Yale Law School Supreme Court Clinic

The issue in question in Chiaverini is whether a person who has been maliciously prosecuted for a crime can sue if a police officer had probable cause to arrest them for a different crime (i.e. the any crime rule).  Our brief uplifts examples of the incredibly unjust outcomes that would result from continued application of the any crime rule (eg.

This brief argues that retaliatory arrests that do not involve on-the-spot law-enforcement decisions—or that otherwise present objective suggestions of improper motive—occur with sufficient frequency to make the need for an effective remedy compelling. At the same time, the course of retaliatory-arrest litigation also indicates that the availability of such a remedy would not threaten the ability of law enforcement officers to operate effectively.