Qualified immunity

“ Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 525, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2815, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985) . And claims of qualified immunity may be pursued by immediate appeal, because qualified immunity too "is an immunity from suit." ”

“ The Court of Appeals speculated that anything short of absolute immunity would discourage prosecutors from performing their "vital obligation" of giving legal advice to the police. 894 F.2d, at 956. But the qualified immunity standard is today more protective of officials than it was at the time that Imbler was decided. [8] "As the qualified immunity defense has evolved, it provides ample support to all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." Malley, supra, 475 U.S., at 341, 106 S.Ct., at 1096 ”

“ The common law extended qualified immunity to public officials quite liberally, and courts will not often have occasion to go further. Absolute immunity, however, was exceedingly rare, so that the scope for judicial rewriting of § 1983 in that respect is broad indeed.↑ Even if it were applied, respondent would not prevail, since there is not even any post-1871 tradition to support prosecutorial immunity in the obtaining of search warrants. ”

“ In several instances, moreover, we have concluded that no more than a qualified immunity attaches to administrative employment decisions, even if the same official has absolute immunity when performing other functions. ”

“ Decision of this purely legal question permits courts expeditiously to weed out suits which fail the test without requiring a defendant who rightly claims qualified immunity to engage in expensive and time consuming preparation to defend the suit on its merits. One of the purposes of immunity, absolute or qualified, is to spare a defendant not only unwarranted liability, but unwarranted demands customarily imposed upon those defending a long drawn out lawsuit. ”

“ We have on several occasions addressed the proper analytical framework for determining whether a plaintiff's allegations are sufficient to overcome a defendant's defense of qualified immunity asserted in a motion for summary judgment. Qualified immunity is a defense that must be pleaded by a defendant official. ”

“ In short, I believe the majority has derailed our qualified-immunity analysis from its previously sensible course, and rerouted it away from Supreme Court and Tenth Circuit precedent. Its quick knockout punch to qualified immunity absent charging, slashing, and stabbing precludes officers from firing shots even when a knife-wielding man gets within, or extremely close to, stabbing range so long as he gets there by walking (not charging) and has positioned his knife for a quick thrust (without the fanfare of menacingly waving it before striking) . ”

“ In the Court's view, petitioner makes two claims: (1) that the prosecutor gave incorrect legal advice, and (2) that he elicited false or misleading testimony at the hearing. As to the first, I agree that neither traditional judicial nor defamation immunity is applicable, though (as I have said) quasi-judicial immunity is. The prosecutor may therefore claim only qualified immunity. As to the second, I agree that the traditional defamation immunity is sufficient to provide a historical basis for absolute § 1983 immunity. ”

“ In false [p154] arrest/false imprisonment cases, the only relevant inquiry is whether, on an objective basis, the police officer's actions were proper. We also hold that a police officer's subjective good faith belief may not constitute a defense at trial to a § 1983 Federal Civil Rights Act claim when the police officer's actions are not otherwise shielded from liability by the doctrine of qualified immunity. ”

“ All parties here acknowledge, and we agree, that there is no genuine issue of fact that relates to the qualified immunity issue that is being appealed. Accordingly, we may decide this appeal. Our review of this legal issue is plenary. ”

“ A general immunity statute as proposed in chapter 5 on the courts is essential in organized crime investigations and prosecutions. There is evidence to indicate that the availability of immunity can overcome the wall of silence that so often defeats the efforts of law enforcement to obtain live witnesses in organized crime cases. ”

“ People of State of New York arose under an earlier version of the New York immunity law, which conferred automatic immunity from prosecution on anyone who testified before the grand jury. Regan had, like petitioner, executed a waiver of immunity and later sought to repudiate it. ”

“ Assuming that the statutory requirements are met, does the Act give the district judge discretion to deny an application for an order requiring a witness to answer relevant questions put by the grand jury, and, if so, is the court thereby required to exercise a function that is not an exercise of 'judicial Power'? Did Congress provide immunity from state prosecution for crime, and, if so, is it empowered to do so? Does the Fifth Amendment prohibit compulsion of what would otherwise be self-incriminating testimony no matter what the scope of the immunity statute? ”

“ Because of the importance of testimony, especially in the discovery of ertain crimes for which evidence would not otherwise be available, and the breadth of the privilege, Congress has enacted over 40 immunity statutes and every State, without exception, has one or more immunity acts pertaining to certain offenses or legislative investigations. ”

“ Without at all attempting to limit the kinds of 'proceeding' in which the witness can earn the promised immunity, Congress followed the President's suggestion and provided in the 1966 amendment to the 1903 Immunity Act now before us that the immunity would apply only to individuals testifying in obedience to subpoena and under oath. ”

“ Granting "use" immunity thus increases the potential burden of proof the government must bear. If defendants could obtain testimonial immunity for other defendants to testify, it would inevitably snarl criminal proceedings. The imagination of defense counsel could run riot and, with the government being unable to control the extent of the witness' testimony, immunity and claims of immunity for the codefendant witness would be sprouting with every answer. ”

“ Nor is it dictum. The Court assumed for purposes of that case that the Fourteenth Amendment required that a state statute 'give sufficient immunity from prosecution or punishment,' id., 199 U.S., at 380, 26 S.Ct., at 75, and it is evident from the opinion that the Court regarded the remoteness of a danger of prosecution in the courts of another jurisdiction, including the federal courts, as a basis for holding generally, and not merely on the facts of the case before it, that a state immunity statute need not protect against such danger. ”

“ The complete answer to this is that in safeguarding him against future federal and state prosecution 'for or on account of any transaction, matter, or thing concerning which he is compelled' to testify, the statute grants him immunity fully coextensive with the constitutional privilege. Some language in Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. at page 601, 16 S.Ct. at page 648, to which petitioner refers, compares immunity statutes to the traditional declarations of amnesty or pardon. ”

“ That the government is not then targeting the witness does not mean he might not eventually be a target. If all untargeted witnesses were granted compulsory use immunity then they could secure immunity from some of the worst then undiscovered crimes by merely testifying in court on a defendant's behalf. ”

“ The Court emphasized that because the doctrine of sovereign immunity gives the Government a privileged position, it has been 'appropriately confined,' 312 U.S., at 84, 61 S.Ct., at 486, and noted that 'the government does not become the conduit of its immunity in suits against its agents or instrumentalities merely because they do its work.' Ibid., quoting Keifer & Keifer v. ”

“ On this view, the test for removal should be broader, not narrower, than the test for official immunity. We agree.'
I see no necessity in this case for comparing the breadth of the law authorizing removal of cases from state to federal courts with the test 'for official immunity.' This case raises no question about official immunity from lawsuits for conduct of a government employee. Moreover, the difference between the breadth of a right to remove and a right to claim immunity is purely conceptual and cannot be measured by any means that I know about. ”

“ Hitchcock, 142 U.S. 547, 12 S.Ct. 195, 35 L.Ed. 1110, it was established that absolute immunity from federal criminal prosecution for offenses disclosed by the evidence must be given a person compelled to testify after claim of privilege against self-incrimination. To meet that requirement Congress amended the immunity provisions of the Interstate Commerce Act, 24 Stat. ”

“ The earliest federal statute dealing with immunity is the Act of January 24, 1857, 11 Stat. 155, as amended by the Act of January 24, 1862, 12 Stat. 333. This legislation, relating to testimony before either House of Congress, furnished a model for later immunity provisions. Congress was careful to state precisely what it was for which immunity was given: 'No witness shall hereafter be allowed to refuse to testify to any fact or to produce any paper * * *.' 11 Stat. ”

“ However, if a defense request to immunize a witness has been denied, the military judge may, upon motion of the defense, grant appropriate relief directing that either an appropriate general court-martial convening authority grant testimonial immunity to a defense witness or, as to the affected charges and specifications, the proceedings against the accused be abated, upon findings that:
(1) The witness intends to invoke the right against self-incrimination to the extent permitted by law if called to testify ”

“ Third, greater requirements or difficulties of proof by a defendant inhere in the rule of absolute immunity. When a witness testifies under the auspices of an immunity act, the immunity he gets does not secure him from indictment or conviction. Heike v. United States, 217 U.S. 423, 30 S.Ct. 539, 54 L.Ed. 821. The witness must plead and prove, as an affirmative defense, that he has received immunity and that the instant prosecution is on account of a matter testified to in exchange for immunity, Heike v. ”

“ We now turn our attention to the proper focus of an inquiry into congressional abrogation of sovereign immunity, the language of the statute. We cannot agree that the textual provisions on which the Court of Appeals relied, or any other provisions of the EHA, demonstrate with unmistakable clarity that Congress intended to abrogate the States' immunity from suit. The EHA makes no reference whatsoever to either the Eleventh Amendment or the States' sovereign immunity. ”

“ Such transactional immunity, in my view, steers a well-conceived middle path between, on the one hand, a position that no immunity statute can supplant the constitutional privilege and, on the other, a position that affords the individual the altogether too narrow protection of use immunity as applied to the very government that has compelled him to incriminate himself. ”

“ Whether a state is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States to violate the principle of immunity from self-incrimination is a question which it is clearly unnecessary to decide now, unless what was, in fact, done at the trial, was inconsistent with that immunity. ”

“ The minimum grant of immunity adequate to overcome the privilege is that which under either paragraph 68h of this Manual or other proper authority provides that neither the testimony of the witness nor any evidence obtained from that testimony may be used against the witness at any subsequent trial other than in a prosecution for perjury, false swearing, the making of a false official statement, or failure to comply with an order to testify after the military judge has ruled that the privilege may not be asserted by reason of immunity. ”

“ The fact that the New York Court of Appeals has reversed itself and changed its interpretation of the New York immunity statute to grant 'transactional' immunity, and not merely 'use' immunity as that court held when it affirmed petitioner's conviction, provides no basis for dismissing the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted. ”

“ It is contended that we are without jurisdiction because no title, right, or immunity was specially set up or claimed under any Federal statute and denied. But, leaving aside for a moment all other considerations, it is plain that the defendant below set up a claim of immunity from suit in the state court under the laws of the United States, and that the right to the immunity so asserted under an act or acts of Congress was expressly considered and denied by the state court. ”

“ The majority rule recognizes that an accused has no Sixth Amendment right to immunized testimony of defense witnesses and, absent prosecutorial misconduct which is intended to disrupt the judicial fact-finding process, an accused is not denied Fifth Amendment due process by the Government's failure to immunize a witness. If the military judge finds that the witness is a target for prosecution, there can be no claim of Government overreaching or discrimination if a grant of immunity is denied. United States v. ”

“ Whenever the Lord Advocate stipulated an immunity, it seemed to be maintained, on the other side, that a sufferer by housebreaking, fire-raising, and other crimes, was to be deprived of his right, as a private party, to prosecute the guilty perpetrator of the wrong, and that the Lord Advocate had a power to enter into a compact by which he could grant immunity for offences, past or future, known or unknown. ”