Opinion ID: 490121
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prosecutorial Function Immunity

Text: 19 Absolute immunity accords protection from liability, from suit, and from any judicial scrutiny of the motive for and reasonableness of official action. It is established that prosecutors performing prosecutorial activities intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process enjoy such absolute immunity in an action brought under Sec. 1983. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 430, 96 S.Ct. 984, 995, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976); see Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 553-55, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 1217-18, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967). Prosecutorial functions were accorded absolute immunity at common law and continue to enjoy such protection from attack under Sec. 1983 because any lesser degree of immunity could impair the judicial process itself. Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 1097, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986). For similar reasons, such immunity has been extended to other litigating activities of government attorneys, such as initiating and prosecuting child protection litigation. See Walden v. Wishengrad, 745 F.2d 149, 152-53 (2d Cir.1984). 20 The granting or denial of absolute immunity depends more, however, on the function being performed than on the office of the defendant, and the absolute immunity accorded a prosecuting attorney is extended only so far as is necessary to the effective functioning of the judicial process. For example, it extends to the prosecutor's seeking an indictment, because exposing him to liability for the initial phase of his prosecutorial work could interfere with his exercise of independent judgment at every phase of the case, see Malley v. Briggs, 106 S.Ct. at 1097, but it generally does not extend to his investigative activities independent of the litigation, because those activities are not integral to the judicial process itself, see, e.g., Powers v. Coe, 728 F.2d 97, 103 (2d Cir.1984); Taylor v. Kavanagh, 640 F.2d 450, 452 (2d Cir.1981); Lee v. Willins, 617 F.2d 320, 322 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 861, 101 S.Ct. 165, 66 L.Ed.2d 78 (1980). It also extends to a county attorney's procurement of an arrest warrant to enforce a trial subpoena in an ongoing action to terminate parental rights, Walden v. Wishengrad, 745 F.2d at 152, but does not extend to a police officer's applying for a pre-proceeding arrest warrant since, in so doing, the officer is not a central actor in the judicial process, Malley v. Briggs, 106 S.Ct. at 1097. Nor does it extend to a prosecutor's participation in the execution of an arrest warrant since arrests and seizures are normally police functions, and they do not become prosecutorial functions merely because a prosecutor has chosen to participate. See, e.g., Barr v. Abrams, 810 F.2d 358, 362 (2d Cir.1987) (execution of arrest warrant generally would carry the prosecutors out of the realm of Imbler and into Harlow [v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) (qualified immunity) ]); see also Myers v. Morris, 810 F.2d 1437, 1462 n. 20 (8th Cir.1987) (prosecutor's participation in removal of children is not tantamount to case initiation where parents have not been arrested in connection with alleged molestation of those children). 21 We see no basis for accepting the contentions of Via and Harrison that in seizing the children they were performing a prosecutorial function. Via's presence at the seizure of the children did not transform what was fundamentally a police function into one that was prosecutorial. Indeed, the presence of any prosecutor at the seizure of the Robison children was pure happenstance, occurring only because no female police officer had been available as requested by Mrs. Orrill to question her daughter. Further, when the Robison children were seized, no proceeding had yet been commenced, and it does not appear that Via was in a position at that moment to commence the prosecution of a child abuse claim. She and Harrison had not yet asked the children themselves any questions, and they proceeded to interview Julia for nearly an hour and only thereafter obtained a court order for the children's detention. Thus, we think it plain that taking the children was part of the preliminary investigative process and was not intimately associated with the judicial phase of the matter.