Court Opinion

ID: 9486577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:53:21.813934+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:48.656712
License: Public Domain

FAIRCHILD, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I. Press Conference
Construed liberally, as required at the motion to dismiss stage, Buckley’s amended complaint alleges that Fitzsimmons’ false statements made when announcing the indictment inflamed public opinion and prevented fair trial and acquittal, and thus caused continued imprisonment pending retrial. Am.Compl. ¶¶ 44, 45, 54, 78. In addition, Fitzsimmons concedes that “[t]o the extent Plaintiff claims that the press conference contributed to a prohibitive bail and to an unfair .trial which led to his imprisonment for three years, Defendant Fitzsimmons does not contest that Plaintiff has adequately alleged a deprivation of liberty.” Nov. 2, 1993 Br. at 14.
The majority seems to hold that because the prosecutors who conducted the trial would be immune from liability for their acts of advocacy, Fitzsimmons, who was not involved in the trial, would also be immune. I am unable to agree. The fact that the trial is a link in the chain of causation can not mean that Fitzsimmons is immune from liability for his false statements which caused Buckley’s loss of liberty by infecting the atmosphere of the trial.
Qualified immunity for Fitzsimmons would be a different issue. I note that Irvin v. Dowd, 366 U.S. 717, 81 S.Ct. 1639, 6 L.Ed.2d 751 (1961), established that inflammatory publicity may cause a denial of due process in extreme situations. In order to surmount the hurdle of qualified immunity, Buckley would have to demonstrate that the statements complained of would reasonably be expected to be similarly inflammatory. See Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987).
The majority also relies to some extent on Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 538-543, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 1914-16, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981). Ante at 798. I doubt that a plaintiff has the burden of pleading, as the majority intimates, in order to avoid the Parratt doctrine, that “Illinois failed to provide judicial procedures adequate to guard against the effects of pretrial publicity generated by the prosecutor.” Ante at 798. Perhaps such a burden would be reasonable here insofar as the inflamed atmosphere at trial is claimed to have caused the jury’s inability to agree on acquittal and therefore Buckley’s continued imprisonment. A motion for change of venue is *800designed to avoid the effect of community-prejudice.1
In any event, one can very seriously doubt Buckley’s ability to prove that Fitzsimmons’ statements contributed materially to a prejudicial atmosphere sufficient to cause improper denial of reduction of bail, or, at the time of trial, to cause some of the jurors to vote for a guilty verdict when their clear duty was to vote to acquit. But because of the liberal construction which must be given to his complaint, I conclude that Buckley is entitled to attempt such proof at the summary judgment stage, and if he survives that, at trial.
II. Bootprint Evidence and “Coerced” or “Purchased” Statements
When the amended complaint is liberally construed, it makes more than mere allegations that the prosecutors consulted a number of witnesses to find support for their theory, but rather alleges that the prosecutors actually manufactured the bootprint evidence. Am.Compl. ¶¶ 53, 55; see also ¶ 31. If several of the complaint’s paragraphs are read together, the complaint may properly be construed to allege that such manufacture caused Buckley’s loss of liberty because without it, the indictment and trial would not have occurred. Id. ¶¶41, 43, 55.
With respect to the statements by Hernandez and Cruz, the amended complaint, once again liberally construed, alleges more than that the prosecutors merely offered incentives to persuade an otherwise unwilling witness to testify; it claims the prosecutors suborned perjury. Id. ¶¶ 39, 40, 46, 56.
I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that “the location of the injury is dispositive ... for the bootprint evidence and the allegedly coerced confessions alike.” Ante at 796. As I understand the “location of the injury” concept, it is that because a wrongful act does not ripen into a § 1983 cause of action until it causes an impairment of a constitutional right, a prosecutor, is not liable for the result of his wrongful act, not within the scope of advocacy, where the immediate cause of the impairment is an act as to which the prosecutor is immune. Here, however, the claim is not only that the prosecutors caused injury by using fabricated or perjured evidence in seeking indictment and at trial, but it seems to be that there would not have been either an indictment or trial if some of the prosecutors had not fabricated evidence and suborned perjury.
The results, after a motion for summary judgment,- or trial, may well be different for the various, defendants-prosecutors. Fitz-simmons is an example of a defendant who did not participate in the trial, although he allegedly engaged in the wrongful acts of fabricating evidence and inducing witnesses to agree to give false testimony. (The majority correctly points out that these claims against Fitzsimmons are not presently before us.) Defendants Knight and King may have both engaged in the alleged wrongful acts and been involved in the trial. Defendants Ryan and Kilander seem to have been involved in the trial and subsequent proceedings, but less likely to have participated in the alleged wrongful conduct. I readily agree that a defendant prosecutor whose only contribution to Buckley’s loss of liberty was the use of evidence at trial or other acts of advocacy would be entitled to absolute immunity.
Prosecutors are not immune from § 1983 liability for their non-advocacy wrongful conduct if Buckley can prove that indictment and trial would not have occurred in the absence of the product of the wrongful conduct. Subornation of perjury is not advocacy and' prosecutors are not immune from liability even though the conduct did not ripen into a § 1983 cause of action except by use of the perjured testimony at trial. See Jones v. City of Chicago, 856 F.2d 985, 993 (7th Cir.1988) (“In constitutional-tort cases as in other cases, ‘a man [is] responsible for the natural consequences of his actions.’ ”) (quoting *801Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 187, 81 S.Ct. 473, 484, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961)).
In this case, the Supreme Court decided that prosecutors are not entitled to absolute immunity for activities which were entirely investigative in character. Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, — U.S. -, -, 113 S.Ct. 2606, 2615-2617. The majority’s theory that if the indictment and trial are the immediate cause of the impairment of constitutional rights, prosecutors are immune from liability for the result of their wrongful investigative acts brings about absolute immunity for wrongful investigative acts.
Buckley may well be unable to prove that the prosecutors affirmatively constructed false evidence, which in turn caused his injuries. When we liberally construe the complaint, however, Buckley has alleged that the prosecutors fabricated evidence and induced perjured testimony which caused his imprisonment. See Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 112-113, 55 S.Ct. 340, 341-42, 79 L.Ed. 791 (1935) (a prosecutor’s knowing use of perjured testimony violates the Fourteenth Amendment); see also United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 103, and n. 8, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 2397, and n. 8, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976) (citing cases).
I conclude that Buckley’s complaint is entitled to survive dismissal of his claims regarding Fitzsimmons’ alleged prejudicial press conference statements, the alleged manufacture of the bootprint evidence, and the alleged coerced and purchased false statements of witnesses.

. Defendants have supplied portions of the transcript of oral argument before the Supreme Court. Buckley’s counsel, in response to a question, stated that Buckley had raised the pretrial publicity issue on a motion for change of venue and that it was resolved against him. A claim by Fitzsimmons that Buckley is collaterally es-topped from asserting community prejudice would be a matter for a later stage of this case.