D.C.Cir.: False evidence for an arrest states a claim for relief

Plaintiff was a jail guard, and he was prosecuted for assaulting an inmate. Two years after the prosecution started he won. It was determined that the basis for the arrest was on knowing use of false evidence that he did not act in self-defense, so plaintiff stated a claim for false arrest and malicious prosecution. The statute of limitations started with the dismissal of the underlying case. Amobi v. D.C. Dep’t of Corr., 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 12117 (D.C. Cir. June 27, 2014):

As to the District, Amobi seems to argue that it violated his Fourth Amendment rights based on its alleged custom and policy of failing to comply with its statutory prohibition on warrantless arrests for misdemeanors committed outside of an officer’s presence. Amobi is mistaken. Whether the assault occurred in Officer Henley’s presence is not the sine qua non of a Fourth Amendment violation. The Supreme Court has made clear that the “Constitution’s protections concerning search and seizure” do not vary with state arrest law, see Virginia v. Moore, 553 U.S. 164, 172–73 (2008), and Amobi makes no argument that the Constitution requires the District’s misdemeanor arrest rule. Nevertheless, whether Officer Henley could have had probable cause to execute Amobi’s arrest—even without the crime occurring in his presence—is still a relevant inquiry.

It could very well be that the common law misdemeanor arrest rule is required by the Fourth Amendment. The common law prior to 1791 is relevant to interpreting the Fourth Amendment. Wilson v. Arkansas, 514 U.S. 927, 931 (1995):

The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution protects “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” In evaluating the scope of this right, we have looked to the traditional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures afforded by the common law at the time of the framing. See California v. Hodari D., 499 U. S. 621, 624 (1991); United States v. Watson, 423 U. S. 411, 418— 420 (1976); Carroll v. United States, 267 U. S. 132, 149 (1925). “Although the underlying command of the Fourth Amendment is always that searches and seizures be reasonable,” New Jersey v. T. L. O., 469 U. S. 325, 337 (1985), our effort to give content to this term may be guided by the meaning ascribed to it by the Framers of the Amendment.

It wasn’t litigated here, however.