Unlawful Arrest

Assault
In English law is common assault or battery. There is Assault occasioning actual bodily harm [ABH ] or it seems Grievous bodily harm [ GBH ]

 

False Arrest ex Wiki
QUOTE
False arrest is a common law tort, where a plaintiff alleges they were held in custody without probable cause, or without an order issued by a court of competent jurisdiction. Although it is possible to sue law enforcement officials for false arrest, the usual defendants in such cases are private security firms.

In most jurisdictions, the arrest powers of police and police agents are in excess of those afforded to ordinary citizens (see citizen's arrest). However, the powers of police officers to arrest are not unlimited. Generally speaking:

1. Anyone may arrest a person if in possession of an arrest warrant issued by an appropriate court. In the United States, this includes bounty hunters (agents of bail bondsmen) acting under the authority of a bench warrant to bring a criminal defendant who has skipped bail to court for trial.
2. A police officer, or a person authorized by a jurisdiction's police powers act, may arrest anyone whom the officer has reasonable and probable cause to believe has committed any criminal offence. However, in the case of a misdemeanour, summary conviction offence, or non-criminal offence (such as a municipal by-law offence) the officer may arrest the suspect only long enough to identify the suspect and give the suspect a summons to appear in court, unless there is reason to believe they will not appear in answer to the summons.
3. Any person may arrest someone suspected of committing a felony or indictable offence, as long as the arresting person believes the suspect is attempting to flee the scene of the felony. A person cannot be arrested on suspicion of committing a felony well after the fact unless the arresting officer possesses an arrest warrant.

Citizens and businesses
Most cases of false arrest involve accusations of shoplifting, and are brought against security guards and retail stores. A guard cannot arrest someone merely on the suspicion that person is going to commit a theft. In most jurisdictions, there must be some proof that a criminal act has actually been committed. For example, a guard does not have reasonable and probable cause if a shopper has not yet paid for merchandise they are carrying in the belief that the person intends to leave without making payment. Instead, there must be an actual act committed – the person must make an actual attempt to leave the store without paying for the merchandise.

Note though that some states have enacted "merchandise concealment" laws as a way around this limitation. Under these laws it is a criminal offense to merely conceal merchandise that has not been paid for, giving stores grounds to make an arrest even if the person has made no attempt to leave the store with the merchandise.

Police officers
In the United States and other jurisdictions, police officers and other government officials are shielded from false arrest lawsuits through a process known as qualified immunity. This doctrine protects such officials from liability when engaged in discretionary actions such as arrests of suspects. However, the officer's actions must still not violate "clearly established law," or this protection is void. This includes executing an arrest warrant against the wrong person.

An example of this doctrine being tested is Sorrell v. McGuigan (4th Cir. 2002). A police officer (McGuigan) detained a man named Crispin Sorrell based on the description of a suspect who had committed a robbery nearby, and proceeded to do a simple search for weapons. The witness who reported the robbery arrived at the scene and stated Sorrell was definitely not the person who robbed him. However, the officer still arrested Sorrell for possession of a concealed weapon, because he was carrying a folding knife with a 3 inch long blade in his pocket. In Maryland, non-automatic folding knives are not considered weapons under state law regardless of their length, and the lack of length limit had been upheld multiple times in the state supreme court. However, the officer erroneously believed the knife to be a weapon. Sorrell was released immediately after booking and was never prosecuted as there was technically no crime, and sued the police officer for false arrest. The officer's qualified immunity was denied by the court, and this decision was upheld in the US Court of Appeals.^[1]

Bounty Hunters
Bounty hunters have been subject to suits for false arrest after attempting to execute bench warrants outside of the United States - where they have no extra powers beyond those of ordinary citizens and only police officers may execute warrants. In at least two prominent cases, bounty hunters were charged with kidnapping after taking custody of a bail jumper outside of the United States and bringing them back to the court that issued the warrant. One of them - Daniel Kear - was extradited from the US and convicted.^[2]

There have been some cases where police officers or bounty hunters have executed valid arrest warrants against the wrong person. Although many false arrest suits result in only nominal damages, such mistakes usually result in large awards against the arresting officers.

Resisting unlawful arrest
In many cases, an individual will realize that they are the target of false arrest and attempt to resist or flee. This is known as resisting unlawful arrest, and is a justification for such resistance where it would otherwise be a crime (i.e. resisting arrest, flight to avoid prosecution, assault, or even murder). Justification for such action is often hard to prove in court, and only justified in certain circumstances. Simple mistake of fact situations would generally not warrant attempting to elude law enforcement. However, there are some that would, such as:

• the person making the arrest never identifying themselves, causing the defendant to believe they are the target of kidnapping or robbery.
• the reasonable belief that the person making the arrest is an impersonator with the intent of victimizing the defendant.
• the reasonable belief that the defendant would be the victim of police brutality if taken into custody by that individual.

Many courts generally will not condone violence used in resisting an unlawful arrest, or "deadly force," unless it's proven the police began to use violence upon the defendant.

 

False imprisonment ex Wiki
False imprisonment is a restraint of a person in a bounded area without justification or consent. False imprisonment is a common-law felony and a tort. It applies to private as well as governmental detention. When it comes to public police, the proving of false imprisonment is sufficient to obtain a writ of habeas corpus.

Imprisonment
As to what constitutes imprisonment, see Imprisonment.

The following are false imprisonment scenarios.

• The taking hostage of a bank's customers and employees by bank robbers.
• The detention of a customer by a business owner (e.g., hotel operator, apartment owner, credit card company) for the failure to pay a bill.
• Certain situations arising from controversial legislation, like California's Assembly Bill 1421, Laura's Law.
• A robber in a home invasion ties hostage up and takes them to a separate room.

What false imprisonment is not

Not all detainments constitute false imprisonment; whether or not false imprisonment is the case is based heavily on the context of the situation.

Police privilege
Under United States law, the police have the right to detain someone if they have probable cause to believe a crime has been committed, and that the person is so involved, or if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person has been, is, or is about to be, engaged in criminal activity based on specific and articulable facts and inferences.

Shopkeeper's privilege
Many jurisdictions of the United States recognize the common law shopkeeper's privilege, under which he is allowed to detain a suspected shoplifter on store property for a reasonable period of time, with cause to believe that the person detained in fact committed, or attempted to commit theft of store property. The shopkeeper's privilege, although recognized in most jurisdictions, is not as broad a privilege as that of a police officer's, and therefore one must pay special attention to the temporal element – that is, the shopkeeper may only detain the suspected criminal for a relatively short period of time. This is similar to a general right in many jurisdictions of citizen's arrest of suspected criminals by the public in limited circumstances.

Rationale
This privilege has been justified by the very practical need for some degree of protection for shopkeepers in their dealings with suspected shoplifters. Absent such privilege, a shopkeeper would be faced with the dilemma of either allowing suspects to leave without challenge or acting upon his suspicion and risk making a false arrest.

Requirement
Purpose
The privilege for the most part is to be able to return the stolen goods. The shopkeeper may not force a confession. They do have a right to conduct a contemporaneous search of the person and the objects within that person's control.

Claim of false imprisonment
To prevail under a false imprisonment claim, a plaintiff must prove: (1) willful detention; (2) without consent; and (3) without authority of law.(Restatement of the Law, Second, Torts)

The test of liability is not based on the store patron's guilt or innocence, but instead on the reasonableness of the store's action under the circumstances; the trier of fact usually determines whether reasonable belief is established. A guilty shoplifter can still sue for false imprisonment then if the detention was unreasonable.

Cases
In a Louisiana case in the United States, a pharmacist and his pharmacy were found liable by a trial court for false imprisonment. They stalled for time and instructed a patient to wait while simultaneously and without the patient's knowledge calling the police. The pharmacist was suspicious of the patient's prescription, which her doctor had called in previously. When the police arrived, they arrested the patient. While the patient was in prison, the police verified with her doctor that the prescription was authentic and that it was meant for her. After this incident, the patient sued the pharmacy and its employees. She received $20,000 damages. An appeals court reversed the judgment, because it believed the elements of false imprisonment were not met.^[1][2]

In Enright v. Groves, a woman sued a police officer for false imprisonment after being arrested for not producing her driver's license. The plaintiff was in her car when she was approached by the officer for not leashing her dog; she was arrested after being asked to produce her driver's license and failing to do. She won her claim, despite having lost the case of not leashing her dog. The court reasoned that the officer did not have proper legal authority in arresting her, because he arrested her for not producing her driver's license (which itself was not a crime) as opposed to the dog leash violation.^[3]

In the United Kingdom, a case was brought to the High Court concerning the alleged unlawful detention of hundreds of members of the public during the May Day riots of 2001 in London, England. The police, using the tactic of "kettling", held a large crowd in Oxford Circus for several hours without allowing anyone to leave. Lois Austin, a peaceful protestor who had not broken the law, and Geoffrey Saxby, an innocent passer-by who was not involved in the demonstration, claimed that they were falsely imprisoned by the London Metropolitan Police and that their detention was in breach of the European Convention of Human Rights.^[4] The pair lost their court action in 2005,^[5] when the High Court ruled that the police had not acted unlawfully. An appeal against the ruling also failed in 2007.^[6] A ruling by the House of Lords declared that even in the case of an absolute right, the High Court was entitled to take the "purpose" of the deprivation of liberty into account before deciding if human rights law applied at all.
[ Justice must be seen to be done? Justice must be seen to be believed. - Editor ].