Devenpeck v. Alford

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that the initial stop by officer was based on reasonable suspicion that defendant was impersonating a police officer, although another officer arrested defendant for Privacy Act violation
• holding that, if an officer has probable cause to arrest a suspect for any crime, there is no Fourth Amendment violation even if the officer lacked probable cause with respect to the actual offense charged
• holding that “an arresting officer’s . . . subjective reason for making the arrest need not be the criminal offense as to which the known facts provide probable cause”
• holding that an arresting officer must have probable cause that the suspect had committed a crime, not necessarily the crime that the officer subjectively had in mind at the time of the arrest
• stating that an officer’s subjective intent or reason for arrest is irrelevant to the probable cause analysis
• explaining that the probable cause inquiry is objective and does not depend on the officer’s subjective reasoning

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).