Wilson v. Johnson

Reversed and remanded by published opinion, Judge GREGORY wrote the opinion, in which Judge MICHAEL joined. Senior Judge HANSEN wrote a dissenting opinion.

OPINION

The Appellant, Lee O. Wilson, Jr., (“Wilson”) appeals the district court’s decision to dismiss his 42 U.S.C. § 19831 action against the Virginia Department of Corrections. Wilson claims that he is entitled to monetary damages for unconstitutional imprisonment because Virginia improperly extended the length of his prison sentence. The district court, citing to the Supreme Court’s decision in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486-87, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), dismissed Wilson’s wrongful incarceration claim sua sponte stating that a “ § 1983 damages claim for unconstitutional imprisonment is not appropriate unless and until plaintiffs conviction or sentence ‘has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254.’ ” (J.A. 14.) This mandate is referred to as the “favorable termination” requirement.

Wilson contends that his § 1983 action is proper because success on that claim will not impugn his underlying conviction or sentence. Assuming, as we must, that Wilson’s well-pleaded allegations are true, we agree that his claim is viable and as such, the district court’s decision is reversed and remanded.

I.

Wilson was arrested on March 24, 2005, for grand larceny of a motor vehicle. On July 26, 2005, he pled guilty to the lesser charge of being an accessory after the fact. Consistent with Wilson’s plea agreement, the Virginia state court sentenced him to twelve months imprisonment, six months of which was suspended due to time served. According to the Virginia Department of Corrections’ (“VDOC”) Uniform Commitment Report, Wilson’s release date was April 21, 2006. (J.A. 6.) However, on March 15, 2006, the VDOC changed Wilson’s release date to July 17, 2006. Wilson filed grievances with the prison administration disputing his additional imprisonment. The VDOC did not initiate any formal administrative proceedings to resolve Wilson’s complaint. After Wilson was released from prison,2 he sued, seek*264ing monetary damages of $105,000 for wrongful imprisonment. The district court dismissed Wilson’s claim without prejudice, holding that Heck’s favorable termination requirement barred his § 1983 claim and stating that Wilson “may resubmit his claims to this Court in a [habeas petition].” (J.A. 15.) Wilson appeals.

II.

The VDOC contends that Wilson’s § 1983 claim is not cognizable because: (1) Wilson failed to satisfy Heck’s favorable termination requirement prior to filing his claim, and (2) even if Heck did not bar Wilson’s claim, because the VDOC properly calculated his sentence, Wilson’s claim is moot.3 Wilson argues that a § 1983 action is the proper vehicle to bring his wrongful imprisonment claim because a habeas action would have been inappropriate as he does not seek release from custody. Thus, whether Wilson’s § 1983 claim for wrongful imprisonment, filed after his sentence expired, is cognizable, is the sole issue before this Court. We review the district court’s decision to dismiss Wilson’s claim due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction, a question of law, de novo, see e.g., Church v. Attorney General of Com. of Va., 125 F.3d 210, 215 n. 5 (4th Cir.1997), taking all of his allegations “in the light most favorable to [him].” Giarratano v. Johnson, 521 F.3d 298, 302 (4th Cir.2008) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

Although the convergence of habeas and § 1983 actions has been addressed by the Supreme Court on several occasions, as the VDOC admits, it has sent “mixed signals” as to when an inmate or former inmate can pursue a § 1983 claim. (Ap-pellee’s Br. 4.) In Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973), a group of state prisoners filed a § 1983 action alleging that the New York State Department of Correctional Services’ denial of good-time credits violated their constitutional right to due process. The prisoners sought an injunction to force the prison to restore the credits, a remedy which would have reduced the prisoners’ sentences. Despite the “literal applicability” of § 1983, the Supreme Court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the claim because the prisoners’ “challenge is just as close to the core of habeas corpus as an attack on the prisoner’s conviction, for it goes directly to the constitutionality of his physical confinement itself and seeks either immediate release from that confinement or the shortening of its duration.” Id. at 489, 93 S.Ct. 1827. Because the plaintiffs “sought no [monetary] damages, but only equitable relief-restoration of their good-time credits,” id. at 494, 93 S.Ct. 1827, the Supreme Court expressly limited its holding to the equitable relief sought by the prisoners.

Subsequently, in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), an inmate filed a § 1983 class action on behalf of himself and other in*265mates, alleging inter alia, that the disciplinary proceedings at the Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex violated their due process rights. Like the plaintiffs in Preiser, the prisoners complained that the prison had improperly denied them good-time credits and sought injunctive relief. The Wolff inmates, however, also sought damages. In holding that Preiser precluded injunctive relief — i.e., the restoration of good-time credits, the Supreme Court confirmed the propriety of the plaintiffs’ § 1983 claim:

habeas corpus is not an appropriate or available remedy for damages claims, which, if not frivolous and of sufficient substance to invoke the jurisdiction of the federal court, could be pressed under § 1983 along with suits challenging the conditions of confinement rather than the fact or length of custody.

Id. at 554, 94 S.Ct. 2963. Thus, the Supreme Court concluded that the district court erred by not determining “the validity of the procedures employed for imposing sanctions, including loss of good ... [because] a declaratory judgment as a predicate to a damages award would not be barred by Preiser.” Id. at 554-55, 94 S.Ct. 2963.

Two decades after Wolff, the Supreme Court, in Heck, considered a prisoner’s § 1983 claim seeking monetary damages from the state because (1) state officers participated in an “unlawful, unreasonable, and arbitrary investigation leading to [his] arrest,” (2) state officers “knowingly destroyed” exculpatory evidence, and (3) “an illegal and unlawful voice identification procedure” was relied upon at trial. Heck, 512 U.S. at 479, 114 S.Ct. 2364 (internal quotation marks omitted). Recognizing that Preiser provided an “unreliable, if not an unintelligible, guide,” id. at 482, 114 S.Ct. 2364, as to whether a § 1983 claim for monetary damages is proper when it fails to challenge the “lawfulness of conviction or confinement,” id. at 483, 93 S.Ct. 1827, and concluding that Wolff “recognized a § 1983 claim for using the wrong procedures, not for reaching the wrong result (i.e., denying good-time credits),” id. at 482-483, 114 S.Ct. 2364, the Court analyzed the issue as a matter of first impression. After reiterating that § 1983 claims, unlike petitions for habeas corpus, do not require administrative exhaustion, the Court held that when a plaintiffs claims challenge “the lawfulness of conviction or confinement,” id. at 483, 114 S.Ct. 2364, they are simply not “cognizable as § 1983 claims” id., because:

[w]e think the hoary principle that civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments applies to § 1983 damages actions that necessarily require the plaintiff to prove the unlawfulness of his conviction or confinement, just as it has always applied to actions for malicious prosecution.

Id. at 486, 114 S.Ct. 2364 (emphasis added). Heck’s holding precludes a prisoner from a collateral attack that may result in two inconsistent results — for example, a valid criminal conviction and a valid civil judgment under § 1983 for monetary damages due to unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment.4 Although not essential to its holding, the Supreme Court extended its analysis a step further by concluding that “the principle barring collateral attacks ... is not rendered inapplicable by the fortuity that a convicted criminal is no longer incarcerated.” Id. at 489 n. 10, 114 S.Ct. 2364.

*266Justice Souter’s concurrence in Heck, joined by three Justices, recognized that the majority opinion could be interpreted to “risk the rights of those outside the intersection of § 1983 and the habeas statute, individuals not ‘in custody’ for habeas purposes,” id. at 500, 114 S.Ct. 2364, thus preventing them from accessing a federal forum.

If these individuals (people who were merely fined, for example, or who have completed short terms of imprisonment, probation, or parole, or who discover (through no fault of their own) a constitutional violation after full expiration of their sentences), like state prisoners, were required to show the prior invalidation of their convictions or sentences in order to obtain § 1983 damages for unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, the result would be to deny any federal forum for claiming a deprivation of federal rights to those who cannot first obtain a favorable state ruling. The reason, of course, is that individuals not in custody cannot invoke federal ha-beas jurisdiction, the only statutory mechanism besides § 1983 by which individuals may sue state officials in federal court for violating federal rights. That would be an untoward result.

Id. (Souter, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks omitted). Absent a statutory edict to the contrary or a restriction within the common law, the reach of § 1983 should not be compromised. Indeed, the Court has given “full effect [to the language of § 1983 by] recognizing that § 1983 provides a remedy, to be broadly construed, against all forms of official violation of federally protected rights.” Id. at 502, 114 S.Ct. 2364 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Thus, we “[sh]ould not cast doubt on the ability of an individual unaffected by the habeas statute to take advantage of the broad reach of § 1983.” Id. at 503, 114 S.Ct. 2364.

Heck and its predecessors limited our inquiry to whether a prisoner’s § 1983 action, “even if successful,” id. at 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364, would compromise the validity of his underlying sentence. Four years later, however, five members of the Supreme Court found Heck’s “favorable termination” requirement inapplicable to a released inmate’s § 1983 claim, since this was the only avenue by which he could access a federal forum. See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 118 S.Ct. 978, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998). In Spencer, the defendant filed a federal habeas claim averring that his due process rights were violated because his parole was improperly revoked. The district court dismissed the claim as moot because the defendant was released from prison before the district court decided his habeas claim. The majority opinion, written by Justice Scalia, who also authored the Court’s opinion in Heck, affirmed the district court’s decision.

Justice Souter, joined by three other colleagues (O’Connor, Ginsburg,5 and Breyer, JJ.), concurred with the reasoning of the majority opinion, but more importantly, articulated an additional reason for why the correct result was reached:

Now, as then, we are forced to recognize that any application of the favorable-termination requirement to § 1983 suits brought by plaintiffs not in custody would produce a patent anomaly: a given claim for relief from unconstitutional *267injury would be placed beyond the scope of § 1983 if brought by a convict free of custody (as, in this case, following service of a full term of imprisonment), when exactly the same claim could be redressed if brought by a former prisoner who had succeeded in cutting his custody short through habeas.

The better view, then, is that a former prisoner, no longer ‘in custody,’ may bring a § 1983 action establishing the unconstitutionality of a conviction or confinement without being bound to satisfy a favorable-termination requirement that it would be impossible as a matter of law for him to satisfy.

Id. at 20-21, 118 S.Ct. 978. Justice Stevens dissented, agreeing with the four concurring judges that “[g]iven the Court’s holding that [Spencer] does not have a remedy under the habeas statute, it is perfectly clear, as Justice SOUTER explains, that he may bring an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.” Id. at 25 n. 8, 118 S.Ct. 978 (emphasis in original).

Both parties readily recognize that the circuits are split on this issue. Four circuits regard the five justice plurality in Spencer as dicta, and continue to interpret Heck as barring individuals from filing virtually all § 1983 claims unless the favorable termination requirement is met.6 On the other hand, five circuits have held that the Spencer plurality’s view allows a plaintiff to obtain relief under § 1983 when it is no longer possible to meet the favorable termination requirement via a habeas action.7

As evidenced by the circuit split, the Supreme Court has yet to conclusively decide if a former inmate can file a § 1983 claim when his habeas avenue to federal court has been foreclosed. See Muhammad v. Close, 540 U.S. 749, 752 n. 2, 124 S.Ct. 1303, 158 L.Ed.2d 32 (2004) (recognizing, without deciding, that “[mjembers of the Court have expressed the view that unavailability of habeas for other reasons may also dispense with the Heck requirement.”) Even the four judge concurrence in Spencer admitted that Heck’s, “favorable-termination requirement [can be interpreted as] an element of any § 1983 action alleging unconstitutional conviction, whether or not leading to confinement and whether or not any confinement continued when the § 1983 action was filed.” Spencer, 523 U.S. at 19, 118 S.Ct. 978.

Because Wilson’s § 1983 claim seeks damages for past confinement, he does not fall squarely within the holdings of Preiser, Wolff, Heck or Spencer. Thus, while Supreme Court dicta in Heck and Spencer provides grist for circuits on both sides of this dilemma, we are left with no directly applicable precedent upon which to rely. We believe that the reasoning employed by the plurality in Spencer must prevail in a case, like Wil*268son’s, where an individual would be left without any access to federal court if his § 1983 claim was barred. Indeed, the reach and intent of the habeas remedy would not be circumscribed by Wilson’s § 1983 claim since he filed it after the expiration of his sentence.8 Additionally, the sweeping breadth, “high purposes,” and “unique[ness]” of § 1983 would be compromised in an unprincipled manner if it could not be applied here. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 272, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985) (overruled on other grounds). If a prisoner could not, as a practical matter, seek habeas relief, and after release, was prevented from filing a § 1983 claim, § 1983’s purpose of providing litigants with “a uniquely federal remedy against incursions under the claimed authority of state law upon rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the Nations,” id. at 271-272, 105 S.Ct. 1938 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted), would be severely imperiled. Barring Wilson’s claim would leave him without access to any judicial forum in which to seek relief for his alleged wrongful imprisonment. Quite simply, we do not believe that a habeas ineligible former prisoner seeking redress for denial of his most precious right — freedom— should be left without access to a federal court.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the judgment of the district court and remand it for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED