VAN de KAMP et al. v. GOLDSTEIN

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VAN de KAMP et al. v. GOLDSTEIN
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the ninth circuit
No. 07–854. Argued November 5, 2008—Decided January 26, 2009
Respondent Goldstein was released from a California prison after he filed
a successful federal habeas petition alleging that his murder conviction
depended, in critical part, on the false testimony of a jailhouse informant
who had received reduced sentences for providing prosecutors with fa
vorable testimony in other cases; that prosecutors knew, but failed to
give his attorney, this potential impeachment information; and that,
among other things, that failure had led to his erroneous conviction.
Once released, Goldstein filed this suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, asserting
the prosecution violated its constitutional duty to communicate impeach
ment information, see Giglio v. United States, 405 U. S. 150, 154, due to
the failure of petitioners, supervisory prosecutors, to properly train or
supervise prosecutors or to establish an information system containing
potential impeachment material about informants. Claiming absolute
immunity, petitioners asked the District Court to dismiss the complaint,
but the court declined, finding that the conduct was “administrative,”
not “prosecutorial,” and hence fell outside the scope of an absolute im
munity claim. The Ninth Circuit, on interlocutory appeal, affirmed.
Held: Petitioners are entitled to absolute immunity in respect to Gold
stein’s supervision, training, and information-system management
claims. Pp. 340–349.
(a) Prosecutors are absolutely immune from liability in § 1983 suits
brought against prosecutorial actions that are “intimately associated
with the judicial phase of the criminal process,” Imbler v. Pachtman,
424 U. S. 409, 428, 430, because of “concern that harassment by un
founded litigation” could both “cause a deflection of the prosecutor’s
energies from his public duties” and lead him to “shade his decisions
instead of exercising the independence of judgment required by his pub
lic trust,” id., at 423. However, absolute immunity may not apply when
a prosecutor is not acting as “an officer of the court,” but is instead
engaged in, say, investigative or administrative tasks. Id., at 431, n. 33.
To decide whether absolute immunity attaches to a particular prosecuto
rial activity, one must take account of Imbler’s “functional” considera
tions. The fact that one constitutional duty in Imbler was positive (the
duty to supply “information relevant to the defense”) rather than nega

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tive (the duty not to “use . . . perjured testimony”) was not critical to
the finding of absolute immunity. Ibid., n. 34. Pp. 340–343.
(b) Although Goldstein challenges administrative procedures, they
are procedures that are directly connected with a trial’s conduct. A
prosecutor’s error in a specific criminal trial constitutes an essential
element of the plaintiff ’s claim. The obligations here are thus unlike
administrative duties concerning, e. g., workplace hiring. Moreover,
they necessarily require legal knowledge and the exercise of related
discretion, e. g., in determining what information should be included in
training, supervision, or information-system management. Given these
features, absolute immunity must follow. Pp. 343–349.
(1) Had Goldstein brought a suit directly attacking supervisory
prosecutors’ actions related to an individual trial, instead of one involv
ing administration, all the prosecutors would have enjoyed absolute im
munity under Imbler. Their behavior, individually or separately, would
have involved “[p]reparation . . . for . . . trial,” 424 U. S., at 431, n. 33,
and would have been “intimately associated with the judicial phase of
the criminal process,” id., at 430. The only difference between Imbler
and the hypothetical, i. e., that a supervisor or colleague might be liable
instead of the trial prosecutor, is not critical. P. 345.
(2) Just as supervisory prosecutors are immune in a suit directly
attacking their actions in an individual trial, they are immune here.
The fact that the office’s general supervision and training methods are
at issue is not a critical difference for present purposes. The relevant
management tasks concern how and when to make impeachment infor
mation available at trial, and, thus, are directly connected with a prose
cutor’s basic trial advocacy duties. In terms of Imbler’s functional con
cerns, a suit claiming that a supervisor made a mistake directly related
to a particular trial and one claiming that a supervisor trained and su
pervised inadequately seem very much alike. The type of “faulty train
ing” claim here rests in part on a consequent error by an individual
prosecutor in the midst of trial. If, as Imbler says, the threat of dam
ages liability for such an error could lead a trial prosecutor to take
account of that risk when making trial-related decisions, so, too, could
the threat of more widespread liability throughout the office lead both
that prosecutor and other office prosecutors to take account of such a
risk. Because better training or supervision might prevent most prose
cutorial errors at trial, permission to bring suit here would grant crimi
nal defendants permission to bring claims for other trial-related training
or supervisory failings. Further, such suits could “pose substantial
danger of liability even to the honest prosecutor.” Imbler, 424 U. S.,
at 425. And defending prosecutorial decisions, often years later, could
impose “unique and intolerable burdens upon a prosecutor responsible

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annually for hundreds of indictments and trials.” Id., at 425–426. Per
mitting this suit to go forward would also create practical anomalies.
A trial prosecutor would remain immune for intentional misconduct,
while her supervisor might be liable for negligent training or supervi
sion. And the ease with which a plaintiff could restyle a complaint
charging trial failure to one charging a training or supervision failure
would eviscerate Imbler. Pp. 346–348.
(3) The differences between an information management system
and training or supervision do not require a different outcome, for the
critical element of any information system is the information it con
tains. Deciding what to include and what not to include is little differ
ent from making similar decisions regarding training, for it requires
knowledge of the law. Moreover, were this claim allowed, a court
would have to review the office’s legal judgments, not simply about
whether to have an information system but also about what kind of
system is appropriate, and whether an appropriate system would have
included Giglio-related information about one particular kind of in
formant. Such decisions—whether made before or during trial—are
“intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process,”
Imbler, supra, at 430, and all Imbler’s functional considerations apply.
Pp. 348–349.
481 F. 3d 1170, reversed and remanded.
Breyer, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Timothy T. Coates argued the cause for petitioners. With
him on the briefs was Steven J. Renick.
Deputy Solicitor General Dreeben argued the cause for
the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With
him on the brief were former Solicitor General Garre, As
sistant Attorney General Katsas, Lisa S. Blatt, Barbara L.
Herwig, and Mark W. Pennak.
E. Joshua Rosenkranz argued the cause for respondent.
With him on the brief were Timothy S. Mehok, William H.
Forman, Ronald O. Kaye, David S. McLane, Marilyn E.
Bednarski, and David A. Thomas.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Kan
sas et al. by Stephen N. Six, Attorney General of Kansas, Stephen R.
McAllister, Solicitor General, and Jared S. Maag, Deputy Solicitor Gen
eral, by Kevin T. Kane, Chief State’s Attorney of Connecticut, by Peter

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338 VAN de KAMP v. GOLDSTEIN
Opinion of the Court
Justice Breyer delivered the opinion of the Court.
We here consider the scope of a prosecutor’s absolute im
munity from claims asserted under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42
J. Nickles, Acting Attorney General of the District of Columbia, and by
the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Troy King of
Alabama, Talis J. Colberg of Alaska, Terry Goddard of Arizona, Dustin
McDaniel of Arkansas, Edmund G. Brown, Jr., of California, John W.
Suthers of Colorado, Joseph R. Biden III of Delaware, Bill McCollum of
Florida, Thurbert E. Baker of Georgia, Mark J. Bennett of Hawaii, Law
rence G. Wasden of Idaho, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Steve Carter of Indi
ana, Tom Miller of Iowa, Jack Conway of Kentucky, James D. Caldwell
of Louisiana, G. Steven Rowe of Maine, Douglas F. Gansler of Maryland,
Martha Coakley of Massachusetts, Michael A. Cox of Michigan, Lori
Swanson of Minnesota, Jim Hood of Mississippi, Jeremiah W. (Jay) Nixon
of Missouri, Mike McGrath of Montana, Jon Bruning of Nebraska, Cather
ine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Kelly A. Ayotte of New Hampshire, Gary K.
King of New Mexico, Andrew Cuomo of New York, Roy Cooper of North
Carolina, Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, Nancy H. Rogers of Ohio,
W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Hardy Myers of Oregon, Thomas
W. Corbett, Jr., of Pennsylvania, Patrick C. Lynch of Rhode Island, Henry
McMaster of South Carolina, Lawrence E. Long of South Dakota, Robert
E. Cooper, Jr., of Tennessee, Greg Abbott of Texas, Mark L. Shurtleff of
Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, Robert F. McDonnell of Virginia,
Robert M. McKenna of Washington, Darrell V. McGraw, Jr., of West Vir
ginia, J. B. Van Hollen of Wisconsin, and Bruce A. Salzburg of Wyoming;
for Cook County, Illinois, by Richard A. Devine, Patrick T. Driscoll, Jr.,
and Paul A. Castiglione; for Los Angeles County, California, by Steve
Cooley, Lael R. Rubin, Brentford Ferreira, and Roberta Schwartz; for the
City of New York by Michael A. Cardozo, Leonard J. Koerner, and Eliza
beth Susan Natrella; for the National Association of Counties et al. by
Richard Ruda; and for the National District Attorneys Association et al.
by W. Scott Thorpe.
Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the American
Civil Liberties Union et al. by M. Allen Hopper, Steven R. Shapiro, and
Jeffrey L. Fisher; for the Constitutional Accountability Center by Eliza
beth B. Wydra, Sean H. Donahue, and David T. Goldberg; and for the In
nocence Network et al. by Peter D. Isakoff, Peter J. Neufeld, and Barry
Scheck.
Briefs of amici curiae were filed for Law Professors by John R. Cuti
and Margaret Z. Johns; and for the New York State District Attorneys
Association by Anthony J. Servino, James A. Murphy III, Anthony J.
Girese, and Mark Dwyer.

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Opinion of the Court
U. S. C. § 1983. See Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S. 409
(1976). We ask whether that immunity extends to claims
that the prosecution failed to disclose impeachment material,
see Giglio v. United States, 405 U. S. 150 (1972), due to: (1) a
failure properly to train prosecutors, (2) a failure properly to
supervise prosecutors, or (3) a failure to establish an infor
mation system containing potential impeachment material
about informants. We conclude that a prosecutor’s absolute
immunity extends to all these claims.
I
In 1998, respondent Thomas Goldstein (then a prisoner)
filed a habeas corpus action in the Federal District Court for
the Central District of California. He claimed that in 1980
he was convicted of murder; that his conviction depended in
critical part upon the testimony of Edward Floyd Fink, a
jailhouse informant; that Fink’s testimony was unreliable, in
deed false; that Fink had previously received reduced sen
tences for providing prosecutors with favorable testimony
in other cases; that at least some prosecutors in the Los
Angeles County District Attorney’s Office knew about the
favorable treatment; that the office had not provided Gold
stein’s attorney with that information; and that, among other
things, the prosecution’s failure to provide Goldstein’s attor
ney with this potential impeachment information had led to
his erroneous conviction. Goldstein v. Long Beach, 481
F. 3d 1170, 1171–1172 (CA9 2007).
After an evidentiary hearing the District Court agreed
with Goldstein that Fink had not been truthful and that if
the prosecution had told Goldstein’s lawyer that Fink had
received prior rewards in return for favorable testimony it
might have made a difference. The court ordered the State
either to grant Goldstein a new trial or to release him. The
Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s determina
tion. And the State decided that, rather than retry Gold
stein (who had already served 24 years of his sentence), it
would release him. App. 54–55, 59–60.

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Upon his release Goldstein filed this § 1983 action against
petitioners, the former Los Angeles County district attorney
and chief deputy district attorney. Goldstein’s complaint
(which for present purposes we take as accurate) asserts in
relevant part that the prosecution’s failure to communicate to
his attorney the facts about Fink’s earlier testimony-related
rewards violated the prosecution’s constitutional duty to “in
sure communication of all relevant information on each case
[including agreements made with informants] to every law
yer who deals with it.” Giglio, supra, at 154. Moreover, it
alleges that this failure resulted from the failure of petition
ers (the office’s chief supervisory attorneys) adequately to
train and to supervise the prosecutors who worked for them
as well as their failure to establish an information system
about informants. And it asks for damages based upon
these training, supervision, and information-system related
failings.
Petitioners, claiming absolute immunity from such a § 1983
action, asked the District Court to dismiss the complaint.
See Imbler, supra. The District Court denied the motion
to dismiss on the ground that the conduct asserted amounted
to “administrative,” not “prosecutorial,” conduct; hence it fell
outside the scope of the prosecutor’s absolute immunity
to § 1983 claims. The Ninth Circuit, considering petition
ers’ claim on an interlocutory appeal, affirmed the District
Court’s “no immunity” determination. We now review the
Ninth Circuit’s decision, and we reverse its determination.
II
Over a half century ago Chief Judge Learned Hand ex
plained that a prosecutor ’s absolute immunity reflects
“a balance” of “evils.” Gregoire v. Biddle, 177 F. 2d 579, 581
(CA2 1949). “[I]t has been thought in the end better,” he
said, “to leave unredressed the wrongs done by dishonest
officers than to subject those who try to do their duty to the
constant dread of retaliation.” Ibid. In Imbler, supra, this

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Court considered prosecutorial actions that are “intimately
associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.”
Id., at 430. And, referring to Chief Judge Hand’s views, it
held that prosecutors are absolutely immune from liability
in § 1983 lawsuits brought under such circumstances. Id.,
at 428.
The § 1983 action at issue was that of a prisoner freed on
a writ of habeas corpus who subsequently sought damages
from his former prosecutor. His action, like the action now
before us, tracked the claims that a federal court had found
valid when granting his habeas corpus petition. In particu
lar, the prisoner claimed that the trial prosecutor had per
mitted a fingerprint expert to give false testimony, that the
prosecutor was responsible for the expert’s having sup
pressed important evidence, and that the prosecutor had
introduced a misleading artist’s sketch into evidence. Id.,
at 416.
In concluding that the prosecutor was absolutely immune,
the Court pointed out that legislators have long “enjoyed
absolute immunity for their official actions,” id., at 417; that
the common law granted immunity to “judges and . . . jurors
acting within the scope of their duties,” id., at 423; and that
the law had also granted prosecutors absolute immunity from
common-law tort actions, say, those underlying a “decision
to initiate a prosecution,” id., at 421. The Court then held
that the “same considerations of public policy that underlie”
a prosecutor’s common-law immunity “countenance absolute
immunity under § 1983.” Id., at 424. Those considerations,
the Court said, arise out of the general common-law “concern
that harassment by unfounded litigation” could both “cause
a deflection of the prosecutor’s energies from his public du
ties” and also lead the prosecutor to “shade his decisions in
stead of exercising the independence of judgment required
by his public trust.” Id., at 423.
Where § 1983 actions are at issue, the Court said, both sets
of concerns are present and serious. The “public trust of

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the prosecutor’s office would suffer” were the prosecutor to
have in mind his “own potential” damages “liability” when
making prosecutorial decisions—as he might well were he
subject to § 1983 liability. Id., at 424. This is no small con
cern, given the frequency with which criminal defendants
bring such suits, id., at 425 (“[A] defendant often will trans
form his resentment at being prosecuted into the ascription
of improper and malicious actions to the State’s advocate”),
and the “substantial danger of liability even to the honest
prosecutor” that such suits pose when they survive pretrial
dismissal, ibid.; see also ibid. (complex, close, fair-trial ques
tions “often would require a virtual retrial of the criminal
offense in a new forum, and the resolution of some technical
issues by the lay jury”). A “prosecutor,” the Court noted,
“inevitably makes many decisions that could engender color
able claims of constitutional deprivation. Defending these
decisions, often years after they were made, could impose
unique and intolerable burdens upon a prosecutor responsi
ble annually for hundreds of indictments and trials.” Id., at
425–426. The Court thus rejected the idea of applying the
less-than-absolute “qualified immunity” that the law accords
to other “executive or administrative officials,” noting that
the “honest prosecutor would face greater difficulty” than
would those officials “in meeting the standards of qualified
immunity.” Id., at 425. Accordingly, the immunity that the
law grants prosecutors is “absolute.” Id., at 424.
The Court made clear that absolute immunity may not
apply when a prosecutor is not acting as “an officer of the
court,” but is instead engaged in other tasks, say, investiga
tive or administrative tasks. Id., at 431, n. 33. To decide
whether absolute immunity attaches to a particular kind of
prosecutorial activity, one must take account of the “func
tional” considerations discussed above. See Burns v. Reed,
500 U. S. 478, 486 (1991) (collecting cases applying “functional
approach” to immunity); Kalina v. Fletcher, 522 U. S. 118,
127, 130 (1997). In Imbler, the Court concluded that the

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“reasons for absolute immunity appl[ied] with full force” to
the conduct at issue because it was “intimately associated
with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” 424 U. S.,
at 430. The fact that one constitutional duty at issue was a
positive duty (the duty to supply “information relevant to
the defense”) rather than a negative duty (the duty not to
“use . . . perjured testimony”) made no difference. Id., at
431, n. 34. After all, a plaintiff can often transform a posi
tive into a negative duty simply by reframing the pleadings;
in either case, a constitutional violation is at issue. Ibid.
Finally, the Court specifically reserved the question
whether or when “similar reasons require immunity for those
aspects of the prosecutor’s responsibility that cast him in the
role of an administrator . . . rather than that of advocate.”
Id., at 430–431. It said that “[d]rawing a proper line be
tween these functions may present difficult questions, but
this case does not require us to anticipate them.” Id., at
431, n. 33.
In the years since Imbler, we have held that absolute im
munity applies when a prosecutor prepares to initiate a judi
cial proceeding, Burns, supra, at 492, or appears in court to
present evidence in support of a search warrant application,
Kalina, supra, at 126. We have held that absolute immu
nity does not apply when a prosecutor gives advice to police
during a criminal investigation, see Burns, supra, at 496,
when the prosecutor makes statements to the press, Buckley
v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U. S. 259, 277 (1993), or when a prosecu
tor acts as a complaining witness in support of a warrant
application, Kalina, supra, at 132 (Scalia, J., concurring).
This case, unlike these earlier cases, requires us to consider
how immunity applies where a prosecutor is engaged in cer
tain administrative activities.
III
Goldstein claims that the district attorney and his chief
assistant violated their constitutional obligation to provide

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his attorney with impeachment-related information, see Gig
lio, 405 U. S. 150, because, as the Court of Appeals wrote,
they failed “to adequately train and supervise deputy district
attorneys on that subject,” 481 F. 3d, at 1176, and because,
as Goldstein’s complaint adds, they “failed to create any sys
tem for the Deputy District Attorneys handling criminal
cases to access information pertaining to the benefits pro
vided to jailhouse informants and other impeachment infor
mation,” App. 45. We agree with Goldstein that, in making
these claims, he attacks the office’s administrative proce
dures. We are also willing to assume with Goldstein, but
purely for argument’s sake, that Giglio imposes certain obli
gations as to training, supervision, or information-system
management.
Even so, we conclude that prosecutors involved in such su
pervision or training or information-system management
enjoy absolute immunity from the kind of legal claims at
issue here. Those claims focus upon a certain kind of admin
istrative obligation—a kind that itself is directly connected
with the conduct of a trial. Here, unlike with other claims
related to administrative decisions, an individual prosecu
tor’s error in the plaintiff ’s specific criminal trial constitutes
an essential element of the plaintiff ’s claim. The adminis
trative obligations at issue here are thus unlike administra
tive duties concerning, for example, workplace hiring, payroll
administration, the maintenance of physical facilities, and the
like. Moreover, the types of activities on which Goldstein’s
claims focus necessarily require legal knowledge and the
exercise of related discretion, e. g., in determining what
information should be included in the training or the super
vision or the information-system management. And in that
sense also Goldstein’s claims are unlike claims of, say, unlaw
ful discrimination in hiring employees. Given these fea
tures of the case before us, we believe absolute immunity
must follow.

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A
We reach this conclusion by initially considering a hypo
thetical case that involves supervisory or other office prose
cutors but does not involve administration. Suppose that
Goldstein had brought such a case, seeking damages not only
from the trial prosecutor but also from a supervisory prose
cutor or from the trial prosecutor’s colleagues—all on the
ground that they should have found and turned over the im
peachment material about Fink. Imbler makes clear that
all these prosecutors would enjoy absolute immunity from
such a suit. The prosecutors’ behavior, taken individually
or separately, would involve “[p]reparation . . . for . . . trial,”
424 U. S., at 431, n. 33, and would be “intimately associated
with the judicial phase of the criminal process” because it
concerned the evidence presented at trial, id., at 430. And
all of the considerations that this Court found to militate in
favor of absolute immunity in Imbler would militate in favor
of immunity in such a case.
The only difference we can find between Imbler and our
hypothetical case lies in the fact that, in our hypothetical
case, a prosecutorial supervisor or colleague might himself
be liable for damages instead of the trial prosecutor. But
we cannot find that difference (in the pattern of liability
among prosecutors within a single office) to be critical. De
cisions about indictment or trial prosecution will often in
volve more than one prosecutor within an office. We do not
see how such differences in the pattern of liability among a
group of prosecutors in a single office could alleviate Imbler’s
basic fear, namely, that the threat of damages liability would
affect the way in which prosecutors carried out their basic
court-related tasks. Moreover, this Court has pointed out
that “it is the interest in protecting the proper functioning
of the office, rather than the interest in protecting its occu
pant, that is of primary importance.” Kalina, 522 U. S., at
125. Thus, we must assume that the prosecutors in our hy
pothetical suit would enjoy absolute immunity.

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B
Once we determine that supervisory prosecutors are im
mune in a suit directly attacking their actions related to an
individual trial, we must find they are similarly immune in
the case before us. We agree with the Court of Appeals
that the office’s general methods of supervision and training
are at issue here, but we do not agree that that difference
is critical for present purposes. That difference does not
preclude an intimate connection between prosecutorial activ
ity and the trial process. The management tasks at issue,
insofar as they are relevant, concern how and when to make
impeachment information available at a trial. They are
thereby directly connected with the prosecutor’s basic trial
advocacy duties. And, in terms of Imbler’s functional con
cerns, a suit charging that a supervisor made a mistake di
rectly related to a particular trial, on the one hand, and a
suit charging that a supervisor trained and supervised inade
quately, on the other, would seem very much alike.
That is true, in part, for the practical reason that it will
often prove difficult to draw a line between general office
supervision or office training (say, related to Giglio) and spe
cific supervision or training related to a particular case. To
permit claims based upon the former is almost inevitably to
permit the bringing of claims that include the latter. It is
also true because one cannot easily distinguish, for immunity
purposes, between claims based upon training or supervisory
failures related to Giglio and similar claims related to other
constitutional matters (obligations under Brady v. Mary
land, 373 U. S. 83 (1963), for example). And that being so,
every consideration that Imbler mentions militates in favor
of immunity.
As we have said, the type of “faulty training” claim at
issue here rests in necessary part upon a consequent error
by an individual prosecutor in the midst of trial, namely, the
plaintiff ’s trial. If, as Imbler says, the threat of damages
liability for such an error could lead a trial prosecutor to take

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account of that risk when making trial-related decisions, so,
too, could the threat of more widespread liability throughout
the office (ultimately traceable to that trial error) lead both
that prosecutor and other office prosecutors as well to take
account of such a risk. Indeed, members of a large prosecu
torial office, when making prosecutorial decisions, could have
in mind the “consequences in terms of ” damages liability
whether they are making general decisions about supervis
ing or training or whether they are making individual trial
related decisions. Imbler, 424 U. S., at 424.
Moreover, because better training or supervision might
prevent most, if not all, prosecutorial errors at trial, permis
sion to bring such a suit here would grant permission to
criminal defendants to bring claims in other similar in
stances, in effect claiming damages for (trial-related) train
ing or supervisory failings. Cf. Imbler, supra. Further,
given the complexity of the constitutional issues, inadequate
training and supervision suits could, as in Imbler, “pose sub
stantial danger of liability even to the honest prosecutor.”
Id., at 425. Finally, as Imbler pointed out, defending prose
cutorial decisions, often years after they were made, could
impose “unique and intolerable burdens upon a prosecutor
responsible annually for hundreds of indictments and trials.”
Id., at 425–426.
At the same time, to permit this suit to go forward would
create practical anomalies. A trial prosecutor would remain
immune, even for intentionally failing to turn over, say Gig
lio material; but her supervisor might be liable for negligent
training or supervision. Small prosecution offices where su
pervisors can personally participate in all of the cases would
likewise remain immune from prosecution; but large offices,
making use of more general officewide supervision and train
ing, would not. Most important, the ease with which a
plaintiff could restyle a complaint charging a trial failure so
that it becomes a complaint charging a failure of training or
supervision would eviscerate Imbler.

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Opinion of the Court
We conclude that the very reasons that led this Court in
Imbler to find absolute immunity require a similar finding in
this case. We recognize, as Chief Judge Hand pointed out,
that sometimes such immunity deprives a plaintiff of com
pensation that he undoubtedly merits; but the impediments
to the fair, efficient functioning of a prosecutorial office that
liability could create lead us to find that Imbler must apply
here.
C
We treat separately Goldstein’s claim that the Los Angeles
County District Attorney’s Office should have established a
system that would have permitted prosecutors “handling
criminal cases to access information pertaining to the bene
fits provided to jailhouse informants and other impeachment
information.” App. 45. We do so because Goldstein argues
that the creation of an information management system is a
more purely administrative task, less closely related to the
“judicial phase of the criminal process,” Imbler, supra, at
430, than are supervisory or training tasks. He adds that
technically qualified individuals other than prosecutors could
create such a system and that they could do so prior to the
initiation of criminal proceedings.
In our view, however, these differences do not require a
different outcome. The critical element of any information
system is the information it contains. Deciding what to in
clude and what not to include in an information system is
little different from making similar decisions in respect to
training. Again, determining the criteria for inclusion or
exclusion requires knowledge of the law.
Moreover, the absence of an information system is relevant
here if, and only if, a proper system would have included in
formation about the informant Fink. Thus, were this claim
allowed, a court would have to review the office’s legal judg
ments, not simply about whether to have an information
system but also about what kind of system is appropriate,
and whether an appropriate system would have included

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349 Cite as: 555 U. S. 335 (2009)
Opinion of the Court
Giglio-related information about one particular kind of trial
informant. Such decisions—whether made prior to or dur
ing a particular trial—are “intimately associated with the
judicial phase of the criminal process.” Imbler, supra, at
430; see Burns, 500 U. S., at 486. And, for the reasons set
out above, all Imbler’s functional considerations (and the
anomalies we mentioned earlier, supra, at 346–347) apply
here as well.
We recognize that sometimes it would be easy for a court
to determine that an office’s decision about an information
system was inadequate. Suppose, for example, the office
had no system at all. But the same could be said of a prose
cutor’s trial error. Immunity does not exist to help prosecu
tors in the easy case; it exists because the easy cases bring
difficult cases in their wake. And, as Imbler pointed out,
the likely presence of too many difficult cases threatens, not
prosecutors, but the public, for the reason that it threatens
to undermine the necessary independence and integrity of
the prosecutorial decisionmaking process. Such is true of
the kinds of claims before us, to all of which Imbler’s func
tional considerations apply. Consequently, where a § 1983
plaintiff claims that a prosecutor’s management of a trial
related information system is responsible for a constitutional
error at his or her particular trial, the prosecutor responsible
for the system enjoys absolute immunity just as would the
prosecutor who handled the particular trial itself.
* * *
For these reasons we conclude that petitioners are entitled
to absolute immunity in respect to Goldstein’s claims that
their supervision, training, or information-system manage
ment was constitutionally inadequate. Accordingly, the
judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case
is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.