574
OCTOBER TERM, 1997
Syllabus
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit
No. 96-827. Argued December 1, 1997—Decided May 4, 1998
Petitioner is a litigious and outspoken prisoner in the District of Columbia's correctional system. Because of overcrowding at the District's prison, he was transferred, first to Washington State, then to facilities in several other locations, and ultimately to Florida. His belongings were transferred separately. When the District's Department of Corrections received his belongings from Washington State, respondent, a District correctional officer, had petitioner's brother-in-law pick them up, rather than shipping them directly to petitioner's next destination. Petitioner did not recover the belongings until several months after he reached Florida. He filed suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging, inter alia, that respondent's diversion of his property was motivated by an intent to retaliate against him for exercising his First Amendment rights. The District Court dismissed the complaint. In remanding, the en banc Court of Appeals concluded, among other things, that in an unconstitutional-motive case, a plaintiff must establish motive by clear and convincing evidence, and that the reasoning in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S. 800, requires special procedures to protect defendants from the costs of litigation.
Held: The Court of Appeals erred in fashioning a heightened burden of proof for unconstitutional-motive cases against public officials. Pp. 584-601.
(a) That court adopted a clear and convincing evidence requirement to deal with a potentially serious problem: because an official's state of mind is easy to allege and hard to disprove, insubstantial claims turning on improper intent may be less amenable to summary disposition than other types of claims against government officials. The standard was intended to protect public servants from the burdens of trial and discovery that may impair the performance of their official duties. Pp. 584-586.
(b) Harlow's holding does not support the imposition of a heightened proof standard for a plaintiff's affirmative case. In Harlow, the Court found that the President's senior aides and advisers were protected by a qualified immunity standard that would permit the defeat of insubstantial claims without resort to trial. The Court announced a single objective standard for judging that defense, shielding officials from "lia-
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