Fabien Eldridge v. William E. Gibson, David Day, Robert Durham, Michael H. Knowlton, and Sam Lee

332 F.3d 1019, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 12289, 2003 WL 21402385

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: June 19, 2003
• Docket: 01-6136
• Status: Published

Opinions

GILMAN, J., delivered the opinion of the court. DAVID A. NELSON, J. (pp. 1022-23), delivered a separate opinion concurring in the judgment. COLE, J. (pp. 1023-25), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

OPINION

GILMAN, Circuit Judge.

In May of 1995, Fabien Eldridge brought this action for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the following defendants: William E. Gibson, District Attorney General for the Thirteenth Judicial District of Tennessee; David Day, a private attorney; Robert Durham, a private attorney; Michael Knowlton, a private attorney; and Sam Lee, a deputy sheriff for Putnam County, Tennessee. District Attorney Gibson and Deputy Sheriff Lee were sued in both their individual and official capacities.

Eldridge’s claims arise out of his state criminal prosecution that initially resulted in a second-degree murder conviction. The conviction, however, was subsequently vacated on appeal, State v. Eldridge, 951 S.W.2d 775 (Tenn.Crim.App.1997), and the case against him was dismissed on remand. Specifically, Eldridge claims that the state’s appointment of Day, Durham, and Knowlton (the private-attorney defendants) to serve as special prosecutors in his criminal trial violated his Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The private-attorney defendants not only served as special prosecutors, but also represented the crime victim in a civil action for damages against Eldridge.

Shortly after Eldridge filed his initial complaint, all of the defendants filed motions to dismiss. Gibson and Lee also filed motions for summary judgment. Judge Morton stayed discovery and granted the defendants’ motions to dismiss on the ground that Eldridge’s complaint was premature under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486-87, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994) (holding that, to recover damages, a § 1983 plaintiff raising a malicious-prosecution-type claim must prove that his “conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such a determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus”). Upon Eldridge’s motion for reconsideration, Judge Morton vacated his prior ruling for the limited purpose of considering Eldridge’s § 1983 claim for abuse of process, and issued an order to show cause why Lee should not be dismissed as a defendant. Eldridge filed a response to the show-cause order and further requested that the court take judicial notice of numerous exhibits from his criminal trial. At that point, Judge Morton stayed the case pending the disposition of Eldridge’s criminal appeal.

In October of 2000, Eldridge petitioned the district court to reopen the case because the criminal proceeding against him had been dismissed. Eldridge simultaneously filed a Notice of Voluntary Non-Suit against Lee and a motion for summary judgment against Gibson and the private-attorney defendants. On August 3, 2001, Judge Haynes (who had taken over the case following Judge Morton’s death) entered an order denying El-dridge’s motion for summary judgment and dismissing Eldridge’s complaint against all of the defendants with prejudice.

Judge Haynes’s 31-page opinion offers a thorough explication of the law applicable to this case and reaches the correct result. After independently researching and analyzing the issues presented, I am convinced that Judge Haynes’s opinion provides a cogent and exhaustive analysis that would not be further elucidated by a rehashing of the issues here.

In short, as Judge Haynes has explained, defendants Gibson, Day, Durham, and Knowlton are entitled to absolute immunity from suit because of the prosecutorial nature of their actions in question. Eldridge argues that the fact that the special prosecutors were paid by the victim rather than the state makes the special prosecutors ineligible for prosecutorial immunity. As the district court correctly noted, however, this is not the correct inquiry. Under Supreme Court precedent, the test for determining if absolute prosecutorial immunity is appropriate turns on “the nature of the function performed, not the identity of the actor who performed it.” Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U.S. 259, 269, 113 S.Ct. 2606, 125 L.Ed.2d 209 (1993).

The dissent acknowledges that the functional test is the appropriate analysis, but concludes that the actions of the special prosecutors in this case “were not merely in the context of a state criminal trial, but also in the context of a private civil trial.” According to the dissent, some of the prosecutorial actions taken by the special prosecutors in the criminal trial might have been “motivated by the civil ramifications,” which in the dissent’s opinion would then make those actions not prosecutorial in nature for purposes of the functional test. But this reasoning requires precisely the type of inquiry into motive that the doctrine of absolute immunity is intended to prevent. As this court has previously held, “absolute immunity provides complete protection from judicial scrutiny of the motives for the prosecutors’ actions.” Ireland v. Tunis, 113 F.3d 1435, 1447 (6th Cir.1997) (holding that the prosecutor was entitled to absolute immunity notwithstanding alleged political motivations for his actions); cf Mowbray v. Cameron Co., Tex., 274 F.3d 269, 276 (5th Cir.2001) (“It is a well established rule that where a judge’s absolute immunity would protect him from liability for the performance of particular acts, mere allegations that he performed those acts pursuant to a bribe or conspiracy will not be sufficient to avoid the immunity.”). Courts have found this protection necessary because of the fact that retaliatory suits by defendants “could be expected with some frequency, for a defendant often will transform his resentment at being prosecuted into the ascription of improper and malicious actions to the State’s advocate.” Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 425-26, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976).

Both the dissenting and concurring opinions correctly point out that we have never before been confronted by a situation where the prosecutor was simultaneously handling a civil case against the defendant. Although the potential conflict of interest this creates may well be unwise, as the state of Tennessee recognized after Eldridge’s criminal conviction was overturned on this ground, the test for determining whether absolute immunity applies for the purposes of § 1983 remains the same even in the face of unsound policy. I therefore agree with the district court that the special prosecutors were in fact functioning as prosecutors during the criminal trial, and decline to inquire into whether the potential conflict of interest inherent in this situation resulted in the prosecutors having improper motives in so doing.

Eldridge’s argument that the Thirteenth Judicial District is a “person” subject to suit under § 1983 also fails because, as Judge Haynes discussed, the Thirteenth Judicial District is clearly a branch of the state and as such is protected from suit by the Eleventh Amendment. We further conclude that the district court’s dismissal of Eldridge’s Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment claims was supported by the record. Moreover, whether the dismissal of these claims was erroneous or not is irrelevant in light of the district court’s subsequent immunity analysis. Finally, the district court did not abuse its discretion in dismissing the claims against Lee with prejudice, particularly given the state court’s analysis of Lee’s actions and the fact that Lee’s pending motion for summary judgment precluded Eldridge from voluntarily dismissing his lawsuit without prejudice. Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 41(a).

The judgment of the district court is therefore AFFIRMED for all of the reasons set forth above.