Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/168

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MIRELES v. WACO Per Curiam

v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547 (1967).1 Although unfairness and injustice to a litigant may result on occasion, “it is a general principle of the highest importance to the proper administration of justice that a judicial officer, in exercising the authority vested in him, shall be free to act upon his own convictions, without apprehension of personal consequences to himself.” Bradley v. Fisher, 13 Wall. 335, 347 (1872). In this case, respondent Howard Waco, a Los Angeles County public defender, filed suit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, against petitioner, Raymond Mireles, a judge of the California Superior Court, and two police officers, for damages arising from an incident in November 1989 at the Superior Court building in Van Nuys, Cal. Waco alleged that after he failed to appear for the initial call of Judge Mireles’ morning calendar, the judge, “angered by the absence of attorneys from his courtroom,” ordered the police officer defendants “to forcibly and with excessive force seize and bring plaintiff into his courtroom.” App. to Pet. for Cert. B–3, ¶ 7(a). The officers allegedly “by means of unreasonable force and violence seize[d] plaintiff and remove[d] him backwards” from another courtroom where he was waiting to appear, cursed him, and called him “vulgar and offensive names,” then “without necessity slammed” him through the doors and swinging gates into Judge Mireles’ courtroom. Id., at B–4, ¶ 7(c). Judge Mireles, it was alleged, “knowingly and deliberately approved and ratified each of the aforedescribed acts” of the police officers. Ibid. Waco demanded general and punitive damages. Id., at B–5 and B–6. 1 The Court, however, has recognized that a judge is not absolutely immune from criminal liability, Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, 348–349 (1880), or from a suit for prospective injunctive relief, Pulliam v. Allen, 466 U. S. 522, 536–543 (1984), or from a suit for attorney’s fees authorized by statute, id., at 543–544.