Franklin

A witness has absolute immunity from liability for civil damages under § 1983 for giving perjured testimony at trial. See Briscoe v. LaHue, 460 U.S. 325, 326 , 103 S.Ct. 1108 , 75 L.Ed.2d 96 (1983). In this case of first impression, we must decide whether a witness also has absolute immunity from liability for civil damages under § 1983 for conspiring to present her own and another -witness’s perjured testimony at trial. The district court held that a witness has such immunity. See Franklin v. Terr, No. C-97-2443 CRB, 1998 WL 230983 , at *1 (N.D.Cal. Apr.30, 1998). We agree and affirm.

I.

In 1989, Eileen Franklin-Lipsker (“Franklin-Lipsker”) accused her father, George Franklin (“Franklin”), of murdering her childhood friend Susan Nason twenty years earlier. Franklin-Lipsker based her accusation on a memory that she claimed was previously repressed but recently recovered. Franklin was tried and convicted of first degree murder by a jury in California state court.

In 1995, the federal district court granted Franklin's petition for habeas corpus because it concluded that several constitutional errors had occurred during his trial. 1 See Franklin v. Duncan, 884 F.Supp. 1435, 1448…