Civil Rights Law

In this Comment, Sabrina Huang argues that courts should eliminate the subjective malice requirement for Fourth Amendment malicious prosecution claims. She draws on other constitutional torts that arise during encounters with actors in the criminal justice system to show that a plaintiff-friendly objective standard is more appropriate than a subjective standard. If courts are unwilling to eliminate the malice requirement, the Comment proposes an alternative to the requirement: a burden-shifting test. The intended effects of both proposals are to expand relief to more litigants across jurisdictions, harmonize Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, and deter police and prosecutorial misconduct.

At first glance, the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Isaacson v. Mayes (2023) set the stage for the perfect law review student comment. It called out the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Bankshot Billiards, Inc. v. City of Ocala (2011) by name. And the Congressional Research Service listed Bankshot and Isaacson among 2023’s circuit splits. By all accounts, the two circuits had split over a significant issue. They disagreed over whether a party needs to connect its injury to a constitutional right in order to establish standing for claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Only one problem remained: the courts were on the same page. What emerged was the specter of a circuit split.

In 1980, Congress enacted the Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act (CWA), which added Title IV-E to the Social Security Act (SSA).