Court Opinion

ID: 9427115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:19:46.449126+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:23:04.949839
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Powell,
dissenting.
While I join the opinion of Mr. Justice Stewart, I wish to emphasize what I take to be the central feature of this case— Judge Stump’s preclusion of any possibility for the vindication of respondents’ rights elsewhere in the judicial system.
Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335 (1872), which established the absolute judicial immunity at issue in this case, recognized that the immunity was designed to further the public interest in an independent judiciary, sometimes at the expense of legitimate individual grievances. Id., at 349; accord, Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547, 554 (1967). The Bradley Court accepted those costs to aggrieved individuals because the judicial system itself provided other means for protecting individual rights:
“Against the consequences of [judges’] erroneous or irregular action, from whatever motives proceeding, the law *370has provided for private parties numerous remedies, and to those remedies they must, in such cases, resort.” 13 Wall., at 354.
Underlying the Bradley immunity, then, is the notion that private rights can be sacrificed in some degree to the achievement of the greater public good deriving from a completely independent judiciary, because there exist alternative forums and methods for vindicating those rights.1
But where a judicial officer acts in a manner that precludes all resort to appellate or other judicial remedies that otherwise would be available, the underlying assumption of the Bradley doctrine is inoperative. See Pierson v. Ray, supra, at 554.2 In this case, as Me. Justice Stewart points out, ante, at 369, Judge Stump’s unjudicial conduct insured that “[t]here was and could be no appeal.” The complete absence of normal judicial process foreclosed resort to any of the “numerous remedies” that “the law has provided for private parties.” Bradley, supra, at 354.
In sum, I agree with Mr. Justice Stewart that petitioner judge’s actions were not “judicial,” and that he is entitled to no judicial immunity from suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983.

 See Handler & Klein, The Defense of Privilege in Defamation Suits Against Government Executive Officials, 74 Harv. L. Rev. 44, 53-55 (1960); Jaffe, Suits Against Governments and Officers: Damage Actions, 77 Harv. L. Rev. 209, 233-235 (1963); Note, Federal Executive Immunity From Civil Liability in Damages: A Reevaluation of Barr v. Mateo, 77 Colum. L. Rev. 625, 647 (1977).

 In both Bradley and Pierson any errors committed by the judges involved were open to correction on appeal.