Singleton v. Cannizzaro

• Decision Date: 21 April 2020
• Docket Number: No. 19-30197,19-30197
• Parties: Renata SINGLETON; Marc Mitchell ; Lazonia Baham; Tiffany LaCroix; Fayona Bailey; Silence Is Violence; Jane Doe; John Roe, Plaintiffs - Appellees v. Leon A. CANNIZZARO, Jr., in his official capacity as District Attorney of Orleans Parish and in his individual capacity; David Pipes; Iain Dover; Jason Napoli; Arthur Mitchell; Tiffany Tucker ; Michael Trummel; Inga Petrovich; Laura Rodrigue; Matthew Hamilton ; Graymond Martin; Sarah Dawkins, Defendants - Appellants
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

956 F.3d 773

Renata SINGLETON; Marc Mitchell ; Lazonia Baham; Tiffany LaCroix; Fayona Bailey; Silence Is Violence; Jane Doe; John Roe, Plaintiffs - Appellees

v.Leon A. CANNIZZARO, Jr., in his official capacity as District Attorney of Orleans Parish and in his individual capacity; David Pipes; Iain Dover; Jason Napoli; Arthur Mitchell; Tiffany Tucker ; Michael Trummel; Inga Petrovich; Laura Rodrigue; Matthew Hamilton ; Graymond Martin; Sarah Dawkins, Defendants - Appellants

No. 19-30197

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

FILED April 21, 2020

Ryan C. Downer, Esq., Assistant Counsel, Katherine Chamblee-Ryan, Alec George Karakatsanis, Esq., Civil Rights Corps, Washington, DC, Bruce Hamilton, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Louisiana, New Orleans, LA, Mariana Kovel, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation, Criminal Law Reform Project, New York, NY, for Plaintiffs-Appellees.

Thomas Jeffrey Barbera, Esq., Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office, Metairie, LA, Robert Louis Freeman, Jr., Esq., District Attorney's Office for the Parish of Orleans, New Orleans, LA, for Defendant-Appellant Leon A. Cannizzaro, Jr., in his official capacity as District Attorney for Orleans Parish.

William Raley Alford, III, Esq., Matthew James Paul, Richard C. Stanley, Esq., Stanley, Reuter, Ross, Thornton & Alford, L.L.C., New Orleans, LA, for Defendants-Appellants Leon A. Cannizzaro, Jr., in His Individual Capacity, David Pipes, Iain Dover, Jason Napoli, Arthur Mitchell, Tiffany Tucker, Michael Trummel, Inga Petrovich, Laura Rodrigue, Matthew Hamilton, Graymond Martin, Sarah Dawkins.

Loren M. Lampert, Louisiana District Attorneys Association, Baton Rouge, LA, for Amicus Curiae Louisiana District Attorneys Association.

Jonathan Bloom, I, Esq., Weil, Gotshal & Manges, L.L.P., New York, NY, for Amici Curiae Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault, DV Leap, National Alliance To End Sexual Violence.

Jessica Ring Amunson, Jenner & Block, L.L.P., Washington, DC, for Amici Curiae DKT Liberty Project, Roy L. Austin, Jr., Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law, Cato Institute, Mary Patrice Brown, Cynthia Alkon, Lara Bazelon, Angela J. Davis, Jessica Ring Amunson, Karen McDonald Henning, Carissa Byrne Hessick, Shon Hopwood, Jennifer E. Laurin, Pamela Metzger, Ronald Weich, Ellen Yaroshefsky.

Mary B. McCord, Esq., Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, for Amici Curiae Elsa Alcala, A. Bates Butler, III, Chiraag Bains.

Jonathan Bloom, I, Esq., Weil, Gotshal & Manges, L.L.P., New York, NY, for Amicus Curiae Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault.

Before ELROD, SOUTHWICK, and HAYNES, Circuit Judges.

HAYNES, Circuit Judge:

This is a case about prosecutorial immunity. The Orleans Parish District Attorney and several assistant district attorneys ("Defendants") appeal the district court’s denial of absolute immunity on claims arising from their use of fake "subpoenas." They also appeal the district court’s denial of their motion to dismiss several of Plaintiffs’ claims. We AFFIRM in part and DISMISS in part.

I. Background

Plaintiffs allege that for years, prosecutors at the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office (the "Office"), under the direction of District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro, used fake "subpoenas" to pressure crime victims and witnesses to meet with them. These documents were labeled "SUBPOENA" and were marked with the Office’s official seal. They directed recipients "to appear before the District Attorney for the Parish of Orleans" and warned that "A FINE AND IMPRISONMENT MAY BE IMPOSED FOR FAILURE TO OBEY THIS NOTICE." The Office’s use of the fake subpoenas violated Louisiana law, which requires prosecutors to channel proposed subpoenas through a court. See LA. CODE CRIM. PROC. ANN. art. 66.¹

A brief summary of each relevant Plaintiff’s² experience with the fake subpoenas is in order. Plaintiff Renata Singleton is a domestic violence victim who refused to speak with prosecutors about a domestic incident. She alleges that an investigator from the Office then delivered two fake subpoenas to her home. The fake subpoenas demanded that she appear at the Office for questioning. Singleton did not comply.

Plaintiff Lazonia Baham’s daughter’s boyfriend was murdered. The Office charged a suspect with committing the murder. Baham spoke at her home and over the telephone with two investigators from the Office about the murder. One of the investigators allegedly pressured Baham to provide testimony that contradicted her memory of the events. In the following months, Baham received several fake subpoenas demanding that she appear for private meetings at the Office. Baham refused to comply. A Defendant assistant district attorney ("ADA") then applied for a material witness warrant based on Baham’s refusal to meet with the Office. Baham was jailed for over a week as a result. She has since testified twice in pretrial proceedings in the case, apparently pursuant to lawful subpoenas. The case has not yet gone to trial.

Plaintiff Jane Doe is a victim of child molestation and child pornography. While the criminal case against the suspect was pending, a Defendant ADA and an investigator delivered a fake subpoena to Doe’s home demanding that she appear for questioning at the Office. The ADA threatened to seek Doe’s arrest if she did not comply. Due to her fear of being jailed, Doe met privately with the ADA at the Office. The defendant in the related criminal case entered a guilty plea fifteen months after Doe received the fake subpoena.

Plaintiffs Fayona Bailey and Tiffany LaCroix were both potential witnesses in two different murder cases. They each received a fraudulent subpoena demanding a private meeting at the Office prior to trial. Both Bailey and LaCroix retained counsel, who moved to quash the fake subpoenas. In response to the motions to quash, prosecutors withdrew the subpoenas. Neither Bailey nor LaCroix was ever called to testify.

Plaintiffs sued Defendants in federal court, asserting various federal constitutional claims for monetary and injunctive relief against the assistant district attorneys and Cannizzaro in his individual capacity (collectively, "Individual Defendants"), and against Cannizzaro in his official capacity. Plaintiffs also asserted individual- and official-capacity claims under Louisiana state law for abuse of process (Count VIII) and fraud (Count IX).

Defendants moved to dismiss. They contended that absolute immunity barred each of Plaintiffs’ damages claims against Individual Defendants. They asserted that five of those same claims should also be dismissed based on qualified immunity. Finally, they argued that all of Plaintiffs’ official-capacity claims should be dismissed for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted.

The district court granted absolute or qualified immunity for Individual Defendants on all but two of Plaintiffs’ federal individual-capacity damages claims.³ It later granted qualified immunity on the two remaining federal individual-capacity claims for monetary damages that it allowed to proceed. As relevant here, the district court denied absolute immunity for Individual Defendants only with respect to Plaintiffs’ claims arising from Individual Defendants’ creation and use of the fake subpoenas. The court reasoned that absolute immunity did not cover Individual Defendants’ "ultra vires conduct," which was not "intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process" because Individual Defendants had "side-stepped the judicial process" and "operated outside of the process legally required by the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure." The district court also granted in part and denied in part Defendants’ motion to dismiss the remaining claims for failure to state a claim on which relief could be granted. Defendants appealed.

II. Jurisdiction & Standard of Review

The district court had federal question jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ federal claims. 28 U.S.C. § 1331. It had supplemental jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ state-law claims. 28 U.S.C. § 1367.

We have jurisdiction over Defendants’ interlocutory appeal from the district court’s denial of absolute immunity. Bosarge v. Miss. Bureau of Narcotics , 796 F.3d 435, 438 (5th Cir. 2015). But as discussed in Section III.B. infra , we lack jurisdiction over Defendants’ appeal of the district court’s rulings on the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims.

We review a district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss de novo. Loupe v. O’Bannon , 824 F.3d 534, 536 (5th Cir. 2016). "In determining immunity, we accept the allegations of [the plaintiffs’] complaint as true." Id. (quoting Kalina v. Fletcher , 522 U.S. 118, 122, 118 S.Ct. 502, 139 L.Ed.2d 471 (1997) ).

III. Discussion

Individual Defendants argue that they are absolutely immune from Plaintiffs’ subpoena-related claims. They also ask us to reverse the district court’s denial of their motion to dismiss Plaintiffs’ remaining claims on the merits. We conclude that (1) at this early, motion to dismiss stage, Individual Defendants are not entitled to absolute immunity for Plaintiffs’ subpoena-related state-law claims and (2) we lack jurisdiction to consider the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims.

A. Absolute Immunity

Individual Defendants first claim that they are absolutely immune from Plaintiffs’ claims arising from the use of the fake subpoenas.⁴ Although they may yet be able to prevail on this claim, we disagree with their argument at this stage of the case.

1. Overview of Absolute Prosecutorial Immunity for § 1983 Claims

The Supreme Court extended absolute immunity for § 1983 claims to state prosecutors in Imbler v. Pachtman , 424 U.S. 409, 96 S.Ct. 984, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976). In that case, a criminal defendant whose conviction had been overturned sued the prosecutor, several police officers, and a fingerprint expert, alleging "a conspiracy among them unlawfully to charge and convict him." Id. at 415–16, 96 S.Ct. 984. But the Court concluded that state prosecutors are...