Opinion ID: 1457749
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Hartman and Smiddy I

Text: More difficult is the question whether Hartman requires that we overrule Smiddy I entirely. Smiddy I requires that plaintiffs bear a burden of proof, beyond proving the absence of probable cause, to overcome the presumption of prosecutorial independence. There is considerable tension between the approach taken by the Court in Hartman and the approach set out in Smiddy I and the cases following from it. After Hartman, it is questionable that Smiddy I 's detailed evidentiary inquiry into the independence of the prosecutor's judgment should still be employed to address the causal chain problem in Fourth Amendment cases. The Supreme Court's simpler, probable-cause-based approach may be all that is required with regard to the causation issue in the Fourth Amendment context. The causal problem is, of course, essentially identical in both contexts, and Smiddy I requires an inquiry into the prosecutor's actual mental processes to resolve it, an approach decisively rejected in Hartman. Hartman does require retaliatory animus, as well as the absence of probable cause, as elements of the constitutional tort there at issue. But the retaliatory animus requirement arises out of the First Amendment-based constitutional tort alleged in Hartman. Proof of the absence of probable cause, it appears, is the sole factor necessary to resolve the chain of causation problem. Applying that reasoning, it could be held that that sole factor would also be sufficient in the Fourth Amendment false arrest context, where the absence of probable cause is the substantive lynchpin of the constitutional tort and must be proven in any event. [13] But Hartman did not involve a Fourth Amendment-based cause of action. Nor did Hartman explain how its reasoning should be applied in such cases. We are mindful that, as a three-judge panel, our ability to overrule circuit precedent is limited. See Miller v. Gammie, 335 F.3d 889, 899-900 (9th Cir.2003) (en banc). Although the reasoning we have outlined above has a great deal to recommend it, whether Hartman is clearly irreconcilable with Smiddy I is unclear, see id. at 900; Hartman addressed itself only to the details specific to retaliatory-prosecution cases, 547 U.S. at 259, 126 S.Ct. 1695. As it turns out, Beck can satisfy both Hartman and Smiddy I on the present record. We therefore need not decide whether Hartman overruled Smiddy I, and do not do so.