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ment; and (2) the Due Process Clause provides no protection for deprivations of liberty associated with the initiation of a criminal prosecution unless an unreasonable seizure occurs. For reasons already stated, I firmly disagree with the second proposition.
In the Bill of Rights, the Framers provided constitutional protection against unfounded felony accusations in the Grand Jury Clause of the Fifth Amendment and separate protection against unwarranted arrests in the Fourth Amendment. Quite obviously, they did not regard the latter protection as sufficient to avoid the harm associated with an irresponsible official accusation of serious criminal conduct. Therefore, although in most cases an arrest or summons to appear in court may promptly follow the initiation of criminal proceedings, the accusation itself causes a harm that is analytically, and often temporally, distinct from the arrest. In this very case, the petitioner suffered a significant injury before he voluntarily surrendered.26 In other cases a significant
26 The petitioner was deprived of a constitutionally protected liberty interest at the moment that he was formally charged with a crime—an event that occurred prior to his seizure, and several months prior to the preliminary hearing. I agree with Justice Ginsburg that the officer's incomplete testimony at the preliminary hearing perpetuated the violation of petitioner's right to be free from unreasonable seizure, ante, at 279, but it also perpetuated the violation of his right to be free from prosecution absent probable cause. As such, contrary to her suggestion, ante, at 277, n. 1, either constitutional violation—the prosecution absent probable cause or the unreasonable seizure—can independently support an action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983.
Furthermore, although Justice Ginsburg speculates that respondent may be fully protected from damages liability by an immunity defense, ante, at 279, and n. 5, that issue is neither free of difficulty, cf. Buckley v. Fitzsimmons, 509 U. S. 259 (1993), nor properly before us. See plurality opinion, ante, at 269, n. 3. The question on which we granted certiorari is whether the initiation of criminal charges absent probable cause is a deprivation of liberty protected by the Due Process Clause. Neither the fact that the seizure caused by petitioner's arrest also deprived him of liberty, nor the possible availability of an affirmative defense, is a sufficient reason for failing to discuss or decide this question. The question
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