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False Arrest and Malicious Prosecution

The claims available to a person detained without probable cause or prosecuted without it - the state torts, their constitutional counterparts, and the favourable-termination rule that decides when a malicious-prosecution claim can be brought at all.

Informational only - this is not legal advice. These definitions explain general legal vocabulary in plain English. They are not advice about your situation, reading them creates no attorney-client relationship, and the law differs from state to state and changes over time. For advice you can rely on, speak to a lawyer licensed in your state.

What it means

False arrest, or false imprisonment, is being held against one's will without legal authority. Against a police officer that ordinarily means an arrest without probable cause - without facts that would lead a reasonable officer to believe a crime had been committed by the person arrested. Probable cause is a complete defence: an arrest supported by it is lawful even if the person is innocent, and an arrest under a facially valid warrant is generally lawful even if the warrant later proves mistaken, unless the officer obtained it by lying or with reckless disregard for the truth. A private person - a shop security guard, for example - can also commit false imprisonment, and the shopkeeper's privilege that many states give retailers to detain a suspected shoplifter is limited to a reasonable manner and time.

Malicious prosecution is the claim for being put through a criminal (or, in many states, a civil) proceeding that was begun without probable cause and with malice, and that ended in the accused's favour. The favourable-termination element is the one that shapes timing: the claim cannot be brought until the prosecution is over, the limitation period does not begin until then, and the Supreme Court has held that for the constitutional version a termination in the accused's favour means only that the prosecution ended without a conviction - a dismissal is enough, and an affirmative showing of innocence is not required. A prosecutor is absolutely immune for the decision to charge; the claim lies against the officer or complainant who supplied false information or withheld exculpatory evidence to cause the charge.

Each of these exists in two versions. The state tort is brought against the officer and, through vicarious liability, the municipality, subject to the state's tort claims act and notice rules. The federal version is a Fourth Amendment claim under the civil-rights statute for a seizure without probable cause, whether at arrest or through the legal process that followed, with qualified immunity available to the officer: an officer who reasonably, though wrongly, believed probable cause existed is protected. The two are usually pleaded together, and their elements, defendants and deadlines differ.

Where this comes from

False imprisonment and malicious prosecution are state common-law torts, restated in Restatement (Second) of Torts §§ 35-45A and §§ 653-673; the shopkeeper's privilege is state statute or common law. The constitutional claim proceeds under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007), fixes when a false-arrest claim accrues; Manuel v. City of Joliet, 580 U.S. 357 (2017), recognises a Fourth Amendment claim for pretrial detention without probable cause; Thompson v. Clark, 596 U.S. 36 (2022), holds that favourable termination requires only that the prosecution ended without a conviction; and Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon, 602 U.S. 556 (2024), holds that a claim may proceed as to a charge lacking probable cause even where other charges were supported. Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335 (1986), and Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154 (1978), govern warrants procured with false statements. Prosecutorial immunity is Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976).

When people hire a lawyer for this

The deadlines here are the trap: the false-arrest clock starts at the arraignment, not at the acquittal, so a person who waits for the criminal case to end before seeing a civil lawyer may find the arrest claim gone while the malicious-prosecution claim is only just ripe. A lawyer will preserve the arrest and booking records, the warrant application and the body-camera footage, and will file the tort-claims notice against the city, which runs on its own short clock. In a case that ended in a plea to anything, even a reduced charge, expect to be told the malicious-prosecution claim is barred - and ask about the arrest claim instead.

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Part of the LawyerLand plain-English legal glossary. Definitions are written from primary sources - statutes and court rules - and each entry states the authority it rests on, or says plainly when the doctrine is state law with no national rule.

If you cannot afford a lawyer, civil legal aid programmes provide free help with many of these problems: civil legal aid programmes by state.

Related free reference tools: statute of limitations for a personal-injury claim, by state, quoted from each state's official text - part of LawyerLand's legal reference tools.