Conn v. Gabbert

• Decision Date: 05 April 1999
• Docket Number: 971802
• Citation: 526 U.S. 286,119 S.Ct. 1292,143 L.Ed.2d 399
• Parties: CONN v. GABBERT (97-1802) 131 F.3d 793, reversed. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 119 S.Ct. 1292 143 L.Ed.2d 3991802 DAVID CONN and CAROL NAJERA, PETITIONERS v. PAUL L. GABBERT ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT [
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

526 U.S. 286

119 S.Ct. 1292

143 L.Ed.2d 399

CONN v. GABBERT

(97-1802)

131 F.3d 793, reversed

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

119 S.Ct. 1292

143 L.Ed.2d 399

No. 97 1802

DAVID CONN and CAROL NAJERA, PETITIONERS v. PAUL L. GABBERT

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

[April 5, 1999]

Chief Justice Rehnquist delivered the opinion of the Court.

We granted certiorari in this case, 525 U.S. (1998), to decide whether a prosecutor violates an attorney's Fourteenth Amendment right to practice his profession when the prosecutor causes the attorney to be searched at the same time his client is testifying before a grand jury. We conclude that such conduct by a prosecutor does not violate an attorney's Fourteenth Amendment right to practice his profession.

This case arises out of the high-profile California trials of the "Menendez Brothers," Lyle and Erik Menendez, for the murder of their parents. Petitioners David Conn and Carol Najera are Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorneys, and respondent Paul Gabbert is a criminal defense attorney. In early 1994, after the first Menendez trial ended in a hung jury, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office assigned Conn and Najera to prosecute the case on retrial. Conn and Najera learned that Lyle Menendez had written a letter to Traci Baker, his former girlfriend, in which he may have instructed her to testify falsely at trial. Gabbert represented Baker, who had testified as a defense witness in the first trial. Conn obtained and served Baker with a subpoena directing her to testify before the Los Angeles County grand jury and also directing her to produce at that time any correspondence that she had received from Lyle Menendez. After Gabbert unsuccessfully sought to quash the portion of the subpoena directing Baker to produce the Menendez correspondence, Conn and Najera obtained a warrant to search Baker's apartment for any such correspondence. When police tried to execute the warrant, Baker told the police that she had given all her letters from Menendez to Gabbert.

Three days later, on March 21, 1994, Baker appeared as directed before the grand jury, accompanied by Gabbert. Believing that Gabbert might have the letter on his person, Conn directed a police detective to secure a warrant to search Gabbert. California law provides that a warrant to search an attorney must be executed by a court-appointed special master. When the Special Master arrived, Gabbert requested that the search take place in a private room. He did not request that his client's grand jury testimony be postponed. The Special Master searched Gabbert in the private room, and Gabbert produced two pages of a three-page letter from Lyle Menendez to Baker.

At approximately the same time that the search of Gabbert was taking place, Najera called Baker before the grand jury and began to question her. After being sworn, Najera asked Baker whether she was acquainted with Lyle Menendez. Baker replied that she had been unable to speak with her attorney because he was "still with the special master." Brief for Petitioners 6. A short recess was taken during which time Baker was unable to speak with Gabbert. He was aware that Baker sought to speak with him, but apparently stated that the prosecutors would simply have to delay the questioning until they finished searching him. Baker returned to the grand jury room and declined to answer the question "upon the advice of my counsel" on the basis of her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Id., at 7. Najera asked a follow-up question, and Baker again asked for a short recess to confer with Gabbert. Baker was again unable to locate Gabbert, and she again returned to the grand jury room and asserted her Fifth Amendment privilege. At this point, the grand jury recessed.

Believing that the actions of the prosecutors were illegal, Gabbert brought suit against them and other officials in Federal District Court under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Relevant to this appeal by Conn and Najera, he contended that his Fourteenth Amendment right to practice his profession without unreasonable government interference was violated when the prosecutors executed a search warrant at the same time his client was testifying before the grand jury.* Conn and Najera moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, and the District Court granted the motion.

The Court of Appeals reversed in part, holding that Conn and Najera were not entitled to qualified immunity on Gabbert's Fourteenth Amendment claim. 131 F.3d 793 (CA9 1997). Relying on Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 572 (1972), and earlier cases of this Court recognizing a right to choose one's vocation, the Court of Appeals concluded that Gabbert had a right to practice his profession without undue and unreasonable government interference. 131 F.3d, at 800. The Court of Appeals also held that based upon notions of " 'common sense,' " id., at 801, the right allegedly violated in this case was clearly established, and as a result, Conn and Najera were not entitled to qualified immunity: "The plain and intended result [of the prosecutors' actions] was to prevent Gabbert from consulting with Baker during her grand jury appearance. These actions were not objectively reasonable, and thus the prosecutors are not protected by qualified immunity from answering Gabbert's Fourteenth Amendment claim." Id., at 802 803. We granted certiorari, 525 U.S. (1998), and now reverse.

Section 1983 provides a federal cause of action against any person who, acting under color of state law, deprives another of his federal rights. 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In order to prevail in a §1983 action for civil damages from a government official performing discretionary functions, the defense of qualified immunity that our cases have recognized requires that the official be shown to have violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). Thus a court must first determine whether the plaintiff has alleged the deprivation of an actual constitutional right at all, and if so, proceed to determine whether that right was clearly established at the time of the alleged violation. See Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 232 233 (1991); see also County of Sacramento v. Lewis, 523 U.S. 833, 841, n. 5 (1998).

We find no support in our cases for the conclusion of the Court of Appeals that Gabbert had a Fourteenth Amendment right which was violated in this case. The Court of Appeals relied primarily on Board of Regents v. Roth. In Roth, this Court repeated the pronouncement in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, (1923) that the liberty guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment " 'denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint but also the right of the individual to contract, to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience, and generally to enjoy those privileges long recognized . . . as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.' " Roth, supra, at 572 (quoting Meyer, supra, at 399). But neither Roth nor Meyer even came close to identifying the asserted "right" violated by the prosecutors in this case. Meyer held that substantive due process forebade a State from enacting a statute that prohibited teaching in any language other than English. 262 U.S., at 399, 402 403. And Roth was a procedural due process case which held that an at-will college professor had no "property" interest in his job within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment so as to require the university to hold a hearing before terminating him. 408 U.S., at 578. Neither case will bear the weight placed upon it by either the Court of Appeals or Gabbert: Neither case supports the conclusion that the actions of the prosecutors in this case deprived Gabbert of a liberty interest in practicing law.

Similarly, none of the other cases relied upon by the Court of Appeals or suggested by Gabbert provide any more than scant metaphysical support for the idea that the use of a search warrant by government actors violates an...