Sometimes. A false arrest consists of unlawful restraint of a person’s liberty without proper legal authority. The key words here are “without proper legal authority”. The burden is on you, the person complaining they have been falsely arrested, to persuade a court or jury that the officer acted without legal authority. This can be difficult to prove. The good news is that if you can show the officer was malicious you may be entitled to more money or what is referred to as “punitive” damages. A common example of a false arrest situation is where an officer may arrest a black kid suspected of shoplifting, with no real suspicion that the kid did anything wrong, just because he may have been the only black kid in the store.
The frustration for people who want to sue for false arrest is that the lawsuit is in another court (civil), a different judge, usually a different lawyer, there are different rules for what is happening in the criminal case, and the case can take longer to resolve. Such cases are extremely hard to win.
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