Court Opinion

ID: 72760
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-26 07:43:54+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:39:33.489412
License: Public Domain

PUBLISH

                IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                       FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

                          -------------------------------------------

                                       No. 97-4920

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                        D. C. Docket No. 96-6086-CV-WJZ

ROBERT R. ROWE,

                                                             Plaintiff-Appellant,

     versus

ALAN H. SCHREIBER,
                                                             Defendant-Appellee.

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                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Florida

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                                     (April 29, 1998)

Before EDMONDSON and BIRCH, Circuit Judges, and FAY, Senior Circuit Judge.
EDMONDSON, Circuit Judge:

       Plaintiff      Robert        Rowe      appeals        the

district       court’s        grant        of     summary

judgment for Defendant Alan Schreiber in

a section 1983 case based mainly on the

Sixth Amendment and brought against

                                                         1
Schreiber in his individual capacity.                        The

   1
    Plaintiff states in his brief that Schreiber denied indigent
criminal defendants rights protected by “the Sixth, Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments.” But Plaintiff’s discussion focuses
on the Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of
counsel. No further mention is made of the Eighth Amendment;
and only Plaintiff’s Brady rights are discussed in relation to
“due process.” Because of the absence of argument, the
issues of Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment
violations (other than Brady) have been abandoned and will not
be considered in this appeal. See Marek v. Singletary, 62 F.3d
1295, 1298 n.2 (11th Cir. 1995) (“Issues not clearly raised in the
briefs are considered abandoned.”) (citation omitted);
Continental Technical Servs., Inc. v. Rockwell Int’l Corp., 927
                                2
district court granted summary judgment

after concluding that Defendant, as public

defender,          was       entitled          to      absolute

immunity.              Because        we     conclude        that

Defendant          was      undoubtedly          entitled       to

qualified immunity (which Defendant also

asserted in the district court), we need not

F.2d 1198, 1199 (11th Cir. 1991) (“An argument not made is
waived. . . .”); Harris v. Plastics Mfg. Co., 617 F.2d 438, 440 (5th
Cir. 1980) (Although posed as a question on appeal, appellants
“do not discuss the issue in their argument. Any contention
that the trial court erred [on that issue] is therefore
abandoned.”); see also Fed.R.App.P. 28(a)(5) (“argument shall
contain discussion of issues presented”).
                                 3
decide   whether      absolute    immunity        was

                                 2
appropriate.        We affirm.

                     Background

   Plaintiff    was       indicted    in    Broward

County, Florida, on four counts of sexual

battery. An assistant public defender (“the

APD”),   who   is    no   party      to    this   case,

    2
     We may affirm a decision on any
adequate grounds, including grounds other
than the grounds upon which the district
court actually relied.         See Parks v. City of
Warner Robins, 43 F.3d 609, 613 (11th Cir. 1995).

                           4
represented Plaintiff during the criminal

trial.    Plaintiff      was   convicted    and

sentenced   to    life   imprisonment.        A

motion to vacate the conviction was filed

by Plaintiff.    A Florida court granted the

motion    based    on    the   conclusion   that

Plaintiff received ineffective assistance

of counsel. A new trial was ordered, but the

State of Florida nolle prosequi the charges.

   Plaintiff then filed a section 1983 claim

against the Public Defender for Broward

                         5
County, Alan Schreiber, in his individual

            3
capacity.       Never does the complaint allege

that Schreiber acted as Plaintiff’s defense

counsel.        Instead, the complaint alleges

that Defendant -- as an administrator --

created systemic deficiencies in the public

defender        system      generally    by   denying

investigative         resources         and    expert

witness         resources    to   assistant     public

 3
  Plaintiff also included a state law claim
in his Second Amended Complaint.                 That
claim was dismissed by the district court
and is not an issue on appeal.

                             6
defenders,    by    placing   pressure   on   the

defenders to “hurry their clients’ cases to

trial,” and by permitting assistant public

defenders      to     assume     overwhelming

caseloads.    No allegation has been made

that Defendant made decisions specifically

about the criminal defense of Plaintiff;

nor has an allegation been made that

specific     services    were    requested    of

Defendant by Plaintiff.

                         7
      Plaintiff   points only to errors made

by the APD who represented him.            Plaintiff

claims, among other things, that the APD

did     not       properly       obtain      Brady

information from the State; that the APD

repeatedly told Plaintiff that the APD did

not     have      enough       time   to   prepare

Plaintiff’s defense; that the APD failed to

investigate adequately Plaintiff’s defense;

and that the APD told Plaintiff that the

Public Defender’s Office was cutting money

                           8
allocated for case investigation.          These

deficiencies, Plaintiff claims, were caused

by the general administrative decisions of

Defendant     (for       example,     resource

management          decisions,      case   load

management decisions, and hiring and

firing decisions). Again, Plaintiff does not

claim that Schreiber was, in any way,

Plaintiff’s defense lawyer.

   Defendant filed a motion for summary

judgment    based   on     three   alternative

                       9
defenses: (1) as public defender, Defendant

was not acting under color of state law as

required for a claim under section 1983; (2)

as public defender, Defendant was entitled

to absolute immunity from section 1983

liability; or (3) Defendant was entitled to

qualified   immunity.     The   district   court

granted Defendant’s motion for summary

judgment, concluding that Defendant -- as

public defender -- was entitled to absolute

immunity.

                     10
                 Discussion

   We review a district court’s grant of

summary judgment de novo, with all facts

viewed in the light most favorable to the

nonmoving party.      See Hale v. Tallapoosa

County, 50 F.3d 1579, 1581 (11th Cir. 1995).

Because   we   conclude    that   Defendant   is

entitled to qualified immunity, we have

assumed, arguendo, that Defendant -- when

                      11
acting as a public administrator -- was

acting under color of state law and was

not entitled to absolute immunity.

   “Qualified        immunity            protects

government         officials      performing

discretionary functions from civil trials

(and other burdens of litigation, including

discovery)   and     from    liability   if   their

conduct   violates    no    ‘clearly   established

statutory or constitutional rights of which

a reasonable person would have known.’”

                       12
Lassiter   v.   Alabama       A&M     Univ.,   Bd.   of

Trustees, 28 F.3d 1146, 1149 (11th Cir. 1994) (en

banc) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 102 S.Ct.

2727, 2738 (1982)).          Thus, Plaintiff must

point to a preexisting, clearly established

right that was violated by Defendant. See

Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1149; see also Mitchell v.

Forsyth, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2816 (1985).

   Plaintiff argues that the well-established

Sixth   Amendment            right    to   effective

assistance      of   counsel     is    the     clearly

                        13
established right violated by Defendant.

But, “courts must not permit plaintiffs to

discharge their burden by referring to

general   rules   and   to   the   violation   of

abstract ‘rights.’”   Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1150

(citing Anderson v. Creighton, 107 S.Ct.

3034, 3038-39 (1987)) (footnote omitted). The

right to effective assistance of counsel,

although a generally established right of

criminal defendants, is not sufficiently

                        14
specific to overcome Defendant’s right to

qualified immunity from this suit.

   “For the law to be clearly established to

the point that qualified immunity does not

apply,   the   law   must    have   earlier   been

developed in such a concrete and factually

defined context to make it obvious to all

reasonable     government        actors,   in   the

defendant’s place, that ‘what he is doing’

violates federal law.”       Lassiter, 28 F.3d at

1149 (quoting Anderson, 107 S.Ct. at 3039).

                        15
“Public officials are not obligated to be

creative          or   imaginative        in   drawing

analogies from previously decided cases.”

Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1150 (quoting Adams v.

St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Dep’t, 962 F.2d

                          th
1563, 1573, 1575 (11           Cir. 1992) (Edmondson,

J., dissenting), approved en banc, 998 F.2d

          th
923 (11        Cir. 1993)).    “If case law, in factual

terms, has not staked out a bright line,

qualified immunity almost always protects

                                16
the    defendant.”         Post    v.   City      of    Fort

Lauderdale, 7 F.3d 1552, 1557 (11th Cir. 1993).

      In this case, for qualified immunity

not to apply, the right which must be clearly

established    is    some       right   to       have    the

resources of the public defender’s office

administratively allocated in a specific

manner or the right to have certain

                                             4
administrative decisions made.                   Plaintiff

  4
      Plaintiff argues that the right to have
his     case   adequately         investigated          and
adequately      prepared           is   also       clearly
established.         The    right       to       effective
assistance      of   counsel      may     embody         the

                           17
rights    to     adequate       preparation            and
investigation, see Weidner v. Wainwright,
708 F.2d 614, 616 (11th Cir. 1983), but the
lawyer decisions of what to investigate
and      what    to    prepare        in        Plaintiff’s
criminal        case     were        the    APD’s,     not
Defendant’s. The conduct complained of by
Plaintiff      about   Defendant           is   the   public
administrative          act     of    allocating        the
available resources for investigation and
preparation           generally.           Included      in
Plaintiff’s argument that the APD did not
adequately investigate is Plaintiff’s claim
that his Brady rights were not adequately
protected; see generally Brady v. Maryland,
373 U.S. 83 (1963). But Plaintiff has failed to
point to conduct of Defendant (as a public
administrator) that caused a violation of
Plaintiff’s Brady rights. More important,
Plaintiff has pointed to no law that clearly
established that a person administering a
public defender program is the guarantor,

                           18
puts forward no existing law to show the

clearly established nature of this “right.”

That general administrative decisions of

the kind at issue in this case violated

Plaintiff’s     Sixth     Amendment           right     to

effective assistance of counsel, when the

decisions     were      made     by    someone        not

acting as Plaintiff’s lawyer, was not (and

                                   5
is not) clearly established.

through his administrative decisions, of all
indigent defendants’ Brady rights.
    5
      We accept that indigent defendants must be provided
particular services, such as expert witnesses, by the State
under certain circumstances. But to be entitled to those
                            19
     Plaintiff        has,      in     fact,      presented

nothing to show that every reasonable

public defender in Defendant’s position

would     have      known        that     the     conduct       --

making decisions about how to allocate

services, a defendant is required to request the State for the
services. See Moore v. Kemp, 809 F.2d 702, 709 (11th Cir. 1987)
(en banc). No allegation has been made that Plaintiff asked
Defendant to provide a service, which service was denied.
“Supreme Court precedent establishes the principle that the
due process clause of the fourteenth amendment requires that
the state, upon request, provide indigent defendants with the
‘basic tools of an adequate defense . . . when those tools are
available for a price to other prisoners.’” Moore, 809 F.2d at 709
(emphasis added) (quoting Britt v. North Carolina, 92 S.Ct. 431,
433 (1971)); see also Ake v. Oklahoma, 105 S.Ct. 1087 (1985).
These cases -- involving requests made to courts -- do not
clearly establish a right to the kind of administrative decisions
involved in this case, especially in the absence of a request that
the public administrator provide a particular service to a
particular defendant. Plaintiff’s only alleged request for an
expert witness was to his APD, not to Defendant.
                               20
limited resources within his office and how

otherwise to manage the public defender’s

office -- violated Plaintiff’s constitutional

rights.   The “right” allegedly violated is the

Sixth     Amendment            right   to    effective

assistance of counsel; but no precedents

have      been    cited        that    involve       the

administrative duties of a public defender,

as   opposed     to   the        traditional     legal

functions     performed          by    the   criminal

defendant’s      specific      attorney:      that   is,

                          21
                                  6
lawyer-as-lawyer decisions.            The cases cited

by Plaintiff are not materially similar to

the   case   before   us    and   do     not   clearly

establish a right to certain funding for

(or   certain    administrative             decisions

  6
   For example, Plaintiff cites us to cases
such as Strickland v. Washington, 104 S.Ct.
2052 (1984), and Weidner v. Wainwright,
708 F.2d 614 (11th Cir. 1983).        These cases are
decisions     about    whether          a   criminal
defendant received effective assistance of
counsel: again lawyer acting as lawyer.
The   cases    in     no        way     address   the
constitutional responsibilities of a public
defender acting as a public administrator
and making administrative decisions for
the public defender’s office.

                           22
affecting)       investigation,         expert

witnesses, and the like.       See Lassiter, 28

F.3d at 1150-51; Edwards v. Gilbert, 867 F.2d

1271, 1277 (11th Cir. 1989).

     Qualified immunity is the rule, not the

exception. Plaintiff has failed to convince

us    that   this    case      represents       the

exceptional case where qualified immunity

should not apply.   See, e.g., Harlow, 102 S.Ct.

at 2738; Lassiter, 28 F.3d at 1149; Barts v.

Joyner, 865 F.2d 1187, 1190 (11th Cir. 1989).

                       23
AFFIRMED.

            24