Harris v. Kim

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: November 3, 2025
• Docket: 24-6536
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION NOV 3 2025 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

DERRICK HARRIS, No. 24-6536

Plaintiff-Appellant, D.C. No. 2:21-cv-07999-WLH-JPR v.

SHARON KIM, MEMORANDUM*

Defendant-Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Wesley L. Hsu, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted September 15, 2025 Pasadena, California

Before: CLIFTON, IKUTA and LEE, Circuit Judges. Dissent by Judge CLIFTON.

Defendant Sharon Kim appeals the district court’s order denying her motion

for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds in this 42 U.S.C. § 1983

action alleging Kim violated the Fourteenth Amendment by deliberately

fabricating evidence. We have jurisdiction over “whether the defendant would be

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law, assuming all factual disputes are

resolved, and all reasonable inferences are drawn, in plaintiff's favor.” Ballou v.

McElvain, 29 F.4th 413, 421 (9th Cir. 2022) (quoting Estate of Anderson v. Marsh,

985 F.3d 726, 731 (9th Cir. 2021)). We reverse and remand.

Assuming all facts and inferences in the light most favorable to Harris, Kim

stated that Harris admitted to being in the Bounty Hunter Bloods in reliance on

other officers’ reports even though Harris never made such an admission. It is not

clearly established that Kim’s reliance on other officers’ reports in these

circumstances rises to the level of a deliberate fabrication. See Spencer v. Peters,

857 F.3d 789, 798 (9th Cir. 2017).1

Assuming all facts and inferences in the light most favorable to Harris, Kim

stated that the gang injunction named Harris, but it did not. However, given that

the record of service instructed the serving officer to hand the gang injunction to a

member of the defendant gang and the gang injunction included those who act in

concert with defendant gang members, it is not clearly established that such a

1 Kim has absolute immunity for her trial testimony. Lisker v. City of Los Angeles, 780 F.3d 1237, 1241 (9th Cir. 2015). Therefore, the district court erred in considering Kim’s statement at trial that Harris admitted to her that he was in the Bounty Hunter Bloods. 2 technical error rises to the level of a deliberate fabrication. See Spencer, 857 F.3d

at 798; O’Doan v. Sanford, 991 F.3d 1027, 1046 (9th Cir. 2021).

Assuming all facts and inferences in the light most favorable to Harris,

Harris asked Kim if the reason he was being detained had anything to do with a

robbery, but Kim failed to report that a bystander mentioned the robbery first. It is

not clearly established that such an omission rises to the level of a deliberate

fabrication. See O’Doan, 991 F.3d at 1045.

Finally, because it is not clearly established that Kim deliberately fabricated

the evidence referenced above, it is likewise not clearly established that she

violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and Giglio v. United States, 405

U.S. 150 (1972), by failing to disclose to prosecutors that she fabricated that

evidence. Cf. Comstock v. Humphries, 786 F.3d 701, 708-13 (9th Cir. 2015).

REVERSED and REMANDED.

3 FILED Harris v. Kim, 24-6536 NOV 3 2025 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK CLIFTON, Circuit Judge, dissenting: U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

I respectfully dissent. We lack appellate jurisdiction to re-weigh the

determination of the district court not to grant summary judgment to Defendant

Sharon Kim in this interlocutory appeal. Our court’s binding precedent expressly

holds that the “district court’s determination that the parties’ evidence presents

genuine issues of material fact is categorically unreviewable on interlocutory

appeal.” Eng v. Cooley, 552 F.3d 1062, 1067 (9th Cir. 2009). “[W]e have

jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity

where the appeal focuses on whether the defendants violated a clearly established

law given the undisputed facts, while we do not have jurisdiction over an

interlocutory appeal that focuses on whether there is a genuine dispute about the

underlying facts.” Knox v. Sw. Airlines, 124 F.3d 1103, 1107 (9th Cir. 1997).

The core premise of Kim’s position on appeal, accepted by the majority, is

that there was insufficient evidence to support Harris’s claim that Kim deliberately

fabricated evidence. The district court explicitly found that “Harris has established

a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Officer Kim deliberately fabricated

evidence that was used against him in her report, in Detective Parker’s report, and

in her testimony at trial.” Relevant factual questions may remain, such as whether

Kim made her false statements deliberately or in error, but we do not have jurisdiction to reassess the sufficiency of the evidence and may not draw inferences

in Kim’s favor. Because I do not believe we are permitted to reach the conclusion

set forth in the memorandum disposition, I dissent.