Hoard v. Reddy
| Decision Date | 23 April 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-2624,98-2624 |
| Citation | 175 F.3d 531 |
| Parties | Brian HOARD, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. James REDDY, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Brian Hoard (submitted), Galesburg, IL, Plaintiff-Appellant Pro Se.
Richard A. Devine (submitted), Office of the State's Attorney of Cook County, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before POSNER, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK and KANNE, Circuit Judges.
Brian Hoard brought suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against various officials of Cook County, Illinois. He seeks damages for their having violated his constitutional right of access to the courts (Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977)) by hindering his efforts to litigate a state-court collateral attack on his conviction. The district court dismissed the suit on the authority of Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), which forbids a convicted person to seek damages on any theory that implies that his conviction was invalid without first getting the conviction set aside, which Hoard has not done. As we explained in Carr v. O'Leary, 167 F.3d 1124, 1127 (7th Cir.1999); see also Nance v. Vieregge, 147 F.3d 589, 591 (7th Cir.1998); Sylvester v. Hanks, 140 F.3d 713, 714 (7th Cir.1998), there is probably an exception to the rule of Heck for cases in which no route other than a damages action under section 1983 is open to the person to challenge his conviction. Hoard is claiming--correctly we must assume, given the posture of the case--that the defendants prevented him from challenging his conviction. Now it might seem that any such blockage would be easily circumvented. A prisoner who is prevented from exhausting his state remedies can go directly to federal district court to obtain relief from his conviction by means of federal habeas corpus. But federal habeas corpus can be used only to challenge violations of federal law, and it appears that Hoard wishes to challenge his conviction on state-law grounds as well. For that he needs access to a state remedy. But we do not understand him to be arguing that the defendants' alleged violation of his right of access to the courts has forever barred him from pursuing his state postconviction remedy so that the only relief available to him is damages. He could not argue this, because if the defendants are illegally blocking his access to state postconviction remedies, he can obtain an injunction under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to clear away the blockage. E.g., Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 648-49, 117 S.Ct. 1584, 137 L.Ed.2d 906 (1997). As he is not seeking such relief, he has no basis for complaining that no route is open to him other than this damages action for challenging the validity of his conviction. His claim for damages is therefore barred by Heck even if there is the exception we indicated for cases in which there is no way to get the conviction undone. Nance v. Vieregge, supra, 147 F.3d at 591-92.
As it happens, Hoard is seeking an injunction as well as damages. But it is not an injunction against blocking his access to the courts that he seeks; it is an injunction ordering the state court to reopen his postconviction proceeding. A civil rights suit is no more a proper method of collateral attack on a conviction when an injunction is sought than when damages are sought. The latter route is blocked by Heck and the former by such decisions as Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 487, 500, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973); Whitlock v. Johnson, 153 F.3d 380, 389 (7th Cir.1998), and Scruggs v. Moellering, 870 F.2d 376, 379 (7th Cir.1989).
But this conclusion brings into view the following paradox. A claim for damages in respect of an unconstitutional denial of access to the courts, unlike a claim of damages for an unconstitutional conviction, does not require the...
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Limone v. U.S., CIV. 02-10890-NG.
...viable claims over the course of several decades, when they were still in a position to challenge their convictions. In Hoard v. Reddy, 175 F.3d 531 (7th Cir.1999), the plaintiff sought damages based on allegations that defendants were "hindering his efforts to litigate a state-court collat......
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...example) fit within § 1983's broad reach. DeWalt, 224 F.3d at 616-17 (citations and quotation marks omitted); see also Hoard v. Reddy, 175 F.3d 531, 533 (7th Cir.1999) (stating that there is probably an exception to the rule of Heck for cases in which no route other than a damages action un......
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