Opinion ID: 2817779
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Service and Execution

Text: If Holmes’s actions were limited to preparing and applying for the warrants, our analysis of his absolute immunity could end there. However, plaintiffs also allege that “defendants served and executed” the warrants and TORRES V. GODDARD 17 “illegally seized” the funds. Plaintiffs argue that, even if we find that Holmes’s preparation and application for the seizure warrants were acts of advocacy protected by absolute immunity, serving and executing of seizure warrants are acts that “could have been performed by police officers” and thus can’t be shielded by absolute immunity. Because we must evaluate absolute immunity act by act, we must also consider whether absolute immunity bars damages claims based on a forfeiture prosecutor’s service and execution of the seizure warrants he applied for. Arizona’s civil forfeiture statutes make clear that the seizure of property pursuant to a seizure warrant is the function of police officers, not prosecutors. The “[a]ttorney for the state” is designated to “investigate, commence and prosecute an action under this chapter,” Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 13-4301(1), whereas the “[s]eizing agency” “employs the peace officer who seizes property for forfeiture,” id. § 134301(8). “Seizure for forfeiture” is “seizure of property by a peace officer coupled with an assertion by the seizing agency or by an attorney for the state that the property is subject to forfeiture.” Id. § 13-4301(9). Consistent with the civil forfeiture statutes, the seizure warrants themselves directed police officers, not the attorney for the state, to seize the subject property. The warrants authorized “[a]ny peace officer” to “seize all of the property” that met the criteria “for forfeiture pursuant to” Arizona’s civil forfeiture statutes. And, as the warrant applications explained, “the peace officers [would] carry out th[e] warrant[s] by serving [them] on Western Union at its corporate offices, requiring Western Union to transfer the described funds to the clerk of the Maricopa County Superior Court.” 18 TORRES V. GODDARD Nevertheless, it was Holmes, not Arizona police officers, who “carr[ied] out” the warrants in the manner described above.2 In doing so, Holmes “performed an act that any [Arizona police officer] might have performed.” Kalina, 522 U.S. at 129–30. And “[w]hen the functions of prosecutors and [police officers] are the same, as they were here, the immunity that protects them is also the same.” Buckley, 509 U.S. at 276; see also Burns, 500 U.S. at 492–96. Because Holmes went beyond the “traditional functions of an advocate” and “carr[ied] out” the warrants, he was only entitled to the qualified immunity that a police officer would receive when doing so. Defendants argue that such a result “mistakenly focus[es] on the description of [the] alleged misconduct alone rather than the function being performed.” They insist that absolute immunity extends to Holmes’s service of the warrants because service is “an essential step in the initiation of a forfeiture action,” and “was not an investigative technique.” In other words, defendants argue that Holmes was performing a “prosecutorial function” when he served the warrants because service is a prerequisite to forfeiture. 2 Defendants claim that, because plaintiffs’ response to their crossmotion for summary judgment states that Holmes “reviewed, approved, procured and served” the warrants, plaintiffs waived the right to contest Holmes’s absolute immunity with respect to “execution.” But plaintiffs have never conceded that any of Holmes’s actions are protected by absolute immunity. Moreover, on the record before us, a distinction between “service” and “execution” of the warrants is only semantic. The warrants were “effective upon receipt” by Western Union. They required Western Union to seize all transfers that met their criteria on the state’s behalf. Regardless of whether Holmes’s actions are characterized as “service and execution” of the warrants or, as the warrant applications state, “carry[ing] out” the warrants, plaintiffs haven’t waived the right to contest Holmes’s immunity with respect to his role in the actual seizures. TORRES V. GODDARD 19 This argument can’t be squared with the Supreme Court’s reasoning in Kalina, where the Court distinguished between the prosecutor’s preparation and filing of the information and motion for an arrest warrant (which were shielded by absolute immunity), and her personal attestation to the factual allegations in the probable cause certification (which was not). 522 U.S. at 130. Although all of the prosecutor’s acts were prerequisites to the initiation of the prosecution, personally attesting to the factual allegations contained in the certification cast the prosecutor in the role of a witness, not an attorney. Id. at 131. The Court’s distinction between this act, and the other protected acts, didn’t depend on whether it was “investigative.”3 Rather, absolute immunity didn’t attach because the prosecutor wasn’t performing the function of an advocate. The Court rejected the prosecutor’s argument that absolute immunity applied because her personal attestation to the factual allegations “was just one incident in a presentation that, viewed as a whole, was the work of an advocate and was integral to the initiation of the prosecution.” Id. at 130. We similarly reject the analogous argument defendants advance here. Serving and executing seizure warrants are the functions of police officers, not the “traditional functions of 3 That doesn’t mean that whether a prosecutor’s act was investigative is irrelevant to absolute immunity. In Buckley, the Court held that a prosecutor wasn’t entitled to absolute immunity because his actions were “investigative functions normally performed by a detective or police officer.” 509 U.S. at 273; see also Burns, 500 U.S. at 492–96. Therefore, if a prosecutor acts in an investigative capacity, he’s not protected by absolute immunity. But under Kalina, the fact that a prosecutor’s act isn’t investigative, and may be necessary to the commencement of a prosecution, doesn’t guarantee absolute immunity. Rather, absolute immunity only applies when the prosecutor is performing the “traditional functions of an advocate.” Kalina, 522 U.S. at 131. 20 TORRES V. GODDARD an advocate,” id. at 131, and thus under Kalina are functions that aren’t protected by absolute immunity. We acknowledge that our application of the functional approach means that Holmes is entitled to absolute immunity with respect to some acts but not others, even though all of plaintiffs’ claims are predicated on the same constitutional violation: seizure of their funds without probable cause. However, the result we reach is the “essence of the function test” because absolute immunity is based on the nature of the function performed, not the underlying constitutional claim. Buckley, 509 U.S. at 274 n.5. Critically, if Holmes’s service and execution of the warrants were acts protected by absolute immunity, we’d be faced with an “incongruous” result where a prosecutor performing the function of a police officer would be entitled to absolute immunity merely because of his status as a prosecutor. See id. at 275 n.6 (quoting Burns, 500 U.S. at 495). Service of the self-executing seizure warrants merely carried out the command of the warrants; it wasn’t a “function[] that require[s] the exercise of prosecutorial discretion.” Kalina, 522 U.S. at 125. Extending absolute immunity to this type of police activity would be inconsistent with the distinction drawn by the Supreme Court in Kalina. We express no opinion as to whether Holmes is entitled to qualified immunity. Although defendants raised qualified immunity in their cross motion for summary judgment, the district court didn’t reach the issue because it held that absolute immunity barred all of plaintiffs’ claims. The parties did not brief the issue on appeal. We therefore remand to the district court to determine, in the first instance, whether Holmes’s actions in serving and executing the warrants are protected by qualified immunity. If the district court determines that any of Holmes’s actions aren’t TORRES V. GODDARD 21 protected by qualified immunity, it must then go on to assess whether those unprotected acts (and only those acts) give rise to a cause of action for damages against Holmes under section 1983. See Buckley, 509 U.S. at 274 n.5. C. Goddard in His Individual Capacity Goddard was Arizona’s Attorney General at the time the warrants were carried out and at the time the complaint was filed. He was succeeded by Horne (and Horne by Brnovich) while this lawsuit was pending. Goddard thus remains a defendant only in his individual capacity. Unlike an official capacity claim, where the constitutional injury “must be attributable to [an] official policy or custom,” an individual capacity claim “hinges upon [the individual defendant’s] participation in the deprivation of constitutional rights.” Larez v. City of Los Angeles, 946 F.2d 630, 645 (9th Cir. 1991). Plaintiffs don’t allege Goddard was directly involved in the preparation, filing, service or execution of the warrants. They nevertheless claim that Goddard “could have stopped the criteria-based warrant program but chose not to.” Plaintiffs argue that Goddard had a duty to exercise his supervisory authority over the Arizona officials who were responsible for procuring and carrying out the seizure warrants and, by failing to do so, is also subject to section 1983 liability for the seizures. See Cunningham v. Gates, 229 F.3d 1271, 1292 (9th Cir. 2000). 1. Preparation and Application Holmes’s preparation of and application for the warrants were “intimately associated with the judicial phase” of the civil forfeiture proceedings, Imbler, 424 U.S. at 430, and therefore protected by absolute immunity. Goddard’s 22 TORRES V. GODDARD supervision of these activities is likewise protected by absolute immunity under Van de Kamp v. Goldstein, 555 U.S. 335, 345 (2009). In Van de Kamp, Goldstein had alleged that the trial prosecutors who conducted his case didn’t tell him that a jailhouse informant who testified against him at his trial previously received favorable treatment in exchange for his testimony. Id. at 339. Goldstein sued the county district attorney and his chief deputy, alleging that the trial prosecutors’ failure to disclose the informant’s treatment resulted from their supervisors’ failure to “adequately [] train and [] supervise” subordinate prosecutors and their “failure to establish an information system about informants.” Id. at 340. Goldstein didn’t claim that the supervisory prosecutors personally erred in his trial, but rather argued that they were liable because their “general methods of supervision” caused a “consequent error by an individual prosecutor” at his trial. Id. at 346. The Supreme Court held that absolute immunity barred Goldstein’s claims. In doing so, the Court considered a “hypothetical case” in which the failure to disclose the informant’s treatment arose from a prosecutor’s “specific supervision or training related to a particular case.” Id. at 345–46. The Court concluded that the trial and supervisory prosecutors in that case would both be entitled to absolute immunity. The decision to disclose (or to not disclose) an informant’s favorable treatment is an act that’s “‘intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process’ because it concern[s] the evidence presented at trial.” Id. at 345 (quoting Imbler, 424 U.S. at 430). If a supervisory prosecutor wasn’t entitled to absolute immunity for this conduct, such a rule would implicate “all of the considerations” that counseled in favor of immunity in Imbler, including “Imbler’s basic fear . . . that the threat of TORRES V. GODDARD 23 damages liability would affect the way in which prosecutors carried out their basic court-related tasks.” Id.4 Plaintiffs’ claims against Goddard are analogous to the hypothetical case discussed in Van de Kamp. They don’t arise from Goddard’s “general methods of supervision,” but rather arise from Goddard’s “acequisece[nce]” and “ratifi[cation]” of Holmes’s procurement of particular seizure warrants. Under Van de Kamp, the absolute immunity that protects Holmes’s preparation and application for the warrants also protects Goddard’s decision to permit Holmes to do so. There is no functional difference between a civil forfeiture prosecutor’s preparation and application for seizure warrants, and his supervisor’s decision to allow him to engage in those activities. A supervisor’s decision to permit a subordinate prosecutor to prepare and apply for seizure warrants is an “act[] undertaken by [the supervisor] in preparing for the initiation of judicial proceedings,” and “occur[s] in the course of [the supervisor’s] role as an advocate for the [s]tate.” Kalina, 522 U.S. at 126 (internal quotation marks omitted). Indeed, if the rule were otherwise, a plaintiff could just “restyle a complaint charging a trial failure so that it becomes a complaint charging a failure of training or supervision” and thereby “eviscerate Imbler.” Van de Kamp, 555 U.S. at 347. 4 Goldstein’s complaint was different from the hypothetical case because his claims arose from defendants’ “general methods of supervision.” Van de Kamp, 555 U.S. at 346. But, as the Court explained, Goldstein’s “general” claims nevertheless “rest[ed] in necessary part upon a consequent error by an individual prosecutor in the midst of trial.” Id. The challenged procedures related to “how and when to make impeachment information available at a trial.” Id. They were “directly connected with the prosecutor’s basic trial advocacy duties,” and under Imbler were protected by absolute immunity. Id. 24 TORRES V. GODDARD 2. Service and Execution Plaintiffs also allege that Goddard “culpably acquiesced in and subsequently ratified the service of warrants and the seizure” of their funds. We hold that service and execution of seizure warrants, even when performed by a prosecutor, aren’t protected by absolute immunity because those acts are functions of police officers, not prosecutors. See Kalina, 522 U.S. at 130–31. Under Kalina, Goddard’s supervision of Holmes’s service and execution of seizure warrants is likewise a function of a supervising police officer, not a supervising prosecutor. Service and execution aren’t “intimately associated with the judicial phase” of the proceedings. Goddard therefore can’t claim absolute immunity with respect to his supervision of the service and execution of the seizure warrants. Van de Kamp doesn’t countenance a different result. The supervisor’s activities in Van de Kamp were protected by absolute immunity not because they were the actions of a supervisor or a prosecutor, but because they “concerned the evidence presented at trial.” 555 U.S. at 345. The presentation of evidence is “intimately associated with the judicial phase” of the criminal proceeding whether it’s conducted in a direct or supervisory capacity. Id. But nothing in Van de Kamp permits us to grant a supervising prosecutor absolute immunity for supervising an activity that’s not protected by absolute immunity under Imbler and its progeny. Such a result would eviscerate the distinction drawn by the Supreme Court in Kalina. Absolute immunity would turn on whether a prosecutor was a supervisor, instead of on whether the function performed was that of an advocate for the state. Rather, Kalina controls Goddard’s immunity TORRES V. GODDARD 25 with respect to service and execution. Under Kalina those functions aren’t protected by absolute immunity.