Wilbur Sargeant, Sr. and Joanne Sargeant, Husband and Wife,plaintiffs-appellants, v. Elizabeth L. Schoedel, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Forspokane County, and Spokane County, a Politicalsub-division of the State of Washington,defendants-appellees, 76 F.3d 388 (9th Cir. 1996)

Before: Judges D.W. NELSON, and NOONAN, Circuit Judges, and TANNER,^*  District Judge

ORDER^** 

The district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Elizabeth L. Schoedel and Spokane County is AFFIRMED. The County is a political subdivision that acts as an "arm of the state" so that the state is the real party in interest, entitling the County to Eleventh Amendment immunity. See Stones v. Los Angeles Community College Dist., 572 F. Supp. 1072, 1076 (C.D. Cal. 1983), aff'd 796 F.2d 270 (9th Cir. 1986); Belanger v. Madera Unified School Dist., 963 F.2d 248, 250-51 (9th Cir. 1992) cert. denied, 113 S. Ct. 1280 (1993). Schoedel is entitled to absolute prosecutorial immunity because her actions were "intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process." Fry v. Melaragno, 939 F.2d 832, 837 (9th Cir. 1991).