Court Opinion

ID: 9469611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:45:06.368829+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:28.602032
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Senior Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the majority’s holding that dismissal was proper because the complaint failed to allege any injury flowing from a constitutional deprivation.1 I write separately to indicate my disagreement with the majority’s statement that “[t]he law is clear that a prosecuting attorney is immune from a civil rights suit for damages.”
*586The majority cites Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976), in support of its conclusion, but their reliance on that case is misplaced. As we stated in Hampton v. Hanrahan, 600 F.2d 600 (7th Cir. 1979), “[t]he Supreme Court in Imbler did not hold that all official actions of a state prosecutor are absolutely immune from section 1983 liability. Imbler held only that a prosecutor has absolute immunity ‘in initiating a prosecution and in prosecuting the State’s case.’ ” Id. at 631 (quoting Imbler, supra, 424 U.S. at 431, 96 S.Ct. at 995).2 Accord, Briggs v. Goodwin, 569 F.2d 10, 19-20 (D.C.Cir.1977). Decisions in this and other circuits have established that prosecutors are entitled to only qualified immunity when performing investigatory or administrative functions. Hampton v. City of Chicago, 484 F.2d 602, 608-09 (7th Cir. 1973); Briggs, supra, 569 F.2d at 20; Dellums v. Powell, 660 F.2d 802, 805 (D.C.Cir.1981); Ross v. Meagan, 638 F.2d 646, 648 (3d Cir. 1981); Taylor v. Kavanagh, 640 F.2d 450, 452 (2d Cir. 1981). When a prosecutor’s activities are not connected with his role as an advocate for the Government, the reasons for extending absolute immunity are absent.
In determining whether the prosecutor’s acts are quasi-judicial as opposed to investigative or administrative, we are required to apply a functional analysis. Taylor v. Kavanagh, supra, 640 F.2d at 452; Ross v. Meagan, supra, 638 F.2d at 648. “The crucial inquiry concerns the nature of the official behavior challenged, not the identity or title of the officer responsible therefore.” Briggs v. Goodwin, supra, 569 F.2d at 21.
Applying this analysis to the case at bar, I do not believe that defendant would be entitled to absolute immunity. If defendant believed that plaintiff had violated state law, he could have initiated a prosecution of plaintiff. A prosecutor’s decision to prosecute or not is protected by absolute immunity. The letter sent by defendant here was not connected with his decision to charge plaintiff with a violation of state law. Defendant stated to the trial judge that “the obvious purpose of the letter was to prevent any surprise on the part of [plaintiff] if subsequent complaints were sworn out and [defendant] in his official capacity felt they should be prosecuted,” and that defendant “reserves the right to initiate criminal action on appropriate and specific facts or conduct in the exercise of his official capacity.” The actual purpose of the prosecutor’s not-so-veiled threat was obviously to intimidate plaintiff to stop advertising his services, although it did not have that effect. See n.l supra. Threatening to prosecute someone cannot be characterized as “quasi-judicial” conduct. I therefore believe that the majority overstated the scope of the immunity available to the prosecutor in this case.

. In his complaint, plaintiff fails to allege any present injury flowing from the claimed First Amendment violation. He stated that he would be harmed if defendant carried out his threat to prosecute plaintiff, but “[t]he mere possibility of remote or speculative future injury or invasion of rights will not suffice” to state a claim under section 1983. Reichenberger v. Pritchard, 660 F.2d 280, 285 (7th Cir. 1981). Apparently defendant’s letter did not have any chilling effect on plaintiff because plaintiff continued to advertise his services in the Southern Illinoisan.

. The Supreme Court in Imbler emphasized that absolute immunity was required when a prosecutor’s actions were “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Imbler, supra, 424 U.S. at 430, 96 S.Ct. at 995. The Court expressly declined to overrule decisions in several circuits holding that a prosecutor was entitled to only qualified immunity when he engages in administrative or investigative activities. Id.