A retaliatory arrest or retaliatory prosecution is an
arrest or
prosecution
A prosecutor is a legal representative of the prosecution in states with either the common law adversarial system or the civil law inquisitorial system. The prosecution is the legal party responsible for presenting the case in a criminal tri ...
undertaken in retaliation for a person's exercise of their
civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and political life ...
. It is a form of
prosecutorial misconduct
In jurisprudence, prosecutorial misconduct or prosecutorial overreach is "an illegal act or failing to act, on the part of a prosecutor, especially an attempt to sway the jury to wrongly convict a defendant or to impose a harsher than appropri ...
.
United States
In ''
Hartman v. Moore'' in 2006, the
United States Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point ...
ruled that for a prosecution to be found retaliatory, it must have been brought without
probable cause
In United States criminal law, probable cause is the standard by which police authorities have reason to obtain a warrant for the arrest of a suspected criminal or the issuing of a search warrant. There is no universally accepted definition or ...
.
In the 2018 case of ''
Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach'',
Riviera Beach, Florida
Riviera Beach is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States, which was incorporated September 29, 1922. Due to the location of its eastern boundary, it is also the easternmost municipality in the Miami metropolitan area, which was home to ...
argued that the logic of ''Hartman'' extended to retaliatory arrest. The Supreme Court issued a narrow ruling that plaintiff
Fane Lozman
Fane Lozman is an American inventor and futures and options trader known for his long-running legal battles with the city of Riviera Beach, Florida. His litigation against the city has reached the U.S. Supreme Court twice: a 2013 case about wheth ...
was able to bring the claim despite there having been probable cause for his arrest.
A year later, they answered the broader question, holding in ''
Nieves v. Bartlett
''Nieves v. Bartlett'', 587 U.S. 391 (2019), was a civil rights case in which the Supreme Court of the United States decided that probable cause should generally defeat a retaliatory arrest claim brought under the First Amendment, unless officers ...
'' that probable cause defeats a claim of retaliatory arrest unless the plaintiff can show that others are typically not been arrested for similar conduct.
See also
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Contempt of cop
"Contempt of cop" is law enforcement jargon in the United States for behavior by people toward law enforcement officers that the officers perceive as disrespectful or insufficiently deferential to their authority. It is a play on the phrase '' cont ...
*
Arbitrary arrest and detention
Arbitrary arrest and arbitrary detention are the arrest or detention of an individual in a case in which there is no likelihood or evidence that they committed a crime against legal statute, or in which there has been no proper due process of la ...
*
42 U.S.C. § 1983
The Enforcement Act of 1871 (), also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act, Third Enforcement Act, Third Ku Klux Klan Act, Civil Rights Act of 1871, or Force Act of 1871, is an Act of the United States Congress which empowered the President to suspend t ...
, governing claims against state actors for denial of constitutional rights
* ''
Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents
''Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents'', 403 U.S. 388 (1971), was a case in which the US Supreme Court ruled that an implied cause of action existed for an individual whose Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizures had b ...
'', governing claims against federal actors
References
Political repression
Abuse of the legal system
Law enforcement terminology
Criminal law
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Articles containing video clips
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