Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-17-03543/USCOURTS-ca7-17-03543-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

No. 17-3543

JOHNNIE LEE SAVORY,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

WILLIAM CANNON, SR., as special 

representative for Charles Cannon, 

et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 1:17-cv-00204 — Gary Feinerman, Judge.

ARGUED OCTOBER 25, 2018 — DECIDED JANUARY 7, 2019

Before ROVNER, HAMILTON, and BARRETT, Circuit Judges.

ROVNER, Circuit Judge. Johnnie Lee Savory spent thirty years

in prison for a 1977 double murder that he insists he did not

commit. Even after his release from prison, he continued to

assert his innocence. Thirty-eight years after his conviction, the

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governor of Illinois pardoned Savory. Nearly two years after

the pardon, Savory filed a civil rights suit against the City of

Peoria (“City”) and a number of Peoria police officers alleging

that they framed him. The district court dismissed the suit as

untimely. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.

I.

In January 1977, Peoria police officers arrested fourteenyear-old Savory for the rape and murder of nineteen-year-old

Connie Cooper and the murder of her fourteen-year-old

brother, James Robinson. According to Savory’s complaint,

which we must credit when assessing a motion to dismiss

under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), these officers

subjected Savory to an abusive thirty-one hour interrogation

over a two-day period. Tobey v. Chibucos, 890 F.3d 634, 645 (7th

Cir. 2018) (in reviewing a district court’s decision on a motion

to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), we accept as true all

well-pleaded facts and draw all reasonable inferences in favor

of the non-moving party). The officers fabricated evidence,

wrongfully coerced a false confession from the teen, suppressed and destroyed evidence that would have exonerated

him, fabricated incriminating statements from alleged witnesses, and ignored ample evidence pointing to other suspects.

No legitimate evidence implicated Savory. His arrest, prosecution and conviction were based entirely on the officers’

fabricated evidence and illegally extracted false confession. 

Savory was tried as an adult in 1977 and convicted of first

degree murder. After that conviction was overturned on

appeal, he was convicted again in 1981. He was sentenced to a

term of forty to eighty years in prison. After Savory exhausted

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direct appeals and post-conviction remedies in state court, he

unsuccessfully sought federal habeas corpus relief. He repeatedly petitioned for clemency and also sought DNA testing.

After thirty years in prison, he was paroled in December 2006.

Five years later, in December 2011, the governor of Illinois

commuted the remainder of Savory’s sentence. That action

terminated his parole (and therefore his custody) but left his

conviction intact. On January 12, 2015, the governor issued a

pardon that “acquitted and discharged” Savory’s conviction.

On January 11, 2017, less than two years after the pardon,

Savory filed suit against the City and the police officers.

That suit asserted six claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, five

against the individual defendants and one against the City. The

five counts against the individual defendants alleged that they:

(1) coerced a false confession from Savory in violation of the

Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments; (2) coerced a false confession from Savory in violation of his due process rights under

the Fourteenth Amendment; (3) maliciously prosecuted

Savory, depriving him of liberty without probable cause in

violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments;

(4) violated his right to be free of involuntary confinement and

servitude under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments;

and (5) failed to intervene as their fellow officers violated

Savory’s civil rights. In the sixth count, Savory alleged that the

City’s unlawful policies, practices and customs led to his

wrongful conviction and imprisonment in violation of section

1983. Savory also brought state law claims against the defendants but later conceded that those claims were untimely

under the state’s one-year statute of limitations. Those claims

are not part of this appeal.

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The defendants moved to dismiss Savory’s section 1983

claims on several grounds but the district court addressed only

one: the statute of limitations. The court recognized that, under

Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), Savory could not bring

his section 1983 claims unless and until he obtained a favorable

termination of a challenge to his conviction. The parties agreed

that the relevant statute of limitations required Savory to bring

his claims within two years of accrual but the parties disagreed

on when the Heck bar lifted. Savory asserted that his claims did

not accrue until he received a pardon from the Illinois governor on January 12, 2015, which would make his January 11,

2017 suit timely. The defendants asserted that the Heck bar

lifted when Savory’s parole was terminated on December 6,

2011, making his claims untimely. The district court concluded

that the defendants had the better view of Heck and dismissed

the claims with prejudice. Savory appeals.

II.

We review de novo a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal on statute of

limitations grounds. Tobey, 890 F.3d at 645; Amin Ijbara Equity

Corp. v. Village of Oak Lawn, 860 F.3d 489, 492 (7th Cir. 2017).

Our analysis begins and ends with Heck, the controlling case.

Heck addressed whether and when a state prisoner may

challenge the constitutionality of his conviction in a suit for

damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Heck, 512 U.S. at 478. While

Heck was serving a fifteen-year sentence for manslaughter, he

brought a section 1983 action against two prosecutors and a

state police inspector asserting that they engaged in an

unlawful investigation that led to his arrest, that they knowingly destroyed exculpatory evidence, and that they caused an

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unlawful voice identification procedure to be used at his trial.

512 U.S. at 478–79. 

The Court noted that such a case lies at the intersection of

federal prisoner litigation under section 1983 and the federal

habeas corpus statute. 512 U.S. at 480. In analyzing the claim,

the Court first found that Heck’s section 1983 claim most

closely resembled the common law tort of malicious prosecution, which allows damages for confinement imposed pursuant

to legal process, including compensation for arrest and

imprisonment, discomfort or injury to health, and loss of time

and deprivation of society. 512 U.S. at 484. An element that

must be pleaded and proved in a malicious prosecution case is

termination of the prior criminal proceeding in favor of the

accused. This requirement avoids creating two conflicting

resolutions arising out of the same transaction, steering clear

of parallel litigation over the issue of guilt. The requirement

also prevents a convicted criminal from collaterally attacking

the conviction through a civil suit: 

We 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.

We hold that, in order to recover damages for

allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions

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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. But 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.

Heck, 512 U.S. at 486–87 (footnotes omitted; emphasis in

original).

The Court made pellucid the broad consequences of its

plainly stated rule:

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We do not engraft an exhaustion requirement

upon § 1983, but rather deny the existence of a

cause of action. Even a prisoner who has fully

exhausted available state remedies has no cause

of action under § 1983 unless and until the

conviction or sentence is reversed, expunged,

invalidated, or impugned by the grant of a writ

of habeas corpus. 

Heck, 512 U.S. at 489. Returning to its comparison to common

law torts, the Court concluded that, just as a claim for malicious prosecution does not accrue until the criminal proceedings have terminated in the plaintiff’s favor, “so also 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. See also

Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 393 (2007) (noting that the Heck

rule for deferred accrual is called into play only when there

exists a conviction or sentence that has not been invalidated;

Heck “delays what would otherwise be the accrual date of a

tort action until the setting aside of an extant conviction which

success in that tort action would impugn.”). 

Applying this rule to Savory’s case, we first look at the

nature of his section 1983 claims and conclude that, like Heck’s

claims, they strongly resemble the common law tort of malicious prosecution. Indeed, Savory’s claims largely echo Heck’s

complaint, asserting the suppression of exculpatory evidence

and the fabrication of false evidence in order to effect a

wrongful conviction. The statute of limitations for such claims

in Illinois is two years. Heck supplies the rule for accrual of the

claim. Because Savory’s claims “would necessarily imply the

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invalidity of his conviction or sentence,” his section 1983 claims

could not accrue until “the conviction or sentence ha[d] 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.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 487. In

Savory’s case, that occurred on January 12, 2015, when the

governor of Illinois pardoned him. Until that moment, his

conviction was intact and he had no cause of action under

section 1983. Heck, 512 U.S. at 489–90. His January 11, 2017

lawsuit was therefore timely under Heck, and we must reverse

the district court’s judgment and remand for further proceedings.

We said that our analysis began and ended with Heck but

for the sake of clarity, we must address the defendant’s

arguments that concurring and dissenting opinions of certain

Supreme Court justices cobbled together into a seeming

majority or the opinions of this court may somehow override

the prime directive of Heck. The misunderstanding that led to

the erroneous result here originated in a concurrence in Heck

filed by Justice Souter and joined by Justices Blackmun,

Stevens and O’Connor. In that concurrence, Justice Souter

agreed that reference to the common law tort of malicious

prosecution was a useful starting point but he asserted that it

could not alone provide the answer to the conundrum found

at the intersection between section 1983 and the federal habeas

statute. Ultimately, Justice Souter suggested a slightly different

rule that he submitted would avoid any collision between

section 1983 and the habeas statute:

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A state prisoner may seek federal-court § 1983

damages for unconstitutional conviction or

confinement, but only if he has previously

established the unlawfulness of his conviction or

confinement, as on appeal or on habeas. This has

the effect of requiring a state prisoner challenging the lawfulness of his confinement to follow

habeas’s rules before seeking § 1983 damages for

unlawful confinement in federal court[.]

Heck, 512 U.S. at 498 (Souter, J., concurring). 

For persons not in custody for the purposes of the habeas

statute, “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,”

there would be no requirement to show “the prior invalidation

of their convictions or sentences in order to obtain § 1983

damages for unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment”

because:

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 habeas

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.

Heck, 512 U.S. at 500 (Souter, J., concurring). 

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In contrast, of course, the Heck majority’s rule requires that

a plaintiff always obtain a favorable resolution of the criminal

conviction before bringing a section 1983 claim that would

necessarily imply the invalidity of a conviction or sentence.

The majority opinion specifically rejected Justice Souter’s

alternate rule:

Justice SOUTER also adopts the common-law

principle that one cannot use the device of a civil

tort action to challenge the validity of an outstanding criminal conviction, but thinks it

necessary to abandon that principle in those

cases (of which no real-life example comes to

mind) involving former state prisoners who,

because they are no longer in custody, cannot

bring postconviction challenges. We think the

principle barring collateral attacks—a longstanding and deeply rooted feature of both the

common law and our own jurisprudence—is not

rendered inapplicable by the fortuity that a

convicted criminal is no longer incarcerated.

Heck, 512 U.S. at 490 n.10 (citations omitted).

The Supreme Court has reaffirmed the Heck framework

several times. See Wallace, 549 U.S. at 393; Nelson v. Campbell,

541 U.S. 637, 646 (2004) (citing Heck for the proposition that “a

§ 1983 suit for damages that would ‘necessarily imply’ the

invalidity of the fact of an inmate’s conviction, or ‘necessarily

imply’ the invalidity of the length of an inmate’s sentence, is

not cognizable under § 1983 unless and until the inmate

obtains favorable termination of a state, or federal habeas,

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challenge to his conviction or sentence”); Edwards v. Balisok, 520

U.S. 641, 643 (1997) (same). But in Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1,

21 (1998), Justice Souter again filed a concurrence expressing

the view that he urged in his Heck concurrence, namely “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.” Justice Ginsburg, who had

been in the majority in Heck, this time agreed with Justice

Souter (who was also joined by Justices O’Connor and Breyer),

joining his concurrence and filing her own: “Individuals

without recourse to the habeas statute because they are not ‘in

custody’ (people merely fined or whose sentences have been

fully served, for example) fit within § 1983's ‘broad reach.’”

Spencer, 523 U.S. at 21 (Ginsburg, J., concurring). Justice

Stevens dissented in Spencer, but he approved Justice Souter’s

basic premise: “Given the Court’s holding that petitioner 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.” Spencer, 523 U.S. at 25 n.8 (Stevens, J.,

dissenting). 

The defendants contended in the district court and maintain on appeal that this dicta in concurring and dissenting

opinions, cobbled together, now formed a new majority,

essentially overruling footnote 10 in Heck. But it is axiomatic

that dicta from a collection of concurrences and dissents may

not overrule majority opinions. Cross v. United States, 892 F.3d

288, 303 (7th Cir. 2018) (“Unless and until a majority of the

Court overrules the majority opinions in [two prior cases], they

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continue to bind us.”). The Supreme Court may eventually

adopt Justice Souter’s view but it has not yet done so and we

are bound by Heck. Rodriguez de Quijas v. Shearson/American

Express, Inc., 490 U.S. 477, 484 (1989) (“If a precedent of this

Court has direct application in a case, yet appears to rest on

reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of

Appeals should follow the case which directly controls, leaving

to this Court the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.”).

See also Muhammad v. Close, 540 U.S. 749, 752 n.2 (2004) (characterizing as unsettled the position taken by Justice Souter in

Heck and by Justice Ginsburg in Spencer that “unavailability of

habeas for other reasons may also dispense with the Heck

requirement”). 

The defendants also asserted below and continue to argue

on appeal that this court has abrogated the rule in Heck, citing

four cases: DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607 (7th Cir. 2000);

Simpson v. Nickel, 450 F.3d 303 (7th Cir. 2006); Burd v. Sessler,

702 F.3d 429 (7th Cir. 2012); and Whitfield v. Howard, 852 F.3d

656 (7th Cir. 2017). According to the defendants, those cases

“together sensibly hold an individual who is no longer in

custody with no access to habeas corpus relief may bring a

§ 1983 action challenging the constitutionality of a still standing conviction without first satisfying the favorable termination rule of Heck.” Brief of Defendants-Appellees, at 7–8. As we

just explained, this court may not on its own initiative overturn

decisions of the Supreme Court, and in fact none of the cited

cases overturned the core holding of Heck or purported to do

so. 

In DeWalt, we considered whether a prisoner could bring

a section 1983 claim related to the loss of his prison job when

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the underlying disciplinary sanction had not been overturned

or invalidated. Because DeWalt did not challenge the fact or

duration of his confinement, a habeas petition was not the

appropriate vehicle for his claims. 224 F.3d at 617. DeWalt

challenged only a condition of his confinement—namely, his

prison job—making a section 1983 claim the appropriate course

of action. Id. We summarized our holding with the rule “that

the unavailability of federal habeas relief does not preclude a

prisoner from bringing a § 1983 action to challenge a condition

of his confinement that results from a prison disciplinary

action.” 224 F.3d at 618. We discussed Spencer and Heck only in

the context of answering an open question, namely, “whether

Heck's favorable-termination requirement bars a prisoner’s

challenge under § 1983 to an administrative sanction that does

not affect the length of confinement.” 224 F.3d at 616. We

concluded that it did not, a position later approved by the

Supreme Court. See Muhammad, 540 U.S. at 754 (noting that the

Seventh Circuit in DeWalt had taken the position that Heck did

not apply to prison disciplinary proceedings in the absence of

any implication going to the fact or duration of the underlying

sentence, and concluding that because Muhammad had

similarly raised no claim on which habeas relief could have

been granted on any recognized theory, Heck’s favorabletermination requirement was inapplicable).

Simpson similarly addressed a claim by a prisoner related

to the conditions of his confinement rather than the lawfulness

of his conviction or duration of confinement. Simpson alleged

that when he complained about prison staff, they retaliated

against him by issuing bogus conduct reports and arranging

for him to be disciplined. 450 F.3d at 305. As a result, he was

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subjected to 300 days in segregation and lost twenty-five days

of recreation privileges. We reversed the district court’s

dismissal for failure to state a claim. The district court had

concluded that, under Heck, Simpson could not bring a suit

that was inconsistent with the findings of the prison disciplinary board unless a state court set those findings aside. We

reaffirmed the core holding of Heck, “that a prisoner whose

grievance implies the invalidity of ongoing custody must seek

review by collateral attack.” 450 F.3d at 306–07. But we also

noted that Heck was not applicable to Simpson’s claims because

“neither disciplinary segregation nor a reduction in the amount

of recreation is a form of ‘custody’ under federal law.” 450 F.3d

at 307. Simpson was not bringing a claim that implied the

invalidity of his underlying conviction or sentence and was

therefore not subject to Heck’s favorable-termination requirement. We noted that Muhammad and DeWalt established that:

the doctrine of Heck and Edwards is limited to

prisoners who are “in custody” as a result of the

defendants’ challenged acts, and who therefore

are able to seek collateral review. Take away the

possibility of collateral review and § 1983 becomes available. Simpson can’t obtain collateral

relief in either state or federal court, so he isn’t

(and never was) affected by Heck or Edwards.

Simpson, 450 F.3d at 307. Read out of context, we understand

how this passage and other passages in Simpson confused the

issue in the district court. Some of this language could be read

to imply that the inability to obtain habeas relief because the

sentence has been served could relieve a section 1983 litigant

of Heck’s favorable-termination requirement. But Heck itself

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rejected that position and Muhammad made clear that the Court

had not yet had an occasion to settle the minority views

expressed in Heck and Spencer. 

Neither Burd nor Whitfield support a contrary result. Burd

brought a section 1983 suit for damages, alleging that prison

officials deprived him of access to the prison library, which in

turn prevented him from preparing a timely motion to withdraw his guilty plea. Burd, 702 F.3d at 431. Burd asserted that

Heck did not apply to his claim because he would not necessarily have been successful in seeking to withdraw his plea. We

concluded that the damages that Burd was seeking to recover

were predicated on a successful challenge to his conviction,

and so Heck applied. 702 F.3d at 434–35. And “[t]he rule in Heck

forbids the maintenance of such a damages action until the

plaintiff can demonstrate his injury by establishing the

invalidity of the underlying judgment.” We also rejected

Burd’s alternate theory, that he should be allowed to proceed

with his section 1983 claim even though it implied that his

conviction was invalid because his sentence was fully discharged and habeas relief was unavailable to him. 702 F.3d at

435–36. But Burd had failed to pursue habeas relief when it

was available to him during his time in custody. We therefore

held “that Heck applies where a § 1983 plaintiff could have

sought collateral relief at an earlier time but declined the

opportunity and waited until collateral relief became unavailable before suing.” 702 F.3d at 436.

Whitfield addressed a unique factual scenario that bears no

resemblance to Savory’s case. Whitfield reaffirmed Heck, noting

that in “section 1983 suits that did not directly seek immediate

or speedier release, but rather sought monetary damages that

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would call into question the validity of a conviction or term of

confinement, ... a prisoner has no claim under section 1983

until he receives a favorable decision on his underlying

conviction or sentence, such as through a reversal or grant of

habeas corpus relief.” Whitfield, 852 F.3d at 661. Whitfield

sought damages under section 1983 for the retaliatory revocation of good time credits. 852 F.3d at 659. He sought collateral

review while he was in prison (albeit in a manner we characterized as not “procedurally perfect”), including a federal

habeas claim, but was released from custody before his claims

were resolved. 

We found that Balisok rather than Heck most directly

governed Whitfield’s section 1983 claims. Whitfield, 852 F.3d at

663. Balisok addressed the claim of a state prisoner alleging due

process violations for procedures used in a disciplinary

hearing that resulted in a loss of “good-time” credits. Balisok,

520 U.S. at 643. The Balisok Court found that “[t]he principal

procedural defect complained of by respondent would, if

established, necessarily imply the invalidity of the deprivation

of his good-time credits.” 520 U.S. at 646. But Balisok had not

demonstrated that the result of the disciplinary hearing had

been set aside, and so the Court found his claim not cognizable

under § 1983. 520 U.S. at 648.

We distinguished Balisok in Whitfield:

Had [Balisok] prevailed, the result of the disciplinary proceeding would have to have been set

aside. Whitfield, in contrast, is arguing that the

hearings should never have taken place at all,

because they were acts of retaliation for his

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exercise of rights protected by the First Amendment. He has no quarrel with the procedures

used in the prison disciplinary system. He could

just as well be saying that a prison official maliciously calculated an improper release date, or

“lost” the order authorizing his release in retaliation for protected activity. In short, the essence

of Whitfield’s complaint is the link between

retaliation and his delayed release; the fact that

disciplinary proceedings were the mechanism is

not essential. Balisok also took care to be precise,

when it held that the petitioner’s claim for

prospective injunctive relief could go forward

under section 1983, since it did not necessarily

imply anything about the loss of good-time

credits.

Whitfield, 852 F.3d at 663. Unlike Balisok, Whitfield was not

seeking to set aside the result of a process but rather was

claiming that the process should not have occurred at all. And

unlike Burd, Whitfield had pursued collateral relief to the

degree possible, until he was released from custody and the

district court dismissed his habeas petition as moot. In

Whitfield, we thus addressed a fact scenario at the outer edges

of Balisok. It has little bearing on Savory’s claims, which lie at

the core of Heck. 

III.

We end where we began: Heck controls the result here.

Savory’s claims, which necessarily imply the invalidity of his

conviction, did not accrue until he was pardoned by the

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governor of Illinois. His section 1983 action was therefore

timely filed, and we reverse the district court’s judgment and

remand for further proceedings.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

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