Edward Pinkney v. Berrien County, Michigan, et al.

Petitioner was charged, subjected to pretrial proceedings, tried, convicted, and incarcerated for an act that the law does not make criminal. Petitioner brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the prosecuting attorney who procured his unlawful conviction and incarceration violated his due process rights. Despite acknowledging that a conviction and incarceration for a non-criminal act implicates due process, the Sixth Circuit concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment did not apply and assessed the entirety of Petitioner’s claim under the Fourth Amendment. The Sixth Circuit’s decision deepens a split among the circuits regarding whether the Fourth Amendment exclusively governs claims challenging the lawfulness of a prosecution and pretrial criminal proceedings outside of a defect in the probable-cause determination. Three circuits, including the Sixth Circuit below, have taken the position that the Fourth Amendment governs all such claims, while four circuits have recognized that the Due Process Clause governs at least some such claims. But the Sixth Circuit went even further. Contrary to the decisions of this Court and every circuit court, the court also applied the Fourth Amendment to Petitioner’s challenge to the lawfulness of his conviction and incarceration, well after the point at which the protections of the Fourth Amendment give way to the protections of the Fourteenth Amendment. The question presented is: Whether Petitioner’s § 1983 claim based on his prosecution, pretrial criminal proceedings, trial,