A retaliatory arrest or retaliatory prosecution is an
arrest
An arrest is the act of apprehending and taking a person into custody (legal protection or control), usually because the person has been suspected of or observed committing a crime. After being taken into custody, the person can be questi ...
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 trial ...
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 of ...
. 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
''Hartman v. Moore'', 547 U.S. 250 (2006), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the pleading standard for retaliatory prosecution claims against government officials. After a successful lobbying attempt by the CEO ...
'' 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 o ...
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 f ...
.
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 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'' 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
*
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 ''co ...
*
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 law ...
*
42 U.S.C. § 1983, governing claims against state actors for denial of constitutional rights
* ''
Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents'', governing claims against federal actors
References
Political repression
Abuse of the legal system
Law enforcement terminology
Criminal law
*
Articles containing video clips
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