Harden v. Pataki

• Decision Date: 10 February 2003
• Docket Number: No. 01-15186.,01-15186.
• Citation: 320 F.3d 1289
• Parties: Major HARDEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. George E. PATAKI, Governor, State of New York, Jackie Barrett, Sheriff, Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, Jane Doe, Employee, Fulton County Jail, Atlanta, Georgia, John # 1 Doe, Agent, Private Extradition Agency, New York City, John # 2 Doe, Agent, Private Extradition Agency, New York City, John Doe Agency, Private Extradition Agency, New York City, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

320 F.3d 1289

Major HARDEN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. George E. PATAKI, Governor, State of New York, Jackie Barrett, Sheriff, Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, Jane Doe, Employee, Fulton County Jail, Atlanta, Georgia, John # 1 Doe, Agent, Private Extradition Agency, New York City, John # 2 Doe, Agent, Private Extradition Agency, New York City, John Doe Agency, Private Extradition Agency, New York City, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 01-15186.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

February 10, 2003.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Robert C. Port (Appointed by Appeals Court), Hassett, Cohen, Goldstein & Port, LP, Atlanta, GA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before BIRCH, DUBINA and KRAVITCH, Circuit Judges.

BIRCH, Circuit Judge:

In Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 2372-73, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), the Supreme Court "held that a state prisoner's claim for damages is not cognizable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 if `a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence,' unless the prisoner can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has previously been invalidated." Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 643, 117 S.Ct. 1584, 1586, 137 L.Ed.2d 906 (1997). This case presents the question whether a claim for damages and declaratory relief brought by a state prisoner challenging the validity of the procedures used to extradite him from Georgia to New York, otherwise cognizable under § 1983, is barred by Heck. We hold that it is not and, therefore, REVERSE the district court's order dismissing the prisoner's action.

I. BACKGROUND

In May 1986, while serving a twenty-five year sentence in the Federal Prison in Levenworth, Kansas, Appellant Major Harden was extradited to Suffolk County, New York, and convicted and sentenced to a term of twenty-five years to life for another crime. In his pro se complaint, he alleged that, several days after his release in May 2000 from his later confinement in the Atlanta federal penitentiary on a different crime, he was arrested and, without a signed extradition warrant, a waiver of his extradition rights, or a habeas hearing, and over his protests, extradited to New York by a private extradition company, presumably to serve his sentence imposed pursuant to the 1986 conviction. He filed a federal complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the Southern District of New York, seeking a declaration that the defendants violated his constitutional rights, injunctive relief, and compensatory damages. His case was transferred to the Northern District of Georgia, where the court sua sponte dismissed his suit for failure to state a claim for which relief could be granted pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Applying Heck, the district court found Harden's suit premature because, while his challenge to the extradition procedures necessarily implied the invalidity of his underlying conviction, he had not alleged that his conviction or sentence had in fact been invalidated. This appeal followed.

II. DISCUSSION

We review a district court's sua sponte dismissal of a suit for failure to state a claim for relief under § 1915A(b)(1) de novo. Leal v. Ga. Dep't of Corr., 254 F.3d 1276, 1279 (11th Cir.2001) (per curiam).

In his complaint, Harden alleges that he was denied the right to a pre-extradition habeas corpus hearing, the right to be turned over to government agents, not a private extradition company, and the right to have a Governor's warrant issued for his arrest. The first two rights are based on Art. IV, § 2, cl. 2 of the Constitution ("Extradition Clause")¹ and 18 U.S.C. § 3182² implementing the provision, and are therefore federal in nature.³ Prior to Heck, we held that a cause of action under § 1983 is stated where officials violate extradition procedures protected "by the Constitution and laws of the United States." Crumley v. Snead, 620 F.2d 481, 483 & n. 9 (5th Cir.1980). In that case, the sheriff of one state delivered the prisoner to authorities in another state while the prisoner's petition for a writ of habeas corpus collaterally challenging the extradition was pending in state court. Id. at 482. Recognizing "that individuals have a federal right to challenge their extradition by writ of habeas corpus," we specifically held that "[a]ny denial of th[at] right gives rise to a cause of action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983." Id. at 483. The majority of circuit courts agree.⁴

The right to a signed Governor's warrant of arrest, however, is based on the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act ("UCEA") as it has been adopted and codified in state law, not on the Extradition Clause or § 3182 explicitly. See Ga.Code Ann. § 17-13-27 (1997). As we have not held so before, today, we join our five sister "circuits that have held that a violation of state extradition law can serve as the basis of a section 1983 action `[w]here the violation of state law causes the deprivation of rights protected by the Constitution and statutes of the United States.'" Draper v. Coombs, 792 F.2d 915, 921 (9th Cir.1986) (quoting Wirth v. Surles, 562 F.2d 319, 322 (4th Cir.1977)); accord Brown v. Nutsch, 619 F.2d 758, 764 n. 8 (8th Cir.1980); McBride v. Soos, 594 F.2d 610, 613 (7th Cir.1979); Sanders v. Conine, 506 F.2d 530, 532 (10th Cir.1974).⁵ Thus, we find that, in the absence of any bar imposed by Heck, Harden properly stated a § 1983 damages claim for failure to comply with both federal and state extradition laws.⁶

In Heck, however, the Court considered a state prisoner's § 1983 claim arising out of alleged unlawful acts by state prosecutors and police officers that had led to his arrest and conviction. 512 U.S. at 479, 114 S.Ct. at 2368. It held that "a § 1983 cause of action for damages attributable to an unconstitutional conviction or sentence does not accrue until the conviction or sentence has been invalidated." 512 U.S. at 489-90, 114 S.Ct. at 2374. The Court reasoned that, because "§ 1983 creates a species of tort liability," "the appropriate starting point for the inquiry under § 1983" is the common law rules of tort. Id. at 483, 114 S.Ct. at 2370-71. Recognizing that "[t]he common-law cause of action for malicious prosecution provides the closest analogy to" Heck's § 1983 claim, and that "[o]ne element that must be alleged and proved in a malicious prosecution action is termination of the prior criminal proceeding in favor of the accused," the Court imposed a favorable-termination requirement on "§ 1983 damages actions that necessarily require the plaintiff to prove the unlawfulness of his conviction or confinement." Id. at 484, 486, 114 S.Ct. at 2371, 2372. In doing so, it invoked "the hoary principle that civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments." Id. at 486, 114 S.Ct. at 2372.

We hold that, in order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the 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. A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under § 1983. Thus, when a state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983 suit, the district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated.

Id. at 486-87, 114 S.Ct. at 2372 (footnote omitted). Though cognizant that the case lay "at the intersection of the two most fertile sources of federal-court prisoner litigation — the Civil Rights Act of 1871 ..., as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and the federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2254," id. at 480, 114 S.Ct. at 2369, the Court was careful to emphasize that it did "not engraft an exhaustion requirement upon § 1983 [because of the habeas statute], but rather den[ied] the existence of a cause of action" altogether. Id. at 489, 114 S.Ct. at 2373.

In short, the Court held "that a state prisoner may not maintain an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 if the direct or indirect effect of granting relief would be to invalidate the state sentence he is serving."⁷ Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 21, 118 S.Ct. 978, 990, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998) (Ginsburg, J., concurring). By contrast, "if the district court determines that the plaintiff's action, even if successful, will not demonstrate the invalidity of any outstanding criminal judgment against the plaintiff, the action should be allowed to proceed, in the absence of some other bar to the suit."⁸ Heck, 512 U.S. at 487, 114 S.Ct. at 2372-73 (footnote omitted). "If, for example, [a plaintiff] were to seek damages `for using the wrong procedures, not for reaching the wrong result,' and if that procedural defect did not `necessarily imply the invalidity of' the [conviction or sentence], then Heck would have no application at all." Spencer, 523 U.S. at 17, 118 S.Ct. at 988 (citations omitted). Thus, Heck does not bar purely procedural claims brought under § 1983.⁹

The question here, then, is whether Harden's damages claim challenging the validity of the procedures used to extradite him is purely procedural, or whether, if successful, it would necessarily invalidate the underlying conviction or sentence for which he was extradited, directly or indirectly. We hold that it does not; indeed, it cannot.

In the first instance, the jurisdiction of a trial court over a criminal defendant is not vitiated by the...