CLEARFIELD – A case filed and dismissed against Clearfield County District Attorney William A. Shaw Jr. has been affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. Former Fifth District Congressional Candidate Derek Walker of Bigler filed the complaint against Shaw on March 16, 2009.
According to the opinion filed Jan. 24 by Circuit Judge Thomas L. Ambro, Walker appealed the District Court’s decision, dismissing his retaliatory prosecution action, brought for failure to state a claim. Specifically, Walker alleged in his amended complaint that Shaw violated his First Amendment rights by prosecuting him based on false evidence in retaliation for his decision to seek political office.
While affirming the District Court was correct in its dismissal, the appeals court based its decision on grounds different than those used by the lower court. According to the court’s opinion, the allegations in Walker’s amended complaint stemmed from his involvement in an Aug. 25, 2007 “domestic incident” with his former girlfriend. Walker alleged that the incident didn’t involve any violence, and the police officers who responded informed him not to have any further communication with her but did not arrest him.
Shortly thereafter, Walker announced his intention to seek the Republican nomination for a seat in the United States House of Representatives. Before the primary election – but several months after the domestic incident – Shaw started his investigation into the incident, allegedly coercing false witness statements against Walker. Following this investigation – and just a few days before the primary election – Shaw directed the police chief to file charges against Walker, who subsequently lost the primary election.
“In a nutshell, Walker alleges that Shaw intentionally manufactured false witness testimony against him, and then used that testimony as the basis on which to file criminal charges. Walker further alleges that Shaw did all this in order to make his candidacy for political office untenable—or, in other words, to retaliate against Walker for his choice to seek office,” Ambro wrote in the court’s opinion.
He continued, stating that Walker was seeking compensatory and punitive damages, and a declaration that Shaw infringed his First Amendment rights. The District Court dismissed Walker’s first amended complaint for failure to state a claim. The court initially concluded that absolute prosecutorial immunity protected Shaw from liability for money damages. Then, as to Walker’s demand for declaratory relief, the court held that the claim failed on the merits because “insufficient support among voters in Walker’s district provides no grounds for equitable redress in this court.”
The opinion continued, “Treating all of Walker’s allegations as true, we conclude that Shaw was not entitled to absolute immunity as to at least part of Walker’s claim. The crux of Walker’s complaint is that Shaw manufactured evidence against him in order to establish probable cause to arrest Walker. The Supreme Court has held that when prosecutors perform investigatory functions, like determining whether there is probable cause to arrest a suspect, they are entitled only to qualified, and not absolute, immunity.”
Thus, to the extent that Walker’s complaint concerns Shaw’s pre-indictment investigation of the allegations against Walker, it states that Shaw is entitled only to qualified immunity. By contrast, Shaw is entitled to absolute immunity from monetary—but not equitable—liability based on the decision to prosecute. Here, Walker seeks declaratory, as well as monetary, relief. Accordingly, Ambro explained that the court should turn to whether Walker’s complaint states a claim on which relief could be granted.
Ambro wrote that Walker argues “he had a First Amendment right to participate in the political process free of a politically motivated criminal prosecution based on false evidence.” To establish a First Amendment retaliation claim, he wrote that a plaintiff must prove the following elements: (1) constitutionally protected conduct; (2) that the defendant took adverse action sufficient to deter a person of ordinary firmness from exercising his rights; (3) and a causal connection between the two. Ambro wrote that there is also a fourth element required to state a First Amendment retaliation claim premised on an investigation that leads to a decision to prosecute: the absence of probable cause for the prosecution.
“While Walker’s complaint may have been sufficient as to the first three elements, it fails on the final prong. In the underlying criminal case, Walker pled guilty, though to a lesser offense. Borrowing from the closely analogous malicious prosecution context, we conclude that a guilty plea—even one for a lesser offense—does not permit a later assertion of no probable cause,” Ambro wrote.
He continued, stating that its conclusion is consistent with Heck versus Humphrey, under which Walker’s claim would fail even if he could allege the absence of probable cause despite his guilty plea. In Heck, he wrote the Supreme Court held that relief is not available to a civil plaintiff for whom success on the merits would “necessarily imply the invalidity of the conviction,” unless the conviction was previously negated.
“Here, the basis of Walker’s suit is that Shaw manufactured evidence against him, and that, as a result, Walker pled guilty to a crime. If that allegation were proven, it would plainly imply the invalidity of Walker’s conviction, and thus Walker’s suit runs afoul of Heck,” Ambro wrote.
