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6 

CHIAVERINI v. CITY OF NAPOLEON 

Opinion of the Court 

starkest  possible  example.  A  person  is  detained  on  two
charges—a drug offense supported by probable cause and a
gun offense built on lies.  The prosecutor, for whatever rea-
son, drops the (valid) drug charge, leaving the person in jail
on the (invalid) gun charge alone.  The inclusion of the base-
less charge—though brought along with a good charge—has
thus caused a constitutional violation, by unreasonably ex-
tending the pretrial detention.  Even the Napoleon officers 
agree, offering a similar example.  See Brief for Officers 25; 
see also Brief for United States 17–18.  So the bringing of 
one valid charge in a criminal proceeding should not cate-
gorically preclude a claim based on the Fourth Amendment.
And  the  same  conclusion  follows  from  the  common-law 
principles  governing  malicious-prosecution  suits  when 
§1983  was  enacted.  As  noted  above,  a  plaintiff  in  such  a
suit had to show that an official initiated a charge without
probable cause.  See Thompson, 596 U. S., at 44; supra, at 
4–5.  He did not have to show, however, that every charge
brought  against  him  lacked  an  adequate  basis.    Rather, 
courts in that era assessed probable cause charge by charge. 
“[I]f groundless charges” are “coupled with others which are
well  founded,”  explained  one  State  Supreme  Court,  the 
groundless ones could still “constitute a valid cause of ac-
tion.”  Boogher  v.  Bryant,  86  Mo.  42,  49  (1885).    Another 
agreed: It was no “defen[s]e that there was probable cause
for part of the prosecution.”  Barron v. Mason, 31 Vt. 189, 
198 (1858).  Or as a leading treatise from the era summa-
rized the rule: “It is not necessary that the whole proceed-
ings  be  utterly  groundless.”    2  S.  Greenleaf,  Law  of  Evi-
dence 400 (10th ed. 1868); see 1 F. Hilliard, Law of Torts or 
Private Wrongs §1, p. 435, n. (b) (4th ed. 1874).  One bad 
charge, even if joined with good ones, was enough to satisfy 
the  malicious-prosecution  tort’s  “without  probable  cause”
element. 

All that dooms the Sixth Circuit’s categorical rule barring
a  Fourth  Amendment  malicious-prosecution  claim  if  any