Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/21pdf/20-659_3ea4.pdf
Page Number: 8.0

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

5 

Opinion of the Court 

prosecution.  See, e.g., Pitt v. District of Columbia, 491 F. 3d 
494,  510–511  (CADC  2007)  (“[N]early  every  other  Circuit 
has held that malicious prosecution is actionable under the 
Fourth Amendment to the extent that the defendant’s ac-
tions  cause  the  plaintiff  to  be  ‘seized’  without  probable 
cause”); Kossler, 564 F. 3d, at 186–187; Sykes v. Anderson, 
625 F. 3d 294, 308–309 (CA6 2010); Durham v. Horner, 690 
F. 3d  183,  188  (CA4  2012);  Myers  v.  Koopman,  738  F. 3d 
1190, 1194 (CA10 2013); Winfrey v. Rogers, 901 F. 3d 483, 
491–493 (CA5 2018); Lanning, 908 F. 3d, at 28; Jordan v. 
Waldoboro,  943  F. 3d  532,  545  (CA1  2019);  Williams  v. 
Aguirre, 965 F. 3d 1147, 1157 (CA11 2020).1 

The narrow dispute in this case concerns one element of 
the  Fourth  Amendment  claim  under  §1983  for  malicious
prosecution.  To determine the elements of a constitutional 
claim under §1983, this Court’s practice is to  first look to
the  elements  of  the  most  analogous  tort  as  of  1871  when
§1983  was  enacted,  so  long  as  doing  so  is  consistent  with
“the values and purposes of the constitutional right at is-
sue.”  Manuel, 580 U. S., at 370; see also Nieves v. Bartlett, 
587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (slip op., at 12); Heck, 512 U. S., at 
483.2 

Here,  as  most  of  the  Courts  of  Appeals  to  consider  the 

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1 Thompson also brought a Fourth Amendment claim for unreasonable
seizure (labeled a false arrest claim), based on his initial arrest before 
charges were filed against him.  But the jury ruled against him on the 
merits of that claim.  That claim is not before us, and we therefore do not 
consider it. 

2 Because this claim is housed in the Fourth Amendment, the plaintiff
also has to prove that the malicious prosecution resulted in a seizure of
the plaintiff.  See Manuel v. Joliet, 580 U. S. 357, 365–366 (2017).  It has 
been argued that the Due Process Clause could be an appropriate ana-
lytical home for a malicious prosecution claim under §1983.  See Albright 
v. Oliver, 510 U. S. 266, 281, 286 (1994) (Kennedy, J., concurring in judg-
ment).  If so, the plaintiff presumably would not have to prove that he 
was seized as a result of the malicious prosecution.  But we have no oc-
casion to consider such an argument here.