Argument of Chief Justice Rehnquist
Mr. Rehnquist: The third case is No. 97-1802, Conn versus Gabbert.
This case arises out of a high profile California murder trials of the Menendez Brothers.
The petitioners David Conn and Carol Najera were Los Angeles District Attorneys working on the case and the respondent Paul Gabbert is a criminal defense attorney.
The prosecutors believe that Tracy Baker one of Gabbert’s clients had perjured herself at the first Menendez’s trial.
It came to their attention that Baker might have in her possession a letter from one of the brothers relevant to the perjury investigation.
So Baker was ordered to bring the letter with her when she appeared before the grand jury.
On that day the prosecutors executed a search warrant upon Gabbert at the same time his client Baker was testifying before the grand jury.
This had the effect of preventing Baker from conferring with Gabbert during her testimony.
Gabbert believes that the timing and execution of the search warrant interfered with his liberty right to practice law protected by the Fourteenth Amendment and he sued the prosecutors.
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Gabbert had a clearly established right to practice his profession without undue and unreasonable government interference and that the prosecutors were not entitled to qualified immunity.
We disagree.
Although we have recognized that Fourteenth Amendment Liberty Right to choose and follow ones calling, we find no support in our cases for the Ninth Circuit’s conclusion that the Fourteenth Amendment Right asserted by Gabbert was violated in this case.
The cases which do establish this general right to practice ones callings, cases like Truax against Raich, Meyer against Nebraska dealt with complete prohibitions on the right not the sort of brief interruption as a result of legal process which occurred here.
To the extent that Gabbert argued that the use of a search warrant interfered with his clients purported right to have him present outside the jury room.
The court has never recognized such a right and even if it had Gabbert would have no standing to raise any alleged violation of the rights of his client.
We held in Graham against Conner that one of the explicit textural provision that Constitution protects the right, a court must assess a plaintiff’s claims under that provision and not under the generalized substantive due process protections of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Here if you have a complaint about the search warrant, early comes on to have the Fourth Amendment and not the Fourteenth Amendment, and we did not grant certiorari on the Fourth Amendment claim.
So the judgment on Ninth circuit is reversed.
Justice Stevens has filed an opinion concurring in the judgment.
