191573P.pdf   06/29/2020  Jason Stockley  v.  Jennifer Joyce
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  19-1573
   U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis   
   [PUBLISHED] [Shepherd, Author, with Gruender and Arnold, Circuit Judges] 
   Civil case - Civil rights. In this Section 1983 action against the city 
   prosecutor, a police force investigator and the City by a former St. Louis 
   police officer who was acquitted of murdering a fleeing suspect in a drug 
   investigation, the district court did not err in determining that the 
   prosecutor was entitled to absolute immunity for her decision to charge 
   plaintiff with the offense; the prosecutor's decision that there was 
   sufficient evidence to end the police force's internal investigation and 
   charge plaintiff clearly falls within the prosecutorial function of 
   initiating judicial proceedings; while the prosecutor's actions in making 
   comments to the press that she had new evidence regarding plaintiff's 
   guilt were not protected by absolute immunity, the conduct did not 
   remotely rise to the conscience-shocking level and was not a substantive 
   due process violation; with respect to plaintiff's claim that the 
   prosecutor defamed plaintiff under Missouri law, the first part of her 
   comments - that she had new evidence - was not defamatory as a matter of 
   law; with respect to the second part of her statement - that the evidence 
   proved plaintiff was guilty of first-degree murder - he could not show 
   that the statements damaged his reputation where, as here, he was charged, 
   arrested and tried for first-degree murder; with respect to plaintiff's 
   claims that the internal affairs investigator violated his due process 
   rights by including false information and omitting material information in 
   the probable cause affidavit because an accurate affidavit would not have 
   resulted in a judicial finding of probable cause, the argument is 
   foreclosed by the Supreme Court's decision in Manuel v. City of Joliet, 
   137 S.Ct. 911 (2017) that such a claim is a Fourth Amendment claim and not 
   a due process clause claim; further, even with the additional information 
   and without the challenged information, it would not be impossible for the 
   issuing judicial officer to find probable cause; with respect to 
   plaintiff's claim that the officer's actions amounted to malicious 
   prosecution, plaintiff failed to state a claim under Missouri law; with 
   respect to plaintiff's Monell claim against the City, the prosecutor's 
   decision to terminate the internal affairs investigation and initiate a 
   criminal charge was an individual charging decision based upon a 
   particular set of facts supported by arguable probable cause, and the 
   conduct did not constitute municipal policy.