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CHIAVERINI v. CITY OF NAPOLEON 

Syllabus 

Under the Fourth Amendment, a pretrial detention counts as an un-
reasonable  seizure,  and  so  is  illegal,  unless  it  is  based  on  probable 
cause.  See Manuel v. Joliet, 580 U. S. 357, at 364–369.  Even when a 
detention is justified at the outset, moreover, it may become unreason-
ably prolonged if the reason for it lapses.  Rodriguez v. United States, 
575 U. S., 348, 354–357.  So if an invalid charge causes a detention to 
start or continue, then the Fourth Amendment is violated.  Bringing 
the invalid charge alongside a valid one does not categorically preclude
this possibility.  As the starkest possible example, consider a person 
detained on a drug offense supported by probable cause and a gun of-
fense that is not.  If the prosecutor drops the gun charge, leaving the 
person in jail on the drug charge alone, then the baseless charge has 
caused a constitutional violation by unreasonably extending the deten-
tion.  The person should not be categorically barred from bringing a 
Fourth Amendment malicious-prosecution claim just because the base-
less charge was brought along with a good one. 

The  same  conclusion  follows  from  the  common-law  principles  gov-
erning malicious-prosecution suits.  This Court has analogized claims
like Chiaverini’s to the common-law tort of malicious prosecution, and 
has  explained  that  the  tort  can  inform  courts’  understanding  of  this 
type  of  claim.    Thompson  v.  Clark,  596  U. S.  36,  43–44.    A  plaintiff
bringing a common-law malicious-prosecution suit had to show that an
official initiated a charge without probable cause.  But he did not have 
to show that every charge brought against him lacked an adequate ba-
sis.  See, e.g., Barron v. Mason, 31 Vt. 189, 198 (it was no “defen[s]e
that there was probable cause for part of the prosecution”). 

These uncontested points suffice to doom the Sixth Circuit’s categor-
ical rule barring a Fourth Amendment malicious-prosecution claim if 
any charge is valid.  Of course, a Fourth Amendment malicious-prose-
cution  suit  depends  not  just  on  an  unsupported  charge,  but  on  that 
charge’s  causing  a  seizure—like  the  arrest  and  three-day  detention
here.  The parties and amicus curiae offer three different views of how 
that causation element is met when a valid charge is also in the pic-
ture.  But this issue is not properly before the Court, so the Sixth Cir-
cuit should address it on remand. Pp. 4–8. 

Vacated and remanded. 

KAGAN, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., 
and  SOTOMAYOR,  KAVANAUGH,  BARRETT,  and  JACKSON,  JJ.,  joined. 
THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which ALITO, J., joined. GOR-
SUCH, J., filed a dissenting opinion.