Opinion ID: 2980755
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Probable Cause for Arrest Warrant

Text: As will be discussed in Part II.B, the district court did not err in concluding that the arrest warrant was amply supported by probable cause. The existence or nonexistence of probable cause, however, is not determinative of whether absolute immunity applies, even though it may assist the court in deciding whether the prosecutor’s action is one of fact-gathering or trial preparation. “The dividing line is not . . . the point of determination of probable cause. Instead, the dividing line is the point at which the prosecutor performs functions that are intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Prince v. Hicks, 198 F.3d 607, 614 (6th Cir. 1999). The Supreme Court’s statement that “[a] prosecutor neither is, nor should consider himself to be, an advocate before he has probable cause to have anyone arrested,” states nothing to the contrary. Buckley, 509 U.S. at 274. As we explained at length in Prince, 198 F.3d at 614, the Supreme Court qualified that statement in Buckley by noting that a prosecutor No. 10-5797 Howell v. Sanders Page 6 who conducts investigative work following a finding of probable cause is not entitled to absolute immunity, id. at 274 & n. 5, even though a prosecutor who maliciously institutes a false prosecution with no probable cause is entitled to absolute immunity, id. Thus, the inquiry remains one of function and not probable cause. We therefore consider whether the district court correctly classified Sanders’s actions as “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Ireland, 113 F.3d at 1443 (internal quotation marks omitted).