{"id":61251,"date":"2025-06-12T06:49:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T11:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=61251"},"modified":"2025-06-12T06:49:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T11:49:29","slug":"ca11-the-presence-of-contradictory-evidence-does-not-bar-a-finding-of-probable-cause-it-must-refute-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/?p=61251","title":{"rendered":"CA11: \u201c[T]he presence of contradictory evidence does not bar a finding of probable cause\u201d; It must refute it"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u201c[T]he presence of contradictory evidence does not bar a finding of probable cause.\u201d It must refute it. <a href=\"https:\/\/media.ca11.uscourts.gov\/opinions\/pub\/files\/202311280.pdf\">Scott v. City of Miami<\/a>, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 14381 (11th Cir. June 11, 2025):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Moreover, the presence of contradictory evidence does not bar a finding of probable cause. See Paez, 915 F.3d at 1286 (&#8220;So long as it is reasonable to conclude from the body of evidence as a whole that a crime was committed, the presence of some conflicting evidence or a possible defense will not vitiate a finding of probable cause.&#8221;). &#8220;Because &#8216;probable cause does not require officers to rule out a suspect&#8217;s innocent explanation for suspicious facts,&#8217; a police officer need not resolve conflicting evidence in a manner favorable to the suspect.&#8221; Washington v. Howard, 25 F.4th 891, 902 (11th Cir. 2022) (quoting District of Columbia v. Wesby, 138 S. Ct. 577, 588 (2018)). An officer is &#8220;not required to believe [exculpatory evidence] or to weigh the evidence in such a way as to conclude that probable cause did not exist.&#8221; Id. &#8220;The probable cause decision, by its nature, is hard to undermine, and still harder to reverse.&#8221; Kaley v. United States, 571 U.S. 320, 339 (2014) (discussing the standard in the grand jury setting). Ultimately, probable cause will only be vitiated if the exculpatory evidence &#8220;did not merely make it less likely probable cause existed but obviously and irrefutably established that it didn&#8217;t exist.&#8221; Davis, 78 F.4th at 1343 (emphasis added).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201c[T]he presence of contradictory evidence does not bar a finding of probable cause.\u201d It must refute it. Scott v. City of Miami, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 14381 (11th Cir. June 11, 2025):<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-probable-cause"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61252,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61251\/revisions\/61252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/fourthamendment.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}