United States Ninth Circuit

In an action brought under 42 U.S.C. section1983 against Arizona state officials who executed over twenty warrants to seize thousands of wire transfers that officials alleged were likely to be connected to criminal conduct associated with the smuggling of undocumented aliens into the US, the district court's summary judgment is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) absolute immunity is available to prosecutors in the context of civil forfeiture proceedings; 2) service and execution of the seizure warrants were not protected by absolute immunity because those acts are functions of police officers, not the traditional functions of an advocate; 3) Goddard, in his individual capacity as the Arizona Attorney General at the time the seizure warrants were carried out, was protected by absolute immunity for supervision of Holmes's preparation of and application for the warrant; 4) Goddard could not claim absolute immunity with respect to his supervision of Holmes's service and execution of the seizure warrants because his supervision was a function of a supervising police officer, not a supervising prosecutor; and 5) plaintiffs waived the issue of whether the district court erred by granting summary judgment on the official capacity claims against Thomas Horne, Goddard’s successor as Arizona Attorney General.

Appellate Information

• Decided 07/16/2015
• Published 07/16/2015

Judges

• Kozinski

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel