Opinion ID: 1202244
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Qualified ImmunityApplication

Text: Appellant claims that he is shielded from liability for his actions in this case because of the qualified immunity enjoyed by a probation officer who performs the discretionary function of preparing a petition to revoke probation. In Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. at 817-18, 102 S.Ct. at 2738, the United States Supreme Court set forth the standard for evaluating a claim of qualified immunity: [W]e conclude today that bare allegations of malice should not suffice to subject government officials either to the costs of trial or to the burdens of broad-reaching discovery. We therefore hold that government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. [emphasis added] In Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639-40, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038-39, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987), the Court took up the question of what constitutes a clearly established legal rule for purposes of qualified immunity: The operation of this standard, however, depends substantially upon the level of generality at which the relevant legal rule is to be identified. For example, the right to due process of law is quite clearly established by the Due Process Clause, and thus there is a sense in which any action that violates that Clause (no matter how unclear it may be that the particular action is a violation) violates a clearly established right. Much the same could be said of any other constitutional or statutory violation. But if the test of clearly established law were to be applied at this level of generality, it would bear no relationship to the objective legal reasonableness that is the touchstone of Harlow. Plaintiffs would be able to convert the rule of qualified immunity that our cases plainly establish into a rule of virtually unqualified liability simply by alleging violation of extremely abstract rights.    It should not be surprising, therefore, that our cases establish that the right the official is alleged to have violated must have been clearly established in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, sense: The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right. This is not to say that official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful, but it is to say that in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness must be apparent. [emphasis added and citations omitted] The question, then, under Harlow and Anderson, is whether a reasonable probation agent, in January 1986, would have known that he was violating a probationer's clearly established right by preparing a perjured petition for revocation of probation. A clearly established right is one recognized by either the highest state court in the state where the case arose, a United States Court of Appeals, or the United States Supreme Court. Robinson v. Bibb, 840 F.2d 349, 351 (6th Cir.1988). To this list, we might add those rights expressly provided for by controlling statute or administrative regulation. Moreover, the right need not have been previously recognized in the exact circumstances of the given case; a reasonable official is required to relate established law to analogous factual settings. Garcia by Garcia v. Miera, 817 F.2d 650, 657 (10th Cir. 1987), cert. denied 485 U.S. 959, 108 S.Ct. 1220, 99 L.Ed.2d 421 (1988) quoting People of Three Mile Island v. Nuclear Regulatory Comm'rs, 747 F.2d 139, 144 (3rd Cir. 1984). A reasonable probation agent would certainly have known that perjury was illegal. Wyoming Statute 6-5-301(a), which was in effect at the time Mayor allegedly prepared the perjured petition, reads as follows: A person commits perjury if, while under a lawfully administered oath or affirmation, he knowingly testifies falsely or makes a false affidavit, certificate, declaration, deposition or statement, in a judicial, legislative or administrative proceeding in which an oath or affirmation may be required by law, touching a matter material to a point in question. The question is whether such unlawfulness comprises an violation of the probationer's constitutional rights. The trial court found numerous violations of both plaintiffs' rights. For our purposes, we need consider only Mr. Cooney's right to due process in connection with the use of the perjured petition, without denying the validity of the other reasons provided by the trial court. The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment imposes procedural and substantive limits on the revocation of the conditional liberty created by probation. Black v. Romano, 471 U.S. 606, 610, 105 S.Ct. 2254, 2257, 85 L.Ed.2d 636 (1985), reh. denied 473 U.S. 921, 105 S.Ct. 3548, 87 L.Ed.2d 671 (1985), citing Bearden v. Georgia, 461 U.S. 660, 666, n. 7, 103 S.Ct. 2064, 2069, n. 7, 76 L.Ed.2d 221 (1983). Mayor should have been aware of a plethora of pre-1985 federal cases, including a Tenth Circuit decision, which held or stated that the knowing use of perjured testimony by the state in a criminal prosecution violates the defendant's right to due process. See e.g., Williams v. Griswald, 743 F.2d 1533, 1541 (11th Cir.1984); United States v. Jones, 730 F.2d 593, 597 (10th Cir.1984); United States v. Mills, 704 F.2d 1553, 1565 (11th Cir.1983), cert. denied 467 U.S. 1243, 104 S.Ct. 3517, 82 L.Ed.2d 825 (1984); United States v. West, 670 F.2d 675, 688 (7th Cir.1982), cert. denied sub aliter nom. 457 U.S. 1124, 1139, 102 S.Ct. 2944, 2972, 73 L.Ed.2d 1340 (1982). Appellant argues that the facts of these federal cases cannot be analogized to the facts of Cooney's case. He attempts to distinguish the federal cases by noting that they refer to a prosecutor's use of perjured testimony at trial rather than a probation officer's preparation of a perjured petition for revocation. We are not persuaded by appellant's arguments. As the trial court very aptly stated: [T]he use of perjured evidence in a criminal trial is not the sole evil of such evidence. It corrupts not just the trial, but the entire criminal justice system. To assert that it is only during the trial that perjured evidence may not be used is wholly baseless. It is beyond the pale to believe that a reasonable probation officer would consider the use of perjured evidence in an affidavit for revocation of parole to be anything other than wrongful. In Edwards v. State, 577 P.2d 1380, 1384 (Wyo.1978), we said that the perjury statute keep[s] the process of justice free from the contamination of false testimony. It is for the wrong done to the judicial system and the administration of justice that punishment is provided. Public policy thus favors a remedy in damages to redress constitutional violations created by the use of perjured testimony at all stages of a criminal or probation revocation proceeding. Nor are we persuaded by appellant's argument that the impact of perjured testimony in a revocation petition is less serious than at a criminal trial because the subsequent revocation hearing provides procedural safeguards against improper revocation. This argument ignores the fact that at issue here is the time Mr. Cooney spent in jail prior to the revocation hearing. Surely counsel cannot mean to suggest that because a person has been once sentenced to probation, subsequent wrongful incarceration for thirty-eight days is of no constitutional significance! We must reject any such cavalier diminishment of the scope and force of the due process guarantee. See Cooney I, 792 P.2d at 1308-09 (Urbigkit, J., dissenting.) We hold that a reasonable probation officer would have known that the perjury allegedly committed here implicated the probationer's right to substantive due process under the United States and Wyoming Constitutions. We affirm the trial court's holding that appellant Mayor is not entitled to dismissal of Cooneys' claims against him on the basis of qualified immunity, and remand this case to the trial court for further proceedings.