Opinion ID: 612891
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Prosecutorial Function

Text: Because [a]lmost any action by a prosecutor, including his or her direct participation in purely investigative activity, could be said to be in some way related to the ultimate decision whether to prosecute, Burns, 500 U.S. at 495, 111 S.Ct. 1934, we must identify precisely the wrongful acts allegedly performed by Hanson, and classify those acts according to their function. Adams claims that Hanson made false and misleading factual representations to the state trial court, ex parte and off the record during a hearing recess, regarding the availability of Adams as a witness, and that these statements led to her unlawful arrest and detention. The district court determined that Hanson was entitled to absolute immunity from suit because she was acting as an advocate for the state in connection with a preliminary examination. Adams disagrees: she claims that Hanson acted as a complaining witness, or, in the alternative, fulfilled an administrative function. The case thus presents an issue of first impression in this circuit: whether a prosecutor is entitled to absolute immunity for her false and misleading statements to a trial court in the course of criminal proceedings about the availability of a witness. The Michigan ACLU as Amicus argues that, as a rule, absolute immunity should not apply to actions of a prosecutor with respect to a third-party witness. Under this view, actions of a prosecutor vis-à-vis a criminal defendant should be distinguished from actions vis-à-vis a third-party witness, and absolute immunity should not be extended to the latter because the historical and policy rationales for absolute immunity do not apply with equal force in the witness context. Other circuits that have addressed the question have held that prosecutors are ordinarily entitled to absolute immunity for conduct falling within a prosecutorial function when they seek detention of a material witness pursuant to judicial order. See Betts v. Richard, 726 F.2d 79, 81 (2d Cir.1984); Daniels v. Kieser, 586 F.2d 64, 68-69 (7th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 441 U.S. 931, 99 S.Ct. 2050, 60 L.Ed.2d 659 (1979); cf. Odd v. Malone, 538 F.3d 202, 212 (3d Cir.2008) (plaintiff acknowledge[d] that [prosecutor] was acting in her prosecutorial capacity when she secured the material witness warrant). The Third Circuit has cautioned, however, that policy considerations underlying prosecutorial immunity counsel against recognizing absolute immunity in material-witness cases. Odd, 538 F.3d at 216; see also al -Kidd v. Ashcroft, 580 F.3d 949, 963 (9th Cir.2009), rev'd on other grounds, ___ U.S. ___, 131 S.Ct. 2074, 179 L.Ed.2d 1149 (2011) (holding that absolute immunity does not attach to prosecutor's solely investigative use of a material-witness warrant). [2] We have stated in dicta that absolute immunity protects a prosecutor seeking the incarceration of a material witness, White by Swafford v. Gerbitz, 860 F.2d 661, 665 n. 4 (6th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 489 U.S. 1028, 109 S.Ct. 1160, 103 L.Ed.2d 219 (1989), but not a prosecutor who fails to act timely to secure a material-witness's release after being ordered to do so by the court, id. The scope of a prosecutor's immunity in this context, however, has never been squarely addressed by this court. We conclude that Hanson's statements before the trial court at the preliminary examination regarding Adams's availability as a witness fell within her role as an advocate for the State of Michigan and are therefore absolutely protected. The prosecutorial function includes initiating criminal proceedings, appearing before the court at a probable cause hearing or before a grand jury, seeking an arrest warrant, and preparing witnesses. Imbler, 424 U.S. at 431 & n. 33, 96 S.Ct. 984; Burns, 500 U.S. at 489-92, 111 S.Ct. 1934; Buckley, 509 U.S. at 270-71, 273, 113 S.Ct. 2606; Kalina, 522 U.S. at 129, 118 S.Ct. 502. Hanson's challenged conduct involved the analogous acts of appearing at a preliminary examination and making statements about her discussions with a potential witness  activities closely related ... to h[er] role as an advocate before the court in criminal proceedings. Holloway, 220 F.3d at 775 (emphasis in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, because the issuance of either a material-witness warrant or an order of contempt is unquestionably a judicial act, a prosecutor's statements to the court regarding the availability of a witness are `intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process'.... [and are] connected with the initiation and conduct of a prosecution, particularly where, as here, the hearing occurs after arrest [of the defendant] in the criminal proceedings. [3] Burns, 500 U.S. at 492, 111 S.Ct. 1934 (internal citation omitted). It is especially instructive that, under Michigan law, it is the prosecutor's particular, non-delegable duty to make a diligent good-faith effort to find and produce witnesses in criminal prosecutions. People v. Dye, 431 Mich. 58, 427 N.W.2d 501, 510 (1988). Although the parties dispute whether Hanson sought to hold Adams as a material witness or in contempt of court, there is no dispute that Hanson sought to secure Adams's testimony as a witness in a criminal prosecution, a province of the prosecutor. That Hanson allegedly acted outside of formal judicial proceedings, in an off-the-record discussion with the trial judge, does not strip her automatically of immunity for this conduct. [T]he duties of the prosecutor in his role as advocate for the State involve actions preliminary to the initiation of a prosecution and actions apart from the courtroom. Imbler, 424 U.S. at 431 n. 33, 96 S.Ct. 984. Specifically, conduct related to the preparation and presentation of witness testimony may be protected whether it occurs in or out of court. See id. at 430 n. 32, 96 S.Ct. 984 (holding that prosecutor was entitled to absolute immunity for making statements to police regarding the questioning of a witness during a courtroom recess); cf. Buckley, 509 U.S. at 277-78, 113 S.Ct. 2606 (denying prosecutor absolute immunity for making out-of-court statements at a press conference). In fulfilling her prosecutorial duties, Hanson's conduct constituted an effort to control the presentation of [a] witness' testimony which is fairly within [her] function as an advocate. Imbler, 424 U.S. at 430 n. 32, 96 S.Ct. 984. Because Hanson's actions fell within her prosecutorial role, she is entitled to absolute immunity even if her statements were false or misleading. As this court has recently emphasized, prosecutors do not forfeit their absolute immunity when they knowingly make false statements while advocating before the court, Pittman v. Cuyahoga Cnty. Dep't of Children & Family Servs., 640 F.3d 716, 725 (6th Cir.2011), `so long as the statements were related to the proceeding[s]' in which they were made, id. (quoting Burns, 500 U.S. at 490, 111 S.Ct. 1934). Therefore, even if Hanson made false representations to the trial judge regarding Adams's availability, she is protected by absolute immunity because she was serving as an advocate in judicial proceedings, Kalina, 522 U.S. at 125, 118 S.Ct. 502, when she made statements related to th[ose] proceedings, Burns, 500 U.S. at 490, 111 S.Ct. 1934. Hanson's allegedly improper motive in seeking and securing Adams's detention does not alter our conclusion that Hanson's acts served a prosecutorial function. Suggesting an investigative purpose, Adams claims that Hanson sought her detention in order to coerce her into testifying in accordance with the 2006 statement. As the line of absolute-immunity cases make clear, however, a prosecutor's allegedly improper motive alone is not enough to defeat absolute immunity, so long as the general nature of his actions falls within the scope of his duties as an advocate for the state. Cady v. Arenac Cnty., 574 F.3d 334, 341 (6th Cir.2009). [T]he general nature of [Hanson's] actions in making unsworn representations to the court regarding Adams's availability to testify f[ell] within the scope of h[er] duties as an advocate for the state, and are therefore absolutely protected whatever Hanson's motive was in making them. Id. [4] Absolute immunity would be defeated if Hanson's acts and omissions were instead administrative  i.e., if representing that Adams refused to testify without also securing her appearance in court served an administrative rather than prosecutorial function. We held in Holloway v. Brush that a social worker's out-of-court actions, misinforming [a party] and failing to inform the court of the [party's] appearance, which led to the severing of the party's parental rights, were administrative acts rather than the conduct of an advocate. 220 F.3d at 776 (emphasis omitted). Adams, in contrast, admitted that she told Hanson and the sheriffs that she would not appear in the courtroom and testify, and Hanson presented this information to the trial court. Unlike the social worker in Holloway, Hanson did not appropriate[] the entire judicial process to herself by hiding [Adams] and the court from each other, but rather, the trial court itself proceeded without providing Adams an opportunity to be heard. Id. at 777. Significantly, the Michigan statute assigns responsibility for material-witness protections to the court. The statute provides that, [w]hen it appears to a court that the appropriate conditions are met, then the court shall require the witness to be brought before [it]. MICH. COMP. LAWS ANN. § 767.35 (emphasis added). The responsibility is thereby placed with the court to provide a witness the opportunity to be heard and to assess itself the materiality of her testimony and the likelihood that she would fail to appear. Id. Because this judicial process was not followed in this case, Adams was not provided the opportunity to be heard or to furnish bail before the trial court ordered her detained. Although we remain seriously troubled by the abrogation of Adams's procedural rights, Adams's experience illustrates the importance of vigilant exercise of this checking role by the judicial officer to whom the warrant application is presented, not that prosecutors must be held accountable for judicial error. al- Kidd, 131 S.Ct. at 2088 n. 2 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). Along the same lines, this case is readily distinguishable from Odd v. Malone , in which the Third Circuit characterized as administrative the defendant-prosecutors' actions vis-à-vis detained material witnesses and denied absolute immunity. 538 F.3d at 217. One prosecutor had failed to inform the judge that the case for which the witness was detained had been continued, per the judge's order and per local custom. Id. at 212-13. Another failed to seek the release of a third-party witness in state custody after the termination of the proceedings in which he was to testify. Id. at 215. The Third Circuit held that these actions were not acts of advocacy related to conducting a prosecution for the state but rather were administrative tasks which the prosecutors failed to complete. Id. at 217. Hanson's actions, in contrast, occurred while seeking a witness's detention, not after the detention had commenced, and Adams has not alleged that Hanson defied the court's instructions. In this case, moreover, the court was complicit in the alleged denial of Adams's procedural rights. Unlike the incarcerations in Odd, which were prolonged past the intention of the court due to prosecutorial oversight, it was left to the state trial court in this case to determine whom to incarcerate and for what length of time. [5] Id. at 214. Our opinion does not foreclose the possibility that Adams's constitutional rights were violated [6] or that a prosecutor's actions in relation to a witness may be administrative or investigative in another context. [7] If Hanson had detained Adams without a court order, she likely would have been engaging in an investigative act[] antecedent ... to the judicial process rather than absolutely protected prosecutorial activity. Ireland, 113 F.3d at 1445. If police had detained Adams unilaterally, or misrepresented the facts when applying for a warrant, she may have been able to bring a viable § 1983 claim against them. See al- Kidd, 131 S.Ct. at 2089 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). In fact, however, Adams was arrested pursuant to a signed order from the trial judge, and while it was Hanson's job to present information about witnesses to the court, it was the court's duty to respond with appropriate protections. Therefore, whether or not Adams's detention violated her constitutional rights, Hanson's acts are protected by absolute immunity.