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Nos. 77-1698, 77-1210 & 77-1370 59 according to their own characterizations, law enforce- ment officials investigating potential wrongdoing. It is a firmly established rule that such activity by state law enforcement officiais warrants only qualified immunity. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547 (1967). And as the Supreme Court observed in Butz: “We see no sense ... in dis- tinguishing between state and federal police par- ticipating in the same investigation.” Butz, supra at 4958. Thus we conclude that the federal defendants in this case are not absolutely immune from liability for their actions and are protected only by the doctrine of qualified official immunity. C. Qualified Immunity The test for applying the doctrine of qualified im- munity to a given defendant was most recently restated by the Supreme Court in Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U.S. 555 (1978). See also Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 808 (1975); Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 282 (1974). The Court in Procunier described the two circumstances in which an official ordinarily insulated by qualified im- munity would be exposed to section 1983 liability. First, the Court said: [T]he immunity defense would be unavailing to petitioners if the constitutional right allegedly in- fringed by them was clearly established at the time of their challenged conduct, if they knew or should have known of that right, and if they knew or should have known that their conduct violated the constitutional norm. Procunier, supra, 484 U.S. at 562. See Wood, supra, 420 U.S. at 322. Alternatively, the Court stated that qualified immunity is not available where the official has acted with “malicious inten- tion” to deprive the plaintiff of a constitutional right or to cause him “other injury.” This part of the rule speaks of “intentional injury,” con- templating that the actor intends the consequences of his conduct. See Restatement (Second) of Torts § 8A (1965). Procunier, supra, 484 U.S. at 566.