Post Imbler - Obstruction of justice is actionable under 42 USC 1983

The Case: Ryland v. Shaipiro 708 F.2d 967 (5th Cir. 1983)

On appeal from a dismissal for failure to state a cause of action.

FACTS:

• Alfred shapiro, a local prosecutor, murdered Lavonna Rylan
  
• After the murder, Shapiro telephoned Roberts, then an assistant District Attorney, and asked him to come to his residence.
  
• Roberts and Edwin Ware, the District Attorney at the time, canceled a pending autopsy, and went shopping for a coroner who would sign an autopsy report and death certificate claiming the death to be a suicide.

THE CASE:

Hardy and Alma Ryland sued Roberts under 42 USC 1983 claiming that by concealing the murder for a period of approximately eleven months, the defendants prevented them from discovering that their daughter had been murdered. Since the Rylands were entitled to bring a wrongful death action against Shapiro under Article 2315 of the Louisiana Civil Code, they claim that the defendants deprived them of their civil rights by wrongfully interfering with their access to the state courts to pursue their tort claim against Shapiro.

The district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, holding that the Rylands lacked standing to bring this suit, and that the defendants were protected by prosecutorial immunity.

The 5th Cir. reverse and remanded.

Questions:

• Did the district court improperly find the defendants did not invade substantive or procedural rights protected by federal statute or the United States Constitution ?
  
• Did the court err in finding the defendants are otherwise entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity ?

Show/Hide

STANDING:

The district court below viewed the Rylands' claim as a suit by citizens to compel state prosecutors to initiate a criminal action against an alleged murderer.

On appeal, the Fifth Circuit found the district court had failed to entertain the legal theory upon which the Rylands based their case, that agents of the state intentionally engaged in conduct that interfered with their exercise of their constitutionally protected right to institute a wrongful death suit in the Louisiana courts. In other words, a denial of access to the courts.

The Circuit Court found the Ryland's had standing, because a summary judgment rendered as a result of a failure to entertain a valid legal theory is reversible error..., citing Trevino v. Celanese Corp., 701 F.2d 397(5th Cir.1983)

The court then provided a thorough analysis of historic case law establishing denial of access to the courts as a deprivation of one of the most fundamental of Constitutional rights.

ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY:

The district court applied Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, and held that the defendants were shielded by absolute immunity because their actions were taken in their role as prosecutors. On this appeal, the Circuit Court disagreed.

The court noted that Imbler left open the question whether this immunity extends to actions in which the prosecutor acts as an investigator or administrator, rather than as an advocate.

And cited the logic applied in Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 514 F.Supp. 1363, 1372 (E.D.Wis.1981), [Affirmed by Bell v. City of Milwaukee, 746 F.2d 1205 (7th Cir. 1984)]to support the finding that "the alleged actions of the defendants in falsifying the death certificate and in covering up the murder for a period of eleven months, if proven, were actions performed outside their role as prosecutors. Because... characterizing these actions as akin to those traditionally undertaken by officers of the court (which would entitle them to assert absolute immunity) would make a mockery of the judicial system.

Subsequent cases citing Ryland...