Opinion ID: 787920
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appropriate Immunity for Christian and Rodriguez

Text: 19 Swift alleges that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated as a result of: (1) the officers' investigation of suspected parole violations; (2) the officers ordering the issuance of a parole hold and orchestrating Swift's arrest; and (3) their recommending the initiation of parole revocation proceedings. 20 Christian and Rodriguez bear the burden of proving their entitlement to absolute immunity. Antoine, 508 U.S. at 432, 113 S.Ct. 2167 (The proponent of a claim to absolute immunity bears the burden of establishing the justification for such immunity.). Their primary argument in support of absolute immunity is that Anderson decided this issue. The district court agreed, stating that the Defendants' functions in the instant case are non-distinguishable from the functions the Anderson court held to be protected by absolute immunity.
21 We reverse for two reasons. First, Anderson expressly did not address the issue at hand. Second, Antoine forecloses Christian and Rodriguez's broad interpretation of Anderson . In Anderson , we considered what immunity should extend to the Chairman of the Oregon State Parole Board and the Assistant Director of the Oregon Interstate Compact. Anderson, 714 F.2d at 907-08. We held that the parole officials were entitled to absolute immunity for the imposition of parole conditions and for the decision to have a parolee arrested and placed on parole holds pending investigation of purported parole violations. Id. at 909. We explained that when parole board officials have a parolee arrested and placed on a parole hold, they are entitled to absolute immunity because[t]hese actions [are] directly related to the decision to revoke parole. Id. (emphasis added). 22 We also held, however, that the officials were only entitled to qualified immunity for the dissemination of information about a parolee to persons outside the parole board because that conduct does not relate to a parole official's duties in deciding to `grant, deny, or revoke parole.' Id. at 910 (quoting Sellars, 641 F.2d at 1303) (emphasis added). 23 Moreover, we explicitly did not address the possibility of a distinction for purposes of immunity analysis between a member of a parole board and a parole official with no role, or a lesser role, in the decision to grant, deny or revoke parole. Id. 24 California's parole system is effectuated by two separate and distinct entities, the CDC and the BPT: the [CDC] is authorized to supervise parolees and to detain them pending a revocation hearing ... while the [BPT] makes the decision as to whether or not to revoke parole. Swift, 11 Cal.Rptr.3d at 410 (citing Cal. Pen.Code §§ 5000-5003, 5077 and Cal.Code Regs. tit. 15, § 2600). Whether parole agents of the CDC are entitled to absolute immunity thus raises the question reserved in Anderson : whether parole officials who play no role ... in the granting or denying of parole[,] and only a preliminary role ... in a determination to revoke, are entitled to absolute immunity. Anderson, 714 F.2d at 910.
25 Christian and Rodriguez contend that under Anderson and Sellars all parole officials are entitled to absolute immunity for actions that relate to the decision to grant, deny or revoke parole. See id. at 909 (extending absolute immunity to actions directly related to the decision to revoke parole). We conclude that the scope of absolute immunity for parole officers is not as extensive. 26 First, Anderson itself does not support such a broad proposition. It limited immunity to acts  directly related to the decision to revoke parole. Id. at 909 (emphasis added). Moreover, it noted that parole officers are not entitled to absolute immunity for conduct arising from their duty to supervise parolees, id. at 909-10, conduct that could include actions that would fall within the reach of Christian and Rodriguez's suggested test. Thus, on its face, Anderson limited immunity more than Christian and Rodriguez suggest. 27 Second, subsequent to Anderson, [i]n Antoine, the Supreme Court worked a sea change in the way in which we are to examine absolute quasi-judicial immunity for nonjudicial officers. Curry v. Castillo (In re Castillo), 297 F.3d 940, 948 (9th Cir.2002). The relevant test now is whether the official is performing a duty functionally comparable to one for which officials were rendered immune at common law. Miller, 335 F.3d at 897. Indeed, to the extent Anderson applied a relates to test, as opposed to a functional test, Antoine overruled it. Under Antoine, [t]he relation of the action to a judicial proceeding ... is no longer a relevant standard. Id. As we have described above, Antoine adopted a functional approach, under which we must determine not whether an action relates to the decision to grant, deny, or revoke parole, as Christian and Rodriguez suggest, but whether an action is taken by an official performing a duty functionally comparable to one for which officials were rendered immune at common law. Id. 4 28 Antoine thus forecloses Christian and Rodriguez's contention that Anderson stands for the broad proposition that quasi-judicial acts include all acts by any parole official that relate to the parole authority's decision to grant, deny or revoke parole. As we explained in Anderson , parole officers are not entitled to absolute immunity for conduct taken outside an official's adjudicatory role[,] or arising from their duty to supervise parolees. Anderson, 714 F.2d at 909-10. Nevertheless, Anderson generally applied a functional test, and the case still dictates that an official who adjudicates parole decisions is entitled to quasi-judicial immunity for those decisions, and actions integral to those decisions.