Retaliatory arrest and prosecution

A retaliatory arrest or retaliatory prosecution is an arrest or prosecution undertaken in retaliation for a person's exercise of their civil rights. It is a form of prosecutorial misconduct.

United States

Fane Lozman's arrest at a Riviera Beach City Council meeting in 2006

In Hartman v. Moore in 2006, the United States Supreme Court ruled that for a prosecution to be found retaliatory, it must have been brought without probable cause.^[1][2]

In the 2018 case of Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, Riviera Beach, Florida argued that the logic of Hartman extended to retaliatory arrest. The Supreme Court issued a narrow ruling that plaintiff Fane Lozman was able to bring the claim despite there having been probable cause for his arrest.^[3][4] A year later, they answered the broader question, holding in Nieves v. Bartlett that probable cause defeats a claim of retaliatory arrest unless the plaintiff can show that others are typically not been arrested for similar conduct.^[5][6]

See also

• Contempt of cop
• Arbitrary arrest and detention
• 42 U.S.C. § 1983, governing claims against state actors for denial of constitutional rights
• Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, governing claims against federal actors

References

1. Wasserman, Howard M. (19 November 2018). "Argument preview: Probable cause, retaliatory arrests, and the First Amendment". Retrieved 2 February 2022.
2. Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250 (2006).
3. Lozman v. City of Riviera Beach, 585 U.S. ___ (2018).
4. Jesse D. H. Snyder, What Fane Lozman Can Teach Us About Free Speech, 19 Wyo. L. Rev. 419, 445–447 (2019).
5. Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U.S. ___ (2019).
6. Frazelle, Brian (31 May 2019). "The Supreme Court Just Made It Easier for Police to Arrest You for Filming Them". Slate. Retrieved 31 May 2019.