Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-50diff_d18f.pdf
Page Number: 10

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

7 

Opinion of the Court 

charge  is  valid.    That  rule  receives  support  from  neither 
half of the claim’s name—neither from the Fourth Amend-
ment  nor  from  the  malicious-prosecution  tort  we  have  in-
voked  as  an  analogy.  And  the  question  is  not  close,  as 
shown by the parties’ decision not to contest it in this Court.
The parties, almost needless to say, have found a substi-
tute ground of disagreement, involving the element of cau-
sation.  As noted earlier, a Fourth Amendment malicious-
prosecution  suit  depends  not  just  on  an  unsupported
charge, but on that charge’s causing a seizure—like the ar-
rest and three-day detention here.  See supra, at 4–5.  The 
parties and amicus curiae offer three different views of how 
that causation element is met when a valid charge is also
in the picture.  Chiaverini’s test is the easiest to satisfy.  On 
his view, when both valid and invalid charges are brought 
before a judge for a probable cause determination, the war-
rant the judge issues is irretrievably tainted; so any deten-
tion depending on that warrant is the result of the invalid 
charge.  See Reply Brief 10–11 (citing Williams, 965 F. 3d, 
at  1165);  Tr.  of  Oral  Arg.  5–6,  26–28.  The  United  States 
disagrees, arguing for the use of a but-for test to discover
whether  the  invalid  charge,  apart  from  the  valid  ones, 
caused a detention.  See id., at 41–43.  The question then
would  be  whether  the judge  “in  fact  [would]  have  author-
ized” the detention had the invalid charge not been present. 
Id., at 43.  And finally, the officers urge a still stricter test. 
In their view, the question is whether the judge, absent the
invalid  charge,  could  have  legally  authorized  the  deten-
tion—regardless  of  what  he  really  would  have  done.  See 
Brief for Officers 20–21. 

But that new dispute is not now fit for our resolution.  The 
test  for  finding  causation  is  no  part  of  the  question  we 
agreed to review.  For that reason, it was not fully briefed. 
And  most  important,  the  court  below  did  not  address  the 
matter, nor have many others.  “[W]e are a court of review, 
not of first view.”  Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 718,