Wilhelmina Washington v. Alan Wilson, 697 F. App'x 241

Wilhelmina Washington, a former municipal court clerk in Florence County, SC, was criminally charged with forgery and misconduct in office; prosecution led by the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office (SCAG).
Washington’s first trial and a retrial each resulted in hung juries and mistrials; the charges were thereafter dismissed.
She filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and the South Carolina Tort Claims Act against SCAG, the Attorney General, a Senior Assistant Deputy Attorney General, the trial attorney, a SLED special agent, and SLED, alleging vindictive and improper prosecution.
The district court granted a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss as to the SCAG supervisory defendants (all except the trial attorney) on grounds of absolute prosecutorial immunity, adopting the magistrate judge’s recommendation.
Washington appealed, arguing (1) the Supervisory Defendants were not entitled to absolute immunity for the alleged conduct, and (2) the district court improperly resolved factual disputes against her at the pleading stage.
The Fourth Circuit reviewed the dismissal de novo, affirmed the district court, and held the Supervisory Defendants’ actions were prosecutorial and therefore protected by absolute immunity.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether supervisory prosecutors are entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity for the challenged conduct	Washington argued the Supervisory Defs. engaged in actions/inactions that were not protected and thus could support §1983 and SCTCA claims	Supervisory Defs. argued their actions arose from prosecutorial functions and are protected by absolute immunity	Court held supervisory prosecutors’ disputed conduct was prosecutorial and entitled to absolute immunity
Whether the district court improperly resolved factual disputes at Rule 12(b)(6) stage	Washington contended the court failed to accept her allegations as true and improperly resolved factual issues against her	Defendants argued plaintiff’s pleadings lacked sufficient factual matter and were conclusory, so dismissal was proper	Court held plaintiff’s allegations were conclusory and insufficient; no error in dismissing on immunity grounds

Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (U.S. 1976) (prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity for actions intimately associated with the judicial phase of the prosecution)
Van de Kamp v. Goldstein, 555 U.S. 335 (U.S. 2009) (supervisory prosecutors are entitled to the same absolute immunity when performing prosecutorial functions)
Burns v. Reed, 500 U.S. 478 (U.S. 1991) (functional approach to prosecutor immunity)
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (U.S. 2009) (pleading standard: conclusory allegations not entitled to be assumed true)
Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (U.S. 2007) (plausibility pleading standard under Rule 8)
Mason v. Machine Zone, Inc., 851 F.3d 315 (4th Cir. 2017) (standard of review on Rule 12(b)(6))
Guttman v. Khalsa, 446 F.3d 1027 (10th Cir. 2006) (de novo review applied to prosecutorial immunity determinations)