An element of a Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claim is a "deprivation of liberty" apart from the individual's initial arrest. But what is that liberty? The Sixth Circuit's recent decision in Webb v. United States addressed that question in an interesting and unusual context, while establishing a rule that the "liberty" at issue is freedom from wrongful government conduct.
The plaintiffs, Webb and Price, were framed by a corrupt drug investigation involving state, local and federal agencies in the Mansfield, Ohio area. Price, however, at the same time he was being framed, was apparently conducting some drug trafficking activities; a search pursuant to a state court warrant issued the day after Price's federal indictment recovered drugs and weapons from his residence, and he pleaded guilty to state drug charges. He eventually pleaded guilty to state court charges. Later, it was revealed that the federal investigation had framed him through the fabrication of evidence; he brought a malicious prosecution claim as did Webb, who had been framed similarly.
The district court dismissed Price's malicious prosecution claim holding first that he lacked standing to bring the claim, since his state court prosecution, which was based on sound evidence, effected a liberty deprivation for which he could not seek redress by way of a malicious prosecution claim.
The Sixth Circuit most emphatically reversed on the standing issue and explained as follows:
... every inmate in state and federal prisons is serving a term of imprisonment following conviction for an offense. Under the district court's reasoning, each of these inmates would also have forfeited all of his Fourth Amendment rights regarding false imprisonment and malicious prosecution, and the government would have free rein to frame any of the for any other crime. Neither precedent nor common sense supports this outcome. While inmates have a diminished expectation of privacy, they retain their Fourth Amendment right to be free from searches and seizures that are objectively unreasonable in light of those diminished expectations. Because it is objectively unreasonable to frame an inmate, we reverse the district court's judgment and hold that Price properly alleged that he suffered an injury-in-fact when government agents allegedly framed and maliciously prosecuted him for a crime he did not commit.
The district court reasoned that Price was already in custody because of the admittedly valid state court charges, and, as a result, could not suffer any further deprivation of liberty that would be an injury-in-fact. "Liberty" in this context -- it must follow from the Sixth Circuit's ruling -- means something other than physical confinement. The "liberty" must be an immunity from being in fact framed and maliciously prosecuted for a crime one did not commit; put another way, the "liberty" is a freedom from such blatant and wrongful government misconduct.
Judge Danny Boggs wrote the Sixth Circuit's opinion and was joined by Circuit Judge Eric Clay and Senior Circuit Judge Eugene Siler.
Robert L. Abell
www.RobertAbellLaw.com
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