Opinion ID: 3065924
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Andrew Thomas

Text: Before we consider his claim to immunity, we must address whether the claims against Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas are properly before us, as our circuit law appears to require that we consider the claims against Thomas to be waived.17 Thomas was named as a defendant in the orig17 Although neither party briefed the issue and instead argued the merits of whether Thomas should receive absolute immunity, we address the 10048 LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY inal complaint, but the district court dismissed him from the case in its October 2008 order after finding that he was entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity. Although the court granted leave to amend claims against other parties, it did not grant Lacey leave to amend the claims against Thomas. When Lacey filed his First Amended Complaint, he mentioned Thomas throughout the facts, but he removed all reference to Thomas as a defendant. We have long proclaimed that “[i]t is the law of this circuit that a plaintiff waives all claims alleged in a dismissed complaint which are not realleged in an amended complaint.” Forsyth v. Humana, Inc., 114 F.3d 1467, 1474 (9th Cir. 1997); see N.Y. City Emps.’ Ret. Sys. v. Jobs, 593 F.3d 1018, 1025 (9th Cir. 2010); King v. Atiyeh, 814 F.2d 565, 567 (9th Cir. 1987); London, 644 F.2d at 814; Sacramento Coca-Cola Bottling Co. v. Chauffeurs, Etc., Local 150, 440 F.2d 1096 (9th Cir. 1971); Loux v. Rhay, 375 F.2d 55, 57 (9th Cir. 1967); Bullen v. De Bretteville, 239 F.2d 824, 833 (9th Cir. 1956). (For convenience, we will refer to the rule as the “Forsyth rule.”) The Forsyth rule is “premised on the notion that the ‘amended complaint supersedes the original, the latter being treated thereafter as non-existent.’ If a plaintiff fails to include dismissed claims in an amended complaint, the plaintiff is deemed to have waived any error in the ruling dismissing the prior complaint.” Forsyth, 114 F.3d at 1474 (citation omitted) (quoting Loux, 375 F.2d at 57). We have indeed considered this rule to be “hornbook law,” Bullen, 239 F.2d at 833, even as we have recognized that it is “somewhat harsh,” Marx v. Loral Corp., 87 F.3d 1049, 1056 (9th Cir. 1996). This rule would appear to preclude Lacey from asserting claims against Thomas in this appeal. issue of waiver sua sponte because of the confusion this issue appears to be working in this circuit. We have not hesitated to raise the issue when necessary in the past. See London v. Coopers & Lybrand, 644 F.2d 811, 814 (9th Cir. 1981). LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 10049 Several of our recent decisions, however, have struggled to dampen the harshness of the Forsyth rule and have left our law somewhat unsettled. In USS-POSCO Industries v. Contra Costa County Building & Construction Trades Council, we held that the rule “only applies to amended complaints that follow upon dismissal with leave to amend, and not to those that follow summary judgment.” 31 F.3d 800, 812 (9th Cir. 1994). As we explained, “[c]ounsel were not required to risk forfeiting their client’s right to appeal in order to avoid sanctions.” Id. In Parrino v. FHP, Inc., we further narrowed the rule when we declined to apply it “to claims dismissed without leave to amend.” 146 F.3d 699, 704 (9th Cir. 1998), superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in Abrego Abrego v. Dow Chem. Co., 443 F.3d 676, 681-82 (9th Cir. 2006). Recently, in Sechrest v. Ignacio, we held that the cases establishing the Forsyth rule, including London and Loux, dealt only with “voluntary waiver”; because the petitioner was barred from reasserting certain claims in his habeas petition on pain of its dismissal if he included them, the panel concluded that his challenge to those claims he was unable to reassert was not waived. 549 F.3d 789, 804 (9th Cir. 2008). We are unconvinced that the distinctions we noted in Parrino and Sechrest are consistent with our prior cases. In Marx, for example, we applied the rule where the district court dismissed a claim because it was preempted by ERISA. Following dismissal, [t]he court allowed the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint only on the narrow ground of equitable estoppel sounding in fraud. Thus, the plaintiffs did not include their independent contract theory in the amended complaint. Although it seems somewhat harsh to preclude them from raising the argument now, Ninth Circuit caselaw requires just such a result. 10050 LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 87 F.3d at 1056. We did not recognize any exception because the claims were dismissed involuntarily, but see Sechrest, 549 F.3d at 804, or because the district court refused to grant leave to amend the dismissed claim, but see Parrino, 146 F.3d at 704. Rather, we laid out a stark choice for the plaintiff: “ ‘If appellant desired to rely upon the original complaint, it should have refused to plead further.’ ” Marx, 87 F.3d at 1055 (quoting Studio Carpenters Local Union No. 946 v. Loew’s, Inc., 182 F.2d 168, 170 (9th Cir. 1950)). While harsh, the rule has some logic behind it. Furthermore, we acknowledged in Marx that other courts and legal scholars have criticized the Forsyth rule precisely because it is without exception. For instance, we noted that the Tenth Circuit criticized our rule and characterized it as “formalistic.” Id. at 1056 (quoting Davis v. TXO Prod. Corp., 929 F.2d 1515, 1517-18 & n.1 (10th Cir. 1991)). We also cited a well-known practice guide that stated: The notion that an amended pleading supersedes its predecessor poses a special problem for a party whose initial pleading has been dismissed with leave to amend. By amending, does the party waive the right to object to the court’s dismissal of the original statement at some later point? Some courts have held that the amended pleading supersedes the original pleading in all respects so that an appeal from a subsequent judgment on the merits cannot involve an attack on the dismissal of the original pleading.12 12 [citing Ninth Circuit case law including Loux and Studio Carpenters] A rule that a party waives all objections to the court’s dismissal if the party elects to amend is too mechanical and seems to be a rigid application of the concept that a Rule 15(a) amendment completely replaces the pleading it amends. LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 10051 6 Charles Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Mary Kay Kane, Federal Practice & Procedure § 1476, at 560-61 (2d ed. 1990). It is difficult to escape the conclusion that we have always meant what we had said. Although criticized, our current rule makes some sense in context. We have adopted a generous standard for granting leave to amend from a dismissal for failure to state a claim, such that “a district court should grant leave to amend even if no request to amend the pleading was made, unless it determines that the pleading could not possibly be cured by the allegation of other facts.” Doe v. United States, 58 F.3d 494, 497 (9th Cir. 1995) (quoting Cook, Perkiss & Liehe v. N. Cal. Collection Serv., 911 F.2d 242, 247 (9th Cir. 1990)). Furthermore, because we had held that under the old version of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 “a motion to dismiss is not a ‘responsive pleading,’ ” and thus a party had leave to amend as of right upon dismissal absent the filing of an responsive pleading, id. at 497 (quoting Schreiber Distrib. v. Serv-Well Furniture Co., 806 F.2d 1393, 1401 (9th Cir. 1986)) (internal quotation mark omitted), in many cases any failure to replead a claim in an amended complaint would have been voluntary. (Under the current version of Rule 15 adopted in 2009, parties have 21 days from both responsive pleadings and motions to dismiss to amend as of right, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1) (2009), so the situation has changed.) The Forsyth rule is also consonant with our general practice of considering a dismissal to be of the claims and not a final judgment on the complaint, see WMX Techs., Inc. v. Miller, 104 F.3d 1133, 1135 (9th Cir. 1997) (en banc), with the purpose of reducing the number of appeals to this court. Despite its provenance, on reflection, we do not believe that the Forsyth rule is prudent or sufficiently justified, and we agree that it is formalistic and harsh. We also recognize that we are an outlier among the circuits. Although the general rule is that an amended complaint supercedes the original complaint and renders it without legal effect, most courts have 10052 LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY concluded that “the plaintiff does not forfeit the right to challenge the dismissal on appeal simply by filing an amended complaint that does not re-allege the dismissed claim.” Young v. City of Mount Ranier, 238 F.3d 567, 572-73 (4th Cir. 2001) (footnote omitted); see In re Atlas Van Lines, Inc., 209 F.3d 1064, 1067 (8th Cir. 2000); Badger Pharm., Inc. v. ColgatePalmolive Co., 1 F.3d 621, 625 (7th Cir. 1993); Davis, 929 F.2d at 1517 (10th Cir.); Varnes v. Local 91, Glass Bottle Blowers Ass’n of U.S. & Canada, 674 F.2d 1365, 1370 (11th Cir. 1982); Wilson v. First Houston Inv. Corp., 566 F.2d 1235, 1238 (5th Cir. 1978), vacated on other grounds, 444 U.S. 959 (1979); 3 Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 15.08(7) (1974). The Fourth Circuit has described this rule as “an exception to the general rule of waiver.” Young, 238 F.3d at 573. We find the reasoning in some of those cases and in some of our own criticizing our rule to be persuasive. First, our current rule is unfair to litigants. For the plaintiff whose complaint has been dismissed, the rule is not merely overly “mechanical,” see 6 Wright & Miller, supra, § 1476; it creates a “Hobson’s choice[,] . . . a patently coercive predicament” between amending the complaint—thereby forgoing the chance to appeal the dismissal of some claims—and appealing the dismissal of the claims in the original complaint —thereby forgoing the chance to add or replead claims that the plaintiff would otherwise be allowed to add. In re Van Atlas Lines, 209 F.3d at 1067; see Davis, 929 F.2d at 1518 (“[A] rule requiring plaintiffs who file amended complaints to replead claims previously dismissed on their merits in order to preserve those claims merely sets a trap for unsuspecting plaintiffs with no concomitant benefit to the opposing party.”) (footnote omitted). In practice, however, the choice for counsel is between failing to preserve issues for appeal and risking sanctions by realleging dismissed claims. See Parrino, 146 F.3d at 704. The risk of sanctions is not merely hypothetical. See, e.g., Destfino v. Reiswig, 630 F.3d 952, 959 (9th Cir. 2011) (affirming district court’s inherent power to control its docket by dismissing entire complaint for failure to follow LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 10053 instructions given with leave to amend); Johnson ex rel. Wilson v. Dowd, 345 F. App’x 26, 30 (5th Cir. 2009) (approving Rule 11 sanctions for counsel who realleged claims against judicial defendants who had already been dismissed on the grounds of absolute immunity). The rule is also unfair to the defendants to whom dismissal was granted insofar as it encourages the plaintiff to reallege claims against defendants who have already been dismissed and may feel they must return to court to answer the same claims again. Second, the rule is unfair to district courts. We see no benefit in requiring plaintiffs to reallege claims that the district courts have already dealt with on the merits and dismissed with prejudice. Even where the district court recognizes that plaintiffs are just following the Forsyth rule and preserving their options on appeal, the court will still be wasting resources in parsing old claims and reiterating its prior rulings, and “there is no reason to make the court dismiss them a second time.” Young, 238 F.3d at 573. Our stewardship requires better use of our limited judicial resources. Third, we do not believe there is any countervailing reason for keeping the current rule. While in theory it may limit the number of complaints, and perhaps the number of orders, that we must consider on appeal, in practical terms we think there is little benefit to the orderly administration of justice. It should make little difference whether the claims on appeal are presented in one document or are sections in several complaints; we already consider in a single appeal all interlocutory rulings. See Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546 (1949) (“The purpose [of the final judgment rule] is to combine in one review all stages of the proceeding that effectively may be reviewed and corrected if and when final judgment results.”). Conversely, the current rule may actually multiply litigation. The Forsyth rule may well encourage parties to challenge the district court’s discretion with respect to granting leave to amend the complaint and imposing sanctions for the plaintiff’s attempt to reallege his 10054 LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY claims in order to preserve them for appeal. We think our time, and the resources of the district courts, are better spent addressing the merits of the claims than sidebar arguments over whether a particular claim can or cannot be amended. [30] We therefore join our sister circuits and overrule in part the rule found in Forsyth and other cases “that a plaintiff waives all claims alleged in a dismissed complaint which are not realleged in an amended complaint.” Forsyth, 114 F.3d at 1474. For claims dismissed with prejudice and without leave to amend, we will not require that they be repled in a subsequent amended complaint to preserve them for appeal. But for any claims voluntarily dismissed, we will consider those claims to be waived if not repled. [31] Applying our new rule will not prejudice any party in this case. Lacey’s Notice of Appeal informed the parties that he was appealing the district court’s March 2009 order and the court’s prior October 2008 order. See Fed. R. App. P. 3(c)(1)(B). Thomas has been well represented over the course of this appeal and has fully briefed and argued the questions presented. We thus conclude that the appeal of Thomas’s dismissal in the district court’s October 2008 order is properly before us.
Lacey appeals from the district court’s October 2008 order on the issue of “whether Thomas is entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity i[n his] hiring of Dennis Wilenchik to serve as a Special Prosecutor against the New Times.” Pls.’ Opening Br. at 46. Lacey’s challenge to Thomas’s decision to appoint a special prosecutor presents a question that we have never addressed, a question that rests at the confluence of a district attorney’s employment-related decisions, such as the hiring and promoting of deputy prosecutors, and his litigationrelated decisions to designate deputy prosecutors to act as the advocates of the state in particular matters. LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 10055 [32] In Imbler v. Pachtman, the Court addressed, for the first time, the question of a state prosecuting officer’s immunity for § 1983 liability. Holding that “in initiating a prosecution and in presenting the State’s case, the prosecution is immune from a civil suit damages under § 1983,” the Court noted that its decision left open whether “the 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.” 424 U.S. at 431 & n.33. The Court pointed out that [a] prosecuting attorney is required constantly, in the course of his duty as such, to make decisions on a wide variety of sensitive issues. These include questions of whether to present a case to the grand jury, whether to file an information, whether and when to prosecute, whether to dismiss an indictment against particular defendants, which witnesses to call, and what other evidence to present. Preparation, both for the initiation of the criminal process and for a trial, may require the obtaining, reviewing, and evaluating of evidence. At some point, and with respect to some decisions, the prosecutor no doubt functions as an administrator rather than as an officer of the court. Drawing a proper line between these functions may present difficult questions, but this case does not require us to anticipate them. Id. at 431 n.33. Since Imbler, the courts have had to “[d]raw[ ] a proper line between these functions,” a task that indeed raises “difficult questions.” Id. Several cases have held that the hiring decisions of a prosecutor’s office are administrative in nature and are not shielded by absolute immunity, and Lacey argues that the decision to appoint Wilenchik should be understood in that context. Thomas answers that his staffing decisions are “ ‘closely’ associated with the judicial phase of the criminal 10056 LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY process because [they] only can ‘occur in the course of [Mr. Thomas’] role as an advocate for the State.’ ” In Van de Kamp, the Supreme Court drew a line between a district attorney’s hiring practices and the training and supervising of his prosecutors. The former, the Court said, are administrative responsibilities, while the latter are protected by absolute immunity because they are directly connected with the conduct of a trial. . . . [A]n individual prosecutor’s error in the plaintiff’s specific criminal trial constitutes an essential element of the plaintiff’s claim. The administrative obligations at issue here are thus unlike administrative duties concerning, for example, workplace hiring, payroll administration, the maintenance of physical facilities, and the like. Moreover, the [tasks at issue] necessarily require legal knowledge and the exercise of related discretion . . . . And in that sense also Goldstein’s claims are unlike claims of, say, unlawful discrimination in hiring employees. 555 U.S. at 344 (emphases added); see also Genzler v. Longanbach, 410 F.3d 630, 644 (9th Cir. 2005); Brodnicki v. City of Omaha, 75 F.3d 1261, 1267 (8th Cir. 1996) (upholding absolute immunity for county attorney from whom the prosecutor would have to receive permission to dismiss a case). In Botello v. Gammick, we concluded that when prosecutors involved themselves in the “personnel decision” of another office regarding whether to hire an investigator, “they were at best performing an administrative function and, as such, could only be entitled to qualified immunity.” 413 F.3d 971, 977 (9th Cir. 2005). We reached the general conclusion that “an official is not entitled to absolute immunity for conduct involving termination, demotion and treatment of employees.” Id. at 976. We drew the line more clearly in Ceballos v. Garcetti, 361 F.3d 1168 (9th Cir. 2004), rev’d on other grounds, 547 U.S. LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 10057 410 (2006). In that case, we determined that retaliatory employment actions taken by the district attorney’s office against a prosecutor—demotion from his position, denial of promotion, preclusion from handling further murder cases, and a forced choice between transferring to another office and staying in his current location and handling only minor cases —were administrative actions and not part of any prosecution, so the defendants were not entitled to absolute immunity for them. Id. at 1184. But, at the same time, we stated that “the removal of [the prosecutor] from a particular murder case he was handling fell within the District Attorney’s prosecutorial function, because it . . . is ‘intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.’ ” Id. (quoting Broam v. Bogan, 320 F.3d 1023, 1028 (9th Cir. 2003)). If removing a prosecutor from a particular case is within the district attorney’s duties, it stands to reason that appointing a prosecutor to a particular case would also fall within the prosecutorial function. The line between appointments in particular cases and employment decisions follows naturally from similar decisions concerning judicial immunity. In Forrester v. White, for example, the Supreme Court held that a state judge “was act- ing in an administrative capacity when he demoted and discharged” a probation officer and therefore was not entitled to absolute immunity. 484 U.S. 219, 229 (1988). The Court reinforced its holding by comparing the judge to a district attor- ney: “a judge who hires or fires a probation officer cannot meaningfully be distinguished from a district attorney who hires and fires assistant district attorneys.” Id. Similarly, in Meek v. County of Riverside, 183 F.3d 962, 966 (9th Cir. 1999), we held that a judge’s decision to fire a court commis- sioner was not “inherently judicial” because the general nature of an official’s duties does not render the decision judicial rather than administrative. We again distinguished between “administrative personnel decisions” that affect the court generally and decisions that involve “the disposition of particular cases.” Id. By contrast, we explained in New Alaska 10058 LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY Development Corp. v. Guetschow, 869 F.2d 1298, 1302 (9th Cir. 1989), that the act of appointing a receiver was covered by absolute immunity because “the appointment at issue was made in the context of a pending case,” Meek, 183 F.3d at 967. See Davis v. Bayless, 70 F.3d 367, 373 (5th Cir. 1995) (“Court appointed receivers act as arms of the court and are entitled to share the appointing judge’s absolute immunity . . . . [A] receiver’s immunity is derivative of the appointing judge’s judicial immunity . . . .”) (compiling cases from vari- ous circuits). Other courts have recognized that decisions regarding appointment of counsel in a particular case are judicial in nature, although they have disagreed over whether decisions to include attorneys on a general appointment register are. See Davis v. Tarrant Cnty., Tex., 565 F.3d 214, 223-26 (5th Cir. 2009) (compiling cases holding that appointment of counsel in a particular case is a judicial act and holding that selecting attorneys for inclusion on a list for future court appointments is a judicial function covered by absolute immunity); Mitchell v. Fishbein, 377 F.3d 157, 172-74 (2d Cir. 2004) (formulating a list of attorneys to represent indigent defendants is administrative, not judicial, in nature). [33] From these examples, we can draw a broad principle. Decisions related to general conditions of employment— including decisions to hire, promote, transfer, and terminate— and which do not affect the prosecutor’s role in any particular matter are generally not sufficiently related to the initiation and conduct of a prosecution in a court of law or their role as an advocate of the state to qualify for absolute immunity. Decisions related to appointments and removals in a particular matter will generally fall within the exercise of the judge’s or prosecutor’s judicial and quasi-judicial roles and are shielded from suit by absolute immunity. Were this a dispute between Thomas and Wilenchik over his hiring as a line prosecutor for the MCAO, Thomas would not be entitled to absolute immunity. But it is not. Wilenchik was not seeking employment at the MCAO, and this is not a LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 10059 suit by Wilenchik against Thomas. Rather, it is a suit by Lacey blaming Thomas for having appointed Wilenchik as an Independent Special Deputy Maricopa County Attorney in the New Times matter. Wilenchik was appointed for no other purpose than to investigate and, as appropriate, bring charges against the New Times, Lacey, and Larkin. As Wilenchik points out in his response brief, “a special prosecutor, by definition, is appointed to prosecute one incident against a particular individual or individuals.” More trenchantly, former Attorney General Robert Jackson described the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than cases that need to be prosecuted. . . . In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. Robert Jackson, Address at the Second Annual Conference of United States Attorneys: The Federal Prosecutor, (Apr. 1, 1940), reprinted in 24 J. Am. Judicature Soc’y 18 (1940). Special prosecutors, by the nature of their appointment, brook this “most dangerous power.” And we are well aware of the controversy that can attend the appointment of a special prosecutor and any consequent investigations and prosecutions; such matters often produce profound political consequences for the party being investigated, the appointing authority, and the special prosecutor. Accordingly, the appointment of a special prosecutor, unlike a decision to hire a new assistant district attorney, is intimately and publicly tied to the imminent investigation of the target. But whatever the danger inherent in the power to pick either the case or the man, the power is one quintessentially belonging to the prosecutor. In that sense a special appointment is fundamentally “unlike claims of, say, 10060 LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY unlawful discrimination in hiring employees.” Van de Kamp, 555 U.S. at 344. Even if Wilenchik were in some sense hired by Maricopa County, he was appointed by Thomas to do one and only one thing: prosecute the New Times. Perhaps the case most closely analogous is Yaselli v. Goff, an early and important decision relied on by the Court in Imbler. See Imbler, 424 U.S. at 422, 424, 428. In that case, Yaselli alleged that Goff, a Special Assistant to the Attorney General, had falsely and maliciously prosecuted him, culminating in a directed verdict for Yaselli. The court first held that “a special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, in the performance of the duties imposed upon him by law, is immune from a civil action . . . although it results in a verdict of not guilty rendered by a jury.” Yaselli, 12 F.2d at 406. The Second Circuit then turned to a “novel question”: whether Goff was also entitled to immunity from Yaselli’s claim that Goff “had conspired to prosecute plaintiff maliciously, and in a step in furtherance of the plan confederated and agreed that Goff would obtain an appointment as an assistant to the Attorney General for the purposes of the prosecution.” Id. at 407. The court held that Goff was entitled to absolute immunity for his appointment, even if obtained by conspiracy: In our opinion, the reasons which compel us to hold that one who obtains an appointment as a prosecut- ing officer of the government is immune from civil liability for acts done by him in the discharge of his official duties apply in like manner to protect him against such a charge as that he was governed by improper motives in securing the appointment. The important fact is that he was appointed to the office, and, having been appointed, the public interests require that he shall be free and fearless to act in the discharge of his official duties. If he cannot be charged with acting willfully and maliciously after he gets appointed to the office, no more can he be LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 10061 charged with having conspired to get into the office in order to act willfully and maliciously after he gets his appointment. The one charge is as much to be feared as the other, and is equally derogatory to his public character and usefulness in the office. We are unable to distinguish between the two cases in principle. Id. The Supreme Court affirmed the Second Circuit in a onesentence opinion. 275 U.S. at 503. We think that these principles compel the conclusion that Thomas is entitled to absolute immunity for his appointment of Wilenchik. Several points inform our judgment. First, Thomas, as the County Attorney, had the right to choose who would be the advocate for the state for the New Times matter and clothe him or her with the power to pursue prosecution. Whether he designated an attorney from within the MCAO, referred the matter to another county attorney, or appointed outside counsel to represent the state, Thomas acted as an advocate for the state by determining who would be its advocate in court. Once he decided to appoint outside counsel, Thomas conferred the full prosecutorial authority of the MCAO on Wilenchik—authority which could only come from him as County Attorney.18 The appointment was thus also a prosecutorial function because a prosecutor was uniquely required to perform it, and no other official not entitled to prosecutorial immunity for prosecutorial functions (for 18 The First Complaint provides little detail on the exact process whereby Wilenchik came to be appointed and assumed his authority. It states that Thomas had “ultimate authority and responsibility for the MCAO and the actions of its officers and agents.” First Compl. ¶ 9. It later states that “Wilenchik was hired by Thomas and Arpaio.” Id. ¶ 50. It does not explain that Arpaio had any formal role in the appointment process. It appears from Arizona law that as County Attorney, Thomas alone had the power to appoint Wilenchik as a “special deputy county attorney,” and that he could do so only “[w]ith consent of the board of supervisors.” Ariz. Rev. Stat. § 11-403(B)(1). 10062 LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY example, a county sheriff) could do so. Thomas’s determination that Wilenchik would be a fit advocate for the state “necessarily require[d] legal knowledge and the exercise of related discretion,” Van de Kamp, 555 U.S. at 344, and is one of “the duties of the prosecutor in his role as advocate for the State [that] involve[s] actions preliminary to the initiation of a prosecution,” Imbler, 424 U.S. at 431 n.33. Second, although we have rejected Wilenchik’s own claim to absolute immunity, it is clear that Wilenchik, as a special prosecutor, would have been entitled to immunity for any prosecutorial functions he exercised. He would, for example, have been entitled to absolute immunity in connection with the preparation of an arrest warrant, see Kalina, 522 U.S. at 129, and for appearances before a grand jury, see Burns, 500 U.S. at 490 n.6, in a probable cause hearing, see id. at 490, and in trial, see Imbler, 424 U.S. at 430-31. It is incongruous to deny Thomas absolute immunity for the act of conferring on Wilenchik the very authority that brings with it a claim to absolute immunity. [34] Furthermore, the policy justifications for absolute immunity attach with full force to the appointment of a special prosecutor by the county attorney. Just as general employment decisions are the type of “litigation-inducing conduct” that is not “connected with the prosecutor’s role in judicial proceedings,” Burns, 500 U.S. at 494, the appointment of a special prosecutor for a particular matter is the type of decision for which absolute prosecutorial immunity is required. Within a large office such as the MCAO, designating who among the county’s regular attorneys will take the lead in a particular matter is the necessary first step in the “initiation and conduct of the prosecution.” Burns, 500 U.S. at 492. If a district attorney were not entitled to absolute immunity, defendants could bring retaliatory lawsuits against him for appointing their prosecutor or special prosecutor. “Such ‘harassment by unfounded litigation would cause a deflection of the prosecutor’s energies from his public duties,’ LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 10063 and would result in a severe interference with the administration of an important public office.” Rehberg, 132 S. Ct. at 1504 (quoting Imbler, 424 U.S. at 423). If defendants are permitted to bring suit against the district attorney (because they are barred from bringing claims against the special prosecutor himself), the district attorney’s best anticipatory defense would be to involve himself in everything, thus causing a further “deflection of the prosecutor’s energies.” Here, for example, had Thomas made the decision to file charges and then instructed Wilenchik to complete the task, or had he even filed a baseless information and then appointed Wilenchik to try the case, Thomas would receive absolute immunity. Declining to afford him absolute immunity for his supervisory decision to assign the nascent matter will strike at the heart of any supervising prosecutor’s ability to delegate matters to other prosecutors. The Supreme Court in Van de Kamp expressed concern for just such a scenario, where “a prosecutorial supervisor or colleague might himself be liable for damages instead of the trial prosecutor” and concluded that “differences in the pattern of liability among a group of prosecutors in a single office” would disrupt the way prosecutors carry out their functions. 555 U.S. at 345. “[I]t is the interest in protecting the proper functioning of the office, rather than the interest in protecting its occupant, that is of primary importance.” Id. (quoting Kalina, 522 U.S. at 125). The facts of this case make it even clearer that this particular appointment was a prosecutorial function for which immunity is vital. Under Arizona law, a prosecutor has a legal “duty to avoid a conflict of interest . . . because his paramount duty is to the principle of ‘fairness.’ ” Villalpando v. Reagan, 121 P.3d 172, 176 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2005). If the County Attorney has a conflict of interest in a case, the entire office may “have to divorce itself from the prosecution in [that] case, because even the appearance of unfairness cannot be permitted.” State v. Latigue, 502 P.2d 1340, 1342 (Ariz. 1972). At that point, it is “necessary that the County Attorney secure the appointment of a special prosecutor if he wishes to continue 10064 LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY the prosecution of [that] case.” Id. “Once [the] criminal case had been transferred to a special prosecutor, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office should have ceased all of its participation therein except for such activities as were stipulated to by counsel and approved by the court.” State v. Rupp, 586 P.2d 1302, 1307-08 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1978). Here it is uncontested that Thomas had a conflict of interest, First Compl. ¶¶ 42 & n.3, 49, precluding him and his office from prosecuting the case and requiring the appointment of a special prosecutor. Thus, Thomas was acting “within the scope of [his] duties,” Imbler, 424 U.S. at 423—both legal and ethical—in recusing himself and appointing a special prosecutor. Thomas had to decide whether he had a conflict of interest such that he could no longer represent the state. Once he decided that he could not, he was obligated to select a replacement who would both competently fulfill the obligations of the post and be free of the disabling conflict. While Lacey argues that Thomas made these decisions with malice, the fact remains that these determinations “necessarily require legal knowledge and the exercise of related discretion,” Van de Kamp, 555 U.S. at 344, even more so than for any run-of-the-mine appointments not motivated by a conflict of interest. It is inconceivable that Thomas could be civilly liable for his decision to recuse himself and appoint a special prosecutor, as he was legally and ethically required to do, but not liable for proceeding himself in the face of such a conflict (though this might have exposed him to professional discipline for ethical violations). The need for recusal and appointment to cure a conflict of interest only further justifies granting Thomas absolute immunity. [35] Lastly, we observe that Thomas’s appointment of a special prosecutor—both his decision to appoint one and his decision to appoint Wilenchik—although immune from judicial scrutiny under § 1983, “does not leave the public powerless to deter misconduct or to punish that which occurs.” Imbler, 424 U.S. at 429. There are still legal, political, and LACEY v. MARICOPA COUNTY 10065 administrative constraints in place. If Thomas violated any criminal statutes in his appointment of Wilenchik, his actions may be addressed through criminal punishment under the laws of Arizona or the United States. Appointments to office are frequently a political act, and the appointment of a special prosecutor may carry the air of politics (or even the stench of cronyism). Any missteps by Thomas in making the special appointment may be redressed through political processes such as impeachment, recall, and the next general election. If he has violated a canon of ethics, his critics may look to the state bar for appropriate sanctions. Thomas, however, may not be sued under § 1983 and is entitled to absolute immunity for his appointment of Dennis Wilenchik as Independent Special Deputy Maricopa County Attorney.