Cite as: 510 U. S. 266 (1994)
Kennedy, J., concurring in judgment
That hesitancy is in part a recognition of the important role federal courts have assumed in elaborating vital constitutional guarantees against arbitrary or oppressive state action. We want to leave an avenue open for recourse where we think the federal power ought to be vindicated. Cf. Screws v. United States, 325 U. S. 91 (1945).
But the price of our ambivalence over the outer limits of Parratt has been its dilution and, in some respects, its transformation into a mere pleading exercise. The Parratt rule has been avoided by attaching a substantive rather than procedural label to due process claims (a distinction that if accepted in this context could render Parratt a dead letter) and by treating claims based on the Due Process Clause as claims based on some other constitutional provision. See Taylor v. Knapp, 871 F. 2d 803, 807 (CA9 1989) (Sneed, J., concurring). It has been avoided at the other end of the spectrum by construing complaints alleging a substantive injury as attacks on the adequacy of state procedures. See Zinermon v. Burch, 494 U. S. 113, 139-151 (1990) (O'Connor, J., dissenting); Easter House v. Felder, 910 F. 2d 1387, 1408 (CA7 1990) (Easterbrook, J., concurring). These evasions are unjustified given the clarity of the Parratt rule: In the ordinary case where an injury has been caused not by a state law, policy, or procedure, but by a random and unauthorized act that can be remedied by state law, there is no basis for intervention under § 1983, at least in a suit based on "the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment simpliciter." 451 U. S., at 536.
As Parratt's precedential force must be acknowledged, I think it disposes of this case. Illinois provides a tort remedy for malicious prosecution; indeed, Albright brought a state-law malicious prosecution claim, albeit after the statute of limitations had expired. (That fact does not affect the adequacy of the remedy under Parratt. See Daniels v. Williams, 474 U. S. 327, 342 (1986) (Stevens, J., concurring).) Given the state remedy and the holding of Parratt, there is
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