Court Opinion

ID: 9492946
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:53:58.369521+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:33.658615
License: Public Domain

DIANA GRIBBON MOTZ, Judge,
concurring in the judgment:
For the reasons stated by the majority, I agree that Keller-Burnside enjoys absolute immunity for acts related to initiating *473extradition proceedings against Dababnah, but I part company with the majority in its extension of absolute immunity to her request for a court order to secure Dabab-nah’s property. Nevertheless, because Keller-Burnside’s acts indisputably did not cause the asserted constitutional violation, I concur in the judgment.
The Supreme Court has recognized the defense of absolute immunity for prosecu-torial duties that are “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process,” such as “initiating a prosecution and ... presenting the State’s case.” Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 430, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976). However, the same immunity does not apply to a prosecutor’s actions that are investigative or administrative. See id.; Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 811 n. 16, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Therefore, when a court is asked to determine whether a prosecutor is entitled to absolute immunity, it is to examine “the nature of the function performed, not the identity of the actor who performed it.” Forrester v. White, 484 U.S. 219, 229, 108 S.Ct. 538, 98 L.Ed.2d 555 (1988). Moreover, “the official seeking absolute immunity bears the burden of showing that such immunity is justified for the function in question.” Burns v. Reed, 500 U.S. 478, 486, 111 S.Ct. 1934, 114 L.Ed.2d 547 (1991). Keller-Burnside has utterly failed to satisfy her burden of proving that absolute immunity protects her against liability flowing from her request for a court order to secure Dababnah’s property.
In holding to the contrary, the majority relies heavily on the fact that Keller-Burnside requested the order in open court at the end of Dababnah’s bond hearing. Without citation to authority, the majority suggests that for this reason her action is “presumed to be protected by absolute immunity.” Ante at 470. Although I recognize the safe-guards against prosecutorial misconduct inherent in a judicial forum, see, e.g., Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 522, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985), there is simply no basis in the law for insulating from liability all conduct that occurs in open court.
The Supreme Court has never held that the particular forum in which challenged conduct takes place is definitive one way or the other on the question of prosecutorial immunity. Nor has the Court eliminated the prosecutor’s burden of proving entitlement to absolute immunity when she demonstrates that her allegedly wrongful act occurred before a judge while the court was in session. Similarly, the Court has not limited the investigative or administrative function analysis to conduct that takes place outside the formal strictures of a court proceeding. Faithful application of the functional approach prescribed by Im-bler and its progeny focuses on the underlying function of the prosecutor’s specific acts rather than on the context in which they occur.
When that analysis is applied here it is clear that Keller-Burnside has not demonstrated her entitlement to absolute immunity. True, the court order “speaks only of .safeguarding, Dababnah’s property,” ante at 470, but Keller-Burnside requested the order to further evidence-gathering investigative activities, and the judge understood that it was to be so used. Thus, at the end of the bond hearing, Keller-Burnside stated that “[i]f it’s agreeable with the Court, I was going to advise [the police] ... to secure [the property] the best they can, either by the motel if the motel is willing to do it without billing the State or put it in evidence.... ” The court responded that “if the charges are going to be brought ... as you say, Ms. Keller, some of that equipment will be evidence in, perhaps, a future matter.” These statements make plain that Keller-Burnside did not seek the court order to fulfill any prosecutorial duty. Rather, she acted in an investigative capacity (or, as the majority seemingly concedes, an administrative one).
Nor does the fact that Keller-Burnside requested the order “five days before a *474defendant’s impending prosecution for threatening a judicial officer,” ante at 470, establish her entitlement to absolute immunity. As the district court correctly concluded, absolute immunity protects a prosecutor’s evidence-gathering activities only when it is clear that the prosecutor has decided to pursue an indictment, and not a day (or five) before that. See, e.g., Kalina v. Fletcher, 522 U.S. 118, 118 S.Ct. 502, 509-10, 139 L.Ed.2d 471 (1997) (upholding absolute immunity for prosecutor’s conduct related to the preparation and filing of charging documents, but not for execution of certification for probable cause determination); Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259, 273, 113 S.Ct. 2606, 125 L.Ed.2d 209 (1993) (holding that a prosecutor would be entitled to absolute immunity for “the professional evaluation of the evidence assembled by the police and appropriate preparation for its presentation at trial or before a grand jury after a decision to seek an indictment has been made”) (emphasis added); Ehrlich v. Giuliani, 910 F.2d 1220, 1223 (4th Cir.1990) (upholding absolute immunity for prosecutors’ actions that involved investigation of assets because they “had already made the decision to initiate criminal proceedings and were preparing their case for trial”).*
In this case, Keller-Burnside failed to offer any evidence that the Raleigh County Prosecutor’s Office had decided to file additional charges and seek an indictment against Dababnah for his alleged threats against his ex-wife’s attorney. Rather, the record reflects only that the police were concluding a series of interviews pertaining to the matter. Thus, Keller-Burnside’s request for the court order was not related to “the protected decision to initiate prosecution, but rather the earlier preliminary gathering of evidence which may blossom into a potential prosecution.” McSurely v. McClellan, 697 F.2d 309, 320 (D.C.Cir.1982) (denying absolute immunity to prosecutor for investigative activities and for conduct under court’s safekeeping order); see also id. at 319 (explaining that “[t]o immunize absolutely a prosecutor’s actions unrelated or only tangentially related to the prosecution of a particular case would contravene the functional rationale which underpins the absolute immunity doctrine.”).
Although Keller-Burnside has not demonstrated her entitlement to absolute immunity in connection with the request for an order to secure Dababnah’s property, she nonetheless cannot be held liable for the asserted violation of Dababnah’s Fourth Amendment rights. To prevail on any 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim, a plaintiff must prove, inter alia, that the defendant caused or participated in the alleged deprivation of his constitutional or statutory rights. See, e.g., Monell v. Department of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 692, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). “The Supreme Court consistently has refused to impose § 1983 liability upon defendants where the causal connection between their conduct and the constitutional injury is remote rather than direct.” Taylor v. Brentwood Union Free Sch. Dist., 143 F.3d 679, 686 (2d Cir.1998) (citing Mar*475tinez v. California, 444 U.S. 277, 285, 100 S.Ct. 553, 62 L.Ed.2d 481 (1980)).
Dababnah does not dispute the district court’s finding that “[e]ither just prior to or during the bond hearing, Keller [sic] was advised that the officers had secured Dr. Dababnah’s equipment from the hotel room.” Keller-Burnside’s request for a court order to secure Dababnah’s property thus occurred after the officers had searched the hotel room and seized Dabab-nah’s property. The undisputed facts as to the sequence of events make clear that Keller-Burnside’s action did not in any way cause the alleged constitutional infringement.
For these reasons, I respectfully decline to join the opinion of the court and concur only in the judgment.

 In these cases, as the majority notes, ante at 471 n. 3, the courts had no occasion to "go behind the face of court orders ... to establish ulterior motive on the part” of the prosecutors. But that does not mean that the Supreme Court has disapproved this approach. Indeed, in Bums v. Reed, the Court explicitly noted that only because Burns did not challenge the prosecutor’s "motivation in seeking the search warrant," it did not reach the motivation issue. 500 U.S. at 487-88, 111 S.Ct. 1934. In a separate opinion in Bums, Justice Scalia did address that issue and concluded that when a prosecutor obtains a search warrant with improper motivation he does not enjoy absolute immunity; Justice Scalia explained that “[t]he act of procuring a mere search warrant," id. at 506, 111 S.Ct. 1934, " 'is further removed from the judicial phase of criminal proceedings than the act of a prosecutor in seeking an indictment.' ” Id. at 505, 111 S.Ct. 1934 (quoting Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 342-43, 106 S.Ct. 1092, 89 L.Ed.2d 271 (1986)). Procuring a court order to secure a defendant’s property, as Keller-Burnside did, is even "further removed” from acts taken to advance a legitimate prosecutorial function.