Opinion ID: 769749
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Immunity for Prosecutors

Text: 12 The nature of a prosecutor's immunity depends on the capacity in which the prosecutor acts at the time of the alleged misconduct. Actions taken as an advocate enjoy absolute immunity, see Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 431 (1976) (absolute immunity for initiating a prosecution and . . . presenting the State's case), while actions taken as an investigator enjoy only qualified immunity, see Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259, 273 (1993) (qualified immunity for perform[ing] the investigative functions normally performed by a detective or police officer) (Buckley III). 1 This immunity law applies to Bivens actions as well as actions under section 1983. See Moore v. Valder, 65 F.3d 189, 194 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (Intimidating and coercing witnesses into changing their testimony is not advocatory. It is rather a misuse of investigative techniques . . . .); Barbera v. Smith, 836 F.2d 96, 99 (2d Cir. 1987) ([W]hen a prosecutor performs an investigative or administrative function rather than a prosecutorial one, absolute immunity is not available.). 13 The line between a prosecutor's advocacy and investigating roles might sometimes be difficult to draw. 2 See Hill v. City of New York, 45 F.3d 653, 662-63 (2d Cir. 1995) (determining whether prosecutor's fabrication of evidence occurred at investigatory or advocacy stage required fact-finding); Barbera, 836 F.2d at 100-01 (distinguishing the supervision of law enforcement agencies in acquiring evidence from the organization and evaluation of evidence). For example, when a prosecutor is speaking with a potential witness prior to the witness's grand jury testimony, is the prosecutor preparing as an advocate or developing evidence as an investigator? That question need not be answered at this stage of this case because of the way both parties have proceeded. Zahrey is not disputing that Coffey is entitled to absolute immunity for his actions in presenting allegedly false testimony to the grand jury and in making allegedly false statements at a bail revocation hearing. Zahrey challenges only the ruling sustaining the qualified immunity defense to misconduct alleged to have occurred earlier while Coffey was acting in an investigative role. See Brief for Appellant at 4. For his part, Coffey has conceded, for purposes of this appeal, that the alleged misconduct concerning his fabrication of evidence entitled him, at most, only to qualified immunity. See Brief for Appellee at 8. If the qualified immunity defense is not sustained on this appeal as a matter of law, he reserves the right to contend on remand that all of his actions were sufficiently within an advocacy role to merit absolute immunity. However, as a result of his concession on this appeal, we have no current dispute that some of his alleged misconduct was within his investigating role, to which only qualified immunity applies. 14 Qualified immunity protects a public official from liability for conduct that does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Coffey contends that his qualified immunity defense was properly upheld both because a prosecutor's fabrication of evidence does not violate a constitutional right and because, if it does, such a constitutional right was not clearly established in 1996. The District Court accepted the second contention and explicitly declined to rule on the first contention. See Zahrey, 1999 WL 587904, at  & n.2. 15 Usually, a court considering a defense of qualified immunity to a claim based on section 1983 or Bivens must first determine whether the plaintiff has alleged the deprivation of an actual constitutional right at all, and if so, proceed to determine whether that right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation, Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 609 (1999) (internal quotation marks omitted), unless relevant circumstances, not present in the pending case, make it appropriate to begin with the question of whether a right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation, see Horne v. Coughlin, 191 F.3d 244, 249 (2d Cir. 1999). We consider first the existence of the right Zahrey contends was violated and the related issue of whether his deprivation of liberty was a legally cognizable result of Coffey's alleged misconduct, and then consider whether the right Zahrey contends was violated was clearly established in 1996.