Opinion ID: 352419
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: prosecutorial immunity as an officer of the court whose

Text: 77 ACTIVITIES WERE INTIMATELY ASSOCIATED WITH THE 78 JUDICIAL PHASE OF THE CRIMINAL PROCESS 79 We are all agreed that Goodwin's action was taken within the scope of his duty; it is further the case, I submit, that his action involved the exercise of significant discretion. 16 He is thus entitled to some sort of immunity protection, qualified or absolute. The procedural difference between the absolute and qualified immunities is important. An absolute immunity defeats the suit at the outset, so long as the official's actions were within the scope of the immunity. The fate of an official with qualified immunity depends upon the circumstances and motivations of his actions, as established by the evidence at trial. 17 80 The decision whether qualified or absolute immunity is appropriate involves a balancing of the interests which would be benefited and impaired by application of either of the two doctrines. The decisions of the Supreme Court which have made this choice have weighed the incremental loss in litigant rights and remedial relief against the enhancement of governmental functioning resulting from the absolute as opposed to the qualified immunity. As a result of this balancing the Court has devised rules of absolute or qualified immunity for various classes of officials, as defined by function. 18 81 Our role in applying these rules, where the Court has devised them, is to make a proper characterization of the function being performed by the official in question. Our role, however, is not to engage in a particularistic rebalancing of all the relevant policies to determine whether absolute or qualified immunity is appropriate in this case. Our analysis instead is functional: was this action undertaken in the prosecutor's capacity as an officer of the court, or, put another way, a government advocate in a courtroom setting? If this prosecutor should be so characterized, then he is entitled to absolute immunity under Imbler v. Pachtman. In Imbler the Court itself balanced the competing policies and mandated absolute immunity for the prosecutor in his role, very broadly conceived, as courtroom advocate. 82 A. Imbler v. Pachtman Balancing of the Interests Held to Require Absolute Immunity for the Prosecutor. 83 In order to make a more informed application of the Imbler rule, it may be helpful to set out the policies which underpin it. While our role, as noted, is not to make a de novo balancing of these policies in this case, an understanding and appreciation of the policies may contribute to a proper characterization of the prosecutor's protected role under Imbler. At the outset the Imbler Court recognized that § 1983, although it creates a cause of action for deprivation of constitutional rights, does not constitute a flat bar to immunity doctrine, 19 and proceeded to consider the other factors, which, under its balancing approach, related to the choice of qualified or absolute immunity. 84 Recognizing the prosecutor's absolute immunity at common law from actions for malicious prosecution, the Court found equally applicable to actions under § 1983 the several rationales for this common law immunity. 20 Most importantly these included the concern that harassment by unfounded litigation would cause a deflection of the prosecutor's energies from his public duties, and the possibility that he would shade his decisions instead of exercising the independence of judgment required by his public trust. 21 The Court noted that these twin hazards of diversion of energies and biasing of decision-making are, for several reasons, especially acute in the case of a prosecutor. Acting as he does under serious constraints of time and information, a prosecutor would face greater difficulty in meeting the standards of qualified immunity than other executive or administrative officials. 22 Further, the sheer number of decisions which a prosecutor must make that could engender colorable claims of constitutional deprivation means that a demonstration of good faith in every case could impose unique and intolerable burdens . . . . 23 85 The net harm of allowing only a qualified immunity in the performance of prosecutorial functions was not confined, therefore, to the substantial danger of liability even to honest prosecutors, 24 or even to the expenditure of great time and effort in defending such suits. Most seriously, the denial of absolute immunity would adversely affect the functioning of the criminal justice system as a whole. (T)riers of fact . . . often would be denied relevant evidence by the creation of a systematic bias in the prosecutor against incriminating evidence of sufficiently uncertain pedigree as to support a colorable cause of action. 25 And post-conviction review procedures might well be biased in quite another way, against the convicted person, by knowledge that a post-trial decision in favor of the accused might result in the prosecutor being called upon to respond in damages for his error or mistaken judgment. 26 86 As final support for its holding that prosecutors are absolutely immune in initiating a prosecution and in presenting the State's case, 27 the Court noted that the unavailability of suit under § 1983 for this category of cases does not leave the public powerless to deter misconduct or to punish that which occurs for a prosecutor stands perhaps unique, among officials whose acts could deprive persons of constitutional rights, in his amenability to professional discipline by an association of his peers. 28 As a deterrent of even greater weight, (t)his Court has never suggested that the policy considerations which compel civil immunity for certain governmental officials also place them beyond the reach of the criminal law. 29 Taking all these policies into account, the Court concluded, on balance, that for § 1983 damage suits, as at common law, a prosecutor's actions intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process were entitled to absolute immunity. 30 87 B. Application of Immunity Doctrine to Goodwin. 88 We thus come to the question of whether defendant Goodwin's sworn testimony, to the effect that none among the witness group represented by counsel was a Government informant, falls within the absolute prosecutorial immunity from damage actions established by the Supreme Court. As developed in the introduction, it would surely seem on its face that Goodwin's action during grand jury proceedings in answering a question from the judge in his capacity as lead prosecutor was action taken as an officer of the court. 31 This was action within his scope of duty which called for the exercise of discretion in its performance, precisely the type of quasi-judicial function within the absolute protection of Imbler. 32 89 In order to divest Goodwin of his protected prosecutorial function, the majority discusses at length numerous cases contrasting the prosecutor's advocacy role with his duties related to investigation and administration. By page --- of 186 U.S.App.D.C., at p. 21 of 569 F.2d the majority is ready to state: 90 . . . (W)e believe that appellant's false statement to the federal district court in Florida is properly characterized as an act of investigation rather than advocacy. . . . (A)ppellant's alleged perjury bears no relation whatever to the advocate's role as conceived by the Supreme Court in Imbler. 33 91 Indeed? 92 This rather extraordinary characterization is not supported by the investigatory cases cited by the majority. This characterization, moreover, rests upon a clear misreading of how the Imbler rule should be applied and upon an overly narrow reading of its conception of advocacy. These points will be developed in order below. Finally, as I will explain in more detail in Part I, C, infra, the attempted division of the prosecutor's function with the grand jury into investigative and advocacy roles is legally inaccurate and practically unworkable. 93 1. The characterization of Goodwin's action as investigatory is unprecedented and unjustified. 34 As a matter of case law, including all the cases cited by the majority, courts have characterized as investigatory those actions outside the courtroom setting where the prosecutor is acting in a capacity akin to the police officer in his efforts, for example, to obtain a confession, 35 or to make arrests, 36 or to execute a search warrant. 37 Indeed, the Imbler Court cited to the cases of policemen's functions, all involving activities apart from the courtroom, to show what it meant by investigative activity by prosecutors. 38 The majority's view of this courtroom activity as investigatory under Imbler is thus absolutely novel under the case law. 94 The majority's characterization, moreover, is not justified by the reasoning of the cases cited by Imbler. In Hampton v. City of Chicago, 39 for example, Judge (now Justice) Stevens recognized that since a police officer is entitled to only qualified immunity for his police actions, then a prosecutor performing the functions of a police officer should also be accorded only qualified immunity because it seems neither appropriate nor justifiable that, for the same act, immunity should protect the one and not the other. This concern for symmetry of treatment appears as a critical policy for the majority as well: Regardless of his official status, a prosecutor functioning primarily as an investigator should be accorded only the qualified immunity typically conferred on other investigative officers. 40 95 In the instant case, however, a fair application of symmetry calls for absolute immunity for the prosecutor's courtroom statement. Goodwin need not be given qualified immunity because a policeman, if a witness, would only get qualified immunity; on the contrary, in my view a policeman functioning as a witness in a manner similar to Goodwin would be entitled to absolute immunity. The majority has not cited and cannot cite any case in which an official, as a witness, has been denied absolute immunity from a civil damage suit. See Part II, infra. Indeed, if the majority were to afford a policeman, qua witness, absolute immunity but deny it to this prosecutor, giving a similar answer, then Goodwin would be denied absolute immunity solely because of his official status, surely an impermissible result. If a policeman should have absolute immunity here, functioning as a witness, so too should Goodwin, functioning as an officer of the court. 96 Besides the concern for symmetry of treatment in the performance of similar tasks, the other basic rationale in the investigatory cases is that the prosecutor acting like a policeman outside the court should be afforded only qualified immunity because there is no other appropriate way for there to be judicial surveillance of this type of executive action. Apton v. Wilson. 41 Put the other way, as Judge Leventhal did in Apton, the prosecutor acting within the confines of the court is entitled to absolute immunity as a quasi-judicial officer because the circumstances typically provide alternative instruments of the judicial branch to check misconduct the discretion of the grand jury, the procedures of a trial, and the potential sanction of discipline imposed by the court itself. 42 97 Judged by the reasoning of Apton, it should seem that Goodwin is clearly entitled to absolute immunity, as his allegedly false statement was made directly under the control of the trial judge, a classic instance of judicial surveillance. The majority, however, seeks to distinguish the reasoning of Apton because, it says, the circumstances of this case did not in fact provide for careful scrutiny of Goodwin's action. See at --- - --- of 186 U.S.App.D.C., at 24-25 of 569 F.2d. To begin with, the language from Apton does not suggest in any way that absolute immunity for a quasi-judicial officer should turn on a particularistic inquiry into whether in fact there was a full and fair judicial surveillance. 43 Instead, it is the opportunity and potential for judicial surveillance that justifies absolute immunity for prosecutorial activity in a courtroom setting. That the majority is misreading the nature of absolute quasi-judicial immunity will become apparent from a close comparison of its rationale with Imbler. 98 2. Two of the reasons that the majority gives for why absolute immunity is not appropriate in this case are based upon a clear misreading of Imbler. The majority asserts, first of all, that there has yet been no apparent official inquiry into this alleged misbehavior, and, secondly, that the alleged perjury here was insulated from probing examination and jury appraisal. As I will show, these are not material factors under Imbler, even assuming their accuracy, as to whether this prosecutor was acting as an officer of the court. 99 Consider first the issue of whether there has been any professional or judicial inquiry into Goodwin's action. In striking the balance in favor of absolute immunity, the Imbler Court 44 regarded as significant factors (the) amenability (of a prosecutor) to professional discipline by an association of his peers and the possibility as well of criminal punishment of a prosecutor. The existence of these checks, the Court emphasized, thus does not leave the public powerless to deter misconduct or to punish that which occurs. 45 In this case the majority holds that because there has been no professional or judicial inquiry after all this time, it is appropriate to allow an inquiry now in this suit for damages. This outcome rests on a misunderstanding by the majority about the nature of the Supreme Court's analysis in Imbler. The Court was weighing the general policies behind absolute as opposed to qualified immunity in order to arrive at the functional rule of absolute immunity for the prosecutor in his role as advocate. By weighing in the balance the amenability of a prosecutor to alternative sanctions, the Court did not mean that the availability of absolute immunity from civil damage suits in each case should turn on a particularistic determination of whether the prosecutor's act in question had otherwise been the subject of a disciplinary inquiry. Indeed, the Imbler Court did, in fact, grant absolute immunity to the individual prosecutor, Mr. Richard Pachtman, without anywhere indicating whether he had been subject to disciplinary inquiry in the many years between the trial in 1961 and the Court's award of absolute immunity in 1976. Similarly, it is immaterial whether Goodwin's action has in fact been subject to disciplinary review. Rather, what the Imbler Court emphasized is that there had existed the possibility of alternative checks, citing to the relevant sections of the ABA Code of Professional Responsibility and the California Penal Code. So too here, there is no question that there has existed the potential for professional, criminal or judicial inquiry into his action, thus bringing him within the analysis of Imbler. 46 100 As a matter of immunity doctrine, moreover, there is real wisdom in not having the choice between immunities turn on a determination of whether this action in particular was subject to disciplinary review. A fair assessment of this factor may have to involve further proceedings and findings, a possibility which undercuts the purpose of absolute immunity, to provide protection at the outset from trial and liability. In this case, for example, it is not altogether clear that there was no apparent official inquiry into the seeming misstatement, as the majority asserts. 47 At the criminal trial of appellees, the trial court held an evidentiary hearing before admitting the informant, Poe, as a witness. Based on evidence received at the hearing, and over the objections of appellees that their Fifth Amendment right to Due Process and their Sixth Amendment right to counsel had been violated, the trial court permitted Poe to testify. Was the court's ruling at all based upon its view that Goodwin's answer was not perjury or did not violate the Constitution? The record in the criminal case is not before us and so the question must go unanswered. 101 Yet if the trial court did face there the issue of the alleged perjury which is very plausible since the appellees here were the defendants there then the majority may be unfairly and inaccurately assuming that there has been no official inquiry. For a more precise assessment of its assumption, the majority would have to have a remand on this issue, to allow for further proceedings, all this taking place, I repeat, even before the choice of immunities is made. And yet, without a remand on whether there had been an official inquiry at the criminal trial into the alleged perjury the majority may be denying Goodwin absolute immunity on the basis of an unfair and inaccurate assumption, as well as one that is immaterial. 102 Furthermore, the majority overlooks the important possibility that the lack of any official inquiry may itself reflect some oversight by other parties. My thought is that the Department of Justice and the District Judge are well aware of the facts on the merits of this case, 48 and that in their opinion the claim of plaintiff Briggs has no merit, hence no action has been taken. It is worth noting also that since the courtroom incident we have had two Presidents and several Attorneys General, of different political persuasions. How does the majority take into account the possible scrutiny by all these people, short of a formal official inquiry, and their possible judgment that action against Goodwin was not warranted? If Goodwin is to be denied absolute immunity because nobody has reviewed his alleged misbehavior, then the majority must not totally overlook, as it does, the important possibility that the relevant parties have exercised some oversight and have decided against further inquiry. 103 The short of it is that it is unwise to make absolute immunity turn on whether there was in fact alternative review of the incident in question. Such an inquiry, as demonstrated by this case, may raise evidentiary and other issues that must be resolved even before the choice of immunities can be made. The greater the number of issues that are injected into this choice, beyond the necessary issues of scope of duty and discretionary act, the more the protection of absolute immunity the dismissal of a suit at the outset is eroded. It was thus very appropriate for the Imbler Court not to consider whether that prosecutor had been called to answer for his alleged courtroom misdeeds. We should, and must, follow their example: it is immaterial whether there was ever an official inquiry into Goodwin's alleged perjury. 104 The other argument of the majority is that because Goodwin's statement was insulat(ed) from appraisal by the jury and further inquiry by the appellees, it is inappropriate to accord absolute immunity in this case. 49 Once again, this outcome rests upon a misreading of Imbler. As mentioned earlier, 50 Justice White in a separate opinion argued that there should be only qualified immunity for the unconstitutional withholding of information from the court. When a prosecutor suppresses evidence, Justice White contended, it is, by definition, not subject to the scrutiny of the judicial process; thus, there is no way to prevent or correct the constitutional violation. 51 Note the similarity to the majority's view that absolute immunity is inappropriate here. For example, the majority points out that appellees and their counsel were required to accept appellant's representation on faith, 52 which meant, in Justice White's terms, that there was no way to prevent or correct the constitutional violation. 53 105 The short answer to the majority's view that Goodwin's insulat(ed) answer loses absolute immunity is that the Imbler Court expressly rejected Justice White's separate view that the total suppression of evidence warranted only qualified immunity. 54 Thus, under Imbler it is immaterial to the choice of immunities whether Goodwin's allegedly false statement during judicial proceedings was not adequately tested by cross-examination or by jury appraisal. 106 Moreover, viewing this case in terms of the suppression of evidence, the Imbler Court's rejection of Justice White's separate approach may be said to settle and control this case. One of the policies justifying absolute prosecutorial immunity is that otherwise the triers of fact in criminal cases often would be denied relevant evidence. 55 By rejecting Justice White's view that an unconstitutional withholding should not warrant absolute immunity, the Imbler Court was essentially saying that in all the decisions about presenting evidence to the court the prosecutor would have absolute immunity. This would include decisions to present evidence of dubious reliability as well as decisions not to present particular evidence at all. In these terms, what Goodwin allegedly did, in essence, was decide not to present the court with the evidentiary fact that there was a government informant among the witnesses. Since this decision entailed an element of judgment (giving the framing of the question from the trial court), it is a decision about presenting evidence, in this case from himself as witness and counsel, that is basically the subject of this suit. 107 Imbler afforded protection for the full range of decisions about presenting or withholding evidence. Once again, we should, and must, follow its guidance: it is immaterial whether Goodwin's decision, to withhold evidence, was shielded from cross-examination, or the other corrective aspects of the trial process. 108 3. Central to the majority's conclusion denying absolute immunity to this prosecutor is its view that his alleged perjury bears no relation whatever to the advocate's role as conceived by the Supreme Court in Imbler. 56 As discussed above, this conclusion disregards whether his alleged perjury bears a relation to his role as an officer of the court (which he may be, even though not an advocate in the most narrow sense) under Imbler or to his role as witness, both of which roles are entitled, I submit, to absolute immunity. But even considering solely the advocacy role for the moment, the majority finds no relation to advocacy only by adopting a much more narrow view of the advocate's role than was conceived and applied in Imbler. If the advocate's role as defined in Imbler and the circumstances of this case are properly understood, Goodwin's response to the question may fairly be seen as a necessary part of his advocate's role. 109 The Imbler Court meant for the advocate's role to be read very broadly. Not only did Imbler go out of its way to say in dicta that the role extended to actions preliminary to the initiation of a prosecution and actions apart from the courtroom, 57 but also in disposing of the case it found actions to be advocacy which, at first glance, appeared more to be investigation. Having already shown that the broad language of the dicta appears to bring his alleged perjury within the ambit of Imbler, 58 let us focus here on how the treatment of the precise facts of Imbler also establishes that the action of Goodwin comes within the broad definition of advocacy. 110 The starting point for the relevant analysis is footnote 32 of Imbler, which discusses seemingly investigative activity. Because of the importance of the footnote to following the analysis, it is reproduced in full below in the text. (Costello, a central character in the footnote, was the primary identification witness at the trial of Imbler). 59 111 Both in his complaint in District Court and in his argument to us, petitioner characterizes some of respondent's actions as police-related or investigative. Specifically, he points to a request by respondent of the police during a courtroom recess that they hold off questioning Costello about a pending bad-check charge until after Costello had completed his testimony. Petitioner asserts that this request was an investigative activity because it was a direction to police officers engaged in the investigation of crime. Seen in its proper light, however, respondent's request of the officers was an effort to control the presentation of his witness' testimony, a task fairly within his function as an advocate. 112 The action at issue in the above footnote was the prosecutor's request of the police that at that time they not question Costello, the prosecution's witness, about a pending criminal charge. Ordinarily, requests and directions about police interrogation would be considered acts of investigation. However, the prosecutor's request was deemed an act of advocacy in Imbler because his concern about the interrogation was that it might impair the remainder of Costello's testimony. Following police interrogation, Costello might be nervous, and a less effective witness. Or after such interrogation, he might become less cooperative as a government witness or even refuse to cooperate at all. 113 Applying this reasoning to the instant case, it also appears that the act of claimed perjury should be taken as advocacy. Given that the object of the asserted perjury was to avoid disclosing the existence or identity of the government agent, that meant, since the concealment was accomplished, that the agent was able to appear at trial as a witness and did appear without his existence or identity known to the defendants beforehand. As a result, the presentation of the witness's testimony was very likely more effective, much as Costello's testimony was possibly made more effective due to the postponement of police interrogation. Seen in this light, Goodwin's act of alleged perjury can be taken as an effort to preserve the more effective use of a witness at trial. 60 As in Imbler, Goodwin's act was even more clearly not removed from the judicial process, being in court, relating to a grand jury proceeding, and should be considered as relating to the other advocacy duties of his grand jury function. 114 C. The Majority's Extraordinary Misconception of the Prosecutor's Role With the Grand Jury 115 After its discussion of cases making the distinction between the advocacy role of the prosecutor and his sometime investigative or administrative duties, the majority opinion then develops the argument that Goodwin's performance of his duties as a prosecutor with the grand jury was in this case, although not necessarily in other instances of his work with the grand jury, properly characterized as investigative in nature rather than being connected with his role as an advocate. I respectfully suggest that the entire development of this argument in the majority opinion is founded on a total misapprehension of the relationship of the prosecutor to the grand jury and a misconception of the grand jury's role itself. The distinctions attempted to be drawn are demonstrably legally incorrect and, to anyone who has ever worked with a grand jury, totally impossible to apply as a matter of practicality. 116 Since the exposition of the underlying rationale of the majority on this point is spread over several pages, I shall quote certain excerpts so that the majority rationale will be unmistakably clear. We are aware that earlier cases in which prosecutorial behavior has been termed investigative have involved factual situations distinct from that currently before us. (P. --- of 186 U.S.App.D.C., p. 23 of 569 F.2d) . . . (W)e think that, in a real sense, this litigation concerns behavior more plainly investigative than that encountered in some of the earlier cases cited above. (P. --- of 186 U.S.App.D.C., at p. 23 of 569 F.2d) . . . The grand jury (in Goodwin's case) was to function in the first instance as an investigative tool, rather than in its more familiar guise as a deliberative body deciding whether to return indictments for specific crimes on the basis of evidence gathered and presented by a public prosecutor. (P. --- of 186 U.S.App.D.C., p. 24 of 569 F.2d) . . . The ongoing character of the grand jury process in this case helps to convince us that appellant had embarked on what was fundamentally a factfinding mission, and that his false statement to the court, if such it was, was intended to improve the prospects for that endeavor's success. (Pp. --- - --- of 186 U.S.App.D.C., p. 24 of 569 F.2d) (emphasis supplied). 117 The majority thus tries to divide grand jury functions into investigative and deliberative. There is that distinction, but the way the majority defines and separates it, it is completely erroneous and misleading here. Let me see if I can dispel the confusion: 118 1. The grand jury does not have a more familiar guise as a deliberate body and another role as an investigative tool. The grand jury ALWAYS has both roles of hearing evidence (investigating) and then deciding whether to return an indictment (deliberating). 119 2. The prosecutor's only role with the grand jury is during the time that it is hearing evidence, i. e., investigating. His usual duty at that time is to interrogate witnesses, much as he does in the courtroom. 120 3. The prosecutor never has a role with the grand jury while it is functioning as a deliberative body. By law he is excluded, as is everyone else, from the grand jury during this time. Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 6(d). His presence or assistance to the grand jury during the time it was functioning, in the words of my colleagues, in its more familiar guise as a deliberative body, would be grounds for quashing an indictment. 121 4. The majority deprives the prosecutor here of his absolute immunity because he was performing duties with the grand jury which was then functioning in the first instance as an investigative tool, but they do not seem to realize that this is the only role for the prosecutor with the grand jury. The majority never presumes to exclude the prosecutor at all times from his absolute immunity when he is working with the grand jury. The opinion tacitly assumes that the prosecutor, when working with the grand jury in what the majority considers his normal prosecutorial functions, is clothed with his usual absolute immunity as a prosecutor, because they recognize a good part of the prosecutor's duties is in assisting the grand jury, an arm of the court. Certainly in performing this function the prosecutor would, in the language of Imbler, be functioning as an officer of the court whose activities were intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process. The majority itself states, The cases collected by appellant hold unanimously that a prosecutor is entitled to absolute immunity for his quasi-judicial activities. After Imbler, this joint is incontestable. (P. --- of 186 U.S.App.D.C., at 22 of 569 F.2d.) 122 5. What the majority is trying to do here is to make a distinction between those cases brought before the grand jury which require very little evidence, or very little original evidence before the grand jury, as the basis of an indictment, and those cases which require a great deal of evidence, some of which may be heard by the prosecutor for the first time. The majority seems to think that, simply because the matters which were to be heard by this particular grand jury in Florida were estimated to require considerable time and perhaps to consist of evidence not hitherto heard by the prosecutor or anyone else, somehow the prosecutor was no longer functioning in his same role. Necessarily, the majority also tries to redraw the line between the grand jury's roles of hearing evidence (investigation) and deliberation (discussing and voting on indictments). The majority does this by apparently classifying simple cases with short routine presentations of evidence as being in (the grand jury's) more familiar guise as a deliberative body deciding whether to return indictments for specific crimes on the basis of evidence gathered and presented by a public prosecutor. (P. --- of 186 U.S.App.D.C., p. 24 of 569 F.2d) 123 6. The attempted split of the prosecutor's role, depending on how much or how little evidence, and whether he has heard it before or not, is totally erroneous and confusing. The attempted split of the grand jury's role, between on the one hand complicated cases in which it assists in ferreting out the true facts of the case as well as hearing evidence of which the prosecutor was already aware, and on the other hand cases in which the grand jury functions as a deliberative body, which according to the majority now includes both hearing evidence gathered and presented by a public prosecutor and its secret deliberations on evidence in any type of case, is likewise totally erroneous and confusing. The grand jury is never in a familiar guise as a deliberative body when it is hearing any evidence no matter how routine the presentation. Nor is the prosecutor ever assisting the grand jury in its familiar guise as a deliberative body such action, as the majority describes it, would invalidate every indictment. 124 7. Aside from its misconception of the functions of the grand jury, and its attempt to redraw the line between those functions, now clearly drawn by law, the majority's idea of dividing the functions of the prosecutor with the grand jury into two separate parts, one apparently his role in a routine case and the other in a more elaborate case requiring original work with the grand jury, is utterly impractical. There is no possible line of distinction to be drawn between different types of cases as the majority apparently thinks there is. 125 Cases before a grand jury run the gamut from a simple narcotics possession case, which may require only the testimony of the arresting officer, elicited by questions from the prosecutor, after which an indictment is speedily voted while the prosecutor is getting a glass of water at the nearby water cooler, to a very complicated income tax fraud or mail fraud case in which reluctant or fearful witnesses may have declined to talk to federal investigative agents, but do testify before the grand jury under the questioning of the prosecutor cases that may require weeks and weeks of testimony before the grand jury. 126 In between are every shade and variation of case in which the advocacy skill of the prosecutor is called upon to assist the grand jury. There is the simple fraud case, in which the witnesses before the grand jury may be only one investigator and three victims defrauded, after whose testimony the prosecutor may inform the jury that ten other fraud victims are available to testify if the jury wishes to hear them, but what they will say has been summarized by the investigator. Then there is the same type case in which one or two witnesses may be reluctant to testify for fear of incriminating themselves. This necessitates not only the presentation of the investigators' and the victims' evidence, but perhaps a trip before the district judge to secure a grant of immunity for the witness, and his second appearance before the grand jury, at which time he responds to the prosecutor's questioning and testifies. Then there are situations in which, although a complete investigation has been done by the regular federal investigative agents, at the last minute before the presentation of evidence to the grand jury the prosecutor learns of an additional witness who could throw light on the case, and he promptly puts this witness before the grand jury without any preliminary questioning by anyone whatsoever. 127 The examples of different shades of the prosecutor's questioning, of different degrees of the prosecutor's assistance to the grand jury, of differing combinations of the routine and the bizarre in the presentation of testimony before the grand jury by the prosecutor, could be multiplied without end. There is absolutely no line which can be drawn to separate the prosecutor's role in the more routine case lasting a few minutes from that in which original testimony is heard by the grand jury over a period of weeks, for there is every variation and combination in between. In every case the prosecutor is assisting the grand jury in hearing evidence, the investigative phase of the grand jury's work. The degree of his assistance is of incalculable variety and description, but in no case in no case does the prosecutor assist the grand jury in its more familiar guise as a deliberative body. 128 8. The majority throughout stresses the advocacy function of the prosecutor as that which is entitled to absolute immunity. For example, (T)he Court . . . reaffirmed its fundamental reliance on the advocate's role as the source of the absolute prosecutorial immunity applied in Imbler. (P. --- of 186 U.S.App.D.C., p. 19 of 569 F.2d) Ironically, for the validity of the majority's logic, it is precisely in the long, complicated grand jury case, on which the majority here rests its denial of absolute immunity to the prosecutor, that the prosecutor functions most as an advocate, most similar to his role in court. In the utterly routine case, such as the simple narcotics possession mentioned above, the prosecutor may introduce the arresting officer to the grand jury and only ask him one question, Officer, just tell the grand jury in your own words what happened. And the officer does so without the necessity of any further interrogation by the prosecutor. 129 In direct contrast, if the grand jury is engaged in a long and protracted inquiry, in dealing with witnesses who have not been previously examined by investigators, or dealing with witnesses who are recalcitrant, the skills of the advocate in cross-examination, knowledge of what is relevant and irrelevant, his sense of when a witness is concealing something or fabricating all of these skills of an advocate come into play for the prosecutor in assisting the grand jury, the arm of the court. Strangely, because Goodwin was engaged in assisting the grand jury in such an inquiry, the majority wishes to term his actions investigative, and deny him his status as an advocate entitled to absolute immunity, which the majority would grant him if he were presenting to the grand jury a one gram narcotics possession case! 130 Surely, the prosecutor is functioning as an officer of the court and in direct relation to the judicial phase of the criminal process in any case in which he works with the grand jury irrespective of complexity, length of time, number of witnesses, or whether the witnesses have been interviewed before. Yet, most ironically, it is precisely in the type case in which the prosecutor utilizes his talents of advocacy, the type case the majority says the grand jury and Goodwin had here, in which the majority would deny the prosecutor absolute immunity. 131 9. It is apparent that only if the majority wants to deny all prosecutors absolute immunity for all their work with the grand jury could the majority's position be logically coherent. And this bold stroke the majority has not essayed. 132 The true distinction between the prosecutor acting as an officer of the court and his acting in an investigative role is one which the majority opinion does not describe, but which is inherent in the Supreme Court's opinions in Imbler and in other cases. When the prosecutor examines a witness before the grand jury, whether he asks one question or five hundred, he is functioning as an officer of the court and his activities are intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process. I submit this is undeniable. When the prosecutor goes out to the residence of a potential witness and interrogates him there, then he is functioning in what the majority ought properly to describe as the role of an investigator. On the point reserved in Imbler and on the issue decided in a few cases, then and then only the prosecutor may not have the absolute immunity which clothes his every action as part of the judicial process. When he is interrogating a possible witness outside the courtroom or the grand jury room, then he may be filling the role of a policeman or investigative agent and be clothed with whatever immunity they possess. This we do not need to decide here, any more than the Supreme Court decided the issue in Imbler. D. The Prosecutor Divested 133 The rationale of the majority opinion throughout has been, first, to designate the grand jury work on the day the incident occurred in the courtroom as being investigative in character and not deliberative; secondly, to associate Goodwin with the grand jury acting in its non -deliberative role (assuming that the prosecutor could be associated with the grand jury in its deliberative role!); and then, finally, saying that his response to one question from the judge in the courtroom was in connection with his work with the grand jury, and this grand jury's task was investigative, to deny the prosecutor his absolute immunity. 134 Four quick points highlight the total lack of precedent for my colleagues' decision today: 135 1. No case cited in the 37-page majority opinion ever held that any prosecutor's action in the courtroom was investigation or administration, or was entitled to anything less than absolute immunity. 136 2. The proper line drawn in Imbler was between the prosecutor's responsibilities as an administrator and those as an officer of the court, and every action of a prosecutor described by the Supreme Court as administrator or investigative officer was outside the courtroom and courthouse. 137 3. The Supreme Court has never held that those aspects of the prosecutor's responsibility that cast him in the role of an administrator or investigative officer rather than that of advocate 61 are entitled to less than absolute immunity, and the issue was specifically not decided in Imbler. 138 4. No case cited in the 37-page majority opinion confers anything less than absolute immunity on any person for his statements from the witness stand. 139 Summing up Goodwin's role as a prosecutor in the incident made the basis of plaintiffs' suit for perjury: only because Goodwin was lead counsel for the Government in court was he singled out as the person to be asked the question; there was only one question and one answer, made from the witness stand rather than from the counsel table; at the time Goodwin was in the courtroom, before a U.S. district judge, in his prosecutorial advocate's role as an officer of the court in a hearing connected with a proceeding before the grand jury, an arm of the court. How Goodwin's role can be considered anything but that as an officer of the court or his actions be deemed not intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process, and thus . . . functions to which the reasons for absolute immunity apply with full force, 62 is beyond my ready comprehension. But my colleagues assert that for one critical moment Goodwin was transformed in his appearance as a witness into something else, that since the one question had to do with a grand jury investigation, he was thereby taken out of the advocacy rule of Imbler. Whether that be true or not, yet it seems undeniable that in answering a question under oath Goodwin was also functioning as a witness, another source of absolute immunity to which we now must turn.