Cite as: 522 U. S. 118 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
the statute should be construed to provide an analogous defense against the claims asserted by Imbler. The policy considerations that justified the common-law decisions affording absolute immunity to prosecutors when performing traditional functions applied equally to statutory claims based on the conduct of the same functions.
Those considerations included both the interest in protecting the prosecutor from harassing litigation that would divert his time and attention from his official duties and the interest in enabling him to exercise independent judgment when "deciding which suits to bring and in conducting them in court." Id., at 424. The former interest would lend support to an immunity from all litigation against the occupant of the office whereas the latter is applicable only when the official is performing functions that require the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. Our later cases have made it clear that it is the interest in protecting the proper functioning of the office, rather than the interest in protecting its occupant, that is of primary importance.
In Imbler, we did not attempt to define the outer limits of the prosecutor's absolute immunity, but we did recognize that our rationale would not encompass some of his official activities. Thus, while we concluded that Pachtman's "activities were intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process, and thus were functions to which the reasons for absolute immunity apply with full force," id., at 430, we put to one side "those aspects of the prosecutor's responsibility that cast him in the role of an administrator or investigative officer rather than that of advocate," id., at 430-431.
Subsequent cases have confirmed the importance to the judicial process of protecting the prosecutor when serving as an advocate in judicial proceedings. Thus, in Burns v. Reed, 500 U. S. 478 (1991), after noting the consensus among the Courts of Appeals concerning prosecutorial conduct before grand juries, id., at 490, n. 6, we held that the prosecutor's
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