false arrests
Unjustified police seizures
False arrests are detentions without legal authority or probable cause.
Police make a false arrest when they lack reasonable grounds for suspicion; citizens do so when they wrongly restrain someone.
The term appears in civil rights contexts and lawsuits: She sued the department for false arrest after charges were dropped.
Distinguished from wrongful arrest, which may be technically lawful but unjust.
- exonerationOfficial clearing of blame
- innocentFree from moral wrong
- mistaken identityWrongly recognized as another
- planted evidenceFalsified material to incriminate
- miscarriage of justiceLegal system punishing the innocent
excessive force · police brutality · stop and frisk · detention · compensation · habeas corpus · police misconduct · Miranda rights · probable cause · lawsuits · wrongful imprisonment · racial profiling · Black Lives Matter · abuse of power · discrimination · presumption of innocence · constitutional rights · qualified immunity
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