The Supreme Court voted 6–3 last week to allow an Ohio jeweler to bring civil rights claims against police for malicious prosecution after criminal charges brought against him were dropped.
The jeweler claims that local police fabricated evidence against him.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled against jewelry store owner Jascha Chiaverini when he sued police after he was charged with, but not convicted of, felony money laundering, as well as a misdemeanor charge of possessing stolen property and a charge of violating his precious metals dealer’s license.
Mr. Chiaverini claimed in his petition that the police “fabricated evidence” to justify the money laundering charge.
The story goes back to 2016 when a small-time thief visited Mr. Chiaverini’s store to sell jewelry. The thief claimed that the property belonged to him. He was paid $45 by the jeweler, who expected to make an $11 profit on the scrap metal, according to court documents.
Hours later, a couple called the store inquiring about the stolen ring and demanded its return. Mr. Chiaverini called the police to request assistance.
The police showed up at the store and asked Mr. Chiaverini to give the ring to its owners, but he refused, citing a letter from the police department instructing him to hold onto the ring as evidence. He repeated the refusal to an officer the next day, who this time suggested—inexplicably—that Mr. Chiaverini was operating his store without the required license.
At this point, the police “turned their attention from the original theft to Chiaverini’s business,” according to the majority opinion.
The police initiated three criminal complaints against Mr. Chiaverini in municipal court. There were two misdemeanors—receiving stolen property and trading precious metals without a license—and one felony charge of money laundering.
The officers presented an affidavit making the case for probable cause on the three charges but focusing on the felony count. For the felony charge to succeed, Mr. Chiaverini had to have known when he purchased the ring that the transaction involved the proceeds of unlawful activity.
Probable cause allows police to arrest someone, carry out a search, or seize property. There is probable cause for an arrest, for example, when the facts known to the police would lead a reasonable person to believe that a suspect has committed, is committing, or is in the process of trying to commit, a criminal act.
The judge granted the warrant they sought and the jeweler was arrested. He was held in custody for three days until his arraignment.
At a subsequent hearing, the officers said that Mr. Chiaverini admitted to them that he suspected the ring was stolen—an admission the jeweler denied. The judge found probable cause and set the three charges for trial. But county prosecutors later missed a deadline to take the case to a grand jury, so the judge threw out the charges.
At that point, Mr. Chiaverini sued the officers under 42 U.S. Code Section 1983, a federal law that allows individuals to sue the government for civil rights violations. Seeking more than $3 million in damages, he alleged the officers lacked probable cause for the money laundering charge and that their claim that he acknowledged he knew the item was stolen was “an out-and-out lie,” the majority opinion stated.
Moreover, because the ring was worth far less than the $1,000 threshold required under state law for a money laundering charge, it could not proceed, he argued.
A federal district court disagreed and ruled for the officers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the ruling, holding that probable cause for the two misdemeanor charges existed.
“So long as probable cause supports at least one charge against Chiaverini (like his receipt-of-stolen-property violation),” then the malicious prosecution claim “based on other charges (like his money-laundering charge) also fail[s],” the appeals court stated.
In other words, that court held that a single valid charge in a proceeding shields the officers from a malicious prosecution claim relating to any other charges, “no matter how baseless,” the Supreme Court stated.
In adopting this position, the Sixth Circuit “stepped out on its own,” going against the rulings of three other courts of appeal that have held the existence of probable cause for a single charge “does not automatically defeat a malicious prosecution claim alleging the absence of probable cause for another charge.”
Dissenting Opinion
Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion that was joined by Justice Alito.Two years ago, Thompson v. Clark, on which the majority opinion now relies, was based on “mistaken reasoning,” Justice Thomas wrote.
So the Supreme Court’s decision “to forge ahead with combining the malicious-prosecution and Fourth Amendment frameworks will inevitably create confusion,” he wrote.
Under that amendment, “an unreasonable seizure” is required, but there is no such requirement for a malicious prosecution claim, he wrote, adding he would hold that a malicious prosecution claim may not be brought under the Fourth Amendment.
Justice Gorsuch filed his own dissenting opinion.
The majority opinion upholds Thompson v. Clark, which invented a new civil right of action in violation of past precedent, he wrote.
“Stare for as long as you like at the Fourth Amendment and you won’t see anything about prosecutions, malicious or otherwise.”
Mr. Chiaverini’s attorney, assistant Stanford law professor Easha Anand, and the city’s attorney, Megan Wold of Cooper and Kirk in Washington, didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
