https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/22...

In the context of false imprisonment, it generally means without legal process, and legal process later overturned does not count.

See eg. https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-supreme-court/549/384.h...

>Reflective of the fact that false imprisonment consists of detention without legal process, a false imprisonment ends once the victim becomes held pursuant to such process--when, for example, he is bound over by a magistrate or arraigned on charges. Dobbs, supra, §39, at 74, n. 2; Keeton, supra, §119, at 888; H. Stephen, Actions for Malicious Prosecution 120-123 (1888). Thereafter, unlawful detention forms part of the damages for the "entirely distinct" tort of malicious prosecution, which remedies detention accompanied, not by absence of legal process, but by wrongful institution of legal process

You could make the system more adversarial at that point, although I think enforcing bail hearings where a public defender can argue would help in this and many other cases.

And in comments I expanded on this and gave several specific reforms.

Not sure what your understanding was.

When there's a warrant, even if wrongly granted, the arrest and imprisonment is considered lawful.

Instead somehow bail was set at $2 million and the hearing to reduce bail was delayed.

Those are flaws in the system that should be fixed, and will continue harming people even without bad faith from sheriffs.

Personal civil liability and firing can also help.

I appreciate the massive harms done by incarceration, which I why I support vastly reducing it.

Rape and murder are existing crimes, and they should be applied equally to police officers.

I think that the core problem with the system is not individual bad actors, but overcriminalization and the acceptance of that by judges and juries. To solve that you need actual reform, and adding a new crime that would inevitably be weaponized is not the way.

The whole concept of holding people "accountable" is the wrong frame. It's precisely that mindset that created this highly flawed system. I want to reduce bad things, not to feel good because people who did bad things are punished.

And when you think about how to prevent bad cases from being brought, you need to systematically reduce the power of those who can make such decisions.

Added: I do want strong civil liability for these cases, which we do have, which is why OP was able to get a good settlement. We should expand that to federal cases and lower the threshold.

America has one of the highest rates of incarceration in the world (used to be #1) but suggest that maybe we're overcriminalized and you must be talking nonsense.

You'd have to change the law to allow for prosecutions in cases like this, and that change would likely be weaponized in other cases.

I'm saying that for decades, people who were maliciously prosecuted by the federal government had effectively no recourse.

It's good to change that, and I'm hopeful that the new fund does some of that. I would prefer to change the system to vastly reduce the threshold for finding the federal government liable in such cases.