The Supreme Court on Monday added one new case to its argument calendar for the fall, taking up the case of a Brooklyn man who is seeking to sue New York Police Department officers for malicious prosecution after he was jailed for two days on charges that were later dismissed.
Larry Thompson was arrested at home in 2014, by four officers investigating possible child abuse who showed up at his home without a warrant. Thompson, with his child safe and well-cared for in the back bedroom, did not want the officer in his home. He was arrested, jailed for two days and charged with obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest. Thompson repeatedly denied that he had done anything wrong and refused offers to settle the case without going to trial. The prosecution ultimately dismissed the case “in the interest of justice,” saying nothing directly about Thompson’s innocence in the process.
The justices agreed to take the case to decide whether the favorable-termination rule requires a plaintiff to show that the criminal proceedings ended in a way that is “not inconsistent” with his innocence, or whether the plaintiff must instead meet a higher bar and show that the proceeding ended in a way that affirmatively shows his innocence.
Thompson sued the officers for malicious prosecution among other claims. He lost other claims at trial, but the malicious prosecution claim could not proceed because he couldn’t show “affirmative indications of innocence,” like an acquittal. In Heck v. Humphrey, the court decided what is known as the “favorable termination” rule: Before a plaintiff can recover under federal civil rights laws for an allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, he must first show that the criminal proceedings ended in a favorable termination – for example, it was reversed on appeal, or the plaintiff received federal post-conviction relief that points to his innocence.
The case is Thompson v. Clark et al., U.S., No. 20-659 .