Opinion ID: 687266
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Functional Approach

Text: 24 In determining whether absolute immunity obtains, we apply a functional approach, looking to the function being performed rather than to the office or identity of the defendant. See Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, --- U.S. ----, ----, 113 S.Ct. 2606, 2613, 125 L.Ed.2d 209 (1993). State prosecutors are entitled to absolute immunity for that conduct intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process. Imbler, 424 U.S. at 430, 96 S.Ct. at 995. Thus, a district attorney is absolutely immune from civil liability for initiating a prosecution and presenting the case at trial. Id. at 430-31, 96 S.Ct. at 995; Buckley, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2613. Such official is also immune for conduct in preparing for those functions; for example, evaluating and organizing evidence for presentation at trial or to a grand jury, Buckley, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2615, or determining which offenses are to be charged. See Ying Jing Gan v. City of New York, 996 F.2d 522, 530 (2d Cir.1993). Prosecutorial immunity from Sec. 1983 liability is broadly defined, covering virtually all acts, regardless of motivation, associated with [the prosecutor's] function as an advocate. Dory v. Ryan, 25 F.3d 81, 83 (2d Cir.1994). 25 But for those acts that historically received no immunity at common law, absolute immunity may not be invoked. Buckley, --- U.S. at ---- n. 5, 113 S.Ct. at 2616 n. 5 (noting that malicious prosecution was traditionally immune while the manufacture of evidence was not). When a district attorney functions outside his or her role as an advocate for the People, the shield of immunity is absent. Immunity does not protect those acts a prosecutor performs in administration or investigation not undertaken in preparation for judicial proceedings. Buckley, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2614; Barbera v. Smith, 836 F.2d 96, 100 (2d Cir.1987) (distinguishing between the investigator's role in acquiring evidence and the advocate's in organizing and evaluating that evidence), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1065, 109 S.Ct. 1338, 103 L.Ed.2d 808 (1989). 26 Before any formal legal proceeding has begun and before there is probable cause to arrest, it follows that a prosecutor receives only qualified immunity for his acts. See Barbera, 836 F.2d at 100. A prosecutor neither is, nor should consider himself to be, an advocate before he has probable cause to have anyone arrested. Buckley, --- U.S. at ----, 113 S.Ct. at 2616. For example, prosecutors are not entitled to absolute immunity for the act of giving legal advice to the police in the investigative phase of a criminal case, Burns, 500 U.S. at 493, 111 S.Ct. at 1943, or for assisting in a search and seizure or arrest. Day v. Morgenthau, 909 F.2d 75, 77-78 (2d Cir.1990).