Most people who believe they were arrested without cause are asking a question about fairness. The law asks a narrower one, and that narrower question almost always decides it: did the officer have probable cause?
If the answer is yes, the Fourth Amendment claim is over. If the answer is no but a reasonable officer could have thought otherwise, the claim is usually still over, because qualified immunity soaks up the difference. And if charges followed the arrest, a second claim comes into play, built very differently — one the Supreme Court has reworked twice since 2022 and the Eighth Circuit narrowed again in 2025.
What probable cause actually requires, and what it does not
Here’s the Eighth Circuit’s current formulation, from Ward v. City of Sherwood, No. 24-3316 (8th Cir. Apr. 28, 2026), quoting Borgman v. Kedley, 646 F.3d 518, 522–23 (8th Cir. 2011):
A warrantless arrest is consistent with the Fourth Amendment if it is supported by probable cause, and an officer is entitled to qualified immunity if there is at least arguable probable cause.
That sentence hurts plaintiffs in two ways.
There are two thresholds, and the lower one governs the immunity question. A plaintiff has to clear not only probable cause but arguable probable cause. And “[w]hether arguable probable cause existed is a question of law for the court to determine.” Ward, slip op. at 5 (citing Fisher v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 619 F.3d 811, 816 (8th Cir. 2010)). In the ordinary case, it isn’t a jury question.
The offense the officer named doesn’t matter. In Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146 (2004), the Ninth Circuit had held that the offense supplying probable cause must be “closely related” to the offense the officer invoked at the time of arrest. The Supreme Court rejected that: “an arresting officer’s state of mind (except for the facts that he knows) is irrelevant to the existence of probable cause,” and “his subjective reason for making the arrest need not be the criminal offense as to which the known facts provide probable cause.” Id. at 153. The rule, at 155: “Those are lawfully arrested whom the facts known to the arresting officers give probable cause to arrest.”
That’s why “they charged me with something ridiculous and then dropped it” isn’t, by itself, a claim. If the facts the officer knew supported probable cause for any offense, the arrest was constitutional.
The Eighth Circuit puts the substance of the standard this way: probable cause exists “when a police officer has reasonably trustworthy information that is sufficient to lead a person of reasonable caution to believe that the suspect has committed or is committing a crime.” Klein v. Steinkamp, 44 F.4th 1111 (8th Cir. 2022), slip op. at 6 (quoting Veatch v. Bartels Lutheran Home, 627 F.3d 1254, 1257 (8th Cir. 2010)). Klein adds a point that surprises people: in a § 1983 case, probable cause “is measured based on all evidence known to the arresting officer, whether or not it would have been admissible at trial,” because “the exclusionary rule does not apply in § 1983 cases.” Slip op. at 7.
Minnesota’s own arrest statute is a separate question
Minn. Stat. § 629.34, subd. 1(c) sets out when a Minnesota peace officer may arrest without a warrant, and the list is narrower than “probable cause for anything.” It includes arrest “when a public offense has been committed or attempted in the officer’s presence”; “when the person arrested has committed a felony, although not in the officer’s presence”; “when a felony has in fact been committed, and the officer has reasonable cause for believing the person arrested to have committed it”; and enumerated gross-misdemeanor and nonfelony categories, including a 72-hour domestic abuse provision.
Look at what that setup implies. For an ordinary misdemeanor not committed in the officer’s presence, the statute’s warrantless-arrest authority isn’t automatic — while the Fourth Amendment asks only about probable cause. These are two different standards doing different work on the same arrest, and that’s the theme that keeps coming up in this series. Whether and how a violation of § 629.34 bears on a civil claim is a question this article doesn’t answer. The statute is here because it’s the state-law authority governing the arrest, not because a departure from it establishes liability.
When the clock starts, and why it starts early
Accrual of a § 1983 claim is a question of federal law. Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 388 (2007). And Wallace’s specific rule for this claim is the one most likely to trip a case up:
We hold that the statute of limitations upon a § 1983 claim seeking damages for a false arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment, where the arrest is followed by criminal proceedings, begins to run at the time the claimant becomes detained pursuant to legal process.
Id. at 397. The reason is a common-law boundary: “a false imprisonment ends once the victim becomes held pursuant to such process — when, for example, he is bound over by a magistrate or arraigned on charges.” Id. at 389. From that point on, the unlawful detention belongs to “the ‘entirely distinct’ tort of malicious prosecution.” Id. at 390.
The Eighth Circuit applies exactly that. In Klein, the plaintiff’s “false arrest claim accrued when he was bound over for trial.” Slip op. at 5.
So the false arrest clock starts at the first appearance, not at dismissal, not at acquittal, and not at release. Minnesota’s borrowed six-year period is generous, but it’s running from a date most clients don’t think of as the day anything happened. I cover the borrowing rules and the shorter clocks that run alongside them in the § 1983 limitations period in Minnesota.
Malicious prosecution: three changes in four years
2022 — the claim exists, and favorable termination is easier than many courts had held. Thompson v. Clark, 596 U.S. 36 (2022):
In sum, we hold that a Fourth Amendment claim under § 1983 for malicious prosecution does not require the plaintiff to show that the criminal prosecution ended with some affirmative indication of innocence. A plaintiff need only show that the criminal prosecution ended without a conviction.
Id. at 49. A dismissal is enough. An acquittal is enough. A prosecutor who just drops the case is enough. The plaintiff doesn’t have to produce any affirmative signal of innocence.
Two limits sit right next to that holding. The gravamen of the claim “is the wrongful initiation of charges without probable cause,” id. at 43 — so probable cause defeats this claim exactly the way it defeats false arrest. And footnote 2, at 43:
Because this claim is housed in the Fourth Amendment, the plaintiff also has to prove that the malicious prosecution resulted in a seizure of the plaintiff.
The Eighth Circuit reads Thompson as requiring a plaintiff to show “(1) the criminal proceeding was instituted without probable cause, (2) the defendant’s motive in instituting the proceeding was malicious, and (3) the prosecution terminated in acquittal or discharge of the accused.” Klein, slip op. at 5.
2024 — one good charge doesn’t clean up a baseless one. Klein expressly reserved “whether grounds to arrest for only one offense would be sufficient to defeat a malicious prosecution claim as to both.” Slip op. at 7. The Supreme Court answered two years later in Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon, 602 U.S. 556 (2024), which framed the question as: “Do the valid charges insulate the official from a Fourth Amendment malicious-prosecution claim relating to the invalid charge?” Id. at 558. The answer, at 559:
The answer is no: The valid charges do not create a categorical bar. We leave for another day the follow-on question of how to determine in those circumstances whether the baseless charge caused the requisite seizure.
2025 and 2026 — but the baseless charge still has to have caused a seizure, and charging alone isn’t one. That reserved follow-on question is where the Eighth Circuit has been working. In Brown v. City of Dermott, 151 F.4th 985 (8th Cir. 2025), the court held that a plaintiff must prove a seizure and that a pretrial restraint on liberty requires “either ‘physical force,’ or … ‘submission to the assertion of authority.’” And in Ward, decided in April 2026, the court applied it: “The initiation of charges by itself, or a summons to appear in court on an additional charge, does not constitute a seizure that supports a claim of malicious prosecution.” Slip op. at 10 (citing Dermott, 151 F.4th at 990). Because Ward “was seized based on a charge of disorderly conduct, and a charge of public intoxication did not effect any further seizure,” the extra charge couldn’t support the claim even assuming it lacked probable cause.
Put those together and here’s where the Eighth Circuit stands: after Chiaverini, a piled-on baseless charge is actionable in principle, but only if that charge produced a seizure of its own — some additional detention or pretrial restraint traceable to it. A charge that added nothing to the defendant’s actual custody adds nothing to the case.
And if there was a conviction, start with Heck
Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), puts a gate in front of all of this. A § 1983 plaintiff seeking damages “for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid” must prove the conviction has been reversed, expunged, declared invalid, or called into question by federal habeas. Id. at 486–87. The district court must ask “whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the complaint must be dismissed.” Ibid.
A plea to a lesser charge is a conviction. That one fact ends more of these cases than any immunity doctrine does.
The Minnesota state-law claims, which are not the same claims
Minnesota recognizes both analogues at common law, and both are worth pleading for the reasons I lay out in the state-law claims that run alongside a § 1983 case.
False imprisonment. “[T]he elements of false imprisonment are (1) words or acts intended to confine, (2) actual confinement, and (3) awareness by the plaintiff that he is confined.” Blaz v. Molin Concrete Products Co., 309 Minn. 382, 385, 244 N.W.2d 277 (1976). Look at what’s missing from that list: nothing about probable cause, and nothing about a criminal proceeding.
Malicious prosecution. The Minnesota Supreme Court restated the tort’s three elements in Leiendecker v. Asian Women United of Minnesota, 895 N.W.2d 623, 634 (Minn. 2017): “(1) the action [must be] brought without probable cause or reasonable belief that the plaintiff would ultimately prevail on the merits; (2) the action must be instituted and prosecuted with malicious intent; and (3) the action must terminate in favor of the defendant.” And unlike the federal arguable-probable-cause question, “[b]oth the probable cause and malice elements of a malicious prosecution claim are factual questions for the jury.” Ibid.
The deadlines aren’t the same, and this is the trap. Minn. Stat. § 541.07(1) gives two years for “libel, slander, assault, battery, false imprisonment, or other tort resulting in personal injury.” The borrowed federal period is six. A plaintiff who waits three years has a live § 1983 claim and a dead state one. That matters, because the state claim can reach the municipality through Minn. Stat. § 466.02 without any Monell showing. See our survey of Minnesota limitations periods.
What to do
- Pin down the date of the first appearance. That’s when the false arrest clock started under Wallace, and it’s the date the file should be built around.
- List every offense the known facts could have supported, not just the one charged. Under Devenpeck the defense will do this, and you have to do it before you put a value on the case.
- Get the charging documents and the custody record. After Chiaverini and Ward, a malicious prosecution claim on a piled-on charge lives or dies on whether that charge produced a seizure — additional detention, bail conditions, a pretrial restraint. That’s a records question.
- Check for a conviction on anything. Heck is a gate, and a plea to a reduced charge is enough to close it.
- Calendar the two-year state clock first. It runs out four years before the federal one.
- If the arrest followed protected speech, that’s a different claim with its own bar. See First Amendment retaliatory arrest.
- Don’t assume the qualified immunity analysis follows the merits. See what “clearly established” actually requires.
The doctrine moved less than the headlines suggested
The most common conversation in this area is about the wrong thing. A client describes an arrest that was rude, out of proportion, obviously pretextual, and that ended with the charges dropped — and every one of those facts is legally beside the point if the officer knew facts amounting to probable cause for some offense.
What’s actually changed in the last four years is at the other end of the case. Before 2022 a Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution plaintiff in much of the country had to show the prosecution ended with some affirmative indication of innocence; after Thompson, ending without a conviction is enough. Before 2024 a single valid charge could categorically defeat a claim about a baseless one; after Chiaverini, it can’t.
But the Eighth Circuit has been filling in the space Chiaverini left open, and it’s filled it in a way that makes the plaintiff trace an actual seizure to the baseless charge. Charging someone with something invented, and nothing more, isn’t yet a Fourth Amendment case in this circuit. The doctrine moved. It didn’t move as far as the headlines suggested.
Madgett Law, LLC litigates civil rights and police misconduct claims in Minnesota state and federal court, including false arrest and malicious prosecution claims and the state-law analogues that carry different deadlines. Send us a message or call 612-470-6529.
Sources: Minn. Stat. § 629.34, subd. 1 (warrantless arrest authority of peace officers; paragraph (c) clauses (1)–(8), with clauses (1)–(4) and (8) quoted or described) and Minn. Stat. § 541.07(1) (two-year period, quoted) (Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes, 2025 Minnesota Statutes). Minn. Stat. § 466.02 — referenced only, and treated in the companion article. Devenpeck v. Alford, 543 U.S. 146, 153, 155 (2004) (“an arresting officer’s state of mind (except for the facts that he knows) is irrelevant to the existence of probable cause”; “his subjective reason for making the arrest need not be the criminal offense as to which the known facts provide probable cause”; “Those are lawfully arrested whom the facts known to the arresting officers give probable cause to arrest.”). Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 388, 389, 390, 397 (2007) (accrual as a federal question, at 388; a false imprisonment ends when the victim is held pursuant to legal process, at 389; the “entirely distinct” tort of malicious prosecution takes over, at 390; the holding on when the false arrest limitations period begins to run, at 397). Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486–87 (1994) (the favorable-termination requirement and the “necessarily imply the invalidity” test). Thompson v. Clark, 596 U.S. 36, 43, 43 n.2, 49 (2022) (gravamen of the claim is “the wrongful initiation of charges without probable cause,” at 43; the seizure requirement in footnote 2, at 43; the holding on favorable termination, at 49). Chiaverini v. City of Napoleon, 602 U.S. 556, 558, 559 (2024) (the opinion’s statement of the question presented, at 558; “The answer is no: The valid charges do not create a categorical bar,” and the reservation of the causation question, at 559). Klein v. Steinkamp, 44 F.4th 1111 (8th Cir. 2022), No. 21-3039 (8th Cir. Aug. 16, 2022), slip op. at 5–7 (accrual of the false arrest claim on bind-over, at 5; the three-elements quotation beginning at 5; the probable cause formulation quoting Veatch v. Bartels Lutheran Home, 627 F.3d 1254, 1257 (8th Cir. 2010), at 6; the non-application of the exclusionary rule in § 1983 cases and the express reservation of the multiple-charge question, both at 7). Ward v. City of Sherwood, No. 24-3316 (8th Cir. Apr. 28, 2026), slip op. at 5 and 10 (the arguable-probable-cause formulation quoting Borgman v. Kedley, 646 F.3d 518, 522–23 (8th Cir. 2011); arguable probable cause as a question of law, citing Fisher v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 619 F.3d 811, 816 (8th Cir. 2010), both at 5; and the holding that initiation of charges or a summons is not itself a seizure, citing Brown v. City of Dermott, 151 F.4th 985, 990 (8th Cir. 2025), at 10). Brown v. City of Dermott, 151 F.4th 985 (8th Cir. 2025), No. 23-3073 (8th Cir. Aug. 20, 2025) (the seizure requirement and the “physical force” / “submission to the assertion of authority” formulation). Blaz v. Molin Concrete Products Co., 309 Minn. 382, 385, 244 N.W.2d 277 (1976) (elements of false imprisonment). Leiendecker v. Asian Women United of Minnesota, 895 N.W.2d 623, 634 (Minn. 2017) (three elements of the tort of malicious prosecution, quoting Kellar v. VonHoltum, 568 N.W.2d 186, 192 (Minn. App. 1997); probable cause and malice as jury questions). This article does not state whether a violation of Minn. Stat. § 629.34 has any civil consequence; the statute is described as the state-law arrest authority only. This article is general legal information about Minnesota and federal law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney–client relationship. Whether probable cause existed in any particular arrest is a fact-bound question. No outcome is promised or implied.