Adams v. Hanson

• Decision Date: 30 August 2011
• Docket Number: No. 09–2045.,09–2045.
• Citation: 656 F.3d 397
• Parties: LaTasha ADAMS, Plaintiff–Appellant,v.Karen HANSON, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

656 F.3d 397

LaTasha ADAMS, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.Karen HANSON, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 09–2045.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: June 7, 2011.Decided and Filed: Aug. 30, 2011.

ARGUED: Barry A. Wolf, Flint, Michigan, for Appellant. Mary Massaron Ross, Plunkett Cooney, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Barry A. Wolf, Flint, Michigan, for Appellant. Mary Massaron Ross, Plunkett Cooney, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee. James J. Walsh, Bodman LLP, Ann Arbor, Michigan, for Amicus Curiae.Before: DAUGHTREY, MOORE, and STRANCH, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge.

After her arrest and incarceration as a witness in a criminal proceeding, LaTasha Adams (“Adams”) brought suit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Karen Hanson (“Hanson”), an assistant prosecutor in Genesee County, Michigan, in her individual capacity. Hanson subpoenaed Adams to testify in state court during the preliminary examination of a criminal defendant. When Adams arrived at the state courthouse, she and Hanson spoke about her possible testimony, and after their discussions, Hanson informed the trial court that Adams was unwilling to testify. The court ordered Adams detained based on Hanson's representations without providing Adams an opportunity to be heard or to post bond.

In her federal § 1983 suit, Adams claims that she was unlawfully detained for twelve days as a result of Hanson's false and misleading representations to the state trial court regarding Adams's availability as a witness. The district court granted Hanson's motion for summary judgment on the grounds that Hanson is entitled to absolute immunity for conduct falling within her role as a prosecutor. Adams appeals, arguing that Hanson acted as a complaining witness or, in the alternative, fulfilled an administrative function. The American Civil Liberties Union Fund of Michigan filed an amicus brief arguing that absolute immunity should not protect prosecutors from suits filed by third-party witnesses.

When making statements at a preliminary examination about the availability of a witness, Hanson functioned as an advocate for the State of Michigan and performed acts intimately associated with the judicial process. Because she is absolutely immune from suit for her prosecutorial conduct, we AFFIRM the district court's grant of summary judgment to Hanson.

I. BACKGROUND

Hanson, an assistant prosecutor, subpoenaed Adams to testify in a preliminary examination in a gang-related racketeering case in state court. One of the defendants charged in the case was Marquan Cager (“Cager”), the father of one of Adams's children. In 2006, Adams had filed a domestic violence complaint against Cager and provided a statement to investigating officers describing Cager's involvement in gang-related murders and drug-trafficking activities. When Cager was charged with crimes described in Adams's statement, Hanson authorized a subpoena compelling Adams to appear in court at a preliminary examination in order to testify about her knowledge of the criminal enterprise.

Law-enforcement officers served the subpoena on Adams at her home the morning she was set to appear at the preliminary examination. Adams, who was six-and-a-half-months pregnant, arrived at the courthouse that afternoon and met with law-enforcement personnel. She was then taken to meet Hanson, who provided her with a copy of a report that documented her statements about Cager's criminal activity.

Hanson advised Adams to review the report. She also told Adams that she would return in about an hour and a half to bring Adams into the courtroom to testify in conformity with her prior statements. Adams responded that she did not want to testify and that she was under a doctor's care due to a high-risk pregnancy. When Hanson returned, Adams repeated her refusal to testify. Adams informed Hanson that she was not going to testify in conformity with the report because she had not made the statements attributed to her and the statements were not true.¹

According to Adams, Hanson returned to the courtroom and advised the judge, off the record, that Adams would not testify in accordance with the report, and that she should be held in contempt. Based on the information provided by Hanson, the trial judge signed a mittimus directing that Adams be held in jail until further order of the court. After the judge signed the mittimus, two sheriff's deputies confronted Adams and asked her if she was going to testify. When she informed them that she was not going to testify, she was handcuffed and taken to the Genesee County jail.

Adams was incarcerated for twelve days, during which she was allegedly held in isolation for twenty-three hours a day. Before she was detained, Adams was never brought before the court and questioned about her willingness to testify or her ability to return to court to testify at a later date. She alleges that she was never given an opportunity to obtain counsel or post bond, and that she was never advised of the basis of her detention, of any right to be represented by counsel, or of any right to a hearing.

In the days following her arrest, Adams submitted a kite notifying the jail authorities that she was willing to testify. In the meantime, however, the preliminary examination had been continued. A week later, when proceedings resumed, Adams was brought into the courtroom to testify, at which point several attorneys for the defendants demanded an explanation for why she had been incarcerated. Hanson first explained that Adams was held for contempt of court, but after reviewing the mittimus ordering Adams's arrest, she stated that Adams had been held, not for contempt, but as a material witness, as indicated on the order. Adams was released from custody after she completed her substantive testimony.

Adams claims that Hanson sought to secure her detention in order to coerce her into testifying, and that she was detained for contempt of court at Hanson's suggestion. In Hanson's account, the trial judge ordered Adams held as a material witness and directed Hanson and an officer from the sheriff's department to write out a mittimus to that effect. Adams also asserts that Hanson made several false and misleading statements in order to persuade the court to hold Adams. Hanson told the court that she had been trying for three weeks to serve Adams with a subpoena, when efforts to serve Adams had been underway for only two weeks. Furthermore, Hanson failed to disclose to the court that Adams had been served with a subpoena only that morning and had appeared at the courthouse voluntarily the same day, which would have demonstrated to the court Adams's willingness to comply with the court's orders.

Adams subsequently brought suit against Hanson in federal district court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of her constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Hanson filed a motion for summary judgment on the basis of absolute prosecutorial immunity which the district court granted on May 28, 2009. On July 22, 2009, the district court denied Adams's motion for relief from the order of dismissal, construing it as a motion for reconsideration. Adams timely appealed from the district court's opinion and order denying relief from the order of dismissal, and from the order granting Hanson's motion for summary judgment.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment, construing the evidence and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. Ireland v. Tunis, 113 F.3d 1435, 1440 (6th Cir.1997). Summary judgment is appropriate if “there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)(2) (2009). Hanson moved for summary judgment, so we accept the facts as alleged by Adams and draw all reasonable inferences in her favor.

B. Absolute Immunity1. Functional Test

The district court granted summary judgment on the grounds that Hanson is entitled to absolute immunity. “Whether a defendant is entitled to absolute or qualified immunity from liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is a legal question that [we] review[ ] de novo.” Moldowan v. City of Warren, 578 F.3d 351, 374 (6th Cir.2009) (emphasis omitted). A government officer is entitled to absolute immunity for performing functions “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 430, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976). Hanson, as “the official seeking absolute immunity[,] bears the burden of showing that such immunity is justified for the function in question.” Burns v. Reed, 500 U.S. 478, 486, 111 S.Ct. 1934, 114 L.Ed.2d 547 (1991).

In Imbler, the Supreme Court extended absolute immunity to prosecutors sued for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, holding that a prosecutor is entitled to absolute immunity when he acts “within the scope of his duties in initiating and pursuing a criminal prosecution.” 424 U.S. at 410, 96 S.Ct. 984. Absolute immunity for prosecutorial duties is justified by the same considerations that supported prosecutorial immunity under the common law. These include “concern that harassment by unfounded litigation would cause a deflection of the prosecutor's energies from his public duties, and the possibility that he would shade his decisions instead of exercising the independence of judgment required by his public trust,” id. at 423, 96 S.Ct. 984, thereby “prevent[ing] the vigorous and fearless performance of the prosecutor's duty that is essential to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system,” id. at 427–28, 96 S.Ct. 984. Although absolute immunity “leave[s] the genuinely wronged defendant without civil redress against a prosecutor whose malicious or dishonest action deprives him of liberty,” “the broader...