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### June 11, 2024 Christopher M. Wolpert Clerk of Court Appellate Case: 23-3102 Document: 010111063336 Date Filed: 06/11/2024 Page: 12 ________________ _________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

________________ _________________ Before BACHARACH , BALDOCK , and MORITZ , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ These appeals grew out of a state investigation involving Mr. Albert Dewayne Banks and Mr. An thony Carlyle Thompson. In the investigation, a Kansas prosecutor obtained court orders authorizing wiretaps on Mr. Banks and Mr. Thompson when they t ook their cellphones anywhere in the United States. Based on these orde rs, Kansas law-enforcement agents conducted the wireta ps and the federal government indicted the individuals on drug charges. A federal district court suppressed evidence from the wiretaps, concluding that the state court’s authority over the wiretaps was limited to the court’s own district. Mr. Banks and Mr. Thompson sued the prosecutor and three of the law-enforcement agents who allegedl y conducted the wireta ps. The district court granted summary judgment to the defe ndants, relying on

* Oral argument would not help us decide the appeal, so we have decided the appeal based on the briefing and the record. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2)(C); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). This order and judgment does not co nstitute binding pr ecedent except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. But the order and judgmen t may be cited for its persuasi ve value if otherwise appropriate. See Fed. R. App. P. 32.1(a); 10th Cir. R. 32.1(A). Appellate Case: 23-3102 Document: 010111063336 Date Filed: 06/11/2024 Page: 23  absolute immunity for the prosecutor and

 a statutory good-faith exception for the thr ee agents allegedly carrying out the wiretaps. We affirm the grants of summary judgment. Standard for Review of Summary Judgment For the summary-judgm ent rulings, we c onduct de novo review, applying the same standard that governed in district court. Dahl v. Charles F. Dahl, M.D., P.C. De fined Benefit Pension Tr. , 744 F.3d 623, 628 (10th Cir. 2014). Under th at standard, the defendan ts needed to show a right to judgment as a matter of law and the ab sence of a ge nuine dispute of material fact. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a ). For this determination, we draw all reasonable inferences in fa vor of the non-moving party. Georgelas v. Desert Hill Ventures, Inc. , 45 F.4th 1193, 1197 (10th Cir. 2022). The Claim Agains t the Prosecutor Mr. Banks argues that the prosec utor wasn’t entitled to absolute immunity because

 he vouched for the warrants and

 wasn’t acting as an advocate when he referred the case for federal prosecution. But Mr. Banks forfeited both arguments by failing to make them in district

court. See Anderson v. Spirit Aerosystems Holdings, Inc. , 827 F.3d 1229, 1238 (10th Cir. 2016). In district court, Mr. Ba nks mentioned that the prosecutor had signed the orders and ha d disclosed information to federal Appellate Case: 23-3102 Document: 010111063336 Date Filed: 06/11/2024 Page: 34 agents. But Mr. Bank s didn’t argue in district co urt that these actions had stripped the prosecutor of absolute immunity. The Claims Agains t the Three Agents Mr. Banks and Mr. Thom pson also challenge the district court’s ruling of good faith for the three law-en forcement agents who allegedly carried out the wiretaps. In the criminal procee dings, the federal dist rict court ultimately concluded that the orders had exceeded the state court’s authority. But in the civil proceedings, de fenses exist for law-enfo rcement agents acting in good faith. 18 U.S.C. § 2520(d)(1); Kan. Stat. An n. § 22-2518(2). The court applied these defenses here, conc luding that the agen ts’ reliance on the orders had been objectively reasonable. So the district court properly concluded that the undis puted evidence had shown good faith in carrying out the orders. The federal district court ultimately excluded evidence of some calls because the wiretaps had intercepted ca lls outside the stat e court’s district. But this ruling doesn’t negate the good fait h of the law- enforcement officers when making the same mist ake that the state court had made. We addressed a similar issue in United States v. Workman , 863 F.3d 1313 (10th Cir. 2017)

. There we considered crim inal proceedings growing out of a federal magistrate judge’s warrant authorizing installation of software to identify in dividuals using a site to access child pornography. Appellate Case: 23-3102 Document: 010111063336 Date Filed: 06/11/2024 Page: 45 Id. at 1316. A user in anothe r district accessed the we bsite and argued that the magistrate judge had la cked authority to authorize software that would identify users in other districts. Id. at 1316–17. We assumed for the sake of argument that the ma gistrate judge had exceeded his geographic authority. Id. at 1317–18. But we he ld that the evid ence would have been admissible anyway because agents had acted in good faith when relying on the magistrate judge’s order. Id. at 1320–21. Here the state court exceeded its authority by issuing orders authorizing interception of informatio n outside of the court’s area of authority. In Workman , however, we concluded th at the nuances of the court’s geographic jurisd ictional limits wouldn ’t have been readily apparent to law-enforcement officers. Id. The same is true here. Mr. Banks and Mr. Thompson disagree, arguing that Workman is distinguishable because th e sources of geographic authority differ here and the nuances were subtler in Workman . Though differences exist, they don’t cast doubt on the obje ctive reasonableness of the law-enforcement officers’ reliance on the wiretap orders. Granted, the sources of geographic authority differ here and in Workman . There the magistrate judge’s ge ographic limits appeared in a federal rule of criminal procedure (Rule 41); here th e limit appears in state law. But Mr. Banks and Mr. Thompson don’t expl ain why this difference would matter. In both ca ses, the law-enforcement officers could reasonably Appellate Case: 23-3102 Document: 010111063336 Date Filed: 06/11/2024 Page: 56 assume that the court would correctly apply the geographic limits when authorizing the interception of data. See United States v. Pemberton , 94 F.4th 1130, 1137–40 (10t h Cir. 2024) (applying Workman to uphold the denial of a motion to s uppress a state court’s warra nt even though the state court lacked authority over the region specif ied in the warrant). Mr. Banks and Mr. Thompson also point out that

 the magistrate judge in Workman had authorized installation of software onto a server within his own district and

 here the state court authorized wiretaps anywhere in the United States. Again, the differen ce doesn’t cast doubt on the ob jective reasonableness of the agents’ actions. In Workman , the court had authoriz ed installation of malware that would identify users anywhere in the United States. See United States v. Workman , 863 F.3d 1313, 1315–16 ( 10th Cir. 2017). But we concluded in Workman that law-enforcement agents could reasonably rely on a magistrate judge’s appli cation of the geogra phic limits on his authority. Id. at 1319–21. The same is true here as to the ag ents’ reliance on the state court’s applicat ion of its geographic limits. Finally, Mr. Banks and Mr. Thompson ar gue that even if Workman otherwise applied, there’ s no good-faith defense fo r mistakes of law. For this argument, Mr . Banks and Mr. Thompson rely on Heggy v. Heggy , 944 F.2d 1537 (10th Cir. 1991). There we conclu ded that a defendant Appellate Case: 23-3102 Document: 010111063336 Date Filed: 06/11/2024 Page: 67 couldn’t avoid liability based on his su bjective belief that he could put a wiretap on his own home phone. Id. at 1541–42.
But Heggy didn’t involve an order auth orizing a wiretap, and we observed that th e law provided a good-faith de fense when someone relies on a court order. Id. at 1542. Here we have fe deral and state statutes expressly providing a defense based on good-fa ith reliance on a court order. So Heggy doesn’t undermine th e applicability of the good-faith defenses. Affirmed.

Entered for the Court

Robert E. Bacharach Circuit Judge Appellate Case: 23-3102 Document: 010111063336 Date Filed: 06/11/2024 Page: 7