1996 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

6-26-1996

Smith v. Holtz

Precedential or Non-Precedential:

Docket 95-7533,95-7534

Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_1996

This decision is brought to you for free and open access by the Opinions of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit at Villanova

University School of Law Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in 1996 Decisions by an authorized administrator of Villanova

University School of Law Digital Repository. For more information, please contact Benjamin.Carlson@law.villanova.edu.

Recommended Citation

"Smith v. Holtz" (1996). 1996 Decisions. Paper 164.

http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_1996/164
 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

 FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

 

 N0S. 95-7533, 95-7534 

 

 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 

 

 On Appeal From the United States District Court 

 For the Middle District of Pennsylvania 

 (D.C. Civil Action Nos. 93-cv-01428 and 94-cv-01470) 

 

 Argued May 3, 1996 

 BEFORE: STAPLETON, COWEN and SEITZ, Circuit Judges 

 (Opinion Filed June 26, 1996) 

 

 Gerald J. Williams 

(Argued) 

 Williams & Cuker 

 1617 JFK Boulevard 

 One Penn Center at 

Suburban Station 

 Suite 800 

 Philadelphia, PA 19103 
 Attorney 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 

 Office of Attorney 

General of PA 

 15th Floor, Strawberry 

Square 

 Harrisburg, PA 17120 

 Attorneys for 

Appellants 

 in No. 95-7533 

 George A. Bochetto 

 Stephen E. Skovron 

(Argued) 

 Bochetto & Lentz 

 1524 Locust Street 

 Philadelphia, PA 

 Attorneys for Appellee 

 in No. 95-7534 

 Mark R. Hornak (Argued) 

 George H. Crompton 

 Buchanan Ingersoll 

Professional Corp. 

 One Oxford Centre 

 301 Grant Street, 20th 

Floor 

 Pittsburgh, PA 15219 

 Attorneys for 

Appellant 

 in No. 95-7534 

 

 OPINION OF THE COURT 

 
STAPLETON, Circuit Judge: 

 In Heck v. Humphrey, 114 S. Ct. 2364 (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. 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, 568 

A.2d 600 (Pa. 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, 615 A.2d 321 

(Pa. 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. 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. Based on Heck v. Humphrey, 114 S. Ct. 2364 

(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). 

 II. 

 The outcome of this appeal turns on Heck v. Humphrey, 

114 S. Ct. 2364 (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 

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 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 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 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 successful would not necessarily imply 

 that the plaintiff's conviction was unlawful. In order 

 to recover compensatory damages, however, the  1983 

 plaintiff must prove not only that the search was 

 unlawful, but that it caused him actual, compensable 

 injury, which, we hold today, does not encompass the 

 "injury" of being convicted and imprisoned (until his 

 conviction has been overturned). 

Id. at 2372-73 n.7 (citations omitted). 
 Since Heck's claims challenged the legality of his 

conviction and his conviction remained in effect, the Court 

dismissed Heck's claims as not cognizable under  1983. Id. at 

2374. 

 Smith asserts in his complaints that the defendants 

suppressed exculpatory evidence and contrived inculpatory 

evidence. His claims seek damages resulting from his unlawful 

conviction and confinement. If he had brought these claims 

before September 18, 1992, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court 

ordered the charges against him dismissed, success on these 

claims would have necessarily implied the invalidity of any 

future conviction on the still pending criminal charges. 

 Heck did not directly address claims that, if 

successful, would necessarily imply the invalidity of a potential 

conviction on a pending criminal charge. In certain portions of 

the opinion, the Court spoke in terms of claims that, if 

successful, imply the invalidity of "outstanding" convictions. 

Other portions of the opinion, however, refer to claims that, if 

successful, imply the invalidity of convictions without 

specifying whether this includes claims that, if successful, 

would imply the invalidity of potential convictions that may 

result from pending charges. 

 The Supreme Court did not address this issue because it 

was not presented by the facts in Heck. The Court had before it 

the  1983 claim of a plaintiff who was serving a sentence on an 

outstanding conviction. The Court thus had no occasion to 

determine the scope of permissible  1983 claims by a defendant 

in an ongoing criminal prosecution. Accordingly, we must look to 

the reasoning behind the Heck rule to determine whether a claim 

that, if successful, would necessarily imply the invalidity of a 

conviction on pending criminal charges is cognizable under 

 1983. 

 The Supreme Court observed that the problem presented 

by Heck's case is that it lay "at the intersection" of the Civil 

Rights Act of 1871 and the federal habeas corpus statute. Heck, 

114 S. Ct. at 2369. Some accommodation was required because the 

federal habeas statute has an express exhaustion requirement that 

precludes the filing of a federal habeas petition holding the 

potential for interference with determinations made in state 

criminal proceedings, while  1983 requires no exhaustion of 

state remedies. Id. The Court accommodated these two statutes 

by holding that  1983 actions are subject to the "hoary 

principle" that civil tort actions are not the appropriate 

vehicle for challenging the validity of convictions and 

sentences. The express objectives of this holding were to 

preserve consistency and finality, and to prevent "a collateral 

attack on [a] conviction through the vehicle of a civil suit." 

Id. at 2371. 

 We find that these concerns apply equally to claims 

that, if successful, would necessarily imply the invalidity of a 

future conviction on a pending criminal charge. A claim by a 

defendant in an ongoing criminal prosecution which necessarily 

challenges the legality of a future conviction on a pending 

criminal charge lies at the intersection of the federal habeas 
corpus statute and the Civil Rights Act of 1871. If such a claim 

could proceed while criminal proceedings are ongoing, there would 

be a potential for inconsistent determinations in the civil and 

criminal cases and the criminal defendant would be able to 

collaterally attack the prosecution in a civil suit. In terms of 

the conflicts which Heck sought to avoid, there is no difference 

between a conviction which is outstanding at the time the civil 

rights action is instituted and a potential conviction on a 

pending charge that may be entered at some point thereafter. 

 Because of these concerns, we hold that a claim that, 

if successful, would necessarily imply the invalidity of a 

conviction on a pending criminal charge is not cognizable under 

 1983. See Hamilton v. Lyons, 74 F.3d 99 (5th Cir. 1996) 

(interpreting Heck to prevent accrual of  1983 claims that would 

necessarily imply the invalidity of convictions on pending 

criminal charges). It necessarily follows that so long as 

success on such a claim would necessarily imply the invalidity of 

a conviction in the pending criminal prosecution, such a claim 

does not accrue so long as the potential for a judgment in the 

pending criminal prosecution continues to exist. This did not 

occur in Smith's case until the Pennsylvania Supreme Court 

ordered the charges dismissed on September 18, 1992. Smith's 

claims thus did not accrue before that date and, since he filed 

those claims within two years thereafter, they are not time 

barred. 

 III. 

 Wambaugh argues, in the alternative, that if Smith's 

claims did not accrue before the 1992 dismissals, they have yet 

to accrue. The contention is that a judicial finding of actual 

innocence is a prerequisite for a common law malicious 

prosecution claim and, accordingly, is a prerequisite here. 

Since the double jeopardy ruling of the Pennsylvania Supreme 

Court was not premised on a finding of Smith's actual innocence, 

the argument goes, he has not satisfied that prerequisite. We 

are unpersuaded. 

 First, Wambaugh misstates the common law of malicious 

prosecution. Actual innocence is not required for a common law 

favorable termination, see Restatement of the Law of Torts 

 659, 660 (1938), and a dismissal of charges on double jeopardy 

grounds is a common law favorable termination. E.g., Haefner v. 

Burkey, 626 A.2d 519, 521 (Pa. 1993). 

 But, more importantly, Wambaugh misreads Heck. While 

the Heck court looked to the common law for guidance, it did so 

solely for the purpose of accommodating the congressional intent 

reflected in the civil rights and habeas corpus statutes. As a 

result, Heck should not be read to incorporate all of the common 

law of malicious prosecution into the federal law governing civil 

rights cases of this kind. Heck represents a limitation on the 

availability of relief for constitutional torts that extends no 

further than the congressional concerns which justify it. As we 

have explained, those concerns dictate that a district court 

decline to entertain a civil rights claim asking monetary 

compensation for an allegedly unlawful conviction or imprisonment 
where success on that claim would necessarily imply the 

invalidity of an outstanding conviction or a potential conviction 

in a pending criminal proceeding. When that outstanding 

conviction or that pending criminal proceeding ceases to exist, 

however, the justification for barring access to the federal 

courts likewise ceases. This means, among other things, that the 

rationale of Heck will not support a requirement that a civil 

rights plaintiff like Smith must have judicially established his 

innocence before invoking  1983. 

 IV. 

 For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm.