555 U.S. 335 | SCOTUS | 2009
OCTOBER TERM, 2008 1
(Slip Opinion) Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus VAN DE KAMP ET AL . v . GOLDSTEIN CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT No. 07–854. Argued November 5, 2008—Decided January 26, 2009 Respondent Goldstein was released from a California prison after he filed a successful federal habeas petition alleging that his murder conviction depended, in critical part, on the false testimony of a jail- house informant (Fink), who had received reduced sentences for pro- viding prosecutors with favorable testimony in other cases; that prosecutors knew, but failed to give his attorney, this potential im- peachment information; and that, among other things, that failure had led to his erroneous conviction. Once released, Goldstein filed this suit under 42 U. S. C. §1983, asserting the prosecution violated its constitutional duty to communicate impeachment information, see Giglio v. United States , 405 U. S. 150, 154, due to the failure of peti- tioners, supervisory prosecutors, to properly train or supervise prose- cutors or to establish an information system containing potential im- peachment material about informants. Claiming absolute immunity, petitioners asked the District Court to dismiss the complaint, but the court declined, finding that the conduct was “administrative,” not “prosecutorial,” and hence fell outside the scope of an absolute im- munity claim. The Ninth Circuit, on interlocutory appeal, affirmed.
Held: Petitioners are entitled to absolute immunity in respect to Gold- stein’s supervision, training, and information-system management claims. Pp. 3–12.
(a) Prosecutors are absolutely immune from liability in §1983 suits brought against prosecutorial actions that are “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process,” Imbler v. Pachtman , 424 U. S. 409, 428, 430, because of “concern that harassment by un- founded litigation” could both “cause a deflection of the prosecutor’s energies from his public duties” and lead him to “shade his decisions instead of exercising the independence of judgment required by his
Syllabus public trust,” id. , at 423. However, absolute immunity may not apply when a prosecutor is not acting as “an officer of the court,” but is in- stead engaged in, say, investigative or administrative tasks. Id. , at 431, n. 33. To decide whether absolute immunity attaches to a par- ticular prosecutorial activity, one must take account of Imbler ’s “functional” considerations. The fact that one constitutional duty in Imbler was positive (the duty to supply “information relevant to the defense”) rather than negative (the duty not to “use . . . perjured tes- timony”) was not critical to the finding of absolute immunity. Pp. 3– 6.
(b) Although Goldstein challenges administrative procedures, they are procedures that are directly connected with a trial’s conduct. A prosecutor’s error in a specific criminal trial constitutes an essential element of the plaintiff’s claim. The obligations here are thus unlike administrative duties concerning, e.g., workplace hiring. Moreover, they necessarily require legal knowledge and the exercise of related discretion, e.g. , in determining what information should be included in training, supervision, or information-system management. Given these features, absolute immunity must follow. Pp. 6–12.
(1) Had Goldstein brought a suit directly attacking supervisory prosecutors’ actions related to an individual trial, instead of one in- volving administration, all the prosecutors would have enjoyed abso- lute immunity under Imbler. Their behavior, individually or sepa- rately, would have involved “[p]reparation . . . for . . . trial,” 424 U. S., at 431, n. 33, and would have been “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process,” id., at 430. The only differ- ence between Imbler and the hypothetical, i.e., that a supervisor or colleague might be liable instead of the trial prosecutor, is not criti- cal. Pp. 7–8.
(2) Just as supervisory prosecutors are immune in a suit directly attacking their actions in an individual trial, they are immune here. The fact that the office’s general supervision and training methods are at issue is not a critical difference for present purposes. The rele- vant management tasks concern how and when to make impeach- ment information available at trial, and, thus, are directly connected with a prosecutor’s basic trial advocacy duties. In terms of Imbler’ s functional concerns, a suit claiming that a supervisor made a mistake directly related to a particular trial and one claiming that a supervi- sor trained and supervised inadequately seem very much alike. The type of “faulty training” claim here rests in part on a consequent er- ror by an individual prosecutor in the midst of trial. If, as Imbler says, the threat of damages liability for such an error could lead a trial prosecutor to take account of that risk when making trial- related decisions, so, too, could the threat of more widespread liabil-
Syllabus ity throughout the office lead both that prosecutor and other office prosecutors to take account of such a risk. Because better training or supervision might prevent most prosecutorial errors at trial, permis- sion to bring suit here would grant criminal defendants permission to bring claims for other trial-related training or supervisory failings. Further, such suits could “pose substantial danger of liability even to the honest prosecutor.” Imbler , 425 U. S., at 425. And defending prosecutorial decisions, often years later, could impose “unique and intolerable burdens upon a prosecutor responsible annually for hun- dreds of indictments and trials.” Id. , at 425–426. Permitting this suit to go forward would also create practical anomalies. A trial prosecutor would remain immune for intentional misconduct, while her supervisor might be liable for negligent training or supervision. And the ease with which a plaintiff could restyle a complaint charg- ing trial failure to one charging a training or supervision failure would eviscerate Imbler. Pp. 8–11.
(3) The differences between an information management system and training or supervision do not require a different outcome, for the critical element of any information system is the information it con- tains. Deciding what to include and what not to include is little dif- ferent from making similar decisions regarding training, for it re- quires knowledge of the law. Moreover, were this claim allowed, a court would have to review the office’s legal judgments, not simply about whether to have an information system but also about what kind of system is appropriate, and whether an appropriate system would have included Giglio- related information about one particular kind of informant . Such decisions—whether made before or during trial—are “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the crimi- nal process,” Imbler , supra, at 430, and all Imbler’ s functional consid- erations apply. Pp. 11–12.
481 F. 3d 1170, reversed and remanded. B REYER , J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court. NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash- ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 07–854 _________________
JOHN VAN DE KAMP, ET AL ., PETITIONERS v. THOMAS LEE GOLDSTEIN ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT [January 26, 2009] J USTICE B REYER delivered the opinion of the Court. We here consider the scope of a prosecutor’s absolute
immunity from claims asserted under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983. See Imbler v. Pachtman , 424 U. S. 409 (1976). We ask whether that immunity extends to claims that the prosecution failed to disclose impeachment mate- rial, see Giglio v. United States , 405 U. S. 150 (1972), due to: (1) a failure properly to train prosecutors, (2) a failure properly to supervise prosecutors, or (3) a failure to estab- lish an information system containing potential impeach- ment material about informants. We conclude that a prosecutor’s absolute immunity extends to all these claims.
I
In 1998, respondent Thomas Goldstein (then a prisoner) filed a habeas corpus action in the Federal District Court for the Central District of California. He claimed that in 1980 he was convicted of murder; that his conviction depended in critical part upon the testimony of Edward Floyd Fink, a jailhouse informant; that Fink’s testimony was unreliable, indeed false; that Fink had previously received reduced sentences for providing prosecutors with favorable testimony in other cases; that at least some prosecutors in the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office knew about the favorable treatment; that the office had not provided Goldstein’s attorney with that informa- tion; and that, among other things, the prosecution’s failure to provide Goldstein’s attorney with this potential impeachment information had led to his erroneous convic- tion. Goldstein v. Long Beach , 481 F. 3d 1170, 1171–1172
(CA9 2007).
After an evidentiary hearing the District Court agreed with Goldstein that Fink had not been truthful and that if the prosecution had told Goldstein’s lawyer that Fink had received prior rewards in return for favorable testimony it might have made a difference. The court ordered the State either to grant Goldstein a new trial or to release him. The Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s determination. And the State decided that, rather than retry Goldstein (who had already served 24 years of his sentence), it would release him. App. 54–55, 59–60.
Upon his release Goldstein filed this §1983 action against petitioners, the former Los Angeles County dis- trict attorney and chief deputy district attorney. Gold- stein’s complaint (which for present purposes we take as accurate) asserts in relevant part that the prosecution’s failure to communicate to his attorney the facts about Fink’s earlier testimony-related rewards violated the prosecution’s constitutional duty to “insure communication of all relevant information on each case [including agree- ments made with informants] to every lawyer who deals with it.” Giglio , supra, at 154. Moreover, it alleges that this failure resulted from the failure of petitioners (the office’s chief supervisory attorneys) adequately to train and to supervise the prosecutors who worked for them as well as their failure to establish an information system about informants. And it asks for damages based upon these training, supervision, and information-system re- lated failings.
Petitioners, claiming absolute immunity from such a §1983 action, asked the District Court to dismiss the complaint. See Imbler, supra. The District Court denied the motion to dismiss on the ground that the conduct asserted amounted to “administrative,” not “prosecuto- rial,” conduct; hence it fell outside the scope of the prose- cutor’s absolute immunity to §1983 claims. The Ninth Circuit, considering petitioners’ claim on an interlocutory appeal, affirmed the District Court’s “no immunity” de- termination. We now review the Ninth Circuit’s decision, and we reverse its determination.
II
A half-century ago Chief Judge Learned Hand explained that a prosecutor’s absolute immunity reflects “a balance” of “evils.” Gregoire v. Biddle , 177 F. 2d 579, 581 (CA2 1949). “[I]t has been thought in the end better,” he said, “to leave unredressed the wrongs done by dishonest offi- cers than to subject those who try to do their duty to the constant dread of retaliation.” Ibid. In Imbler, supra , this Court considered prosecutorial actions that are “inti- mately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Id. , at 430. And, referring to Chief Judge Hand’s views, it held that prosecutors are absolutely immune from liability in §1983 lawsuits brought under such circumstances. Id. , at 428.
The §1983 action at issue was that of a prisoner freed on a writ of habeas corpus who subsequently sought damages from his former prosecutor. His action, like the action now before us, tracked the claims that a federal court had found valid when granting his habeas corpus petition. In particular, the prisoner claimed that the trial prosecutor had permitted a fingerprint expert to give false testimony, that the prosecutor was responsible for the expert’s having suppressed important evidence, and that the prosecutor had introduced a misleading artist’s sketch into evidence. Id. , at 416.
In concluding that the prosecutor was absolutely im- mune, the Court pointed out that legislators have long “enjoyed absolute immunity for their official actions,” id. , at 417; that the common law granted immunity to “judges and . . . jurors acting within the scope of their duties,” id. , at 423, and that the law had also granted prosecutors absolute immunity from common-law tort actions, say, those underlying a “decision to initiate a prosecution,” id. , at 421. The Court then held that the “same considerations of public policy that underlie” a prosecutor’s common-law immunity “countenance absolute immunity under §1983.” Id. , at 424. Those considerations, the Court said, arise out of the general common-law “concern that harassment by unfounded litigation” could both “cause a deflection of the prosecutor’s energies from his public duties” and also lead the prosecutor to “shade his decisions instead of exercising the independence of judgment required by his public trust.” Id. , at 423.
Where §1983 actions are at issue, the Court said, both sets of concerns are present and serious. The “public trust of the prosecutor’s office would suffer” were the prosecutor to have in mind his “own potential” damages “liability” when making prosecutorial decisions—as he might well were he subject to §1983 liability. Id. , at 424. This is no small concern, given the frequency with which criminal defendants bring such suits, id. , at 425 (“[A] defendant often will transform his resentment at being prosecuted into the ascription of improper and malicious actions to the State’s advocate”), and the “substantial danger of liability even to the honest prosecutor” that such suits pose when they survive pretrial dismissal, ibid.; see also ibid. (complex, close, fair-trial questions “often would require a virtual retrial of the criminal offense in a new forum, and the resolution of some technical issues by the lay jury”). A “prosecutor,” the Court noted, “inevitably makes many decisions that could engender colorable claims of constitutional deprivation. Defending these decisions, often years after they were made, could impose unique and intolerable burdens upon a prosecutor respon- sible annually for hundreds of indictments and trials.” Id. , at 425–426. The Court thus rejected the idea of applying the less-than-absolute “qualified immunity” that the law accords to other “executive or administrative officials,” noting that the “honest prosecutor would face greater difficulty” than would those officials “in meeting the stan- dards of qualified immunity.” Id. , at 425. Accordingly, the immunity that the law grants prosecutors is “absolute.” Id. , at 424.
The Court made clear that absolute immunity may not apply when a prosecutor is not acting as “an officer of the court,” but is instead engaged in other tasks, say, investi- gative or administrative tasks. Id. , at 431, n. 33. To decide whether absolute immunity attaches to a particular kind of prosecutorial activity, one must take account of the “functional” considerations discussed above. See Burns v. Reed , 500 U. S. 478, 486 (1991) (collecting cases applying “functional approach” to immunity); Kalina v. Fletcher , 522 U. S. 118, 127, 130 (1997). In Imbler , the Court con- cluded that the “reasons for absolute immunity appl[ied] with full force” to the conduct at issue because it was “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” 424 U. S., at 430. The fact that one constitutional duty at issue was a positive duty (the duty to supply “information relevant to the defense”) rather than a negative duty (the duty not to “use . . . perjured testimony”) made no difference. After all, a plaintiff can often transform a positive into a negative duty simply by reframing the pleadings; in either case, a constitutional violation is at issue. Id. , at 431, n. 34.
Finally, the Court specifically reserved the question whether or when “similar reasons require immunity for those aspects of the prosecutor’s responsibility that cast him in the role of an administrator . . . rather than that of advocate.” Id. , at 430–431. It said that “[d]rawing a proper line between these functions may present difficult questions, but this case does not require us to anticipate them.” Id. , at 431, n. 33.
In the years since Imbler , we have held that absolute immunity applies when a prosecutor prepares to initiate a judicial proceeding, Burns, supra, at 492, or appears in court to present evidence in support of a search warrant application, Kalina , supra, at 126. We have held that absolute immunity does not apply when a prosecutor gives advice to police during a criminal investigation, see Burns , supra, at 496, when the prosecutor makes statements to the press, Buckley v. Fitzsimmons , 509 U. S. 259, 277 (1993), or when a prosecutor acts as a complaining witness in support of a warrant application, Kalina , supra, at 132 (S CALIA , J., concurring). This case, unlike these earlier cases, requires us to consider how immunity ap- plies where a prosecutor is engaged in certain administra- tive activities.
III
Goldstein claims that the district attorney and his chief assistant violated their constitutional obligation to provide his attorney with impeachment-related information, see Giglio, 405 U. S. 150, because, as the Court of Appeals wrote, they failed “to adequately train and supervise deputy district attorneys on that subject,” 481 F. 3d, at 1176, and because, as Goldstein’s complaint adds, they “failed to create any system for the Deputy District Attor- neys handling criminal cases to access information per- taining to the benefits provided to jailhouse informants and other impeachment information.” App. 45. We agree with Goldstein that, in making these claims, he attacks the office’s administrative procedures. We are also willing to assume with Goldstein, but purely for argument’s sake, that Giglio imposes certain obligations as to training, supervision, or information-system management.
Even so, we conclude that prosecutors involved in such supervision or training or information-system manage- ment enjoy absolute immunity from the kind of legal claims at issue here. Those claims focus upon a certain kind of administrative obligation—a kind that itself is directly connected with the conduct of a trial. Here, unlike with other claims related to administrative decisions, an individual prosecutor’s error in the plaintiff’s specific criminal trial constitutes an essential element of the plaintiff’s claim. The administrative obligations at issue here are thus unlike administrative duties concerning, for example, workplace hiring, payroll administration, the maintenance of physical facilities, and the like. Moreover, the types of activities on which Goldstein’s claims focus necessarily require legal knowledge and the exercise of related discretion, e.g. , in determining what information should be included in the training or the supervision or the information-system management. And in that sense also Goldstein’s claims are unlike claims of, say, unlawful discrimination in hiring employees. Given these features of the case before us, we believe absolute immunity must follow.
A
We reach this conclusion by initially considering a hypo- thetical case that involves supervisory or other office prosecutors but does not involve administration. Suppose that Goldstein had brought such a case, seeking damages not only from the trial prosecutor but also from a supervi- sory prosecutor or from the trial prosecutor’s colleagues— all on the ground that they should have found and turned over the impeachment material about Fink. Imbler makes clear that all these prosecutors would enjoy absolute immunity from such a suit. The prosecutors’ behavior, taken individually or separately, would involve “[p]repara- tion . . . for . . . trial,” 424 U. S., at 431, n. 33, and would be “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process” because it concerned the evidence pre- sented at trial. Id., at 430. And all of the considerations that this Court found to militate in favor of absolute im- munity in Imbler would militate in favor of immunity in such a case.
The only difference we can find between Imbler and our hypothetical case lies in the fact that, in our hypothetical case, a prosecutorial supervisor or colleague might himself be liable for damages instead of the trial prosecutor. But we cannot find that difference (in the pattern of liability among prosecutors within a single office) to be critical. Decisions about indictment or trial prosecution will often involve more than one prosecutor within an office. We do not see how such differences in the pattern of liability among a group of prosecutors in a single office could alle- viate Imbler’ s basic fear, namely, that the threat of dam- ages liability would affect the way in which prosecutors carried out their basic court-related tasks. Moreover, this Court has pointed out that “it is the interest in protecting the proper functioning of the office, rather than the inter- est in protecting its occupant, that is of primary impor- tance.” Kalina , 522 U. S., at 125. Thus, we must assume that the prosecutors in our hypothetical suit would enjoy absolute immunity.
B
Once we determine that supervisory prosecutors are immune in a suit directly attacking their actions related to an individual trial, we must find they are similarly im- mune in the case before us. We agree with the Court of Appeals that the office’s general methods of supervision and training are at issue here, but we do not agree that that difference is critical for present purposes. That dif- ference does not preclude an intimate connection between prosecutorial activity and the trial process. The manage- ment tasks at issue, insofar as they are relevant, concern how and when to make impeachment information avail- able at a trial. They are thereby directly connected with the prosecutor’s basic trial advocacy duties. And, in terms of Imbler’ s functional concerns, a suit charging that a supervisor made a mistake directly related to a particular trial, on the one hand, and a suit charging that a supervi- sor trained and supervised inadequately, on the other, would seem very much alike.
That is true, in part, for the practical reason that it will often prove difficult to draw a line between general office supervision or office training (say, related to Giglio ) and specific supervision or training related to a particular case. To permit claims based upon the former is almost inevitably to permit the bringing of claims that include the latter. It is also true because one cannot easily distin- guish, for immunity purposes, between claims based upon training or supervisory failures related to Giglio and similar claims related to other constitutional matters (obligations under Brady v. Maryland , 373 U. S. 83 (1963), for example). And that being so, every consideration that Imbler mentions militates in favor of immunity.
As we have said, the type of “faulty training” claim at issue here rests in necessary part upon a consequent error by an individual prosecutor in the midst of trial, namely, the plaintiff’s trial. If, as Imbler says, the threat of dam- ages liability for such an error could lead a trial prosecutor to take account of that risk when making trial-related decisions, so, too, could the threat of more widespread liability throughout the office (ultimately traceable to that trial error) lead both that prosecutor and other office prosecutors as well to take account of such a risk. Indeed, members of a large prosecutorial office, when making prosecutorial decisions, could have in mind the “conse- quences in terms of” damages liability whether they are making general decisions about supervising or training or whether they are making individual trial-related deci- sions. Imbler, 424 U. S., at 424.
Moreover, because better training or supervision might prevent most, if not all, prosecutorial errors at trial, per- mission to bring such a suit here would grant permission to criminal defendants to bring claims in other similar instances, in effect claiming damages for (trial-related) training or supervisory failings. Cf. Imbler , supra . Fur- ther, given the complexity of the constitutional issues, inadequate training and supervision suits could, as in Imbler , “pose substantial danger of liability even to the honest prosecutor.” Id. , at 425. Finally, as Imbler pointed out, defending prosecutorial decisions, often years after they were made, could impose “unique and intolerable burdens upon a prosecutor responsible annually for hun- dreds of indictments and trials.” Id. , at 425–426.
At the same time, to permit this suit to go forward would create practical anomalies. A trial prosecutor would remain immune, even for intentionally failing to turn over, say Giglio material; but her supervisor might be liable for negligent training or supervision. Small prosecu- tion offices where supervisors can personally participate in all of the cases would likewise remain immune from prose- cution; but large offices, making use of more general office- wide supervision and training, would not. Most impor- tant, the ease with which a plaintiff could restyle a com- plaint charging a trial failure so that it becomes a com- plaint charging a failure of training or supervision would eviscerate Imbler.
We conclude that the very reasons that led this Court in Imbler to find absolute immunity require a similar finding in this case. We recognize, as Chief Judge Hand pointed out, that sometimes such immunity deprives a plaintiff of compensation that he undoubtedly merits; but the im- pediments to the fair, efficient functioning of a prosecuto- rial office that liability could create lead us to find that Imbler must apply here.
C
We treat separately Goldstein’s claim that the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office should have established a system that would have permitted prosecu- tors “handling criminal cases to access information per- taining to the benefits provided to jailhouse informants and other impeachment information.” App. 45. We do so because Goldstein argues that the creation of an informa- tion management system is a more purely administrative task, less closely related to the “judicial phase of the criminal process,” Imbler , supra, at 430, than are supervi- sory or training tasks. He adds that technically qualified individuals other than prosecutors could create such a system and that they could do so prior to the initiation of criminal proceedings.
In our view, however, these differences do not require a different outcome. The critical element of any information system is the information it contains. Deciding what to include and what not to include in an information system is little different from making similar decisions in respect to training. Again, determining the criteria for inclusion or exclusion requires knowledge of the law.
Moreover, the absence of an information system is rele- vant here if, and only if, a proper system would have included information about the informant Fink. Thus, were this claim allowed, a court would have to review the office’s legal judgments, not simply about whether to have an information system but also about what kind of system is appropriate, and whether an appropriate system would have included Giglio- related information about one par- ticular kind of trial informant . Such decisions—whether made prior to or during a particular trial—are “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Imbler , supra, at 430 ; see Burns , 500 U. S., at 486. And, for the reasons set out above, all Imbler’ s functional con- siderations (and the anomalies we mentioned earlier, supra , at 10) apply here as well.
We recognize that sometimes it would be easy for a court to determine that an office’s decision about an in- formation system was inadequate. Suppose, for example, the office had no system at all. But the same could be said of a prosecutor’s trial error. Immunity does not exist to help prosecutors in the easy case; it exists because the easy cases bring difficult cases in their wake. And, as Imbler pointed out, the likely presence of too many diffi- cult cases threatens, not prosecutors, but the public, for the reason that it threatens to undermine the necessary independence and integrity of the prosecutorial decision- making process. Such is true of the kinds of claims before us, to all of which Imbler’ s functional considerations apply. Consequently, where a §1983 plaintiff claims that a prose- cutor’s management of a trial-related information system is responsible for a constitutional error at his or her par- ticular trial, the prosecutor responsible for the system enjoys absolute immunity just as would the prosecutor who handled the particular trial itself.
* * * For these reasons we conclude that petitioners are entitled to absolute immunity in respect to Goldstein’s claims that their supervision, training, or information- system management was constitutionally inadequate. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is re- versed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.