Plaintiff Jeffrey Pierce spent fifteen years in Oklahoma state prison for a rape he did not commit. Because DNA analysis demonstrated that Pierce could not have been the source of the semen found on the rape victim, his conviction was vacated on May 7, 2001, and he was released from prison. Mr. Pierce now seeks compensatory and punitive damages from the system and individual actors who deprived him of fifteen years of his life.
The gravamen of Mr. Pierce’s complaint is that Ms. Joyce Gilchrist, a forensic chemist for the Oklahoma City Police Department (“OCPD”), fabricated inculpatory evidence and disregarded exculpatory evidence, which led prosecutors to indict and prosecute Mr. Pierce for the rape. He further alleges that Oklahoma City District Attorney Robert Macy fostered an environment within his office wherein questionable prosecutorial tactics, including reliance on unfounded forensic analysis, were routinely used to secure convictions. Mr. Pierce claims that working in concert, Ms. Gilchrist and Mr. Macy engaged in a pervasive pattern of railroading *1282 defendants through the Oklahoma courts and into extended prison sentences. While this system may have provided the citizens of Oklahoma with a false sense of efficient justice, if the allegations are correct, it deprived criminal defendants of basic constitutional rights and led to at least one unwarranted conviction.
This case reaches us at the motion to dismiss stage, and we thus recite the facts largely as detailed ,by Plaintiff Pierce in his complaint before the district court and his filings before this Court,. Although Mr. Pierce has named other governmental units as defendants in this action, only Defendants Gilchrist and Macy filed motions to dismiss before the district court. For this reason, our recitation of the facts, as well as our holding, are limited to the facts and legal issues bearing on the claims against Defendants Gilchrist and Macy.
Because Defendants raise only issues of law ih connection with 'their appeal of the district court’s denial of qualified immunity, this Court has appellate jurisdiction.
Ramirez v. Dep’t of Corr.,
I. Factual Background
A. The Rape and Mr. Pierce’s Conviction
The events leading to this troubling case began on May 8,1985, with the rape of Ms. Sandra Burton, a resident of the Woodlake Apartment Complex' in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Mr. Piérce was employed as a landscaper at the Woodlake complex. [Compl. 5, App. 60.] He was 25 years old, married, with twin- boys on the way. While police were still on the scene, Mr. Pierce was taken by police to be viewed by the victim. At that time, Ms. Burton stated that Mr. Pierce was not the rapist. Two witnesses testified that he was elsewhere at the time of the rape.
In March of 1986, pursuant to an arrest warrant not challenged in this action, Mr. Pierce was arrested and taken into custody. The arrest warrant was supported by an affidavit filed by an OCPD officer stating that Ms. Burton had positively identified Mr. Pierce as the rapist from a photographic lineup. Once in custody, Mr. Pierce waived objections to a search of his body, and police collected body fluids and head and pubic hairs from his person. As a condition to the waiver, OCPD officers told Mr. Pierce that if the hairs did not match he would be released. Five minutes later, Mr. Pierce was told that a forensic chemist had matched his hairs to evidence collected from the Woodlake rape scene.
The forensic analysis was performed by Defendant Joyce Gilchrist. Ms. Gilchrist’s forensic analysis identified a total of 33 scalp and pubic hair samples from the crime scene as “microscopically consistent” with evidence taken from Mr. Pierce’s body, thus concluding that the hairs could have come from Mr. Pierce. According to Mr. Pierce’s amended complaint, those findings were false and without any scientific basis. Further, Mr. Pierce alleges that, with knowledge and deceit, Ms. Gilchrist (i) ’ concealed the fact that Mr. Pierce’s hair did not match the hairs found at- the crime scene, (ii) violated the district court’s order to deliver the hair samples in a timely manner for review by Mr. Pierce’s forensic expert, and (iii) disregarded her own findings that Mr. Pierce’s blood contained a particular enzyme, PGM-2-1, which conclusively precluded Mr. Pierce from being the source of the sperm found on the victim.
Thereafter, Mr. Pierce was charged with first degree rape, oral sodomy, second degree burglary, and assault with a dangerous weapon. Mr. Pierce alleges that Ms. Gilchrist’s fraudulent oral and written reports “became an inseparable basis” upon which the district attorney filed these charges. At trial, Mr. Pierce was found guilty and sentenced to 65 years in prison.
*1283 In April of 2001, the FBI released a report authored by Special Agent Deej drick reviewing the forensic work performed by Ms. Gilchrist between 1982 and 1991. The report examined Ms. Gilchrist’s work in eight investigations, including that of Mr. Pierce. Special Agent Deedrick found that at least five of the cases involved contrived and erroneous statements by Ms. Gilchrist regarding identification of persons, and that Ms. Gilchrist repeatedly made statements beyond the limits of forensic science. With regard to Mr. Pierce’s case specifically, Special Agent Deedrick concluded that none of the hairs taken from Plaintiffs body exhibited the same microscopic characteristics as those found at the crime scene.
Speculation regarding Ms. Gilchrist’s work apparently prompted the OCPD to send evidence from the Pierce case to the Serological Research Institute (SERI) in Richmond, Californiа, for DNA testing. On May 7, 2001, the OCPD laboratory received a final report from SERI exonerating Mr. Pierce on the basis of its DNA analysis. On the same day, the district court for Oklahoma County ordered Mr. Pierce’s conviction and sentence “vacáted, set aside and held for naught because Petitioner Pierce is factually innocent of committing the crimes for which he was charged and convicted.”
B. Defendant Gilchrist
Beyond the facts immediately connected to his prosecution, Mr. Pierce alleges that Ms. Gilchrist’s and Mr. Macy’s behavior reflects a pattern and practice of the OCPD and the district attorney’s office in securing convictions on the basis of falsified or misleading evidence. Mr. Pierce points out that Ms. Gilchrist’s forensic analysis and testimony has been subject to numerous reprimands by the Oklahoma courts. For example, in
McCarty v. State,
The OCCA reprimanded Ms. Gilchrist on at least one other occasion for testifying to an opinion regarding the defendant’s physical contact with the victim that was not supported by scientific evidence.
See Fox v. State,
More recently, this Court had occasion to assess the -reliability of Ms. Gilchrist’s forensic analysis. In
Mitchell v. Gibson,
Ms. Gilchrist thus provided the jury with evidence implicating Mr. Mitchell in the sexual assault-of the victim which she knew was rendered false and misleading by evidence [which she] withheld from the defense. Compounding this improper conduct was that of the prosecutor, whom, the district court found “had labored extensively at trial to obscure the *1284 true DNA test results and to highlight Gilchrist’s [contrary] test results[J”
Id. at 1064 (internal citations and italics omitted).
During the course of her career, Ms. Gilchrist has been reprimanded by various professional associations. In 1987, the Southwestern Association of Forensic Scientists disciplined Ms. Gilchrist for violations of its ethical code. Additionally, in October of 2000, Ms. Gilchrist was expelled from the Association of Crime Scene Reconstruction for giving testimony that misrepresented the evidence and was not supported by scientific work.
C. District Attorney Macy
Mr. Pierce alleges that as district attorney, Defendant Robert H. Macy established a policy or practice of employing false evidence and testimony from Defendant Gilchrist in the prosecutions of accused persons, including himself.
In the words of Mr. Pierce’s complaint: Under Macy’s administration the Oklahoma County District Attorney’s office became perverted, seeking convictions of any targeted accused even when the investigations by the OCPD and the District Attorney’s Office uncovered exculpatory evidence which clearly demonstrated his or her innocence. Gilchrist and others were coached, directed and influenced ... to provide reports consistent with the OCPD’s and Macy’s theories of the cases in order to gain a “victory” and conviction regardless of actual guilt.
Compl. 19, App. 74. 1
II. Defendant Gilchrist’s Motion to Dismiss
A. Procedural History
In an order dated July 31, 2002, the district court dismissed Plaintiffs complaint for failure to state a claim for which relief could be granted, granting him leave to amend. Plaintiff filed an amended complaint on August 13, 2002. Defendant Gilchrist again filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that the Plaintiff had failed to correct defects in the original complaint and that she was entitled to qualified immunity. Under the framework enunciated by the Supreme Court in
Saucier v. Katz,
The district court found that neither inquiry supported Ms. Gilchrist’s motion to dismiss. The court characterized the “right at issue in this case” as “the right not to be deprived of liberty as a result of the fabrication of evidence by a government officer acting in an investigative capacity.” Op. 12. The court identified the Fourth Amendment as the source of Mr. Pierce’s right to be free from unreasonable seizures
{id.
at 6-7), the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause as the source of his right to be free from a deprivation of liberty
{id.
at 12), and the manufacture of false evidence as a due process violation
(id.).
The court further found that Mr. Pierce’s allegations most closely resemble common law claims for malicious
*1285
prosecution.
Id.
at 6. Proceeding on this basis, the district court found that the Supreme Court’s intimations in
Albright v. Oliver,
The court concluded that the amended complaint was based on acts Ms. Gilchrist performed in her investigative capacity, for which she is afforded only qualified immunity. The court also found that Plaintiffs “allegations, if proven, lead the Court to believe that a jury may conclude that Defendant’s pretrial acts played an instrumental role in Plaintiffs continued post-trial confinement.” Id. at 8-9.
Turning to whether Ms. Gilchrist’s alleged misconduct violated clearly established constitutional rights, the district court noted that the amended complaint alleges “willful and deceitful acts by Defendant, which if proven, support the theory that she knowingly violated Plaintiffs constitutional rights.” Id. at 13. The court concluded that “Defendant should have known that her conduct would violate Plaintiffs constitutional rights, and as such, she is not entitled to qualified immunity.” Id. at 13-14.
On appeal, Ms. Gilchrist challenges the district court’s holding on each of these points. We evaluate her claims in the order presented.
B. Constitutional Violation
The first question is whether the allegations in the amended complaint state a claim actionable under § 1983. That question requires us to foray into the much-contested relationship between constitutional torts and the common law.
1. How to Define a Constitutional Tort
Section 1983 provides a cause of action for “the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws” by any person acting under color of statе law. 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Section 1983 does not provide a federal cause of action for every violation of state common law, and Plaintiff Pierce has not alleged any such violation. Plaintiffs amended complaint asserts claims under the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. Most pertinent are the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures,
Taylor,
Since
Carey v. Piphus,
Ms. Gilchrist’s analysis is based on her interpretation of our opinion in
Taylor.
As Ms. Gilchrist reads
Taylor,
satisfying each of the elements of Oklahoma tort law is a prerequisite for pursuing constitutional malicious prosecution claims. Proceeding on this assumption, Ms. Gilchrist notes that Oklahoma law mandates that a plaintiff demonstrate: (i) the bringing of the action by the defendant, (ii) its successful termination in favor of the plaintiff, (iii) want of probable cause to bring the action, (iv) malice, and (v) damages. Gilchrist Br. 6 (citing
Parker v. Midwest City,
From these principles Ms. Gilchrist argues that the amended complaint fails to state a claim. Mr. Pierce was arrested *1287 pursuant to a valid arrest warrant supported by an affidavit stating that the rape victim identified him from a photo lineup. Because Ms. Gilchrist was not involved in procuring the arrest warrant, and because the arrest was conducted and concluded prior to her involvement in the case, she argues that Mr. Pierce fails to plead the first required element: that she initiated the action against him. Building on this line of reasoning, Ms. Gilchrist maintains that because the warrant established probable cause that Mr. Pierce had committed the rape prior to her involvement in the prosecution, he cannot succeed in establishing the third required element:’ the absence of probable cause when the charges were initiated. Therefore, even assuming Ms. Gilchrist deliberately falsified her findings regarding the hair analysis — a clаim- she vigorously contests— Oklahoma law bars Mr. Pierce’s claim of malicious prosecution.
Ms. Gilchrist’s arguments, however, are premised on a dual misunderstanding of our holding in Taylor. 4 First, she assumes that the “common law” to which Taylor refers is limited to the specific formulation of the tort in the law of the relevant state; here, Oklahoma. Second, she finds that “starting point” analysis requires satisfaction of each of the common law elements as a prerequisite for consideration of the federal constitutional question. Neither of these assumptions is correct.
Taylor
was a § 1983 suit by a plaintiff who had been arrested and held for seven weeks before being exonerated of a crime. He sued the sheriff who arrested him, claiming that the sheriff knowingly made false statements in the affidavit used to procure the arrest warrant. As in the present case, the alleged constitutional violation was of the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures, and the closest common law analogy was to the torts of false arrest and malicious prosecution.
Taylor,
Nor does Taylor’s explanation of its legal holding, on which Ms. Gilchrist relies, support her position. After reviewing the division amongst the Courts of Appeals regarding the degree to which the elements of a § 1983 constitutional tort claim correlate with the common law elements of malicious prosecution, and noting that “[o]ur own circuit has not always written consistently on this issue,” Taylor explained that although the common law elements provide the “starting point” for the analysis of a § 1983 malicious prosecution claim, the ultimate question is whether plaintiff can prove a constitutional violation. Id. at 1561. Taylor is thus inconsistent with Ms. Gilchrist’s argument that proof of each element of the common law tort, as defined by the state in which the alleged violation occurred, is a necessary predicate to a claim under § 1983. That would make the common law tort not a “starting point” for analysis but the final word.
Contrary to Ms. Gilchrist’s first assumption, the term “common law,” in this context, refers not to the specific terms of the tort law of any particular state, but to general principles of common law among the several states.
Cf Wyatt v. Cole,
The Supreme Court’s analysis in
Heck
serves as an illustration. In
Heck,
a prisoner of the state of Indiana filed a § 1983 action complaining that defendants, under color of state law, “engaged in an ‘unlawful, unreasonable and arbitrary investigation’ leading to petitioner’s arrest; ‘knowingly destroyed’ evidence ‘which was exculpatory in nature and could have proved petitioner’s innocence’; and caused ‘an illegal and unlawful voice identification procedure’ to be used at petitioner’s trial.”
Ms. Gilchrist’s second and related assumption is that a § 1983 plaintiff must meet every element of the tort as prescribed by the common law. But to treat § 1983 claims as strictly defined by, and limited to, recognized common law torts would be inconsistent with our approach in
Wolford,
These principles find their origin in the Supreme Court’s decision in Carey. In discussing how the common law of torts properly serves as a reference point for interpreting § 1983, the Court held:
It is not clear however, that common-law tort rules of damages will provide a .complete solution to the damages issue in every § 1983 case. In some cases, the interests protected by a. particular branch of the common law of torts may parallel closely the interest protected by a particular constitutional right. In such cases, it may be appropriate to apply the tort rules of damages directly to the § 1983 action. In other eases, the interests protected by a particular constitutional right may not also be protected by an analogous branch of the common law torts. In those cases, the task will be the more difficult one of adapting common-law rules of damages to provide fair compensation for injuries caused by deprivation of constitutional right.
... The purpose of § 1983 would be defeated if injuries caused by the deprivation of constitutional rights went uncompensated simply because ' the common law does not recognize an analogous cause of action.
Similarly, in
Albright v. Oliver,
Even in the context of 42 U.S.C. § 1988, which the Supreme Court has interpreted as directing federal courts to supplement the civil rights statutes by borrowing from forum state common law, the Court has held that “Congress surely did not intend to assign to state courts and legislatures a conclusive role in the formative function of defining and characterizing the essential elements of a federal cause of action.”
Wilson v. Garcia,
The § 1983 objective of protecting individual civil liberties by providing compensation to the victim for an illegal deprivation of constitutional- entitle-merits by state officers cannot be advanced, and is only undermined, by deferring to a state law which decrees abatement under circumstances where, as here, asserted constitutional infringements resulting from action taken under color of law caused instant death.
Id 7
Finally, and most importantly, we have stressed in
Taylor
and other cases that the “ultimate question” is the existence of a constitutional violation.
Taylor,
*1291 2. Ms. Gilchrist’s Arguments Based on the Oklahoma Common Law of Malicious Prosecution
We now turn to Ms. Gilchrist’s specific arguments concerning the amended complaint’s failure to' state a claim. She frames these arguments as attacks on the district court’s holding that the amended complaint satisfies each of the five elements of the tort of malicious prosecution as defined by the Oklahoma courts. Some of her arguments are nothing more than a quarrel over what the evidence will show. We can pass by these arguments quickly, since on a motion to dismiss we must accept the plaintiffs allegations as true. Other arguments are legal in nature, and point to ways in which Plaintiffs constitutional claims are not congruent to the analogous common law claims. These we will examine in light of the structural principles set forth in the preceding pages. Because we treat the tort of malicious prosecution as a starting point, as to each element where the tort and the alleged constitutional claims diverge, we will assess whether the district court was correct in finding an actionable claim under § 1983.
a. Initiation of the original action.
Ms. Gilchrist first argues that the amended complaint is insufficient because it does not allege that she initiated the originаl action against Mr. Pierce. Citing
Parker v. Midwest City,
The district court held that Ms. Gilchrist’s lack of responsibility for initiating the action “does hot absolve Defendant from total liability.” Op. 7-8. The court held that “[i]f Defendant was instrumental in Plaintiffs continued confinement or prosecution, she cannot escape liability.” Id. ¿t 8. The amended complaint alleges that Ms. Gilchrist “with deliberate indifference ... contrived evidence to secure a fraudulent conviction.” It further alleges that Ms. Gilchrist repeatedly communicated these false and fraudulent findings to police and the district attorney, providing the basis upon which the district attorney filed charges against him. Specifically, Mr. Pierce claims that after his arrest, he was assured that he would be released if a comparison of his hair samples did not match those found , at the crime scene. Ms. Gilchrist falsely reported that the hairs were consistent; had she truthfully reported that they were not consistent, Mr. Pierce would have been released within hours of his arrest, and never tried. This was aggravated by Ms. Gilchrist’s failure to deliver the hair samples for review by an independent: forensic examiner hired by the defense, as required by law. Moreover, as alleged in the amended complaint, when preparing her forensic report on the case, Ms. Gilchrist performed an enzyme test that conclusively demonstrated that Mr. Pierce could not have been the source of the semen found on the rape victim, but Ms. Gilchrist disregarded and disputed the significance of this evidence in her report. Accepting these allegations as true, the district court concluded that a jury could find her actions “played an in *1292 strumental role” in Mr. Pierce’s confinement. Op. 8-9.
We agree with the district court. Examining the general common law as a “starting point,” we find that Ms. Gilchrist’s argument assumes too narrow an understanding of the tort of malicious prosecution. As the Restatement indicates, “[a] private person who takes an active part in continuing or procuring the continuation of criminal proceedings initiated by himself or by another is subject to the same liability for malicious prosecution as if he had then initiated the proceedings.” Restatement (Second) Torts § 655 (emphasis added). The comments to this section note that it “applies ... when the proceedings are initiated by a third person, and the defendant, knowing that there is no probable cause for them, thereafter takes an active part in procuring their continuation.” Id., cmt. b. The allegations in Mr. Pierce’s amended complaint meet these standards. Mr. Pierce alleges that Ms. Gilchrist provided sеveral false oral and written reports and withheld exculpatory evidence from the OCPD and the District Attorney’s Office. According to Mr. Pierce, these reports “became an inseparable basis” for the charges against Pierce and the District Aftorney’s decision to proceed to trial.
Turning to federal standards, § 1983, by its terms, applies not only to a person who “subjects,” but also to any person who “causes to be subjected ... any citizen of the United States ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws.” 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (emphasis added). This suggests that Congress was concerned not just with the officer who formally initiates the process that leads to an unconstitutional seizure, but to all those who were the “cause” of deprivations of constitutional rights.
This Court has previously held that officers who conceal and misrepresent material facts to the district attorney are not insulated from a § 1983 claim for malicious prosecution simply because the prosecutor, grand jury, trial court, and appellate court all act independently to facilitate erroneous convictions.
Robinson v. Maruffi,
Jones was a § 1983 action for malicious prosecution against several members of the Chicago police force who conspired to frame an innocent George Jones for murder and rape. Id. at 988-92. Amоng the numerous defendants was a lab technician who concealed exculpatory blood, semen, and hair evidence from the relevant file. Id. at 991. The jury returned a verdict of more than $800,000 against the police defendants. Thereafter, the defendants challenged the verdict on the basis that the intervening acts by the state prosecutor to charge and prosecute Jones shielded them from liability for malicious prosecution. Id. Rejecting this contention, the Seventh Circuit, per Judge Posner, held:
[A] prosecutor’s decision to charge, a grand jury’s decision to indict, a prosecutor’s decision not to drop charges but to proceed to trial — none of these decisions will shield a police officer who deliberately supplied misleading information that influenced the decision....
If police officers have been instrumental in the plaintiff’s continued confinement or prosecution, they cannot escape liability by pointing to the decisions of prosecutors or grand-jurors, or magistrates to confine or prosecute him. They cannot hide behind the officials whom they have defrauded.
*1293
Id.
at 994 (emphasis in original) (cited with approval in
Robinson,
Accordingly, Ms. Gilchrist cannot “hide behind” the fact that she neither initiated nor filed the charges against Mr. Pierce. The actions of a police forensic analyst who prevaricates and distorts evidence to convince the prosecuting authorities to press charges is no less reprehensible than an officer who, through false statements, prevails upon a magistrate to issue a warrant. In each case the government official maliciously abuses a position of trust to induce the criminal justice system to confine and then to prosecute an innocent defendant. We view both types of conduct as equally repugnant to the Constitution.
Ms. Gilchrist also maintains, as a factual matter,' that she “was not instrumental in the Plaintiffs continued confinement or prosecution.” Gilchrist Br. 7 (emphasis in original). She places great weight on the fact that she reported only that the hairs found at the crime scene “could have come from Plaintiff,” id. at 8 (emphasis in original) and never claimed that the hair comparison constituted a positive identification. However, if Ms. Gilchrist had correctly reported that the hairs could not have come from Mr. Pierce — which the amended complaint alleges was the. true result of her examination- — Mr. Pierce argues that he would have been exonerated. The same is true if she had submitted a proper report of her enzyme comparison of Mr. Pierce’s blood to the perpetrator’s semen.
In the case of a Fourth Amendment claim of falsified evidence, the existence of probable cause is determined by setting aside the false information and reviewing the remaining contents оf the affidavit.
Wolford,
To the extent that Ms. Gilchrist’s alleged actions are more appropriately viewed as due process violations, several courts have recognized that police officers can be liable under the Due Process Clause, pursuant to § 1983, for withholding exculpatory evidence.
See Newsome,
Applying these principles, we conclude that Mr. Pierce has met his pleading requirements. He alleges that Ms. Gilchrist, with knowing and reckless disregard for the truth, informed the police and prosecu-torial authorities that hair аnalysis sup: ported Pierce’s involvement in the rape— even though in fact, far from implicating him in the rape, the hair analysis tended to exonerate him — and disregarded findings that Mr. Pierce’s blood contained an en *1294 zyme that exonerated him of being the source of the sperm found on the rape victim. Although at this stage of the litigation it is too early to judge the facts of the matter, these allegations are sufficient to survive a motion to dismiss.
b. Termination of the original action in favor of the Plaintiff.
The second element in the tort of malicious prosecution is that the original action must have been terminated in favor of the plaintiff. The Supreme Court has recognized this element as part of a § 1983 claim for unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment.
Heck,
We conclude the exception is inapplicable. In Young, the plaintiff in the original action settled a civil lawsuit after receiving full monetary satisfaction from one of the defendants. In a subsequent lawsuit for malicious prosecution, the plaintiff (the defendant in the original action) pointed to dismissal of the first action after settlement as “successful termination.” The Oklahoma Supreme Cоurt noted a general rule that a settlement is not a successful termination “because either the settlement is an admission of probable cause for the initiation of the prosecution, or because it would be unfair to allow a person to consent to a termination and then take advantage of it.” Id. at 710 (citing 52 Am.Jur.2d § 44, Malicious Prosecution). But the court rejected the contention that one defendant’s settlement claim barred the malicious prosecution claim of another defendant who entered no such agreement. Here, dismissal of the criminal proceeding against Mr. Pierce was not pursuant to any agreement between Mr. Pierce and the state.
In any event, such a narrow construction of state common law would be inconsistent with federal constitutional standards.
See Heck,
c. Probable cause for the arrest.
The third element in the tort of malicious prosecution is that there was no probable cause to support the original arrest, continued confinement, or prosecution. The probable cause requirement is central to the common law tort, because not every arrest, prosecution, confinement, or conviction that turns out to have involved an innocent person should be actionable. Neither Ms. Gilchrist nor Mr. Pierce disputes that the constitutional tort of malicious prosecution also requires an absence of probable cause, and so we may assume that it does. Probable cause must be evaluated as of the events in question. Thus, the mere fact that DNA evidence conclusively exonerated Mr. Pierce is in
*1295
sufficient to support his claim.
9
On remand, he will bear the heavy burden of showing that Ms. Gilchrist’s falsification of inculpatory evidence or suppression of exculpatory evidence was necessary to the finding of probable cause: that without the falsified inculpatory evidence, or with the withheld exculpatory evidence, there would have been no probable cause for his continued confinement or prosecution.
Stewart,
The dispute that we must resolve in this case concerns only
when
the absence of probable cause must be shown. Ms. Gilchrist argues that under Oklahoma law, existence of probable cause
at the time of the arrest,
is a complete defense to malicious prosecution. Gilchrist Reply Br. 17 (citing
Greenberg,
First, as already discussed, we do not share Ms. Gilchrist s view regarding the relevance of a particular state’s tort law in assessing the presence of a constitutional violation. The consensus of the common law extends liability to those who continue prosecutions against criminal suspects upon knowledge that there is no probable cause to proceed against the accused. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 655 & cmt. b; W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton & D. Owen, Prosser & Keeton on the Law of Torts § 119 (5th ed. 1984) (“The defendant may be liable either for initiating or continuing a criminal prosecution without probable cause.”). 10 Accordingly, the allegation that Ms. Gilchrist’s *1296 “false reports became one of the inseparable bases for the charges against Pierce and the District Attorney’s decision to proceed to trial,” Compl. 12, App. 67, states a valid cause of action under general common law principles and provides an appropriate analogy for the constitutional claim.
Because the common law provides only an analogy to the constitutional claim, moreover, federal standards are ultimately dispositive. Ms. Gilchrist argues, in effect, that if probable cause existed for the arrest, the Fourth Amendment is not violated if an official falsifies or withholds evidence that, if accurately reported, would vitiate that probable cause and lead to immediate release and exoneration. That argument is inconsistent with this Court’s holding in
Wolford
that it is a violation of the Fourth Amendment not only for an arrest warrant affiant to include false statements in the affidavit, but to “knowingly or recklessly omit from the affidavit information which, if included,
would have vitiated probable cause.”
From a constitutional perspective, Ms. Gilchrist has not suggested any reason to distinguish between falsifying evidence to facilitate a wrongful arrest and engaging in the same conduct several days later to induce prosecutors to initiate an unwarranted prosecution.
11
Either way, the government official’s serious abuse of power leads to the prosecution of innocent defendants. Our holding in
Robinson,
d. Malice.
Ms. Gilchrist’s objections regarding the malice requirement appear to be based on denial of the veracity of the allegations in the amended complaint. See Gilchrist Br. 17 (“There is absolutely nothing about Defendant Gilchrist’s performance of her discretionary duties that would support a finding of malice regarding her out of court duties.”); id. (“Defendant Gilchrist did nothing wrong regarding the preparation of her report.”). We see no reason to *1297 dispute the district court’s conclusion that “the allegations, if proven, would support that Defendant possessed malice in the performance of her out-of-court duties.” 12
e. Damages.
Similarly, Ms. Gilchrist’s argument on the requirement of damages is based on a factual denial that she did anything wrong, Gilchrist Br. 18 (“There is absolutely no evidence or factual allegations to indicate that Defendant Gilchrist acted inappropriately.”), or a repetition of her argument regarding probable cause, which has already .been addressed. Reply Br. 23 (“Plaintiff has failed to prove damages because probable cause existed for his arrest, prosecution and conviction.”).
' C. Clearly Established Laio
When evaluating' a qualified immunity defense, after identifying the constitutional right allegedly violated, cоurts must determine whether the conduct was objectively reasonable in light of clearly established law at the time it took place.
See Anderson v. Creighton,
In response to the district court’s denial of qualified immunity, Ms. Gilchrist argues that there are no “actual specific details of concrete cases which indicate” that her alleged conduct violated clearly established law. Gilchrist Br. 26. Ms. Gilchrist points to factual differences between her allegеd conduct and the facts of the cases cited by the district court and concludes that these distinctions prevent those cases from clearly establishing the law as applied to her conduct. Specifically, Ms. Gilchrist claims that unlike the criminal suspect in Anthony, Mr. Pierce was arrested pursuant to a valid arrest warrant issued upon probable, cause. Similarly, Ms. Gilchrist finds Norton distinguishable because, unlike the Norton defendant, Mr. Pierce was already in custody pursuant to legal process when the alleged false statements and material omissions were made. She also *1298 argues that Norton is distinguishable because it involves a conspiracy whereas she did not conspire.
Ms. Gilchrist overemphasizes the degree of specificity required of prior cases to clearly establish the law. In Hope v. Pelzer, the Supreme Court emphasized:
For a constitutional 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. This is not to say that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action in question has been held unlawful, but it is to say that in light of preexisting law the unlawfulness must be apparent.
[0]fficials can still be on notice that their conduct violates established law even in novel factual circumstances. Indeed, in Lanier, we expressly rejected a requirement that previous cases be “fundamentally similar.” Although earlier cases involving “fundamentally similar” facts can provide especially strong support for a conclusion that the law is clearly established, they are not necessary to such a finding.... [T]he salient question ... is whether the state of the law [at the time of the conduct] gave respondents fair warning that their alleged treatment of [plaintiff] was unconstitutional.
Hope
thus shifted the qualified immunity analysis from a scavenger hunt for prior cases with precisely the same facts toward the more relevant inquiry of whether the law put officials on fair notice that the described conduct was unconstitutional. As this Court held even prior to
Hope,
qualified immunity will not be granted if government defendants fail to make “reasonable applications of the prevailing law to their own circumstances.”
Currier v. Doran,
The degree of specificity required from prior case law depends in part on the character of the challenged conduct. The more obviously egregious the conduct in light of prevailing constitutional principles, the less specificity is required from prior case law to clearly establish the violation.
See Vinyard v. Wilson,
No one could doubt that the prohibition on falsification or omission of evidence, knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth, was firmly established as of 1986, in the context of information supplied to support a warrant for arrest. In
Stewart,
A similar analysis applies under the Due Process Clause. Long before the events in question, the Supreme Court held that a defendant’s due process rights are implicated when the state knowingly uses false testimony to obtain a conviction,
Pyle v. Kansas,
We have no doubt that, in light of these holdings, an official in Ms. Gilchrist’s position in 1986 had “fair warning” that the deliberate or reckless falsification or omission of evidence was a constitutional violation — even though the arrest had already occurred. There is no moral, constitutional, common law, or common sense difference between providing phony evidence in support of an arrest and providing phony evidence in support of continued confinement and prosecution. Even if there were no ease directly on point imposing liability on officials whose falsification of evidence occurred’ at the post-arrest stage, an official in Ms. Gilchrist’s position could not have labored under any misapprehension that the knowing or reckless falsification and omission of evidence was objectively reasonable.
Qualified immunity is designed to protect public officials who act in good faith, on the basis of objectively reasonable understandings of the law at the time of their actions, from personal liability on account of later-announced, evolving constitutional norms. Ms. Gilchrist’s- alleged misconduct did not stem from a miscalculation of her constitutional duties, nor was it undertaken in furtherance of legitimate public pur *1300 poses that went awry: Rather,-as alleged, Ms. Gilchrist engaged in a deliberate attempt to ensure the prosecution and conviction of an innocent man. Such conduct, if it can be proven at trial, violated Mr. Pierce’s constitutional rights with “obvious clarity.”
For these reasons the district court’s denial of qualified immunity to Defendant Gilchrist is affirmed.
III. Defendant Macy’s Motion to Dismiss
In ruling on Mr. Macy’s motion to dismiss, the district court held that he was entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity on the claims pending against him in his official capacity. Regarding claims pursued in Mr. Macy’s individual capacity, the district court’s ruling was split. The district court dismissed claims that Mr. Macy (i) encouraged, aided, and abetted Ms. Gilchrist’s false testimony, (ii) coached, directed, and encouraged Ms. Gilchrist to provide investigative reports consistent with the district attorney’s theory of the case, and (iii) failed to investigate Ms. Gilchrist’s practices and ignored evidence that she violated Mr. Pierce’s constitutional rights, on the grounds that these claims were all barred by absolute prosecutorial immunity under
Buckley v. Fitzsimmons,
In his filings on appeal, Mr. Macy does not challenge any of the district court’s legal conclusions. Rather Mr. Macy presents two arguments premised on a fundamental (and surprising) misunderstanding of what is at stake in the motion to dismiss phase of a lawsuit. The first line of argument is simply a general denial of the factual allegations set forth in Plaintiffs complaint. This argument amounts to little more than conclusory statements charging that Plaintiff has failed to offer any proof to support his allegations. The second claim is an attempt to convert the district court’s holding that certain of the allegations in Plaintiffs complaint, even if true, fail to state a claim as a matter of law into a factual ruling that the alleged events did not occur. Neither of these contentions is availing. We briefly elaborate.
First, Mr. Macy asserts that Plaintiff has failed to show the facts required to support his allegations. At various points in his brief, Mr. Macy claims that Mr. Pierce has “no proof for [his] claim,” Macy Br. 10, “there [is] no evidence showing that Macy or his office” violated Plaintiffs constitutional rights, id. at 9, and that Mr. Pierce’s “assertion^] lack[ ] merit and cannot be supported.” Id. at 6.
Simply put, neither the facts nor the reasonable inferences to be drawn from them are at issue at this stage of the litigation.
See Ramirez,
Mr. Macy’s second line of argument misconstrues the effect of the district court’s grant of Mr. Macy’s motion to dismiss several of Mr. Pierce’s claims on immunity grounds. Mr. Macy contends that the un-dismissed claims should have been dismissed because the district court found that he did not engage in the alleged conduct.
Typical of Mr. Macy’s argument is:
Judge Cauthron ruled Macy did not encourage, aid or abet Defendant Gilchrist in giving false testimony. (App. 13, Order of July 18th). Further, Judge Cauthron ruled Macy did not fail to investigate Gilchrist’s practices nor did he ignore evidence that she had violated Plaintiffs rights in an attempt to secure his conviction. Id. Having so found, it begs the question of what “clearly established law” did Macy violate?
Macy Br. 6.
Similarly:
In the present case, the Court found Macy was not guilty of failure to investigate Gilchrist’s practices and there was no proof Macy or his staff encouraged, aided or abetted Gilchrist into giving false testimony. (App. 13, Order of July 18th). It is incongruous to have the District Court declare Macy and his staff did not participate in any manner towards Gilchrist’s alleged false testimony yet to hold him and his staff liable for employing false evidence and testimony.
Id. at 8.
Mr. Macy’s characterizations of the district court’s holdings are, at their very best, misleading. Even cursory examination of the district court’s opinion reveals that the dismissals were premised solely on grounds of immunity. The district court granted Mr. Macy’s motion to dismiss as to claims for aiding and abetting false testimony, coaching and directing the production of false reports, and failure to investigate Ms. Gilchrist’s allegedly questionable practices because “they seek to impose liability for prosecutorial actions in obtaining, reviewing and evaluating evidence and witness testimony, all of which are ‘intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.’ ” Op. 12-13, Macy App. 12-13. (quoting
Imbler,
Mr. Macy’s argument thus amounts to an attempt to convert a legal finding of immunity into a factual determination that he did not commit the acts alleged in Plaintiffs complaint. But a court’s declaration that the allegations, even if taken as true, do not state a legal cause of action is not at all equivalent to a finding that the alleged behavior did not occur. The district court correctly stayed within the narrow confines of a motion to dismiss and in light of the standards set forth in Buckley and Imbler granted immunity as a matter of law. This finding had no bearing on the truth of the allegations asserted, and Mr. Macy’s contentions to the contrary are unavailing.
IV. Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons we AFFIRM the district court’s denial of Defendant Gilchrist’s and Defendant Macy’s motions to dismiss.
Notes
. Unless otherwise noted, cites to the Appendix are to Defendant Gilchrist’s Appendix.
. Mr. Pierce alleges that if Ms. Gilchrist had accurately reported the results of the hair analysis, he would have been released within five minutes of his arrest. Defendant Gilchrist does not dispute that Mr. Pierce’s arrest and resulting confinement constituted a "seizure,” though she does dispute whether she can be held responsible for it.
. Ms. Gilchrist also complains that the amended complaint did not allege a claim for malicious prosecution, and that the district court therefore erred when it "unilaterally injected the claim of malicious prosecution” in its order of October 23, 2002. Gilchrist Br. 4. However, as explained more fully below, Plaintiff's actual cause of action is for a constitutional violation under § 1983; the common law tort of malicious prosecution is relevant only as an analogy that is helpful in structuring the legal analysis. Plaintiff’s failure to plead malicious prosecution as a cause of action is therefore not fatal to his action.
. We recognize that
Taylor
has been interpreted in various ways by courts and commentators.
Compare
Castellano,
. Because Taylor was exonerated before trial, the case involved only the Fourth, and not also the Fourteenth Amendment. We consider the reasoning equally applicable to both.
. The framers of the Civil Rights Acts from which § 1983 derived tended to assume, in accord with legal theories of the day, that there existed a general common law and this general common law was an articulation of the civil rights and responsibilities associated with free citizens. In a single speech, Senator Lyman Trumbull, the principal author of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the precursor of § 1983, defined the term "civil rights” as "rights pertaining to the citizen as such,” as "general rights that belong to mankind everywhere,” and as "a сommon law right.” Cong. Globe, 42nd Cong., 2d Sess. 3191 (May 8, 1872). It is therefore inconsistent with the spirit of § 1983 to treat "common law” as nothing more than judge-made, state-specific, positive law.
. This is not to imply that common law principles are necessarily incompatible whenever they deny or limit the remedy for an apparent constitutional infraction.
See Heck,
.
See Lambert v. Williams,
. Ms. Gilchrist's opening and reply briefs assert that "Plaintiff's entire lawsuit is based on the illogical premise that because modern 2001 DNA technology freed him from prison, ipso facto, his 1986 arrest, prosecution, and conviction must have resulted from a violation of Plaintiff’s constitutionаl rights.” Gilchrist Br. 12-13; Reply Br. 18. This is a most unfair characterization of Plaintiff's position. Plaintiff's lawsuit is based on allegations that Ms. Gilchrist intentionally and knowingly falsified evidence that should have exonerated him back in 1986, wholly apart from the DNA evidence, which was not available at that time.
. Indeed, we are not convinced that Ms. Gilchrist’s interpretation even of Oklahoma law is correct. The case on which she relies, Greenberg, was decided in a markedly different factual context and does not obviously support her legal argument. There, the defendant Wolfberg had initiated several successive and apparently meritless lawsuits against Greenberg, based on the same cause of action. Greenberg then filed tort claims in federal court against Wolfberg for malicious prosecution and abuse of process in filing the unfounded actions. The appeal reached the Tenth Circuit, which certified to the Oklahoma Supreme Court the question of whether under Oklahoma law each of these lawsuits filed against Greenberg could be combined into one “process” for purposes of the malicious prosecution claim. The Oklahoma Supreme Court stated that ordinarily, to qualify as a suit for purposes of the malicious prosecution claim, each individual suit must satisfy all the elements of the tort, including the lack of probable cause. However, where an earlier action, brought upon probable cause, had been decided in favor of the malicious-prosecution plaintiff, malicious prosecution actions based on the successive cases could make use of the decision in the first case to demonstrate the lack of probable cause in the successive actions.
Viewed in its context, the Oklahoma court's statements in Greenberg have little bearing on the issues presented in this case. Greenberg was not a case in which subsequent evidence arises which eliminates the factual basis for the action. Although we will not speculate as to how an Oklahoma court would decide this case, we note that Ms. Gilchrist fails to point to any source of Oklahoma law that forecloses recovery against a party who proceeds with a prosecution despite finding evidence through its own investigation vitiating probable cause.
. Ms. Gilchrist relies on the Fifth Circuit’s holding in
Jones v. City of Jackson,
. Neither party has questioned the applicability of malice as an element of a § 1983 claim, and we therefore have no occasion to address the issue.
See Franks,