Opinion ID: 769749
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Existence of a Constitutional Right

Text: 16 In ruling that the constitutional right allegedly violated was not clearly established in 1996, the District Court framed the issue as whether the fabrication of evidence by a prosecutor in and of itself gives rise to an injury cognizable under the Constitution. Zahrey, 1999 WL 587904, at  (emphasis added). The Court thus viewed Zahrey's claim as limited to the assertion of a constitutional right not to have a prosecutor manufacture false evidence. Viewed that narrowly, the claim was properly rejected. The manufacture of false evidence, in and of itself, in the District Court's phrase, does not impair anyone's liberty, and therefore does not impair anyone's constitutional right. 3 Thus, if Zahrey had claimed only that Coffey fabricated evidence and did nothing to precipitate the sequence of events that resulted in a deprivation of Zahrey's liberty, no constitutional violation would have been alleged. See Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 20 F.3d 789, 795 (7th Cir. 1994) (Buckley IV) (if prosecutor tortured witness to obtain statement implicating defendant and put statement in a drawer, or framed it and hung it on the wall but took no other step, no constitutional right of defendant would be violated) (emphasis added); Landrigan v. City of Warwick, 628 F.2d 736, 744 (1st Cir. 1980) ([W]e do not see how the existence of a false police report, sitting in a drawer in a police station, by itself deprives a person of a right secured by the Constitution and laws.). 17 But Zahrey's claim, though premised on the manufacture of false evidence, is not limited to that act. Rather, he alleges an example of a classic constitutional violation: the deprivation of his liberty without due process of law. 4 The liberty deprivation is the eight months he was confined, from his bail revocation (after his arrest) to his acquittal, and the due process violation is the manufacture of false evidence. The complaint alleges that the deprivation of the liberty interest was the result of the due process violation. 18 However, although it is too limited to state the right as a right not to have a prosecutor fabricate evidence, it is too broad to state it as a right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law. The Supreme Court has instructed courts encountering a qualified immunity defense to claimed violations of constitutional rights to consider carefully the level of generality at which the relevant 'legal rule' is to be identified. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639 (1987). If the right is identified at a high level of generality, such as the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law, the concept of qualified immunity would become meaningless because every government officer is reasonably aware of a right defined that broadly. See id. On the other hand, the right need not be identified with such particularity that qualified immunity would be a defense unless the very action in question has previously been held unlawful. Id. at 640. 19 It is arguable that in this case the right should be identified as the right not to be deprived of liberty as a result of any governmental misconduct occurring in the investigative phase of a criminal matter. A right defined that broadly, however, would cover too much ground because some investigative actions, though fairly labeled as misconduct, might not merit condemnation as a denial of due process. On the other hand, the right need not be identified at such a level of particularity as to focus only on fabrication of evidence by a prosecutor acting in an investigating capacity. Coffey has conceded, for purposes of this appeal, that he was acting in an investigating capacity, a capacity that entitles him, at most, only to qualified immunity. The Supreme Court's rationale for according only qualified immunity to prosecutors who act in an investigating capacity is that their conduct in that capacity should be judged in the same manner as other investigating officers. When a prosecutor performs the investigative functions normally performed by a detective or police officer, it is 'neither appropriate nor justifiable that, for the same act, immunity should protect the one and not the other.' Buckley III, 509 U.S. at 273 (quoting Hampton v. Chicago, 484 F.2d 602, 608 (7th Cir. 1973)). 20 We think the right at issue in this case is appropriately identified as the right not to be deprived of liberty as a result of the fabrication of evidence by a government officer acting in an investigating capacity. Understood this way, we conclude that the right at issue is a constitutional right, provided that the deprivation of liberty of which Zahrey complains can be shown to be the result of Coffey's fabrication of evidence. 21
22 Courts considering whether the deprivation of a plaintiff's liberty is the legally cognizable result of a government officer's misconduct have approached the issue in either of two ways: (1) as a separate issue of causation, or (2) as part of the right allegedly violated. The choice arises primarily in cases where the action of some other person occurs after the defendant's alleged misconduct but before the deprivation of liberty. 5 In most cases, courts consider causation as a separate issue. For example, in Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335 (1986), the Supreme Court faced the issue of a police officer's liability under section 1983 for presenting an insufficient affidavit to a judicial officer who issued a warrant resulting in the plaintiff's arrest. Invoking the frequently quoted statement from Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 187 (1961), that section 1983 'should be read against the background of tort liability that makes a man responsible for the natural consequences of his actions,' the Court rejected the trial court's reasoning that the judicial officer's decision to issue the warrant broke the causal chain between the application for the warrant and the improvident arrest. Malley, 475 U.S. at 344-45 n.7. Similarly, the Court has discussed causation separately in considering whether a municipality could be liable under section 1983 for a government official's misconduct, see City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 391 (1989) (plaintiff must prove that deficiency in city's training program actually caused the police officers' indifference to her medical needs) (emphasis added) (footnote omitted); Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 691 (1978) (Congress did not intend municipalities to be held liable unless action pursuant to official municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort.) (emphasis added), as have courts of appeals in considering one of the grounds on which section 1983 liability may be imposed on supervisory officials, see, e.g., Breaux v. City of Garland, 205 F.3d 150, 161 (5th Cir. 2000) (supervisor may be liable if his conduct directly causes a constitutional violation . . . .); Wright v. Smith, 21 F.3d 496, 501 (2d Cir. 1994). 23 On the other hand, the Supreme Court has subsumed the causation issue within the definition of the constitutional right in ruling that a state parole board had not violated the Fourteenth Amendment by releasing a prisoner who committed a murder five months later. See Martinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 285 (1980). Even if state tort law would have regarded the parole board's decision as the proximate cause of the murder, the Court reasoned, the board's release decision did not 'deprive' appellants' decedent of life within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment because the murder is too remote a consequence of the parole officers' action to hold them responsible under section 1983. Id. 24 These alternative approaches could apply to most claims under the Due Process Clauses, especially claims of a liberty deprivation allegedly resulting from misconduct occurring in a criminal trial. If, for example, a prosecutor places in evidence testimony known to be perjured or a trial judge makes a racially disparaging remark about a defendant, no deprivation of liberty occurs unless and until the jury convicts and the defendant is sentenced. The misconduct can be viewed as the cause of the ultimate deprivation of liberty, although courts would probably refer to such misconduct as itself the denial of a constitutional right. If the trial was aborted before a verdict, it could be said either that the misconduct did not cause a deprivation of liberty or that no constitutional right was violated. Thus, in the pending case, whether Zahrey's deprivation of liberty (the arrest after indictment and the incarceration after revocation of bail) can be considered the legally cognizable result of the alleged misconduct of Coffey in fabricating evidence can be viewed as an inquiry either about whether the misconduct caused the ultimate liberty deprivation or about whether the misconduct is itself a denial of a constitutional right. 6 Analyzed either way, we still need to determine whether the deprivation of liberty may be considered a legally cognizable result of the initial misconduct. 25 In the context of criminal law enforcement, courts have differed as to the circumstances under which acts of subsequent participants in the legal system are superseding causes that avoid liability of an initial actor. 7 If the subsequent participant exercises independent judgment, the chain of causation has sometimes been held to have been broken. Thus, in Townes v. City of New York, 176 F.3d 138 (2d Cir. 1999), we ruled that a trial judge's erroneous decision not to suppress unlawfully seized evidence was an exercise of independent judgment that avoided liability of the police officers who seized the evidence for the ensuing conviction and incarceration. See id. at 146-47. Police officers have also been insulated from liability for any deprivation of liberty resulting from their misconduct by the intervening acts of other participants in the criminal justice system. See Barts v. Joyner, 865 F.2d 1187, 1195 (11th Cir. 1989) (prosecutor, grand jury, judge, and jury); Hand v. Gary, 838 F.2d 1420, 1427-28 (5th Cir. 1988) (FBI agent, prosecutor, and grand jury); Smiddy v. Varney, 665 F.2d 261, 266-68 (9th Cir. 1981) (prosecutor), adhered to, 803 F.2d 1469, 1471-72 (9th Cir. 1986); Duncan v. Nelson, 466 F.2d 939, 943 (7th Cir. 1972) (sentencing judge). 26 On the other hand, the Supreme Court has ruled that a judge's decision to issue an arrest warrant did not break the causal chain between the act of a police officer who submitted an affidavit and the arrest where a reasonably well-trained officer in [the same] position would have known that his affidavit failed to establish probable cause. Malley, 475 U.S. at 345. Applying Malley, we have ruled that the decision of a sentencing judge does not break the causal chain between the wrongful recommendation of a probation officer and an unconstitutional sentence. See Warner v. Orange County Dep't of Probation, 115 F.3d 1068, 1071 (2d Cir. 1997), reinstated after opinion vacated, 173 F.3d 120, 121 (2d Cir. 1999); see also Wagenmann v. Adams, 829 F.2d 196, 212-13 (1st Cir. 1987) (decision of court clerk acting as bail commissioner in setting bail did not insulate police officer from liability for violating plaintiff's right to be free from excessive bail). We have also sustained a claim against a police officer, despite the subsequent actions of a prosecutor and a grand jury. See White v. Frank, 855 F.2d 956, 962 (2d Cir. 1988) (As with the grand jury, . . . the public prosecutor's role in a criminal prosecution will not necessarily shield a complaining witness from subsequent civil liability where the witness's testimony is knowingly and maliciously false.). 27 These differing results seem to place in tension the principle that the intervening exercise of independent judgment will break a causal chain, Townes, 176 F.3d at 147, and the principle that defendants in section 1983 cases are liable for consequences caused by reasonably foreseeable intervening forces, Gutierrez-Rodriguez v. Cartagena, 882 F.2d 553, 561 (1st Cir. 1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). Some courts have sought to resolve the tension by considering the intervening act of a decision-maker not to be an exercise of truly independent judgment, and therefore reasonably foreseeable, if caused by pressure or misleading information provided by the actor whom the plaintiff seeks to hold liable. See Townes, 176 F.3d at 147 (intervening exercise of independent judgment breaks chain of causation in the absence of evidence that the police officer misled or pressured the official who could be expected to exercise independent judgment); Robinson v. Maruffi, 895 F.2d 649, 655-56 (10th Cir. 1990); Borunda v. Richmond, 885 F.2d 1384, 1390 (9th Cir. 1989); Jones v. City of Chicago, 856 F.2d 985, 994 (7th Cir. 1988) ([A] prosecutor's decision to charge, a grand jury's decision to indict, a prosecutor's decision not to drop charges but to proceed to trial--none of these decisions will shield a police officer who deliberately supplied misleading information that influenced that decision.); Hand, 838 F.2d at 1428; Smiddy, 665 F.2d at 266-67; Dellums v. Powell, 566 F.2d 167, 192-93 (D.C. Cir. 1977); see also Barts, 865 F.2d at 1197 (intervening acts break chain of causation in the absence of a showing that the police officers deceived the court officials or unduly pressured them or that the court officials themselves acted with malice and the police joined with them); Lanier v. Sallas, 777 F.2d 321, 325 (5th Cir. 1985) (county court's order committing plaintiff to mental institution did not break chain of causation between doctors' false statements in their certificates of medical examination and the commitment, because the certificates' falsity as to material facts . . . caused [the judge] to issue the order); cf. Myers v. County of Orange, 157 F.3d 66, 74 (2d Cir. 1998) (since district attorney's office policy regarding cross-complaints had an impact on the district attorney's ability to make an independent prosecutorial decision, his decision to prosecute did not break causal chain between that policy and the plaintiff's injuries). Even if the intervening decision-maker (such as a prosecutor, grand jury, or judge) is not misled or coerced, it is not readily apparent why the chain of causation should be considered broken where the initial wrongdoer can reasonably foresee that his misconduct will contribute to an independent decision that results in a deprivation of liberty. 8 28 However the causation issue is to be resolved in the law enforcement context in cases where an initial act of misconduct is followed by the act of a third person, our case involves the unusual circumstance that the same person took both the initial act of alleged misconduct and the subsequent intervening act. Coffey contends that a liberty interest was impaired by his use of the fabricated evidence, not by his alleged fabrication of it. See Brief for Appellee at 14. But it would be as artificial to focus only on the act of using the evidence, without regard to the consequences of such use, as it would be to focus on the earlier act of fabrication, without regard to the consequences of that act. The use of fabricated evidence, unaccompanied by such consequences, no more impairs liberty than does the initial fabrication of evidence, unaccompanied by such consequences. For example, in Zahrey's case, his liberty was not impaired until, after the evidence was both fabricated and used by introducing it in evidence before the grand jury, an indictment was later returned and Zahrey was later arrested. See Reid v. Georgia, 448 U.S. 438, 440 (1980) (characterizing arrest as curtailment of a person's liberty). The further significant impairment of his liberty did not occur until a judicial officer ultimately revoked his bail. Coffey does not contend that the events that followed use of the fabricated testimony at the grand jury (indictment, arrest, and bail revocation) are intervening acts that break the chain of causation that started with his immunized advocacy act of using the evidence at the grand jury. The question remains whether the liberty deprivations that occurred are legally traceable back even further to his earlier investigatory act of fabrication, for which he enjoys only qualified immunity. 29 Two decisions have squarely sustained a claim of liability where the same person initiated a liberty deprivation by misconduct and subsequently took a further step in the chain of causation in an immunized capacity. In Thomas v. Sams, 734 F.2d 185 (5th Cir. 1984), the defendant was a city mayor who was also ex officio magistrate and municipal judge. In his capacity as mayor, he investigated a sewer pipe-cutting incident and signed a criminal complaint against the plaintiff; then, in his capacity as magistrate, he issued a warrant for the plaintiff's arrest. See id. at 188, 192. After the plaintiff was arrested, the defendant, in his capacity as magistrate, set bond. See id. at 188. The trial court found that the defendant acted with personal animosity, malice, and a lack of good faith. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 30 The Fifth Circuit acknowledged that the defendant was absolutely immune for the judicial acts of issuing the warrant and setting bond. Id. at 189. The Court then considered the defendant's claim that his judicial acts were an intervening cause between his non-judicial acts of investigating and swearing out the criminal complaint, and the plaintiff's injury. Id. at 190. Although noting that a magistrate's issuance of a warrant generally breaks the chain of causation for an officer who acted with malice in procuring the warrant, but see Malley, 475 U.S. at 344-45 n.7, the Fifth Circuit rejected the proximate cause defense: 31 [The defendant] did not choose to present the complaint to an impartial intermediary. He deliberately avoided doing so, despite the availability of state judges and justices of the peace who had authority to sign the warrant. Under these circumstance the issuance of the arrest warrant was not an intervening cause: There was no independent decision to break the causal chain and to insulate him as the initiating party. [Defendant] acted with personal animosity, malice, and a lack of good faith in undertaking the acts that enabled him to take up his magistrate's pen and sign the warrant. He may not innoculate his conduct by that pen-stroke. 32 Thomas, 734 F.2d at 191 (footnote omitted). The defendant's non-judicial acts caused the deprivation of [the plaintiff's] liberty. Id. at 191 n.14. 33 In White, we also recognized the point that a subsequent immunized act of a single official does not break the chain of causation traceable to his initial misconduct occurring in another capacity. That case concerned a police officer who was entitled to absolute immunity as an ordinary witness but lacked immunity for initiating a prosecution by providing false testimony as a complaining witness. [T]he fact that [the officer's] testimony at a judicial proceeding may have been the means by which he initiated the prosecution does not permit him to transpose the immunity available for defamation as a defense to malicious prosecution. 9 White, 855 F.2d at 961. 34 Coffey acknowledged at oral argument that if he had fabricated evidence and handed it to another prosecutor who unwittingly used it to precipitate Zahrey's loss of liberty, Coffey would be liable for the initial act of fabrication. It would be a perverse doctrine of tort and constitutional law that would hold liable the fabricator of evidence who hands it to an unsuspecting prosecutor but exonerate the wrongdoer who enlists himself in a scheme to deprive a person of liberty. 10 If, as alleged, Coffey fabricated evidence in his investigative role, it was at least reasonably foreseeable that in his advocacy role he would later use that evidence before the grand jury, with the likely result that Zahrey would be indicted and arrested. The complaint adequately alleges that the deprivation of Zahrey's liberty was the legally cognizable result of Coffey's alleged misconduct in fabricating evidence. 11 35 We recognize that this conclusion is in tension, if not conflict, with the majority opinion by Judge Easterbrook for the Seventh Circuit in Buckley IV, on remand from the Supreme Court; see also Rhodes v. Smithers, 939 F. Supp. 1256, 1270 (S.D. W. Va. 1995) (following the reasoning of Buckley IV), aff'd, 91 F.3d 132 (4th Cir. 1996) (table). In Buckley IV, which had facts similar to those alleged here, Judge Easterbrook concluded that the plaintiff had failed to state a claim, even though he unquestionably suffered a loss of liberty when he was arrested and imprisoned pending trial. 20 F.3d at 797. He reasoned that a prosecutor violates no constitutional right of a defendant by unlawfully obtaining testimony from a potential trial witness that is known to be false. See id. at 795-96. He acknowledged that a prosecutor using such false testimony at trial could violate the defendant's constitutional rights, but noted that for this act the prosecutor enjoyed absolute immunity. See id. We agree with Judge Easterbrook (just as we agree with Judge Preska in the pending case) that the investigatory act of obtaining evidence known to be false is not itself a violation of a constitutional right. But we disagree with the further point that no valid section 1983 claim is stated where a deprivation of liberty results from the initial act of obtaining evidence known to be false, at least in a case like Buckley and the pending case where the same person who fabricated the evidence foreseeably used it. 36 We cannot be certain whether the Seventh Circuit rejected Buckley's claim on the ground that the prosecutor's investigatory misconduct did not violate any constitutional right or on the legally distinct ground that the prosecutor's investigatory misconduct was not the legally cognizable cause of the plaintiff's ultimate deprivation of liberty. Several statements in the three Seventh Circuit opinions in the Buckley litigation emphasize the issue of causation. 12 The rationale for the Seventh Circuit's final decision in Buckley IV appears to be squarely grounded on the theory that the prosecutor's alleged misconduct in fabricating evidence was not the cause of a liberty deprivation. Discussing a prior decision in Jones v. City of Chicago, 856 F.2d 985 (7th Cir. 1988), which had sustained a claim against a police officer who misled a prosecutor by presenting false evidence, Judge Easterbrook wrote: 37 Things would be different [i.e., no cause of action], we implied [in Jones], . . . if the prosecutors themselves had concocted the evidence, for then the immunized prosecutorial decisions [to use the evidence] would be the cause of the injury. 38 Buckley IV, 20 F.3d at 797 (emphasis added). Judge Fairchild dissented on this point. See id. at 800 (Prosecutors are not immune from § 1983 liability for their non-advocacy wrongful conduct if [the plaintiff] can prove that indictment and trial would not have occurred in the absence of the product of the wrongful conduct.). We do not see the implication in Jones that Judge Easterbrook observes, and, even if it were evident, we would follow the contrary decisions of the Fifth Circuit in Thomas and our own decision in White, and would consider Judge Fairchild's dissent in Buckley IV persuasive. 39