Minns v. PaulMinns v. Paul
D. Edward Wilson, Jr., Third Year Law Student (Michael E. Geltner, Washington, D. C. (court-appointed counsel), on brief), for appellant.
John Gray Paul, Jr., pro se.
WINTER, Circuit Judge:
E. George Minns, Jr., a Virginia state prisoner, brought this action under
I.
Because the district court made a final disposition on a motion to dismiss the complaint, we accept all of the allegations of the complaint as true for purposes of this appeal.
Plaintiff Minns was confined to Harrisonburg Correctional Field Unit No. 8, a Virginia prison. Pursuant to the
Between the 8th and 14th of January, 1975, Minns telephoned Paul to request legal assistance in preparing a petition for habeas corpus; during that conversation, Minns was assured that Paul would be back in contact with him within a week. On January 18, 1975, the plaintiff sent a formal written request for legal assistance to the defendant. At Minns’ instance, on February 5, 1975, the Assistant Superintendent of the Correctional Unit telephoned Paul to discover the reasons why the defendant had not acted upon the plaintiff‘s requests for legal assistance. On February 6, 1975, Minns sent a second letter to the defendant, once again requesting legal assistance. Paul has never responded in any way to these requests.
Minns filed suit on February 24, 1975, alleging the facts set forth above, and alleging further that Paul‘s failure to act on the requests deprived the plaintiff of rights secured by the fourteenth amendment, that suit is authorized by
II.
In addition to contending that he did not act under color of state law so as to give the district court jurisdiction under
The Supreme Court has recognized the existence of such immunity for other state officials involved in the judicial process. In Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967), it was held that state court judges were not liable for damages
We recognize that Pierson v. Ray, supra, and Imbler v. Pachtman, supra, rest in large part on the extension of common law principles in granting complete immunity to judges and prosecutors. Cf. Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975), and Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974) (qualified immunity for other government officials). Not surprisingly, there is virtually no common law with respect to the personal liability of court-appointed counsel and public defenders. The obligation of the federal government and the state to provide counsel to indigent defendants has only arisen since Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963). Both through subsequent court decisions and statutes, such as that which is involved in the instant case, the government‘s role as a provider of counsel to indigents has been expanded so that now it is more true than not that for indigents the government‘s role in litigation is to provide counsel for both sides of a controversy as well as a judicial officer to decide it. The government-provided attorneys for indigents face many problems identical to those which confront their more traditional counterparts who represent the government.
We are therefore persuaded that the Third Circuit, in Brown, correctly concluded:
We perceive no valid reason to extend this immunity to state and federal prosecutors and judges and to withhold it from state-appointed and state-subsidized defenders. Implicit in the extension of judicial immunity to prosecutors was the recognition of a public policy encouraging free exercise of professional discretion in the discharge of pre-trial, trial, and post-trial obligations. Indeed, the very reasons advanced to assert that the Public Defender acts under state law because of the favorable comparison of his activities with those of public prosecutor, would, a fortiori, support an argument in favor of the public defender on the immunity issue. Brown v. Joseph, 463 F.2d at 1048-49.
The decisions of the Third Circuit in Brown and that of the Seventh Circuit in John correctly identify the policy reasons which support a rule of absolute immunity. Basically there are two: (a) the need to recruit and hold able lawyers to represent indigents both full and part-time public defenders, as well as private practitioners appointed by courts to represent individual defendants or litigants, and (b) the need to encourage counsel in the full exercise of professionalism, i. e., the unfettered discretion, in the light of their training and experience, to decline to press the frivolous, to assign priorities between indigent litigants, and to make strategic decisions with regard to a single litigant as to how best his interests may be advanced.
The latter consideration is particularly important because of the special nature of the relationship between the state-supplied attorney and his indigent client. In a typical attorney-client relationship, the potential costs to the client operate as an economic brake on him to urge his attorney to pursue frivolous grievances. Moreover, the private attorney can simply turn away those potential clients who persist in urging claims which are patently unsound.
The situation is entirely different in the instant case. Typically, under a statute
Imbler points out the reasons why a rule of only qualified immunity would not reach the goals sought to be achieved by immunity. Unless immunity is absolute, an attorney in Paul‘s position would not be totally free to exercise his best judgment in representing his client because he would be constrained to weigh every decision in terms of potential liability. The resentment of unsuccessful litigants may easily blossom into
The instant case is a classic example. No facts are alleged that indicate that Paul exceeded the scope of his function or that he was intentionally disregarding Minns’ rights; at most Minns’ complaint is that the legal services which he sought were not forthcoming within the thirty-seven days which elapsed between the request of January 18, 1975 and the filing of the complaint on February 24, 1975. This not untoward delay is almost certainly explainable by any number of benign reasons; yet absent absolute immunity, Paul will be called upon to expend considerable time and energy in defending the suit beyond the pleading stage.
Moreover, the nature of an attorney‘s role leaves him peculiarly vulnerable to more substantial claims. The nature of the strategic decisions, including the use of witnesses, which must be made by an indigent‘s attorney makes him more likely than other non-judicial officials to be subject to colorable claims of violation of
III.
Finally, we note that the rule of absolute immunity which we adopt does not leave the typical indigent entirely remediless. If the misconduct of assigned counsel results in a deprivation of a federal right in the defense of a prosecution, redress of the deprivation may be achieved in a direct appeal, a state post-conviction remedy, or by federal habeas corpus. Brown, 463 F.2d at 1049. If the misconduct of the state-appointed attorney causes the inmate to be unsuccessful in a state habeas corpus proceeding, then federal rights may still be vindicated through federal habeas corpus. Further, if the inmate fears that the state-appointed attorney is incompetent or bears malice, then the inmate may proceed pro se. Cf. Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975).
Perhaps more important, as Imbler pointed out with respect to prosecutors, immunity from suit for damages under
AFFIRMED.
WIDENER, Circuit Judge, concurs in the result.