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Opinion of the Court
nity under § 1983." Id., at 424. Those considerations 4 supported a rule of absolute immunity for conduct of prosecutors that was "intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process." Id., at 430. In concluding that "in initiating a prosecution and in presenting the State's case, the prosecutor is immune from a civil suit for damages under § 1983," we did not attempt to describe the line between a prosecutor's acts in preparing for those functions, some of which would be absolutely immune, and his acts of investigation or "administration," which would not. Id., at 431, and n. 33.
We applied the Imbler analysis two Terms ago in Burns
v. Reed, 500 U. S. 478 (1991). There the § 1983 suit challenged two acts by a prosecutor: (1) giving legal advice to the police on the propriety of hypnotizing a suspect and on whether probable cause existed to arrest that suspect, and (2) participating in a probable-cause hearing. We held that only the latter was entitled to absolute immunity. Immunity for that action under § 1983 accorded with the common-law absolute immunity of prosecutors and other attorneys for eliciting false or defamatory testimony from witnesses or for making false or defamatory statements during, and related to, judicial proceedings. Id., at 489-490; id., at 501 (Scalia, J., concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in
4 In particular, we expressed concern that fear of potential liability would undermine a prosecutor's performance of his duties by forcing him to consider his own potential liability when making prosecutorial decisions and by diverting his "energy and attention . . . from the pressing duty of enforcing the criminal law." Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U. S., at 424-425. Suits against prosecutors would devolve into "a virtual retrial of the criminal offense of a new forum," id., at 425, and would undermine the vigorous enforcement of the law by providing a prosecutor an incentive not "to go forward with a close case where an acquittal likely would trigger a suit against him for damages," id., at 426, and n. 24. We also expressed concern that the availability of a damages action might cause judges to be reluctant to award relief to convicted defendants in post-trial motions. Id., at 427.
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