Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/460-u-s-325-604886934
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 09:06:03+00:00

Document:
Held: Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1976 ed., Supp. V) does not authorize a convicted state defendant to assert a claim for damages against a police officer for giving perjured testimony at the defendant's criminal trial. Pp. 329-346.
(a) The common law provided absolute immunity from subsequent damages liability for all persons -- governmental or otherwise -- who were integral parts of the judicial process. Section 1983 does not authorize a damages claim against private witnesses. Similarly, judges, Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, and prosecutors, Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, may not be held liable for damages under § 1983 for the performance of their respective duties in judicial proceedings. When a police officer appears as a witness, he may reasonably be viewed as acting like any witness sworn to tell the truth, in which event he can make a strong claim to witness immunity. Alternatively, he may be regarded as an official performing a critical role in the judicial process, in which event he may seek the benefit afforded to other governmental participants in the same proceeding. Nothing in § 1983's language suggests that a police officer witness belongs in a narrow, special category lacking protection against damages suits. Pp. 329-336.
(b) Nor does anything in the legislative history of the statute indicate that Congress intended to abrogate common law witness immunity in order to provide a damages remedy under § 1983 against police officers or any other witnesses. Pp. 336-341.
process but also the effective performance of their other public duties. Pp. 341-346.
STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which BURGER, C.J., and WHITE, POWELL, REHNQUIST, and O'CONNOR, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 346. MARSHALL, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BLACKMUN, J., joined except as to Part I, post, p. 346. BLACKMUN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, post, p. 369.
This case presents a question of statutory construction: whether 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1976 ed., Supp. V) authorizes a convicted person to assert a claim for damages against a police officer for giving [103 S.Ct. 1111] perjured testimony at his criminal trial. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held that witnesses are absolutely immune from damages liability based on their testimony, and rejected the petitioners' contention that government officials who testify about the performance of their official duties may be held liable under § 1983 even if other witnesses may not. We agree with that conclusion.
The Court of Appeals heard argument in three separate cases raising the absolute immunity issue, and decided them in a single opinion. Two of these cases are before us on a writ of certiorari. Petitioner Briscoe was convicted in state court of burglarizing a house trailer. He then filed a § 1983 complaint against respondent LaHue, a member of the Bloomington, Indiana, police force, alleging that LaHue had violated his constitutional right to due process by committing perjury in the criminal proceedings leading to his conviction.1 LaHue had testified that, in his opinion, Briscoe was one of no more than 50 to 100 people in Bloomington whose prints would match a partial thumbprint on a piece of glass found at the scene of the crime. According to Briscoe, the testimony was false, because the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the state police considered the partial print too incomplete to be of value, and, without the print, there was no evidence identifying him as the burglar. He sought $100,000 in damages. The District Court granted LaHue's motion for summary judgment on four separate grounds: (1) the facts alleged in the complaint did not suggest that LaHue had testified falsely; (2) allegations of perjury alone are insufficient to state a constitutional claim; (3) LaHue had not testified "under color of law"; and (4) Briscoe's claim was collaterally estopped by his criminal conviction.
Before confronting the precise question that this case presents -- whether § 1983 creates a damages remedy against police officers for their testimony as witnesses -- we begin by considering the potential liability of lay witnesses, on the one hand, and of judges and prosecutors who perform integral functions in judicial proceedings, on the other hand. The unavailability of a damages remedy against both of these categories sheds considerable light on petitioners' claim that Congress intended police officer witnesses to be treated differently.
It is by now well settled that the tort liability created by § 1983 cannot be understood in a historical vacuum. . . . One important assumption underlying the Court's decisions in this area is that members of the 42d Congress were familiar with common law principles, including defenses previously recognized in ordinary tort litigation, and that they likely intended these common law principles to obtain, absent specific provisions to the contrary.
City of Newport v. Fact Concerts Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 258 (1981). See Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 554 (1967).

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