Betts v. Richard
| Decision Date | 02 June 1983 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. H-81-982. |
| Citation | 566 F. Supp. 125 |
| Parties | Mary E. BETTS v. Barbara RICHARD et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut |
John R. Williams, New Haven, Conn., for plaintiff.
John M. Massameno, Asst., Chief State's Atty., Wallingford, Conn., Robert E. Beach, Jr., Frederick W. Danforth, Jr., Hartford, Conn., Roy L. Smith, New London, Conn., Patricia M. Strong, Asst. Atty. Gen., Hartford, Conn., for defendants.
RULING ON MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT
In this action, the plaintiff seeks redress for asserted violations by the defendants of her rights under the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and under various laws of the State of Connecticut. There is presently pending before the court a motion for summary judgment (filed Sept. 21, 1982) submitted by one of the defendants, Richard Morelli.
Although certain facts are in dispute, a rough narrative of the events giving rise to this case can be easily sketched. On June 7, 1981, the plaintiff, Mary E. Betts, contacted a police officer in the Stonington Police Department, Barbara Richard, one of the defendants in this action. Apparently Betts informed Richard that Betts lived with her boyfriend, Hugh Christie, a police officer in the Town of Groton, and stated that she had just been subjected to a beating by him. Betts has not disputed that at that time she sought Christie's arrest. Thereafter, Christie was in fact arrested and charged with assault in the third degree.
Prosecution of the case was assigned to Richard Morelli, then a deputy assistant state's attorney, who, during the course of preparation for Christie's trial, issued a subpoena for Betts. On September 6, 1981, about a month after the subpoena had issued, Betts contacted Morelli and told him she wanted to drop the charges against Christie. Morelli apparently told Betts that the charges against Christie would not be dropped and that Betts would have to testify at trial. Betts, according to Morelli, then recanted her earlier account of the alleged assault, whereupon Morelli warned her of the penalties for giving a false statement to the police. See Morelli's Statement of Material Facts (filed Sept. 21, 1982), at 1-2.
Trial of State v. Christie was supposed to start on the morning of September 18, 1981. What happened between September 6 and September 18 is a subject of some controversy. For the moment it suffices to note that, upon reflection, Morelli believes that Betts was on notice that trial of the case was imminent and sought to avoid appearing or being compelled to appear, while Betts claims that she made no effort to avoid appearance or contact with Morelli but had been informed that the trial would not begin until September 21. In any event, on Friday, September 18, the parties gathered in Connecticut Superior Court at New London to begin the Christie trial, Betts, however, being absent. Representing that she was on notice that trial was scheduled and was avoiding appearance, Morelli then requested that the trial judge issue a capias for Betts. The capias was accordingly issued. It appears from a transcript that the capias was issued almost immediately upon the calling of State v. Christie, well before entry of Christie's plea of not guilty or the impanelling and swearing of a petit jury. See Certified Transcript, State v. Christie (Conn.Super.Ct., G.A. 10, Sept. 18, 1981) (dated Jan. 18, 1983), at 2-3 (issuance of capias) and 11 (entry of plea and impanelling and swearing of petit jury).
On the afternoon of September 18, Mary Betts was arrested by members of the Stonington Police Department. She was thereupon incarcerated at the Niantic Correctional Institution, held there overnight, and released on bond on the evening of Saturday, September 19.
The Christie trial resumed on Monday, September 21, at which time the State began its case by calling Betts. After answering one preliminary question, Betts refused to answer further inquiries, invoking the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination. A brief colloquy among counsel and the court ensued, after which the State dropped its prosecution, and the charges against Christie were dismissed. The court thereupon discharged the jury, informing them that they had just sat on what "may very well have been the fastest trial in the history of this court or any court," Certified Transcript, State v. Christie (Conn.Super.Ct., G.A. 10, Sept. 21, 1981) (dated Jan. 18, 1983), at 24-25.
Thereafter, Betts filed this action against, inter alia, the prosecutor, Morelli, alleging violations of various federal constitutional rights, as well as state law, and seeking redress under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Morelli has submitted a motion for summary judgment on the ground that, as a prosecutor performing a quasi-judicial function, he enjoys absolute immunity from a suit such as this one.
Though not quite as venerable as the doctrine of judicial immunity from which it derives, the concept of common-law prosecutorial immunity already had a long history before it received the imprimatur of the United States Supreme Court in Yaselli v. Goff, 275 U.S. 503, 48 S.Ct. 155, 72 L.Ed. 395 (1927). The rationale for the immunity, at least insofar as it applies in the usual context of a suit for malicious prosecution, was expressed in much-quoted words by Judge Learned Hand when he wrote that it is "in the end better to leave unredressed the wrongs done by dishonest officers than to subject those who try to do their duty to the constant dread of retaliation," Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F.2d 579, 581 (2d Cir.1949), cert. denied, 339 U.S. 949, 70 S.Ct. 803, 94 L.Ed. 1363 (1950). For the most part, common-law tort immunities are preserved under § 1983, Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 243, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 1689, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974), and the Supreme Court, upon its "first opportunity to address the § 1983 liability of a state prosecuting officer," Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 420, 96 S.Ct. 984, 990, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1978), found that "in initiating a prosecution and in presenting the State's case, the prosecutor is immune from a civil suit for damages under § 1983," id. at 431, 96 S.Ct. at 995 (footnote omitted). That immunity is absolute. Id. at 430, 96 S.Ct. at 994.
Under Imbler, however, absolute immunity does not attach to every action taken by a prosecutor in his or her official capacity, only to those "activities intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process," id. The Imbler court did not consider the applicability of prosecutorial immunity under § 1983 to the situation in which "the prosecutor ... functions as an administrator rather than as an officer of the court," id. at 431, n. 33, 96 S.Ct. at 995 n. 33. See also Briscoe v. Lahue, ___ U.S. ___, ___ n. 28, 103 S.Ct. 1108, 1119 n. 28, 75 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983).
That question has, however, been considered by various federal Courts of Appeals in the years since Imbler. It has generally been held that, insofar as a prosecutor acts in an administrative or investigative capacity, he or she is entitled not to absolute immunity but only to the qualified (or "good-faith") immunity that protects law enforcement personnel. Lee v. Willins, 617 F.2d 320, 322 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 861, 101 S.Ct. 165, 66 L.Ed.2d 78 (1980); Hampton v. Hanrahan, 600 F.2d 600, 632 (7th Cir.1979), rev'd in part on other grounds, 446 U.S. 754, 100 S.Ct. 1987, 64 L.Ed.2d 670 (1980); Forsyth v. Kleindienst, 599 F.2d 1203, 1214 (3d Cir.1979), cert. denied, 453 U.S. 913, 101 S.Ct. 3147, 69 L.Ed.2d 997 (1981); Slavin v. Curry, 574 F.2d 1256, 1264-1265, modified on other grounds, 583 F.2d 779 (5th Cir.1978). Thus, the determination of whether a prosecutor enjoys absolute immunity turns on the question of what function the prosecutor was performing at the time of the activity complained of; as the Supreme Court has observed, "drawing a proper line between these functions may present difficult questions," Imbler v. Pachtman, supra, 424 U.S. at 431, n. 33, 96 S.Ct. at 995, n. 33.
Our own Court of Appeals has adopted a particularized approach to problems of prosecutorial immunity:
Lee v. Willins, supra, 617 F.2d at 322. We now turn to an application of these principles to the facts of the case at bar.
In the Memorandum of Law in Support of the Defendant Morelli's Motion for Summary Judgment (filed Sept. 21, 1982) ("Morelli Memorandum"), the argument is made that Morelli's actions respecting Betts are protected by absolute immunity under Lee. Morelli Memorandum, at 8. Morelli's theory is that his acts were directed toward ensuring the presence of Betts, the State's principal, if not sole, witness, at trial.
There are two difficulties with Morelli's theory. The first is that the Lee court specifically observed "that a prosecutor might not enjoy absolute immunity from suit by a witness who was allegedly threatened and imprisoned to obtain his perjured testimony," Lee v. Willins, supra, 617 F.2d at 322. It is apparent from the pleadings in this case to date that such allegations are indeed being made by the plaintiff.1See, e.g., Complaint (filed Dec. 22, 1981), ¶ 1, at 2.
A second difficulty arises from...
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Betts v. Richard
...1983 action and the defendant sought summary judgment on the ground that he had absolute immunity. The court below denied the motion, 566 F.Supp. 125, holding that there was an issue as to whether the purpose for seeking the capias was to obtain perjured testimony, in which case absolute im......