Opinion ID: 4558524
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Involvement at the Crime Scene

Text: According to the Second Amended Complaint, Vernon arrived at Haith’s apartment a few hours after the Connellsville Police Department because a Connellsville detective “requested [her presence at] the crime scene so that she could be involved in and help to direct the murder investigation from the onset of the investigation.” App. 86 ¶ 23. During their initial search of the crime scene, officers recovered DNA samples, found drug-related evidence, and learned that Haith had attended parties the night before and morning of his murder. The initial crime-scene investigation led police to interview Weimer because she had attended one of these parties. And, although “DNA testing performed at the crime scene” and later “on . . . Weimer’s clothing” confirmed Weimer’s account of her whereabouts from the night before and suggested “an unidentified male” was involved in Haith’s murder, App. 88 ¶ 32, investigators zeroed in on Weimer, ignoring evidence from the crime scene and other potential leads. Vernon’s alleged role in the initial crime-scene investigation was investigative in nature. Although we must be 8 Vernon appears to concede that she was functioning as an investigator when she investigated the bite-mark evidence. In her opening brief, she argues that she is entitled only to qualified immunity, not absolute immunity, for her alleged participation in the bite-mark investigation. Therefore, we will not separately parse out this conduct to assess whether it was prosecutorial or investigative in nature. 20 wary of “bright-line rules that would treat the timing of the prosecutor’s action” as dispositive, Vernon’s alleged act of helping to direct the crime-scene investigation occurred long before a criminal complaint had been drafted and before any suspect had even been identified. See Odd, 538 F.3d at 210. Thus, these allegations “point[] more convincingly to ‘investigation’ than to ‘prosecution.’” See Kulwicki, 969 F.2d at 1466.