Hanrahan v. Hampton

Me. Justice Powell,

with whom The Chief Justice and Me. Justice Rehnquist join,

concurring in part and dissenting in part.

I join the Court’s opinion insofar as it reverses the award of attorney’s fees entered by the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. As I would grant the petition filed by the *760 federal defendants in its entirety, I dissent from the denial of certiorari in No. 79-914. 1

I

This civil litigation arose in the aftermath of a 1969 police raid on a Chicago apartment occupied by nine members of the Black Panther Party, two of whom were killed. The surviving occupants of the apartment and the legal representatives of the deceased Black Panthers filed four actions for damages, now consolidated, against 28 state and federal law enforcement officials. The complaints allege numerous violations of constitutional rights. In particular, the plaintiffs claim that three agents assigned to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Chicago office and an informant working with them (the federal defendants) conspired with state officers to carry out the operation, to conceal its allegedly sinister nature, and to harass the plaintiffs with unfounded prosecutions.

The jury trial lasted 18 months, generating a 37,000-page transcript and masses of documentary evidence. At the close of the plaintiffs’ case, some 16 months after trial began, the District Court granted directed verdicts in favor of the federal and most of the state defendants. Trial continued as to the police officers who actually participated in the apartment incident. Ultimately, the jury deadlocked and the District Court entered a final judgment directing verdicts in favor of all of the defendants. A divided panel of the Court of Appeals vacated the judgment and ordered a new trial as to all but four of the defendants.

I have not reviewed the entire record of what is said to have been “the longest case tried to a jury in the history of the United States judiciary.” Memorandum of District Court, App. to Pet. for Cert. in No. 79-914, p. 175a. I have, how *761 ever, read with care the three separate opinions filed in the Court of Appeals as well as the District Court's extensive memorandum. Each judge agreed that the case against the federal defendants turns upon the sufficiency of the evidence regarding the alleged conspiracy.

At the close of the plaintiffs’ case in chief, the District Court “reviewed all of the evidence . . . with all reasonable inferences that could be drawn therefrom, in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs." Id., at 186a. The court found the record “devoid of proof of . . . participation [by the federal defendants] in a conspiratorial plan among themselves or with the state defendants. Thus no liability on their part existed and their motions for directed verdicts were granted.” Id., at 193a-194a. More specifically, the court explained:

“Each of the Federal defendants was called by plaintiffs as adverse witnesses. Each testified extensively and denied knowledge or [sic], or participation in, a plan, or an agreement, or a conspiracy between themselves, or between them or any of them, and any and all of the State defendants to violate plaintiffs’ constitutional and statutory rights through conduct of the search of the apartment, or prior thereto, or after the occurrence, or otherwise. Their denials were uncontradicted and unim-peached by any testimony whatsover." Id., at 189a-190a.

Despite the explicit findings of the judge who presided over this 18-month trial, a majority of the Court of Appeals drew its own inferences and concluded that the evidence was sufficient to “warrant a jury determination of whether a conspiracy existed." 600 F. 2d 600 , 621 (1979). The majority’s lengthy opinion indicates that the court relied primarily, if not entirely, upon extensive testimony describing an FBI counterintelligence program directed against a number of organizations including the Black Panther Party.

There is no question that the FBI viewed that organization, which openly advocated armed resistance to authority and *762 had a documented record of violence, 2 as a serious threat to public safety and to the lives of law enforcement officers. But the issue at trial was not whether the FBI had a program designed to discredit the Black Panthers, or even whether the program had produced excesses. The only issue was whether these federal defendants conspired with state officers to conduct an unlawful search in which excessive force would be used or, subsequently, to harass the plaintiffs with malicious prosecutions. See id., at 648-649 (Fairchild, C. J., concurring).

No one contends that any of the federal defendants took part in the raid itself. They did supply information to state officers about illegal firearms stored in the apartment. But each federal defendant testified that he did not know of and did not participate in any planning or joint activity regarding the operation at any time. This uncontradicted testimony was fully corroborated by the state defendants. In these circumstances, inferences drawn from a program not shown to have been related to the events in question are of dubious value. Judge Pell, dissenting in part in the Court of Appeals, viewed the matter as follows:

“Going next to the . . . remaining state defendants and the federal defendants, I cannot agree that there was a basis for reasonable inferences that there was any kind of an agreement among them, express or implicit, to *763 cause a raid to be made with the object of killing or wounding various Black Panther Party members. It is true that at the time in question, the federal authorities thought it would be in the public good to neutralize the Black Panther Party so that it could not carry out its avowed purpose, among others, of killing policemen. Indeed, the idea perhaps could have been entertained by some, if not all, of those defendants who were engaged in law enforcement work that the community would be a safer place for law-abiding citizens to live and work in if Fred Hampton and his cohorts were not on the scene. This human feeling is far removed from a basis for an inference that they deliberately set a course to accomplish that by violence.

“In our jurisprudence a person cannot be convicted of a traffic offense unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Even though the present case is of the civil variety, I cannot believe that the law should permit a determination that any person has deliberately planned a homicide on nothing more than speculative conjecture or mere suspicion. The hard basic reasonable inference-creating facts just did not exist in this case.” Id., at 660-661.

In the absence of positive evidence or “reasonable inference-creating facts,” there was no reason to include the federal defendants in the remand for a second trial.

II

This Court ordinarily leaves questions as to the sufficiency of evidence in a particular case to the courts below. But this is not ordinary litigation. Although it may appear on the surface to be an unexceptional civil rights suit for damages, the extraordinary magnitude of the litigation and the nature and scope of the evidence demonstrate that this lawsuit differs *764 from the civil damages actions to which our courts are accustomed.

Judge Pell observed that “this case has important overtones of unbridled denigrating attacks on governmental officials.” Id., at 666. The allegations of unconstitutional conduct by the state defendants are serious indeed, and I express no view on the merits of these claims. But the plaintiffs have a larger target: the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is apparent that a basic trial strategy was to attack the FBI broadly. If there were sufficient relevant evidence to support the plaintiffs’ claims, the law would require that they go to the jury regardless of underlying motive. Yet the presence of this collateral objective, related only tangentially if at all to the recovery of damages, imposed a special duty on the courts to bear in mind the admonition of Butz v. Economou, 438 U. S. 478, 508 (1978), that “federal officials [not be] harassed by frivolous lawsuits.”

Butz rejected a claim that all highly placed federal officials should be absolutely immune from liability for civil rights violations. But federal officials, like state officials sued under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 , have qualified immunity from suit. They therefore are liable only when they “discharge their duties in a way that is known to them to violate ... a clearly established constitutional rule.” 438 U. S., at 507 . In Butz , we emphasized that absolute immunity is unnecessary to protect the public interest in “encouraging the vigorous exercise of official authority,” id., at 506 , because qualified immunity shields officials from liability for good-faith mistakes. We predicted that such immunity would prove “workable,” because “firm application of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure” would permit “[i]nsubstantial lawsuits [to] be quickly terminated.” In particular, “damages suits concerning constitutional violations need not proceed to trial, but can be terminated on a properly supported motion for summary judgment. . . .” Id., at 507-508 . The District Court heeded this admonition.

*765 In reversing that court, the Court of Appeals misappreciated the premises on which this Court rested its ruling in Butz . In Butz , we endeavored to accommodate two important societal objectives: to compensate persons injured by civil rights violations, and to do so without discouraging vigorous enforcement of the laws. The first objective impelled the Court to reject absolute in favor of qualified immunity for most officials. We recognized, however, that our decision would invite litigation in which constitutional claims easily are asserted. We therefore cautioned the judiciary to exercise their authority under the rules of procedure in order to protect official defendants from groundless claims. Id., at 507 .

Our concern in Butz was that extravagant charges might force officials to trial on claims that lacked a substantial basis in fact. In this case, there can be little speculation as to what evidence may be marshaled in support of the complaint. After 16 months of trial devoted exclusively to the plaintiffs’ evidence, the trial court found the record wholly “devoid of proof of . . . participation” by the federal defendants in the conspiracy alleged. App. to Pet. for Cert, in No. 79-914, p. 193a. These defendants continue to assert that their conduct was a routine and good-faith effort at cooperative law enforcement. Neither the parties nor the courts below have identified concrete evidence to the contrary. If a new trial may be ordered in this case, similar allegations could survive properly supported motions for summary judgment on the basis of speculative inferences from unrelated evidence. The prospect of defending such lawsuits can hardly fail to “dampen the ardor of all but the most resolute, or the most irresponsible, in the unflinching discharge of their duties.” Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F. 2d 579, 581 (CA2 1949).

Ill

The Court of Appeals’ remand for a second trial as to the federal defendants in this case vitiates the protection we *766 sought to insure in Butz . The effect on legitimate law enforcement efforts could be serious. At the least, these officers’ experience is likely to discourage other federal officials from cooperating with state law enforcement agencies over which they have no control. I would grant the petition for certiorari.

I confine this dissent to the federal defendants, although it is not clear that the Court of Appeals properly reversed the directed verdicts as to many of the other defendants. See 600 F. 2d 600 , 649 (1979) (Pell, J., dissenting in part).

Summarizing evidence of record, Judge Pell’s dissent described the party as an “extremist, paramilitary, uniformed organization. ... It was a violent, revolutionary organization, which by party edict required its members to own and know how to use weapons and to have access to more than one weapon.” Id., at 654.

Judge Pell also noted that “Black Panther publications called for killing policemen,” that the party “published a ‘Destruction Kit’ which described how to make and use incendiary bombs and other similar devices,” that children attending its highly praised breakfast program were instructed to “Kill the Pigs,” and that Black Panthers had “boasted” that one of their members had killed two Chicago police officers less than a month before the events at issue in this case. Id., at 654-655.