Smith v. Holtz

• Decision Date: 26 June 1996
• Docket Number: Nos. 95-7533,No. 95-7533,95-7534,No. 95-7534,95-7533,s. 95-7533
• Citation: 87 F.3d 108
• Parties: Jay C. SMITH v. John J. HOLTZ, Bureau of Technical Services, Pennsylvania; Ronald F. Colyer, Bureau of Technical Services, Pennsylvania State Police; Victor Dove; John J. Purcell, Special Agent In Charge, Central Regional Office, Bureau of Criminal Investigations, Office of the Attorney General; William J. Lander, Bureau of Criminal Investigations, Office of the Attorney General; Paul Yatron, Appellants inJay C. SMITH v. Joseph P. WAMBAUGH, Appellant in
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Page 108

87 F.3d 108

Jay C. SMITH v. John J. HOLTZ, Bureau of Technical Services, Pennsylvania;

Ronald F. Colyer, Bureau of Technical Services, Pennsylvania

State Police; Victor Dove; John J. Purcell, Special Agent

In Charge, Central Regional Office, Bureau of Criminal

Investigations, Office of the Attorney General; William J.

Lander, Bureau of Criminal Investigations, Office of the

Attorney General; Paul Yatron, Appellants in No. 95-7533.

Jay C. SMITH v. Joseph P. WAMBAUGH, Appellant in No. 95-7534.

Nos. 95-7533, 95-7534.

United States Court of Appeals Third Circuit.

Argued May 3, 1996.

Decided June 26, 1996.

Gerald J. Williams (argued), Williams & Cuker, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellee in No. 95-7533.

Thomas W. Corbett, Jr., Attorney General, Gregory R. Neuhauser (argued), Senior Deputy Attorney General, Calvin R. Koons, Senior Deputy Attorney General, John G. Knorr, III, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Harrisburg, PA, for Appellants in No. 95-7533.

George A. Bochetto, Stephen E. Skovron (argued), Bochetto & Lentz, Philadelphia, PA, for Appellee in 95-7534.

Mark R. Hornak (argued), George H. Crompton, Buchanan Ingersoll Professional

Corp., Pittsburgh, PA, for Appellant in No. 95-7534.

Before STAPLETON, COWEN and SEITZ, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

STAPLETON, Circuit Judge:

In Heck v. Humphrey, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), the Supreme Court held that 42 U.S.C. § 1983 does not provide a cause of action to recover monetary compensation for an allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment where recovery would necessarily imply the invalidity of an outstanding criminal conviction of a state court. In these consolidated civil rights actions, Jay Smith seeks monetary compensation for his allegedly unconstitutional conviction and imprisonment on murder charges. On direct appeal from Smith's murder conviction, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed that conviction due to a state-law evidentiary error and remanded for a new trial. Before the retrial, however, that court ordered the dismissal of all charges against Smith based on newly discovered evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. In these ensuing civil rights cases, the defendants unsuccessfully sought dismissal of Smith's claims on statute of limitations grounds, arguing that they accrued when his conviction was reversed, even though he was still the subject of an ongoing prosecution at that time. Since Smith's claims were filed more than two years after that reversal but within two years of the dismissal of all charges against him, we must decide whether, under the teachings of Heck, a claim is cognizable under § 1983 where its success would necessarily imply the invalidity of a future conviction that might be entered on a pending criminal charge. We hold that such a claim is not cognizable under § 1983. It necessarily follows that claims like those of Smith do not accrue so long as the potential for a judgment in the pending criminal prosecution continues to exist. Since this potential existed in Smith's case until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered the charges dismissed on September 18, 1992, Smith's claims did not accrue before that date. Accordingly, Smith's claims were timely filed and we will affirm.

I.

In April 1986, a jury convicted Smith of the murders of Susan Reinert and her children. Smith immediately appealed. While the appeal was ongoing in July 1988, the government disclosed that police investigators had withheld potentially exculpatory evidence. ¹ On December 22, 1989, on direct appeal the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed Smith's convictions on the unrelated ground that the Court of Common Pleas had improperly admitted hearsay evidence. Commonwealth v. Smith, 523 Pa. 577, 568 A.2d 600 (1989). The Pennsylvania Supreme Court remanded for a new trial.

Smith remained in prison pending a second trial. He promptly moved to dismiss the ongoing prosecution on double jeopardy grounds, arguing that the withholding of exculpatory evidence at the first trial amounted to prosecutorial misconduct. Smith had not previously raised this issue because he had not learned of the misconduct until after his trial and because the supporting evidence was not part of the record on direct appeal. On September 18, 1992, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered all charges dismissed based on the double jeopardy clause of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Commonwealth v. Smith, 532 Pa. 177, 615 A.2d 321 (1992). The court held that Pennsylvania's double jeopardy clause prevented retrial because the withholding of evidence was "intentionally undertaken to prejudice the defendant to the point of the denial of a fair trial." Id. 615 A.2d at 325. Smith was immediately released.

On September 15, 1993, Smith filed a § 1983 claim against John Holtz, Ronald Colyer, Victor Dove, John Purcell, William Lander, and Paul Yatron (the "Holtz case"). Holtz, Colyer, Dove, Purcell, and Lander were government officials involved in the investigation. Yatron was an attorney with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office. Smith alleged that the misconduct in connection with the concealing of the exculpatory evidence violated his Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. On September 14, 1994, Smith filed a separate § 1983 suit against Joseph Wambaugh (the "Wambaugh case"). He claimed that Wambaugh, an author, had conspired with police investigators to conceal exculpatory evidence and to fabricate evidence linking Smith to the murders, in order to make money from a book and a television mini-series. He alleged violations of his Fourth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights. In both cases he sought to recover the damages resulting from his unlawful conviction and confinement.

The defendants in both cases argued that Smith's claims were time-barred by the applicable two-year Pennsylvania statute of limitations because they accrued when his conviction was reversed in 1989. ² Based on Heck v. Humphrey, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), the district court concluded that Smith's § 1983 claims were timely filed because they did not accrue until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ordered all charges dismissed in 1992. We consolidated the interlocutory appeals filed by all defendants under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). ³

II.

The outcome of this appeal turns on Heck v. Humphrey, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994). Heck was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in a state court. While his direct appeal was pending, he filed a § 1983 suit against two prosecutors and a government investigator. He sought monetary damages resulting from his allegedly unlawful conviction. The district court dismissed the case and the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. Before the case reached the Supreme Court, the state supreme court denied relief in Heck's direct appeal of his criminal conviction, the district court denied Heck's habeas petition, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed that denial. Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 2368.

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to decide whether under § 1983 a state prisoner could pursue money damages premised on an allegedly unlawful outstanding conviction. The Court began its analysis by noting that since § 1983 creates a species of tort liability, the common law of torts "provide[s] the appropriate starting point for the inquiry." Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 2370. The Court observed that the common law tort of malicious prosecution was analogous to Smith's claim because a malicious prosecution claim allows a plaintiff to recover for unlawful imprisonment pursuant to legal process. A necessary element of a malicious prosecution claim is the termination of the criminal proceedings in favor of the accused:

This requirement "avoids parallel litigation over the issue of probable cause and guilt ... and it precludes the possibility of the claimant [sic] succeeding in the tort action after having been convicted in the underlying criminal prosecution, in contravention of a strong judicial policy against the creation of two conflicting resolutions arising out of the same or identical transaction." Furthermore, "to permit a convicted criminal defendant to proceed with a malicious prosecution claim would permit a collateral attack on the conviction through the vehicle of a civil suit."

Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 2371 (alterations in original) (citations omitted).

For these reasons the Court held that "the hoary principle that civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments applies to § 1983 damage actions that necessarily require the plaintiff to prove the unlawfulness of his conviction or confinement." Id. at ----, 114 S.Ct. at 2372. Accordingly, "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." Id. A claim seeking such damages is not cognizable under § 1983 even though such claim is within the literal terms of § 1983. Id.

Accordingly, a "district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence." Id. If not, the action should be allowed to proceed:

For example, a suit for damages attributable to an allegedly unreasonable search may lie even if the challenged search produced evidence that was introduced in a state criminal trial resulting in the § 1983 plaintiff's still-outstanding conviction. Because of doctrines like independent source and inevitable discovery, and especially harmless error, such a § 1983 action, even if...