Limits on Absolute Immunity for Extra-Judicial Brady/Giglio Disclosures and Due-Process Liability for Resignation Induced by Misrepresentation

1. Introduction

This appeal arises from a public-employment separation agreement executed in the shadow of an internal excessive-force investigation. Randall N. Martin, a lieutenant with the Tippecanoe County Sheriff’s Office, invoked his statutory right to a merit-board hearing under IND. CODE § 36-8-10-11(a) after being accused of using excessive force. The Sheriff, Robert A. Goldsmith, allegedly restructured the internal affairs process and manipulated the merit board’s composition, while also issuing “embarrassing and humiliating” press releases. Martin ultimately resigned pursuant to an “Agreement to Resolve Employment Status,” in which Goldsmith promised to withdraw pending charges and provide only a “neutral reference.”

Immediately after Martin’s resignation became effective, county prosecutors Patrick Harrington and Jason Biss circulated “Brady/Giglio” disclosures describing the unadjudicated allegations—(i) to the Tippecanoe County Bar Association, (ii) to Martin’s part-time employer (Town of Dayton), and (iii) in dozens of criminal cases where Martin was an arresting officer; Martin also alleged dissemination to a prospective employer (Town of Flora). Martin contended these disclosures were part of a coordinated plan to induce his resignation and waiver of due-process rights while ensuring he would be unemployable in law enforcement.

The principal issues were (1) how far absolute prosecutorial immunity extends when prosecutors disseminate Brady/Giglio information outside specific criminal cases, and (2) whether Martin plausibly alleged a Fourteenth Amendment procedural due process violation—despite his resignation—sufficient to defeat qualified immunity at the pleading stage.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Seventh Circuit held:

• Absolute immunity applies to prosecutors’ filing of Brady/Giglio disclosures within criminal cases involving Martin, because such acts are “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.”
• Absolute immunity does not apply to prosecutors’ extra-judicial dissemination of Brady/Giglio disclosures to the Tippecanoe County Bar Association, the Town of Dayton, or (as alleged) the Town of Flora, because those acts were not “functionally prosecutorial” and were not tethered to contemplated or existing charges.
• Martin plausibly alleged a procedural due process violation under the Fourteenth Amendment because a resignation induced by material misrepresentations can be coerced; if the Sheriff (and alleged co-conspirators) promised neutrality while intending to broadly disseminate damaging allegations, Martin’s resignation could be involuntary.
• The right not to be induced to resign from public employment by material misrepresentations was clearly established (citing Spreen v. Brey and Dusanek v. Hannon), so defendants (to the extent not absolutely immune) were not entitled to qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage.

Accordingly, the court reversed dismissal of the federal claim against the Sheriff and of the non-case-related disclosure claims against the prosecutors, affirmed dismissal insofar as absolute immunity barred claims based on disclosures filed within criminal cases, and remanded for further proceedings (including potential later resolution of qualified immunity at summary judgment).

3. Analysis

A. Precedents Cited

1) Pleading and review standards

• Martin v. Haling (accept complaint allegations as true at the motion-to-dismiss stage).
• Watkins v. Mohan (de novo review of dismissal).
• Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal (plausibility pleading standard).
• Fields v. Wharrie and Fosnight v. Jones (de novo review of immunity determinations).

2) Absolute immunity: source, purpose, and limits

• Imbler v. Pachtman (absolute immunity for core prosecutorial acts; § 1983 read with common-law immunities).
• Harlow v. Fitzgerald (baseline presumption favoring qualified immunity for executive officials; absolute immunity for certain functions).
• Burns v. Reed (absolute immunity is “strong medicine”; “quite sparing”; burden on official; no absolute immunity for advising police).
• Buckley v. Fitzsimmons and Forrester v. White (functional approach: nature of the act, not identity of actor; no absolute immunity for press conferences).
• Jones v. Cummings and Rehberg v. Paulk (functional approach and “advocate” requirement).
• Van de Kamp v. Goldstein (scope of prosecutorial functions covered by absolute immunity).
• Brunson v. Murray (reaffirming absolute immunity’s “strong medicine”).
• Gregoire v. Biddle (quoted via Imbler for the policy tradeoff: some wrongs go unredressed).

3) Seventh Circuit lines distinguishing prosecutorial advocacy from investigation/administration

• Bianchi v. McQueen (absolute immunity for “conduct that is functionally prosecutorial”).
• Foreman v. Wadsworth, Sides v. City of Champaign, Katz-Crank v. Haskett (examples of protected in-court or case-advocacy acts).
• Lewis v. Mills and Swetlik v. Crawford (no absolute immunity for investigative/administrative roles).

4) Brady/Giglio obligations and absolute immunity within cases

• Brady v. Maryland and Giglio v. United States (constitutional disclosure duties in criminal cases).
• Roldan v. Stroud (summarizing Brady/Giglio doctrine).
• Fields v. Wharrie (critical to this case: absolute immunity covers a prosecutor’s “actions and decisions pertaining to his fulfillment of Brady and Giglio” in criminal cases because the prosecutor acts as an officer of the court in the judicial phase).

5) Extra-judicial dissemination of Giglio information: persuasive authority adopted

• Stockdale v. Helper (Sixth Circuit: no absolute immunity for sending Giglio warnings to third parties detached from pending cases; “generic letter about generic cases”).
• Krile v. Lawyer (state court: administrative dissemination not covered by absolute immunity).
• Beck v. Phillips (state court: advising police not protected by absolute immunity).
• Hogan v. Hanks (materiality cannot be assessed in a vacuum; cited in analyzing why generic, untethered disclosures do not fit Giglio’s framework).

6) Qualified immunity and “clearly established” law

• Pearson v. Callahan (qualified immunity framework).
• Doe v. Gray (two-step qualified immunity in the Seventh Circuit).
• Hope v. Pelzer, District of Columbia v. Wesby, Anderson v. Creighton, Ashcroft v. al-Kidd (granularity required for “clearly established” law; no need for identical case but must be beyond debate).
• Hanson v. LeVan (qualified immunity may fail at pleadings yet succeed at summary judgment).

7) Procedural due process in public employment and coerced resignation

• Marion Cnty. Sheriff's Merit Bd. v. Peoples Broad. Corp. (Indiana deputies have a legitimate entitlement due to “for cause” protection).
• Ulrey v. Reichhart (general rule: voluntary resignation waives due process claim; but coercion and material misrepresentation can negate voluntariness).
• Spreen v. Brey (clearly established right: no inducement to resign through misrepresentation about consequences).
• Dusanek v. Hannon (supports clarity of the right in this circuit).

B. Legal Reasoning

1) The court’s functional line: “case-driven advocacy” versus extra-judicial administration

The court’s central move is to separate (i) Brady/Giglio filings in a case (core judicial-phase conduct) from (ii) dissemination outside cases (administrative, advisory, or reputational communications). Relying on Fields v. Wharrie, the panel reaffirmed that Brady/Giglio decisions in criminal litigation are absolutely immune because they occur “as an officer of the court embroiled in the judicial phase of the criminal process.” The rationale tracks Imbler v. Pachtman: exposing prosecutors to damages for in-case disclosure judgments could chill trial-level prosecutorial decisionmaking.

But the panel adopted and extended the logic of Stockdale v. Helper: when prosecutors broadcast Brady/Giglio allegations untethered to a pending or contemplated prosecution—e.g., to a bar association listserv or to a municipal employer—those acts are not “functionally prosecutorial” under Bianchi v. McQueen and Buckley v. Fitzsimmons. They are “generic” communications about “generic cases,” closer to advising police or administrative coordination, which Burns v. Reed and related precedent treat as outside absolute immunity.

2) Application to each channel of dissemination

• Filed disclosures in criminal cases: absolutely immune (classic Brady/Giglio fulfillment; judicial-phase nexus; motives irrelevant under Tobey v. Chibucos).
• Disclosure to the Tippecanoe County Bar Association: not absolutely immune. The audience was broad, the document resembled a template, and the court found no “obvious connection to any active criminal cases.” Even if “advocacy,” it was not “case-driven advocacy” (quoting Stockdale v. Helper).
• Email to the Town of Dayton: not absolutely immune. The prosecutors themselves characterized it as “advising a law enforcement agency,” which Burns v. Reed states does not receive absolute immunity.
• Communication to the Town of Flora: not absolutely immune, especially given Flora was outside Tippecanoe County—making any claim of prosecutorial necessity particularly attenuated. As pleaded, it looked like “meddling with the hiring … decisions” rather than litigation conduct (again echoing Stockdale v. Helper).

3) Coerced resignation as a procedural due process deprivation

On the due process merits for qualified immunity purposes, the court treated Martin as possessing a protected property interest under Indiana’s “for cause” regime (IND. CODE § 36-8-10-11(a); Marion Cnty. Sheriff's Merit Bd. v. Peoples Broad. Corp.). The typical defense—that resignation is voluntary and waives process—comes from Ulrey v. Reichhart. The panel, however, emphasized Ulrey’s exception: “a material misrepresentation that induces resignation can constitute coercion.” Martin plausibly alleged that he resigned and waived the merit-board hearing based on the promise of charge withdrawal and a neutral reference, while defendants allegedly intended to (and did) publicize the allegations immediately. At the pleading stage, that alleged bait-and-switch was sufficient to treat the resignation as coerced and thus to allege a deprivation “without due process of law.”

4) “Clearly established” right: the court narrows the right at the correct level of generality

The prosecutors attempted to frame the right as one prohibiting Brady/Giglio disclosures. The panel rejected that framing as misconceived because the constitutional injury alleged was the inducement to resign by misrepresentation—not the mere act of disclosure. Properly framed, the clearly established right was: a public employee may not be induced to resign by material misrepresentations about the consequences of resignation. The court found this right clearly established through Spreen v. Brey (explicitly holding the right clearly established) and Dusanek v. Hannon. That sufficed under Hope v. Pelzer, District of Columbia v. Wesby, and Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, and defeated qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage.

C. Impact

1) Immunity doctrine: a meaningful constraint on absolute immunity in Brady/Giglio “list” practices

The opinion establishes (at least within the Seventh Circuit) a sharper boundary: absolute immunity remains robust for Brady/Giglio litigation filings, but it does not automatically extend to broad, preemptive, or reputational dissemination of Brady/Giglio allegations outside the judicial process. This is consequential in an era of “Brady lists” and “preemptive Giglio letters” referenced in the opinion, where prosecutors and offices increasingly share credibility determinations with law enforcement agencies and professional communities.

2) Litigation strategy and pleading consequences

Plaintiffs challenging extra-judicial Brady/Giglio communications will likely emphasize (i) the absence of a pending case nexus, (ii) wide distribution, and (iii) employment or reputational targeting to defeat absolute immunity early. Defendants, conversely, may try to demonstrate concrete linkage to identified prosecutions or narrowly tailored, case-specific needs to recharacterize communications as preparatory to judicial advocacy under Buckley v. Fitzsimmons.

3) Public employment exits: severance agreements and due process

For public employers, the decision is a warning that resignation/settlement agreements used to avoid a hearing do not eliminate due process exposure if the resignation is procured by material misrepresentation. For public employees, the decision strengthens the viability of § 1983 procedural due process claims where a “voluntary resignation” was secured by deceptive assurances about how allegations would be handled.

4) Practical institutional impact

Prosecutors may respond by formalizing policies that (i) limit extra-judicial dissemination, (ii) tie communications to identified pending cases, or (iii) adopt procedural safeguards when communicating officer-credibility concerns to employers. Law enforcement agencies may revise hiring and discipline protocols to avoid overreliance on non-adjudicated Giglio allegations and to document independent decisionmaking.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

• Absolute immunity: A complete shield from damages liability for certain functions (here, core prosecutorial advocacy in the judicial phase). If it applies, the case is dismissed as to those acts even if the official acted maliciously.
• Qualified immunity: A conditional shield. Officials avoid damages unless they violated a constitutional right that was “clearly established” at the time.
• Functional approach: Courts look at what the official was doing (advocacy vs. administration/investigation), not the official’s job title.
• Brady/Giglio disclosures: Prosecutors must disclose certain evidence to criminal defendants—exculpatory evidence (Brady v. Maryland) and impeachment/credibility evidence (Giglio v. United States).
• “Untethered” disclosure: A disclosure not tied to a specific pending (or contemplated) criminal case; the court treated such disclosures as outside the judicial process.
• Procedural due process and coerced resignation: If a public employee has a job protection (like “for cause” termination), the government generally must provide fair procedures before depriving that interest. A resignation normally waives those procedures, but not if the resignation was effectively forced through material deception.

5. Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit’s decision draws a consequential line for modern Brady/Giglio practices: prosecutors retain absolute immunity for Brady/Giglio disclosures filed within criminal cases, but not for broad, extra-judicial dissemination of such allegations to third parties absent a case-specific nexus. At the same time, the court reaffirmed that “voluntary resignation” does not categorically defeat procedural due process claims when resignation is induced by material misrepresentation—a right clearly established in this circuit since Spreen v. Brey and Dusanek v. Hannon. The remand positions the case for factual development on whether the resignation bargain was a genuine settlement or a deceptive mechanism to procure waiver of a merit-board hearing while ensuring reputational and career destruction through non-immune, extra-judicial disclosures.