Larry Thompson

Overview

Larry Thompson is a private Brooklyn resident who became the named petitioner in one of the decade’s most consequential civil-rights rulings after a January 2014 arrest that the criminal system itself walked away from. In Thompson v. Clark, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on April 4, 2022 that a person suing police for malicious prosecution under federal civil-rights law does not have to show his prosecution ended with an affirmative indication of innocence — he need only show that the prosecution ended without a conviction (U.S. Supreme Court). The case’s public meaning is the doctrine; its human engine was the two days Thompson spent in jail over charges that were dismissed without a word of explanation.

A 911 call, a warrantless entry, and two days in jail

In January 2014, Thompson lived with his fiancée — described in the Court’s opinion as “now wife” — and their newborn baby girl in an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Thompson’s sister-in-law was also staying there, and the opinion notes she “apparently suffered from a mental illness” (U.S. Supreme Court). One day that month, the sister-in-law called 911 and claimed that Thompson was sexually abusing his one-week-old daughter. Two Emergency Medical Technicians responded; Thompson denied that anyone had called 911, and the EMTs left and informed the police (U.S. Supreme Court).

The EMTs then returned with four police officers. Thompson told them they could not come in without a warrant. The officers entered anyway and, after a brief scuffle, handcuffed him. The EMTs followed the officers inside, examined the baby, found red marks on her body, and took her to the hospital for evaluation — where the marks turned out to be diaper rash, and medical professionals found no signs of abuse (U.S. Supreme Court).

Meanwhile the officers arrested Thompson for resisting their entry into the apartment. He was taken to a local hospital and then to jail, where one of the officers prepared and filed a criminal complaint charging him with obstructing governmental administration and resisting arrest. Thompson remained in custody for two days before a judge released him on his own recognizance (U.S. Supreme Court). Before trial, the prosecution moved to dismiss the charges and the trial judge dismissed the case — but neither the prosecutor nor the judge explained why (U.S. Supreme Court).

The case for the right to sue

After the dismissal, Thompson sued the officers for damages under 42 U.S.C. §1983, the federal civil-rights statute, advancing among other claims a Fourth Amendment claim for malicious prosecution. To win that claim under Second Circuit precedent (Lanning v. Glens Falls), he had to show his prosecution ended not merely without a conviction but with some affirmative indication of his innocence — and he could not put forward substantial evidence of why the prosecutor or the court had dismissed the case, because no one had said (U.S. Supreme Court). The district court ruled for the officers while noting the precedent “can and should be changed”; the Second Circuit adhered to it and affirmed (794 Fed. Appx. 140 (2020)) (U.S. Supreme Court).

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to resolve a split among the Courts of Appeals and heard argument on October 12, 2021 (U.S. Supreme Court). Thompson’s attorney in the case was Amir Ali, executive director of the MacArthur Justice Center, who told Reason that requiring a showing of innocence made no sense where dismissed charges leave no record at all: “When charges are dismissed, you generally have no opportunity to introduce evidence, let alone indicate your innocence” (Reason).

On April 4, 2022, Justice Kavanaugh delivered the 6-3 majority opinion — joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, and Barrett — holding that a plaintiff “need only show that his prosecution ended without a conviction,” a reading consistent with the American tort-law consensus as of 1871 and with “the values and purposes” of the Fourth Amendment (U.S. Supreme Court). The majority added that requiring an affirmative indication of innocence would paradoxically foreclose claims where the government’s case was weakest and dismissed without explanation — which “would make little sense” (U.S. Supreme Court). Justice Alito dissented, joined by Justices Thomas and Gorsuch (U.S. Supreme Court).

The Court reversed the Second Circuit and remanded, but it did not hand Thompson an outright win: it expressed no view on whether Thompson had been “seized” under the Fourth Amendment, whether the officers had probable cause to enter his home without a warrant, or whether any officer was entitled to qualified immunity (U.S. Supreme Court). As Ali put it to Reason, even after the ruling Thompson still had to convince the Second Circuit the officers lacked probable cause and overcome qualified immunity — “such claims are no longer dead on arrival,” but they still faced “many barriers to getting before a jury” (Reason). His case became the vehicle through which the federal standard itself changed, even as the human detail at its center — two unexplained days in jail — stayed intact.

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not claim any biographical detail about Larry Thompson beyond what the Supreme Court’s opinion documents — no occupation, age, birthplace, or current status appears in any source read in full, and this is a private individual whose profile will not be padded with speculation. It does not claim what happened on remand after the April 2022 ruling; the opinion leaves those questions open and no source read here resolves them. It does not treat the sister-in-law’s 911 accusation as fact — it is reported only as the claim the opinion says she made, paired with the hospital’s finding that the marks were diaper rash and there were no signs of abuse.