Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Correction re: False arrest lawsuit against P.D.

I want to correct an error in my prior answer. I originally wrote that you would have to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt in order to win a false arrest lawsuit. You would actually only need to prove it by a preponderance of the evidence. Winning will still be very difficult, but not quite as difficult as my original response said.

Re: False arrest lawsuit against P.D.

Being mistakenly arrested for a crime you didn't commit is not enough to win a false arrest lawsuit. In order to win you must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the officers who arrested you knew at the time that you were innocent, and that is a *very* difficult thing to prove even when it is true -- which it usually isn't.

Another option is a malicious prosecution lawsuit. Such a suit would be brought against the prosecutor's office and not the police department, but it would be viable even if the prosecution only discovered your innocense after filing charges. You would have to prove that they continued prosecuting you after learning that you were innocent, but would not have to prove that they knew this all along.

Pleading guilty -- whether to an offense with which you were charged originally or to a different offense as part of a plea bargain -- would make it impossible to win a malicious prosecution case later (unless you are somehow able to get the plea set aside, which is very rarely done). This is so because a plea of guilty or no contest is an admission that you committed the crime; the law won't let you claim that the DA knew you were innocent after you yourself have admitted your guilt.

Generally speaking, the odds of winning this type of lawsuit are *very* low. Even if you win, the amount of damages you can recover may be modest; cases like this only pay very large sums when the facts are especially egregious. Your priority really should be dealing with the criminal case. If you let your plans for a civil suit determine how you handle the criminal charges you may end up with a conviction and no way to sue at all.

At a minimum, you should discuss the specifics of your case with an attorney. Don't just rely on your own intuition and on the very limited guidance you can get from web sites like this one.

If you are innocent of the charges, the fact that you happened to violate the terms of an existing probation will not affect your ability to bring or win a malicious prosecution case.