WILLIAM HENRY COUSINS, Plаintiff-Appellant, v. BILL LOCKYER, (former) Attorney General of California, in his official capacity; RICHARD RIMMER, (former) Director of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), in his individual capacity; ROSEANNE CAMPBELL, (former) Warden of Mule Creek State Prison, in her individual capacity; and JOHN/JANE DOES 1 through x, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 07-17216
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
Filed June 15, 2009
569 F.3d 1063
Before: Thomas G. Nelson, Andrew J. Kleinfeld, and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. Saundra B. Armstrong, District Judge, Presiding. Argued and Submitted April 13, 2009—San Francisco, California. D.C. No. CV-07-01165-SBA. Opinion by Judge Milan D. Smith, Jr.
COUNSEL
Wilfred T. Fong, Office of the California Attorney General, Oakland, California, for the defendants-appellees.
OPINION
William Henry Cousins (Cousins) appeals from the dismissal of his
We affirm the district court‘s judgment regarding Cousins’ federal claims because they fall within the scope of the former Attorney General‘s duties as a criminal prosecutor, and because Cousins cannot show that any federal сonstitutional right that may have been violated by the remaining defendants was clearly established in law. However, we reverse and remand Cousins’ state causes of action. His state false imprisonment claim is not subject to any state statutory immunity; his remaining state claims are all derivative of that claim; and none of his state claims is subject to the federal common law doctrine of qualified immunity.
FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Cousins, a former California prison inmate, filed this
Cousins was arrested in June 1999, in San Jose, California, and charged under
In January 2000, a jury convicted Cousins on Count Two, and he received a sentence of twenty-five years to life in prison under California‘s “three strikes” law. His conviction was аffirmed on appeal in November 2002, and a petition for rehearing by the California Court of Appeal, Sixth Appellate District, was denied later that month. The California Supreme Court denied Cousins’ petition for review in February 2003.
In October 2003, the California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, decided People v. North, 5 Cal. Rptr. 3d 337 (Cal. Ct. App. 2003), in which the court declared
In February 2007, Cousins filed a complaint in federal district court, alleging that his extended incarceration violated several state laws and his civil rights under
Cousins’ first amended complaint alleges that the AG, the CDCR director, and the MCSP warden, in their individual capacities, breached specific duties owed to him. Cousins assеrts that the AG “had a duty to inform the trial court in . . . Cousin[s‘] conviction and various officials in the CDCR including, but not limited to, the Director of the CDCR, as well as the Warden of Mule Creek.” Cousins further alleges that the CDCR director and the MCSP warden had:
a duty to discover when statutes in the Penal Code are invalidated, . . . a duty to discover who was incarcerated under the invalid statute, as well as a duty to determine the effect on all sentences affected by the change in law, . . . [and] to inform the trial court that Plaintiff[‘s] sentence was no longer authorized by law.
Cousins states that in breaching these duties, the defendants violated his federal and state constitutional rights to due process, his federal and state constitutional rights to freedom from unreasonable seizure, and his federal constitutional right to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment. He also alleges state claims of negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, false arrest and imprisonment, and violation of the Bane Act.
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to
JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW
We have jurisdiction pursuant to
DISCUSSION
Cousins asserts that the district court erred in dismissing his first amended complaint based on its determinations that the AG is entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity, and that the remaining defendants are entitled to qualified immunity.
A. Federal Claims
1. Federal Prosecutorial Immunity for the AG
[1] Cousins first argues that the district court erred in concluding that the AG is entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity from the federal claims on the ground that he was acting within the scope of his duties as a criminal prosecutor. A state prosecuting attorney enjoys absolute immunity from liability under
Here, Cousins alleges that because the California Attorney General‘s Office hаndled the North appeal that resulted in the invalidation of
[2] First, regardless of whether the AG “knew or should have known” аbout the North decision and its impact on Cousins’ individual conviction, the AG could not have effectuated Cousins’ post-conviction release merely by notifying or informing the sentencing court or CDCR officials of that information. Rather, the AG would have had to petition the court for an order directing such a release—an action entirely dependent upon his role as an advocate for the State.1 See Guzman-Rivera v. Rivera-Cruz, 55 F.3d 26, 29-31 (1st Cir. 1995) (holding that “the [state official] defendants[‘] fail[ure] to go to court as prosecutors to undo [the plaintiff‘s] conviction” after a post-conviction investigation established his innocence did not strip them of prosecutorial immunity, because such a decision was “at the heart of the prosecutorial function“); see also Demery v. Kupperman, 735 F.2d 1139, 1144 (9th Cir. 1984) (holding that “prosecutors are absolutely immune from civil suits alleging wrongdoing with regard to post-litigatiоn . . . handling of a case“); In re Sandel, 412 P.2d 806, 810 (Cal. 1966) (“The correction of an act of sentencing in excess of jurisdiction of the court is just as much of a judicial function as the act of sentencing itself, and is likewise beyond the authority of . . . any other administrative body.“).
[3] Second, to the extent Cousins faults the AG for failing to maintain an institutionalized information system for tracking all California appellate decisions with a direct bearing on individual prisoners’ convictions (an obligation for which Cousins cites no legal authority), the Supreme Court has indicated that, even if properly characterized as an attack on an office‘s administrative procedures, such a challenge does not strip a supervising prosecutor of absolute immunity. See Van De Kamp, 129 S. Ct. at 861-64. Rather, supervising prosecu-tors retain absolute immunity regarding decisions to create informаtion management systems where, as here, “determining the criteria for inclusion or exclusion requires knowledge of the law,” and where, as here, the information is relevant only insofar as it relates to the prosecution of a particular case—in this instance, the AG‘s distinctly prosecutorial function of going to the sentencing court to undo Cousins’ conviction. See id. at 862-64. As a result, we hold that the district court properly granted the AG prosecutorial immunity from Cousins’
2. Qualified Immunity for the Remaining Defendants
[4] Cousins next argues that the district court erred in determining that the remaining defendants are entitled to qualified immunity from the federal claims on the ground that he cannot show that any constitutional right that may have been violated was clearly established in law. Qualified immunity protects government officials from civil liability if “their conduct does not violate clearly establishеd statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). We consider qualified immunity using the two-step inquiry set forth in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001).2 First, we decide whether the alleged facts make out a violation of a constitutional right. Id. at 201. If so, we then decide whether the right at issue was “clearly established” at the time of the alleged misconduct. Id. The inquiry into whether a right is clearly established “must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case.” Id. In addition, for a right to be clearly established, its contours ” ‘must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing
violates that right.’
[5] In this case, the remaining defendants fully agree with Cousins that he has a broad federal constitutional right to be free from wrongful incarceration.3 See, e.g., McNeil v. Dir., Patuxtent Inst., 407 U.S. 245, 246 (1972) (holding that continued incarceration after the lawful basis for custody expires violates due рrocess under the
[I]f the test of “clearly established law” were to be applied at this level of generality, it would bear no relationship to the “objective legal reasonableness” that is the touchstone of [the Harlow decision]. Plaintiffs would be able to convert the rule of qualified immunity that our cases plainly establish into a rule of virtually unqualified liability simply by alleging violation of extremely abstract rights . . . . It should not be surprising, therefore, that our cases establish that the right the official is alleged to have violated must have been “clearly established” in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, sense.
Anderson, 483 U.S. at 639-40 (citations omitted). In other words, “the right allegedly violatеd must be defined at the appropriate level of specificity before a court can determine
if it was clearly established.” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 615 (1999). Here, Cousins offers no decisional, statutory, or other legal basis to suggest that a reasonable official standing in the defendants’ shoes would have any way of knowing that by failing to personally check all California appellate court decisions for changes in the law, failing to apрly these changes to individual inmates statewide, and then failing to contact the appropriate sentencing courts, he or she was violating Cousins’ constitutional rights.
[6] Although Cousins argues that “[t]he CDCR operations manual is replete with references which make clear that the duties and procedures it prescribes encompass the activities which are necessary to avoid the deprivation оf liberty [he] suffered,” the remaining defendants are entitled to qualified immunity from the federal claims because state departmental regulations do not establish a federal constitutional violation. See Case v. Kitsap County Sheriff‘s Dep‘t, 249 F.3d 921, 930 (9th Cir. 2001) (quoting Gardner v. Howard, 109 F.3d 427, 430 (8th Cir. 1997) (“[T]here is no
Finally, Cousins’ argument that the district court erred in dismissing the
B. State Claims
1. State Prosecutorial Immunity for the AG
[7] Cousins also contends that the district court erred in granting the AG state prosecutorial immunity from the state claims. In determining that the AG enjoyed such immunity, the district court relied on
[8] In such instances, both our precedent and that of the California Supreme Court require reversal not only of the state false imprisonment claim, but also of the other, related state causes of action. In Martinez v. City of Los Angeles, we reversed in part summary judgment against a plaintiff who had been detained in Mexico for fifty-nine days after “the LAPD falsely had him arrested by knowingly or recklessly providing false information to the Mexican authorities . . . [and] allowed him to remain in jail in Mexico after they knew or should have known that he was the wrong man.” 141 F.3d at 1379. We held that the LAPD could not be liable for providing false information, because such a claim is akin to malicious prosecution, a claim for which government officers are immune under
was akin to a false imprisonment claim. Id. at 1380-81. We also reversed summary judgment on the state law negligence and negligent infliction of emotional distress claims to the extent they were “base[d] . . . on the same facts as his false imprisonment claim” and “[we]re derivative of the false arrest and false imprisonment claims.” Id. at 1381-82. We stated that “[b]ecause the false imprisonment claim grounded on prolonged detention survives summary judgment, these claims survive as well.” Id. at 1382.
Similarly, in Asgari v. City of Los Angeles, the California Supreme Court affirmed a judgment finding state рolice officers liable for “false arrest and related causes of action.” 937 P.2d 273, 275 (Cal. 1997) (emphasis added). Specifically, the court affirmed a finding of liability for both false arrest and intentional infliction of emotional distress incident to that false arrest, but reversed the amount of damages because the court had instructed the jury to consider the period of time after the false arrest had ended. Id. at 284.
2. State Immunities for the Remaining Defendants
[10] Finally, Cousins asserts that the district court erred in summarily dismissing his state claims against the remaining defendants pursuant to its qualified immunity analysis. We agree. California law is clear that ” ’ [t]he doctrine of qualified governmental immunity is a federal doctrine that does not extend to state tort claims against government employees.’ ”
Venegas v. County of L.A., 63 Cal. Rptr. 3d 741, 751 (Cal. Ct. App. 2007) (quoting Ogborn v. City of Lancaster, 124 Cal. Rptr. 2d 238, 246 (Cal. Ct. App. 2002)). California law is also clear that qualified immunity does not apply to state civil rights claims. See id. at 753 (holding that “qualified immunity of the kind applied to actions brought under
As discussed above, Cousins’ state false imprisonment claim and related state causes of action are not subject to any state statutory immunity. As with Cousins’ state claims against the AG, therefore, we also reverse and remand his state claims against the remaining defendants for consideration on the merits.
CONCLUSION
[11] We affirm the district court‘s judgment regarding Cousins’
AFFIRMED in part; REVERSED and REMANDED in part.
Each party shall bear its own costs on appeal.