Opinion ID: 352419
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Prosecutor-Witness Transformed

Text: 140 The way that the majority divests Goodwin of his absolute immunity as courtroom advocate is by casting him as a courtroom investigator, entitled only to the qualified immunity of the policeman. Let us focus again on the critical passage of the majority opinion: 141 . . . (W)e believe that appellant's false statement to the federal district court in Florida is properly characterized as an act of investigation rather than advocacy. . . . (A)ppellant's alleged perjury bears no relation whatever to the advocate's role as conceived by the Supreme Court in Imbler. 63 142 If Goodwin departed from his role as an Advocate (and I agree, it is what he is doing not his title as prosecutor which confers immunity), he did so only to become a Witness, and a witness in court likewise has absolute immunity from civil suit. The very suit for damages brought here alleges perjury by Goodwin; perjury is an action peculiarly tied to witnesses; the perjury here is alleged to have occurred in court; perjury has nothing to do with investigative or administrative activities, which are contemplated by all the cases to occur outside the courtroom. The majority opinion itself grudgingly admits, Although he was called upon by the court to make a representation of fact in a courtroom after being sworn . . . . 64 143 Continuing with my colleagues' own language, they speak of appellant's false statement and appellant's alleged perjury. When they assert such action bears no relation whatever to the advocate's role, they have some reason for the distinction; but perjury certainly bears every relation to the witness's role ! 144 My colleagues are the victims of their stage props. For almost 20 pages they have been setting the stage with language from various cases distinguishing between the prosecutor's role as advocate and his other duties, cases which hold or suggest that the other duties are not necessarily protected by the prosecutor's admitted absolute immunity as an advocate. The problem of my colleagues is that these other duties are all described as investigative, administrative, and of similar nature. There is not one word cited that would exclude anything done by the prosecutor in assistance in the judicial process in court from the protection of absolute immunity. There is, of course, not one word about the prosecutor stepping into the role of witness another universally held position accorded absolute immunity from civil liability. So, in an effort to take Goodwin's action outside this protection, when the majority comes to its conclusion, it is necessarily expressed in the magic language of the cases a false statement becomes an act of investigation rather than advocacy. 145 The obligation to disclose, as a sworn witness, information about informants may, in a narrow sense, be foreign to advocacy, as the majority suggests, 65 but the actions of a witness do not, therefore, automatically become investigative, stripped of absolute immunity. For to the extent Goodwin departed the prosecutor's role at all, it was to become a witness. But whether Goodwin be considered primarily a witness or a prosecutor, how a person performing the role of prosecutor could detach himself from the absolute immunity which that function historically has always enjoyed by the temporary assumption of the role of a witness, when that function in the court's process has likewise always historically enjoyed an absolute immunity, was beyond my imagination until after reading the majority opinion. Looking at three centuries of decisions granting absolute immunity to both prosecutor and witness, I would have thought that the immunity of the prosecutor was reinforced by the immunity of the witness, not derogated. 146 The majority, however, manages to divest Goodwin of both immunities. Prosecutorial immunity is lost because Goodwin is characterized, without support from case law, as an investigator although any casual bystander (and perhaps even the trial judge) in that courtroom would have sworn that he had seen a lawyer at work, indeed, a prosecutor functioning as an advocate, and, yes, he had also seen and heard that prosecutor testify briefly. And witness immunity is lost because the majority holds here that absolute witness immunity should never be available in a § 1983 or Bivens -type suit. The consequences of this extraordinary step, a rule of qualified immunity for witnesses adopted for the first time, which clashes directly with the one other precedent from a circuit, 66 deserves careful attention before proceeding further. 147