total want of probable cause,” Ventress, supra, at 541; accord, Ahern, supra, at 150.
In sum, when §1983 was enacted, the common law recognized probable cause as an important element for ensuring that arrest-based torts did not unduly interfere with the objectives of law enforcement. Common-law courts were wary of “throw[ing] down the bars which protect public officers from suits for acts done within the scope of their duty and authority, by recognizing the right of every one who chooses to imagine or assert that he is aggrieved by their doings, to make use of an allegation that they were malicious in motive to harass them with suits on that ground.” Chelsey v. King, 74 Me. 164, 175–176 (1882).
Applying that principle here, it follows that plaintiffs bringing a First Amendment retaliatory-arrest claim under §1983 should have to plead and prove a lack of probable cause. I see no justification for deviating from the historical practice simply because an arrest claim is framed in terms of the First Amendment. Even under a First Amendment theory, “the significance of probable cause or the lack of it looms large.” Hartman, 547 U. S., at 265. The presence of probable cause will tend to disprove that the arrest was done out of retaliation for the plaintiff’s speech, and the absence of probable cause will tend to prove the opposite. See id., at 261. Because “[p]robable cause or its absence will be at least an evidentiary issue in practically all such cases” and “[b]ecause showing [its] absence . . . will have high probative force, and can be made mandatory with little or no added cost,” the absence of probable cause should be an “element” of the plaintiff’s case. Id., at 265–266; see also id., at 264, n. 10 (refusing to carve out an exception for unusual cases).
Moreover, as with the traditional arrest-based torts, police officers need the safe harbor of probable cause in the First Amendment context to be able to do their jobs
