Genzler v. Longanbach
| Decision Date | 07 June 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-56572.,No. 02-56573.,02-56572.,02-56573. |
| Citation | 410 F.3d 630 |
| Parties | David GENZLER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Peter J. LONGANBACH, Defendant-Appellant, and Jeffrey O'Brien; County of San Diego, a governmental entity; San Diego County District Attorney's Office; Gregory Thompson; James Pippen; Paul Pfingst, Defendants. David Genzler, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Peter J. Longanbach; County of San Diego, a governmental entity; San Diego County District Attorney's Office, Defendants, and Jeffrey O'Brien; Gregory Thompson; James Pippen; Paul Pfingst, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
Todd R. Kinnear, Edward Patrick Swan, Jr., Luce, Forward, Hamilton and Scripps, San Diego, CA, Jeffrey G. Carver, San Diego, CA, Morris G. Hill, Office of the County Counsel, San Diego, CA, for the appellants.
Patrick L. Hosey, Hosey & Bahrambeygui, San Diego, CA, for the appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the for the Southern District of California; Judith N. Keep, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-01-01462-JNK.
Before PREGERSON, COWEN,* and W. FLETCHER, Circuit Judges.
ORDER WITHDRAWING OPINION AND DENYING PETITION FOR REHEARING AND OPINION
The opinion filed on September 27, 2004, and published at Genzler v. Longanbach, 384 F.3d 1092 (9th Cir.2004), is withdrawn and replaced by the attached opinion.
With the filing of this new opinion, the panel has voted unanimously to deny the petitions for rehearing. Judges Pregerson and Fletcher have voted to deny the petitions for rehearing en banc, and Judge Cowen so recommends.
The full court has been advised of the petitions for rehearing en banc and no judge of the court has requested a vote on whether to rehear the matter en bane. Fed. R.App. P. 35.
The petitions for rehearing and the petitions for rehearing en bane, filed by Appellants Longanbach and O'Brien, are DENIED.
Plaintiff David Genzler seeks damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his constitutional rights during the investigation and prosecution of his state criminal homicide trial. Defendants San Diego County Deputy District Attorney Peter Longanbach and Investigator Jeffrey O'Brien appeal from the partial denial of their motions for summary judgment based on absolute official immunity. Defendant supervisors in the San Diego County District Attorney's Office—District Attorney Paul Pfingst, Assistant District Attorney Gregory Thompson, and Deputy District Attorney James Pippen—appeal the district court's complete denial of their motion for summary judgment based on absolute and qualified immunity.
We affirm the district court's partial denial of Longanbach's and O'Brien's motions. Evaluating the timing and nature of their conduct, we conclude that there is a genuine issue of material fact about whether they were engaged in advocacy intimately associated with the judicial process when they interviewed a key witness, Sky Blue Flanders. However, we reverse the district court's denial of the supervisors' motion for summary judgment because we conclude that there is no genuine dispute that their involvement in prosecutorial decisions was advocacy intimately associated with the judicial process.
The underlying homicide giving rise to this § 1983 suit occurred on April 18, 1996, when David Genzler stabbed Dustin Harless during a fight. On April 19, Genzler learned from a television news report that Harless had died from the stabbing. Genzler turned himself into the police and was arrested that day. After the arrest, Deputy District Attorney Longanbach and Investigator O'Brien were assigned to the case.
A criminal complaint was filed in Municipal Court on April 23, 1996, and Genzler's bail hearing was held on April 29. On May 23, a preliminary hearing was held in Municipal Court, and the judge found probable cause to bind the case over for trial. The criminal complaint was filed in Superior Court on May 24.
The prosecution filed a pre-trial motion to compel production of evidence from the defense. At the hearing on this motion, Genzler's ex-girlfriend, Sherry Logel, testified under a grant of immunity that she had given a box of bloody clothing and a knife to Gerald Blank, Genzler's retained counsel. Blank said he had received the clothing and given it to the prosecution, but he denied receiving the knife. Longanbach then moved to recuse Blank as Genzler's counsel. At the hearing on this recusal motion, Logel testified that she had lied about delivering the knife to Blank. The trial judge granted the recusal motion after Longanbach said he planned to call both Logel and Blank as witnesses at Genzler's trial. In a letter she later wrote to Genzler, Logel claimed that Longanbach had pressured her to testify falsely about her communication with Blank.
After trial, a jury convicted Genzler of second degree murder of Harless. This conviction, however, was reversed by the California Court of Appeal on the ground that the trial judge had improperly recused Blank. The Court of Appeal also held that Genzler was entitled to a jury instruction on involuntary manslaughter because there was sufficient evidence to support a finding of imperfect self-defense. Genzler had also alleged prosecutorial misconduct in his first trial, but the Court of Appeal did not reach this issue. The San Diego District Attorney's office recused itself from Genzler's second trial, and Genzler was prosecuted by the State Attorney General's office. On retrial, a second jury found Genzler guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Sky Blue Flanders, Harless's fiancée, was a key witness for the prosecution in both trials. On the day of the stabbing, Flanders had told the police that Genzler had approached her in his car while she was walking across the street and had asked her if she wanted a ride. According to Flanders, Harless was zipping up his jacket on the other side of the street when Genzler first spoke to her. She told police that Harless had then crossed the street and knocked on Genzler's window. As Flanders described the events to police that day, Genzler got out of the car, Harless and Genzler exchanged punches, Harless "flipp[ed]" Genzler to the ground, and Genzler stabbed Harless while Harless held Genzler on the ground. Flanders also told police that day that Harless was a skilled wrestler who had been involved in previous street fights. Police audio— and video-taped the interview with Flanders. Flanders testified in a later hearing that she had repeated this version of events—in which Harless was on top of Genzler when Genzler stabbed him—to about 20 other people in the days following Harless's death.
Sometime after Flanders spoke with police on the day of the homicide, she met with Deputy District Attorney Longanbach and Investigator O'Brien. She met once separately with O'Brien sometime during the week before April 29, and once with Longanbach and O'Brien together on April 29. After these meetings, Flanders changed her story. She testified at the preliminary hearing on May 23 and at both trials that she remembered little of the actual fight because she was distracted by the arrival of Scott Davis, the doorman at the bar Flanders and Harless had left just before the stabbing. Flanders further testified that she thought she remembered seeing Davis pulling Genzler off Harless after the stabbing.
In her testimony during Genzler's second trial, Flanders admitted that she had "answer[ed] evasively" in the first trial about whether Harless had ever been involved in past fights and explained that she had tried to answer questions to make it seem that she was only aware of Harless's participation in organized wrestling matches, not of his past history of street-fighting. She also testified in the second trial that she had felt pressure from Longanbach and O'Brien not to disclose Harless's history of street-fighting.
Davis, the doorman, testified at the preliminary hearing and at both trials. In his interview with police the day after the homicide, Davis stated that he saw Genzler jump out of his car and chase Harless and Flanders as they walked away from him, hand-in-hand. This account was manifestly inconsistent with the account Flanders had given police on the day of the homicide. Davis then met with O'Brien on April 25, and changed his story. In a report summarizing this April 25 meeting, O'Brien wrote that, "upon reflection," Davis considered that he had not seen the couple walking away from him hand-in-hand. At the May 23 preliminary hearing, Davis testified that Flanders and Harless were standing several feet apart when the fight began.
According to Genzler's version of events, the fight on April 18 began when Harless charged Genzler and punched him in the face. Genzler said that Harless had grabbed him, slammed his face to the ground and pinned his arm, and that Davis then began kicking him in the head. Genzler said that he stabbed Harless to defend himself from the attack.
After the second trial, Genzler was sentenced to six years for involuntary manslaughter. With credit for time already served, he was released on February 14, 2001.
After his release from prison, Genzler brought the present § 1983 action charging the defendants with prosecutorial misconduct both preceding and during his first trial.1 The defendants moved unsucessfully to dismiss Genzler's complaint under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). They then moved for summary judgment based on official immunity. The district court granted Longanbach and O'Brien's motions for summary judgment except for claims based on an allegation contained in paragraph 66 of Genzler's complaint. This paragraph alleges:
[Longanbach and O'Brien] suborned perjury. Specifically, prior to the preliminary hearing and during the initial investigation of the incident, Longanbach...
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