Lifetime Citizen Portal Access — AI Briefings, Alerts & Unlimited Follows
Supreme Court reaffirms Fourth Amendment route for malicious-prosecution claims, remands causation questions
Loading...
Summary
In a 6'03 decision discussed on the Federal Judicial Center's Term Talk podcast, the Supreme Court held that malicious-prosecution claims can proceed under the Fourth Amendment and ruled that probable cause for some charges does not automatically shield other charges; the Court remanded causation issues to the Sixth Circuit.
The Supreme Court held in a 6'03 decision that a malicious-prosecution claim may proceed under the Fourth Amendment and that the existence of probable cause for some charges does not necessarily insulate other charges from such claims, the guests on the Federal Judicial Center's Term Talk podcast explained.
Francesca Williams, education attorney for executive education at the Federal Judicial Center, moderated the discussion with Laurie Levinson, a law professor, and Evan Lee, an emeritus professor at University of California Law, San Francisco. The panel framed the ruling around two central questions: whether the Fourth Amendment supplies a route for malicious-prosecution suits and whether valid charges defeat claims based on other, allegedly illegitimate charges.
Laurie Levinson summarized the factual backdrop. The plaintiff, Ciaverini, who owned a jewelry store, refused to return a ring and in conversations with police acknowledged operating the business without a license. Police charged him with misdemeanors (receiving stolen property and dealing in precious metals without a license) and with a felony money-laundering count. He spent three days in jail; prosecutors later declined to pursue the charges, and he sued officers for malicious prosecution, disputing that he told police the property was stolen and contesting the value threshold for the felony count.
"You can bring such a claim as a violation of the Fourth Amendment," Levinson said, describing Thompson v. Clark (2022), which the Court relied on and reaffirmed in this opinion.
Evan Lee explained the Court's reasoning and disposition. The majority reaffirmed Thompson v. Clark's core holding that pretrial detention without probable cause can constitute an unreasonable seizure under the Fourth Amendment and thus can support a malicious-prosecution action under 42 U.S.C. '83. The opinion also made clear that the presence of probable cause for some charges does not automatically bar claims based on other charges that lacked probable cause.
The Court did not fully settle the causation question in this mixed-charges posture, Lee said. The opinion described different possible causation tests but concluded the issue was not properly presented and remanded the matter to the Sixth Circuit for initial consideration of how causation should be assessed in cases with some valid and some allegedly illegitimate charges.
Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented, arguing Thompson v. Clark was wrongly decided. According to Lee's summary, the dissenters said malicious prosecution under common law protects against the initiation of charges rather than detention and that an unreasonable-seizure analysis should not turn on an officer's motives.
A separate opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, Lee said, agreed with parts of the dissent's skepticism about locating malicious prosecution in the Fourth Amendment but suggested the Fourteenth Amendment's due process clause might be a more suitable constitutional basis for '83 malicious-prosecution claims, leaving that question open.
Lee distilled the practical takeaway: "just because you've got 1 or more charges that are supported by probable cause, that doesn't mean that charges not supported by probable cause can't give rise to a malicious prosecution action." He also noted the Court's 6'03 alignment: six votes to continue Thompson v. Clark, two to overrule it, and one to relocate the cause of action to the Fourteenth Amendment.
Because the Supreme Court remanded on causation, the Sixth Circuit will take the first step in applying a causation test to the mixed-charge record; lower courts across circuits that previously split on the question will now confront how to analyze causation and the degree to which valid charges affect malicious-prosecution claims.
The episode closed with Levinson emphasizing that the case leaves open an important frontier for lower courts: determining the proper causation framework in mixed-charge cases and how to separate charges that legitimately support detention from those that could sustain a malicious-prosecution action.
