Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-50diff_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 17.0

Cite as:  602 U. S. ____ (2024) 

1 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

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No. 23–50 
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JASCHA CHIAVERINI, ET AL., PETITIONERS 
v. CITY OF NAPOLEON, OHIO, ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT 

[June 20, 2024] 

JUSTICE GORSUCH, dissenting. 
Section 1983 performs vital work by permitting individu-
als to vindicate their constitutional rights in federal court.
But it does not authorize this Court to expound new rights 
of its own creation.  As this Court has put it, §1983 does not 
turn the Constitution into a “ ‘ “font of tort law.” ’ ”  Albright 
v. Oliver, 510 U. S. 266, 284 (1994) (Kennedy, J., concurring
in judgment) (quoting Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U. S. 527, 544 
(1981)).

Despite that settled rule, the Court today doubles down
on a new tort of its own recent invention—what it calls a 
“Fourth  Amendment  malicious-prosecution”  cause  of  ac-
tion.  Ante, at 1; see Thompson v. Clark, 596 U. S. 36, 43– 
44 (2022).  Respectfully, it is hard to know where this tort
comes  from.    Stare  for  as  long  as  you  like  at  the  Fourth 
Amendment  and  you  won’t  see  anything  about  prosecu-
tions, malicious or otherwise.  Instead, the Amendment pro-
vides that “[t]he right of the people to be secure . . . against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.” 
As  its  language  suggests,  the  Fourth  Amendment  sup-
plies nothing like a common-law claim for malicious prose-
cution.  Ante, at 2 (THOMAS, J., dissenting); see Cordova v. 
Albuquerque,  816  F. 3d  645,  662–663  (CA10  2016)  (Gor-
such, J., concurring in judgment).  Just consider some of the 
differences.  This Court has long held that the touchstone