433 F.2d 318 - Burkes v. Callion — 433 F.2d 318

How this case has been cited

Cited by 102 later decisions — most recently March 2023 · most notably LaLonde v. Eissner (1989), Franklin v. Oregon (1981)

46 federal appellate · 10 district · 24 state decisions — followed in 18 states

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

¶1 *319Norman Burkes, Jr., in pro. per.

¶2Bonne, Jones & Bridges, Attys., Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants-appellees.

¶3Before BARNES, BROWNING, and DUNIWAY, Circuit Judges.

¶4PER CURIAM:

¶5Appellant brought this civil rights damage action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983(2) against Luther Callion, a Deputy Probation Officer for Los Angeles County, and Dr. George Abe and Dr. Alvin Davis, court-appointed medical examiners,1 alleging that he was sentenced to state prison rather than granted probation because the defendants made false statements of fact and omitted material facts in making their respective reports to the state court. The district court dismissed the complaint on the grounds that the defendants were immune from liability under the Act. We affirm.

¶6This circuit has repeatedly held that judges and other officers of government whose duties are related to the judicial process are immune from liability for damages under section 1983 for conduct in the performance of their official duties. See, e. g., Agnew v. Moody, 330 F.2d 868 (9th Cir. 1964); Harmon v. Superior Court, 329 F.2d 154 (9th Cir. 1964); Sires v. Cole, 320 F.2d 877 (9th Cir. 1963). A probation officer preparing and submitting a probation report in a criminal case is performing a “quasi-judicial” function and is entitled to a similar, if not the same, immunity that is accorded to judges for acts done by them in the exercise of their judicial functions. Harmon v. Superior Court, supra; Friedman v. Younger, 282 F.Supp. 710, 715-716 (C.D.Cal.1968); Dunn v. Estes, 117 F.Supp. 146 (D.Mass.1953).

¶7We hold that the court-appointed psychiatrists who prepared' and submitted medical reports to the state court are also immune from liability for damages under the Act.2 The function of the examining psychiatrists in this case falls within the scope of “quasi-judicial immunity,” defined by this court in Robichaud v. Ronan, 351 F.2d 533, 536 (9th Cir. 1965), to extend to acts committed “in the performance of an integral part of the judicial process.”

¶8Affirmed.