Denver defends officer's arrest of wrong man

DENVER (AP) - Lawyers for Denver say a city police officer didn't violate the constitutional rights of a man who was wrongly arrested in a case of mistaken identity.

Dennis Michael Smith has filed a lawsuit saying he was arrested when he tried to visit an inmate last year after an officer noticed an outstanding arrest warrant for a Dennis Allen Smith.

City lawyers argued in documents filed Friday in U.S. District Court that the men were both born June 25 within a year of each other and had similar physical characteristics, and that Dennis Michael Smith didn't have his middle name on his driver's license.

They say his arrest was at most a mistake but not a constitutional violation. They asked a judge to make a judgment without a full trial.