Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266, 24 (1994)

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Cite as: 510 U. S. 266 (1994)

Souter, J., concurring in judgment

ing no substantial burden on liberty beyond what the Fourth Amendment is generally thought to redress already.

In framing his claim of infringement of a liberty interest in freedom from the initiation of a baseless prosecution, petitioner has chosen to disclaim any reliance on the Fourth Amendment seizure that followed when he surrendered himself into police custody. Petitioner has failed, however, to allege any substantial injury that is attributable to the former event, but not the latter. His complaint presents an extensive list of damages: limitations on his liberty, freedom of association, and freedom of movement by virtue of the terms of his bond; financial expense of his legal defense; reputational harm among members of the community; inability to transact business or obtain employment in his local area, necessitating relocation to St. Louis; inability to secure credit; and personal pain and suffering. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 49a-50a. None of these injuries, however, is alleged to have followed from the issuance of the formal instrument of prosecution, as distinct from the ensuing assertion of custody. Thus, petitioner has not shown a substantial deprivation of liberty from the mere initiation of prosecution.

The significance of this failure follows from the recognition that none of petitioner's alleged injuries has been treated by the Courts of Appeals as beyond the ambit of compensability

Gerstein that the Fourth Amendment "balance between individual and public interests always has been thought to define the 'process that is due' for seizures of person or property in criminal cases." See Gerstein, supra, at 125, n. 27. Thus, in both Gerstein and Graham, separate analysis under the Due Process Clause was dispensed with as redundant. The Court has reached the same result in the context of claims of unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain in penal institutions. See Whitley v. Albers, supra, at 327 ("It would indeed be surprising if . . . 'conduct that shocks the conscience' or 'afford[s] brutality the cloak of law,' and so violates the Fourteenth Amendment, Rochin v. California, 342 U. S. 165, 172, 173 (1952), were not also punishment 'inconsistent with contemporary standards of decency' and 'repugnant to the conscience of mankind,' Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S., at 103, 106, in violation of the Eighth").

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