Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-659_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 22.0

Cite as:  596 U. S. ____ (2022) 

7 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

most always imposes a purely objective standard.  See su-
pra, at 4. 

II 

The  Court’s  recognition  of  a  Fourth  Amendment  mali-

cious-prosecution claim has no basis in our precedents. 

A 
The Court relies on certain lower court decisions that ac-
cepted  the  strange  concept  of  a  Fourth  Amendment  mali-
cious-prosecution claim, but that line of cases developed in
large  part  because  of  a  misunderstanding  of  the  tersely 
worded  plurality  opinion  in  Albright,  510  U. S.  266.    See 
Hernandez-Cuevas v. Taylor, 723 F. 3d 91, 99 (CA1 2013) 
(noting  that  “dicta”  in  Albright  led  many  jurisdictions  to
“recogniz[e]  a  Fourth  Amendment  malicious  prosecution
claim”).  Instead  of  simply  accepting  that  misreading,  we 
should explain what Albright actually decided and what the 
plurality said.

In that case, Kevin Albright was arrested and bound over 
for trial without probable cause.  The prosecution was dis-
missed  before  trial,  and  Albright  then  sued  under  42
U. S. C. §1983.  The District Court dismissed his suit; the 
Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal; and when the case
was  argued  in  this  Court,  the  only  claim  that  Albright
pressed was that his prosecution without probable cause vi-
olated substantive due process.  510 U. S., at 268 (plurality 
opinion).  He did not advance either a Fourth Amendment 
claim or a malicious-prosecution claim.

This Court affirmed the dismissal of Albright’s substan-
tive due process claim, and while no opinion gained major-
ity approval, both the four Justices who joined the plurality 
opinion and the three justices who concurred  in the judg-
ment agreed that substantive due process  does not include 
the  right  to  be  free  from  prosecution  without  probable