County of Riverside v. McLaughlin
The Supreme Court ruled that counties may combine a probable-cause check with other early court proceedings like arraignment, so long as the combined hearing happens within 48 hours of arrest. Riverside County's practice of sometimes waiting up to five or seven days did not meet that standard.
The decision sets a nationwide benchmark for how fast people arrested without a warrant must see a judge, giving local governments a clear deadline while leaving room to challenge unreasonable delays even within that window.
“we believe that a jurisdiction that provides judicial determinations of probable cause within 48 hours of arrest will, as a general matter, comply with the promptness requirement of Gerstein”
The Court's core holding setting a 48-hour benchmark for probable-cause hearings.
How it got here: A federal trial court issued a class-wide injunction requiring probable-cause hearings within 36 hours; the Ninth Circuit affirmed; the county asked the Supreme Court to review the timing standard.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Donald McLaughlin and other people arrested without warrants in Riverside County, California, sued the county because it combined probable-cause determinations with arraignment hearings, a process that could take two business days and sometimes stretched to five or seven days over weekends and holidays. They argued this violated their right to a prompt judicial check on the reason for their arrest.
The question before the Court
How quickly must police bring someone arrested without a warrant before a judge to check whether there was really probable cause for the arrest?
The Court's answer
The Court answered that a probable-cause hearing combined with another early proceeding like arraignment is prompt enough under the Fourth Amendment if it happens within 48 hours of arrest. Jurisdictions that meet this deadline are generally protected from broad lawsuits challenging their overall system, though an individual can still show a specific delay was unreasonable, such as one aimed at gathering more evidence or motivated by ill will.
If a hearing takes longer than 48 hours, the rules flip: the government must prove a real emergency caused the extra delay, and ordinary excuses like weekends or the convenience of combining proceedings don't count. Riverside County's policy, which could stretch past 48 hours because it excluded weekends and holidays, did not meet this standard, so the case was sent back for further proceedings.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Anyone arrested without a warrant now has a concrete number to point to: 48 hours. Jails and courts across the country must build their booking and arraignment schedules around that deadline or risk being sued, while arrestees held longer can challenge the delay in court, shifting the burden to the government to justify it.
What changes now
The case was sent back to the lower courts to apply the new 48-hour framework to Riverside County's actual practices, including whether the county's habit of scheduling arraignments on the last permissible day amounts to unreasonable delay for delay's sake. The ruling is a final merits decision that establishes a general nationwide rule, though case-specific disputes about unreasonable delay within 48 hours will continue to be litigated.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide that every hearing held within 48 hours is automatically lawful — arrested individuals can still show a specific delay was unreasonable. It also left open, for the lower courts on remand, whether Riverside County's practice of scheduling arraignments on the last possible day was itself an unreasonable delay tactic.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Marshall
Justice Marshall argued that Gerstein required a probable-cause hearing immediately once the administrative steps of booking were finished, not a 48-hour grace period. He agreed with Justice Scalia's reading of Gerstein and would have affirmed the Ninth Circuit's rule requiring hearings as soon as those administrative steps were done.
Dissent — Justice Scalia
“Mr. McLaughlin was entitled to have a prompt impartial determination that there was reason to deprive him of his liberty-not according to a schedule that suits the State's convenience in piggybacking various proceedings, but as soon as his arrest was completed and the magistrate could be procured.”Scalia's objection that the majority let administrative convenience override a prompt hearing.
Justice Scalia argued the common law long required an arrested person to be brought before a magistrate 'as soon as he reasonably can,' limited only by the time needed to complete arrest paperwork and locate a magistrate. He contended the majority invented a new 48-hour allowance for administrative convenience in combining proceedings, and would have set a 24-hour outer limit instead, tied to actual evidence about how long processing takes.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read its earlier decision in Gerstein v. Pugh as striking a balance between the government's interest in taking suspects into custody quickly and an arrested person's interest in not being held too long without a neutral check, rather than as demanding an immediate hearing right after booking.
- Because Gerstein encouraged states to experiment with how they build probable-cause checks into their own court systems, the Court concluded that folding the check into another early proceeding, like an arraignment, is permitted as long as it happens without unnecessary delay.
- The Court set a specific benchmark: a probable-cause determination provided within 48 hours of arrest will generally count as prompt, and jurisdictions that meet this deadline are shielded from broad, system-wide lawsuits.
- The Court added a safety valve for individual cases: even a hearing held within 48 hours can still be challenged if the person can show the delay was unreasonable, such as time spent purely gathering more evidence or acting out of ill will.
- If a jurisdiction takes longer than 48 hours, the burden flips — the government, not the arrested person, must prove a genuine emergency justified the extra delay, and neither ordinary weekend scheduling nor the convenience of combining proceedings counts as such an emergency.
- Applying this framework, the Court found that Riverside County's own policy, which could stretch to five or seven days because it excluded weekends and holidays from its two-day count, regularly exceeded the 48-hour benchmark.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Gerstein v. Pugh (420 U.S. 103)
Court builds on Gerstein's balancing approach but clarifies its vague 'prompt' requirement with a specific 48-hour benchmark.
Distinguishes Los Angeles v. Lyons (461 U.S. 95)
Court says this case differs from Lyons because the plaintiffs were still suffering ongoing injury when they sued.