(Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2006 1 

Syllabus 

NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is

being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been

prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. 

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

Syllabus 

WALLACE v. KATO ET AL. 

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR 

THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT 

No. 05–1240. Argued November 6, 2006—Decided February 21, 2007 

In January 1994, Chicago police arrested petitioner, a minor, for murder. He was tried and convicted, but the charges were ultimately

dropped in April 2002. In April 2003, he filed this suit under 42 

U. S. C. §1983 against the city and several of its officers, seeking

damages for, inter alia, his unlawful arrest in violation of the Fourth 

Amendment. The District Court granted respondents summary

judgment, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed, ruling that the §1983

suit was time barred because petitioner’s cause of action accrued at

the time of his arrest, not when his conviction was later set aside. 

Held: The statute of limitations upon a §1983 claim seeking damages 

for a false arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment, where the 

arrest is followed by criminal proceedings, begins to run at the time 

the claimant becomes detained pursuant to legal process. Pp. 2–12.

(a) The statute of limitations in a §1983 suit is that provided by the

State for personal-injury torts, e.g., Owens v. Okure, 488 U. S. 235, 

249–250; here, two years under Illinois law. For false imprisonment

and its subspecies false arrest, “[t]he . . . cause[s] of action provid[ing]

the closest analogy to claims of the type considered here,” Heck v. 

Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477, 484, the statute of limitations begins to

run when the alleged false imprisonment ends, see, e.g., 4 Restatement (Second) of Torts §899, Comment c, that is, in the present context, when the victim becomes held pursuant to legal process, see, 

e.g., Heck, supra, at 484. Thus, petitioner’s false imprisonment did

not end, as he contends, when he was released from custody after the 

State dropped the charges against him, but rather when he appeared

before the examining magistrate and was bound over for trial. Since 
2 WALLACE v. KATO 

Syllabus 

more than two years elapsed between that date and the filing of this

suit—even leaving out of the count the period before he reached his

majority—the action was time barred. Pp. 2–7. 

(b) Petitioner’s contention that Heck compels the conclusion that 

his suit could not accrue until the State dropped its charges against 

him is rejected. The Heck Court held 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 [set aside]. A claim for damages

bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not 

been so invalidated is not cognizable under §1983.” 512 U. S., at 

486–487. Even assuming that the Heck deferred-accrual rule would 

be applied to the date petitioner was first held pursuant to legal

process, there was in existence at that time no criminal conviction 

that the cause of action would impugn. What petitioner seeks is the

adoption of a principle going well beyond Heck: that an action which 

would impugn an anticipated future conviction cannot be brought until that conviction occurs and is set aside. The impracticality of such 

a speculative rule is obvious. 

The fact that §1983 actions sometimes accrue before the setting

aside of—indeed, even before the existence of—the related criminal 

conviction raises the question whether, assuming the Heck bar takes 

effect when the later conviction is obtained, the statute of limitations 

on the once valid cause of action is tolled as long as the Heck bar subsists. However, this Court generally refers to state-law tolling rules, 

e.g., Hardin v. Straub, 490 U. S. 536, 538–539, and is unaware of Illinois cases providing tolling in even remotely comparable circumstances. Moreover, a federal tolling rule to this effect would create a

jurisprudential limbo in which it would not be known whether tolling 

is appropriate by reason of the Heck bar until it is established that 

the newly entered conviction would be impugned by the not-yet-filed,

and thus utterly indeterminate, §1983 claim. Pp. 7–12. 

440 F. 3d 421, affirmed. 

SCALIA, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, 

C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, and ALITO, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed 

an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which SOUTER, J., joined. 

BREYER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG, J., joined. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 1 

Opinion of the Court 

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the

preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to

notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order

that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 05–1240 

ANDRE WALLACE, PETITIONER v. KRISTEN 

KATO ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

[February 21, 2007] 

JUSTICE SCALIA delivered the opinion of the Court. 

Petitioner filed suit under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. 

§1983, seeking damages for an arrest that violated the 

Fourth Amendment. We decide whether his suit is timely. 

I 

On January 17, 1994, John Handy was shot to death in

the city of Chicago. Sometime around 8 p.m. two days 

later, Chicago police officers located petitioner, then 15 

years of age, and transported him to a police station for 

questioning. After interrogations that lasted into the 

early morning hours the next day, petitioner agreed to

confess to Handy’s murder. An assistant state’s attorney 

prepared a statement to this effect, and petitioner signed 

it, at the same time waiving his Miranda rights. 

Prior to trial in the Circuit Court of Cook County, petitioner unsuccessfully attempted to suppress his station 

house statements as the product of an unlawful arrest. He 

was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 26 

years in prison. On direct appeal, the Appellate Court of

Illinois held that officers had arrested petitioner without 

probable cause, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. 
2 WALLACE v. KATO 

Opinion of the Court 

People v. Wallace, 299 Ill. App. 3d 9, 17–18, 701 N. E. 2d 

87, 94 (1998). According to that court (whose determination we are not reviewing here), even assuming petitioner

willingly accompanied police to the station, his presence

there “escalated to an involuntary seizure prior to his

formal arrest.” Id., at 18, 701 N. E. 2d, at 94. After another round of appeals, the Appellate Court concluded on

August 31, 2001, that the effect of petitioner’s illegal 

arrest had not been sufficiently attenuated to render his 

statements admissible, see Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 

(1975), and remanded for a new trial. Judgt. order reported sub nom. People v. Wallace, 324 Ill. App. 3d 1139, 

805 N. E. 2d 756 (2001). On April 10, 2002, prosecutors

dropped the charges against petitioner. 

On April 2, 2003, petitioner filed this §1983 suit against 

the city of Chicago and several Chicago police officers, 

seeking damages arising from, inter alia, his unlawful 

arrest.1 The District Court granted summary judgment to

respondents and the Court of Appeals affirmed. According

to the Seventh Circuit, petitioner’s §1983 suit was time 

barred because his cause of action accrued at the time of 

his arrest, and not when his conviction was later set aside. 

Wallace v. Chicago, 440 F. 3d 421, 427 (2006). We granted

certiorari, 547 U. S. ___ (2006). 

II 

Section 1983 provides a federal cause of action, but in

several respects relevant here federal law looks to the law

of the State in which the cause of action arose. This is so 

for the length of the statute of limitations: It is that which 

the State provides for personal-injury torts. Owens v. 

Okure, 488 U. S. 235, 249–250 (1989); Wilson v. Garcia, 

—————— 

1All of petitioner’s other state and federal claims were resolved adversely to him and are not before us. We expressly limited our grant of

certiorari to the Fourth Amendment false-arrest claim. See 547 U. S. 

___ (2006). The city of Chicago is no longer a party to this suit. 
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 3 

Opinion of the Court 

471 U. S. 261, 279–280 (1985). The parties agree that

under Illinois law, this period is two years. Ill. Comp.

Stat., ch. 735, §5/13–202 (West 2003). Thus, if the statute 

on petitioner’s cause of action began to run at the time of

his unlawful arrest, or even at the time he was ordered 

held by a magistrate, his §1983 suit was plainly dilatory, 

even according him tolling for the two-plus years of his

minority, see §5/13–211. But if, as the dissenting judge

argued below, the commencement date for running of the

statute is governed by this Court’s decision in Heck v. 

Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), that date may be the 

date on which petitioner’s conviction was vacated, in

which case the §1983 suit would have been timely filed. 

While we have never stated so expressly, the accrual

date of a §1983 cause of action is a question of federal law 

that is not resolved by reference to state law. The parties

agree, the Seventh Circuit in this case so held, see 440 

F. 3d, at 424, and we are aware of no federal court of 

appeals holding to the contrary. Aspects of §1983 which

are not governed by reference to state law are governed by

federal rules conforming in general to common-law tort

principles. See Heck, supra, at 483; Carey v. Piphus, 435 

U. S. 247, 257–258 (1978). Under those principles, it is

“the standard rule that [accrual occurs] when the plaintiff

has ‘a complete and present cause of action.’” Bay Area 

Laundry and Dry Cleaning Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar 

Corp. of Cal., 522 U. S. 192, 201 (1997) (quoting Rawlings 

v. Ray, 312 U. S. 96, 98 (1941)), that is, when “the plaintiff 

can file suit and obtain relief,” Bay Area Laundry, supra, 

at 201. There can be no dispute that petitioner could have

filed suit as soon as the allegedly wrongful arrest occurred, subjecting him to the harm of involuntary detention, so the statute of limitations would normally commence to run from that date. 

There is, however, a refinement to be considered, arising 

from the common law’s distinctive treatment of the torts of 
4 WALLACE v. KATO 

Opinion of the Court 

false arrest and false imprisonment, “[t]he . . . cause[s] of 

action [that] provid[e] the closest analogy to claims of the 

type considered here,” Heck, supra, at 484. See 1 D. 

Dobbs, Law of Torts §47, p. 88 (2001). False arrest and 

false imprisonment overlap; the former is a species of the 

latter. “Every confinement of the person is an imprisonment, whether it be in a common prison or in a private 

house, or in the stocks, or even by forcibly detaining one in 

the public streets; and when a man is lawfully in a house, 

it is imprisonment to prevent him from leaving the room 

in which he is.” M. Newell, Law of Malicious Prosecution, 

False Imprisonment, and Abuse of Legal Process §2, p. 57

(1892) (footnotes omitted). See also 7 S. Speiser, C. 

Krause, & A. Gans, American Law of Torts §27:2, pp. 940–

942 (1990). We shall thus refer to the two torts together 

as false imprisonment. That tort provides the proper 

analogy to the cause of action asserted against the present 

respondents for the following reason: The sort of unlawful 

detention remediable by the tort of false imprisonment is 

detention without legal process, see, e.g., W. Keeton, D. 

Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law 

of Torts §11, p. 54, §119, pp. 885–886 (5th ed. 1984); 7 

Speiser, supra, §27:2, at 943–944, and the allegations 

before us arise from respondents’ detention of petitioner 

without legal process in January 1994. They did not have 

a warrant for his arrest. 

The running of the statute of limitations on false imprisonment is subject to a distinctive rule—dictated, perhaps, by the reality that the victim may not be able to sue

while he is still imprisoned: “Limitations begin to run

against an action for false imprisonment when the alleged 

false imprisonment ends.” 2 H. Wood, Limitation of Actions §187d(4), p. 878 (4th rev. ed. 1916); see also 4 Restatement (Second) of Torts §899, Comment c (1977); A.

Underhill, Principles of Law of Torts 202 (1881). Thus, to 

determine the beginning of the limitations period in this 
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 5 

Opinion of the Court 

case, we must determine when petitioner’s false imprisonment came to an end. 

Reflective of the fact that false imprisonment consists of

detention without legal process, a false imprisonment ends 

once the victim becomes held pursuant to such process— 

when, for example, he is bound over by a magistrate or 

arraigned on charges. Dobbs, supra, §39, at 74, n. 2; 

Keeton, supra, §119, at 888; H. Stephen, Actions for Malicious Prosecution 120–123 (1888). Thereafter, unlawful 

detention forms part of the damages for the “entirely 

distinct” tort of malicious prosecution, which remedies 

detention accompanied, not by absence of legal process, 

but by wrongful institution of legal process.2 Keeton, 

supra, §119, at 885–886; see 1 F. Harper, F. James, & O. 

Gray, Law of Torts §3.9, p. 3:36 (3d ed. 1996); 7 Speiser, 

supra, §27:2, at 943–945. “If there is a false arrest claim, 

damages for that claim cover the time of detention up

until issuance of process or arraignment, but not more. 

From that point on, any damages recoverable must be

based on a malicious prosecution claim and on the wrongful use of judicial process rather than detention itself.”

Keeton, supra, §119, at 888; see also Heck, supra, at 484; 8 

Speiser, supra, §28:15, at 80. Thus, petitioner’s contention 

—————— 

2We have never explored the contours of a Fourth Amendment malicious-prosecution suit under §1983, see Albright v. Oliver, 510 U. S. 

266, 270–271, 275 (1994) (plurality opinion), and we do not do so here. 

See generally 1 M. Schwartz, Section 1983 Litigation §3.18[C], pp. 3–

605 to 3–629 (4th ed. 2004) (noting a range of approaches in the lower

courts). Assuming without deciding that such a claim is cognizable 

under §1983, petitioner has not made one. Petitioner did not include 

such a claim in his complaint. He in fact abandoned a state-law malicious-prosecution claim in the District Court, and stated, in his opposition to respondents’ first motion for summary judgment, that “Plaintiff

does not seek to raise . . . a malicious prosecution claim under §1983,”

Record, Doc. 17, p. 3, n. 5. In this Court, he has told us that respondents are “mistaken in characterizing petitioner’s cause of action as

involving ‘unwarranted prosecution.’ ” Reply Brief 12. 
6 WALLACE v. KATO 

Opinion of the Court 

that his false imprisonment ended upon his release from 

custody, after the State dropped the charges against him, 

must be rejected. It ended much earlier, when legal process was initiated against him, and the statute would have 

begun to run from that date, but for its tolling by reason of

petitioner’s minority.3 

Petitioner asserts that the date of his release from 

custody must be the relevant date in the circumstances of

the present suit, since he is seeking damages up to that 

time. The theory of his complaint is that the initial 

Fourth Amendment violation set the wheels in motion for 

his subsequent conviction and detention: The unlawful 

arrest led to the coerced confession, which was introduced 

at his trial, producing his conviction and incarceration. As 

we have just explained, at common law damages for detention after issuance of process or arraignment would be 

attributable to a tort other than the unlawful arrest alleged in petitioner’s complaint—and probably a tort

chargeable to defendants other than the respondents here.

Even assuming, however, that all damages for detention 

pursuant to legal process could be regarded as consequential damages attributable to the unlawful arrest, that

would not alter the commencement date for the statute of 

limitations. “Under the traditional rule of accrual . . . the 

tort cause of action accrues, and the statute of limitations 

commences to run, when the wrongful act or omission

results in damages. The cause of action accrues even 

though the full extent of the injury is not then known or 

—————— 

3This is not to say, of course, that petitioner could not have filed suit 

immediately upon his false arrest. While the statute of limitations did 

not begin to run until petitioner became detained pursuant to legal

process, he was injured and suffered damages at the moment of his 

arrest, and was entitled to bring suit at that time. See Adler v. Beverly 

Hills Hospital, 594 S. W. 2d 153, 156 (Tex. Civ. App. 1980) (“We may

concede that a person falsely imprisoned has the right to sue on the

first day for his detention”). 
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 7 

Opinion of the Court 

predictable.” 1 C. Corman, Limitation of Actions §7.4.1,

pp. 526–527 (1991) (footnotes omitted); see also 54 C. J. S., 

Limitations of Actions §112, p. 150 (2005). Were it otherwise, the statute would begin to run only after a plaintiff

became satisfied that he had been harmed enough, placing 

the supposed statute of repose in the sole hands of the 

party seeking relief. 

We conclude that the statute of limitations on petitioner’s §1983 claim commenced to run when he appeared 

before the examining magistrate and was bound over for 

trial. Since more than two years elapsed between that

date and the filing of this suit—even leaving out of the

count the period before he reached his majority—the

action was time barred. 

III 

This would end the matter, were it not for petitioner’s

contention that Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S., at 477, 

compels the conclusion that his suit could not accrue until

the State dropped its charges against him. In Heck, a 

state prisoner filed suit under §1983 raising claims which, 

if true, would have established the invalidity of his outstanding conviction. We analogized his suit to one for 

malicious prosecution, an element of which is the favorable termination of criminal proceedings. Id., at 484. We 

said: 

“[I]n 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 re-
8 WALLACE v. KATO 

Opinion of the Court 

lationship to a conviction or sentence that has not 

been so invalidated is not cognizable under §1983.” 

Id., at 486–487 (footnote omitted). 

We rested this conclusion upon “the hoary principle that

civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments.” Id., 

at 486. “‘Congress,’” we said, “‘has determined that habeas corpus is the appropriate remedy for state prisoners

attacking the validity of the fact or length of their confinement, and that specific determination must override

the general terms of §1983.’” Id., at 482 (quoting Preiser 

v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 490 (1973)).

As the above excerpts show, the Heck rule for deferred 

accrual is called into play only when there exists “a conviction or sentence that has not been . . . invalidated,” that is 

to say, an “outstanding criminal judgment.” It 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. We assume that, 

for purposes of the present tort action, the Heck principle 

would be applied not to the date of accrual but to the date 

on which the statute of limitations began to run, that is, 

the date petitioner became held pursuant to legal process. 

See supra, at 4–5. Even at that later time, there was in 

existence no criminal conviction that the cause of action 

would impugn; indeed, there may not even have been an

indictment. 

What petitioner seeks, in other words, is the adoption of 

a principle that goes well beyond Heck: that an action 

which would impugn an anticipated future conviction 

cannot be brought until that conviction occurs and is set 

aside. The impracticality of such a rule should be obvious.

In an action for false arrest it would require the plaintiff 

(and if he brings suit promptly, the court) to speculate 

about whether a prosecution will be brought, whether it 
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 9 

Opinion of the Court 

will result in conviction, and whether the pending civil

action will impugn that verdict, see Heck, 512 U. S., at 

487, n. 7—all this at a time when it can hardly be known 

what evidence the prosecution has in its possession. And 

what if the plaintiff (or the court) guesses wrong, and the

anticipated future conviction never occurs, because of 

acquittal or dismissal? Does that event (instead of the 

Heck-required setting aside of the extant conviction) trigger accrual of the cause of action? Or what if prosecution 

never occurs—what will the trigger be then? 

We are not disposed to embrace this bizarre extension of 

Heck. If a plaintiff files a false arrest claim before he has

been convicted (or files any other claim related to rulings

that will likely be made in a pending or anticipated criminal trial), it is within the power of the district court, and

in accord with common practice, to stay the civil action 

until the criminal case or the likelihood of a criminal case 

is ended. See id., at 487–488, n. 8 (noting that “abstention 

may be an appropriate response to the parallel state-court 

proceedings”); Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 

706, 730 (1996). If the plaintiff is ultimately convicted, 

and if the stayed civil suit would impugn that conviction, 

Heck will require dismissal; otherwise, the civil action will 

proceed, absent some other bar to suit. Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U. S. 641, 649 (1997); Heck, 512 U. S., at 487. 

There is, however, one complication that we must address here. It arises from the fact that §1983 actions, 

unlike the tort of malicious prosecution which Heck took 

as its model, see id., at 484, sometimes accrue before the 

setting aside of—indeed, even before the existence of—the

related criminal conviction. That of course is the case 

here, and it raises the question whether, assuming that 

the Heck bar takes effect when the later conviction is 

obtained, the statute of limitations on the once valid cause 

of action is tolled as long as the Heck bar subsists. In the 

context of the present case: If petitioner’s conviction on 
10 WALLACE v. KATO 

Opinion of the Court 

April 19, 1996, caused the statute of limitations on his 

(possibly) impugning but yet-to-be-filed cause of action to 

be tolled until that conviction was set aside, his filing here 

would have been timely. 

We have generally referred to state law for tolling rules, 

just as we have for the length of statutes of limitation. 

Hardin v. Straub, 490 U. S. 536, 538–539 (1989); Board of 

Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y. v. Tomanio, 446 U. S. 

478, 484–486 (1980). Petitioner has not brought to our

attention, nor are we aware of, Illinois cases providing 

tolling in even remotely comparable circumstances. (Indeed, petitioner did not even argue for such tolling below, 

though he supported its suggestion at oral argument.) 

Nor would we be inclined to adopt a federal tolling rule to 

this effect. Under such a regime, it would not be known

whether tolling is appropriate by reason of the Heck bar 

until it is established that the newly entered conviction

would be impugned by the not-yet-filed, and thus utterly 

indeterminate, §1983 claim.4 It would hardly be desirable 

to place the question of tolling vel non in this jurisprudential limbo, leaving it to be determined by those later 

events, and then pronouncing it retroactively. Defendants 

need to be on notice to preserve beyond the normal limitations period evidence that will be needed for their defense; 

and a statute that becomes retroactively extended, by the 

action of the plaintiff in crafting a conviction-impugning

cause of action, is hardly a statute of repose.5 

—————— 

4Had petitioner filed suit upon his arrest and had his suit then been

dismissed under Heck, the statute of limitations, absent tolling, would

have run by the time he obtained reversal of his conviction. If under 

those circumstances he were not allowed to refile his suit, Heck would 

produce immunity from §1983 liability, a result surely not intended. 

Because in the present case petitioner did not file his suit within the 

limitations period, we need not decide, had he done so, how much time 

he would have had to refile the suit once the Heck bar was removed. 5 JUSTICE STEVENS reaches the same result by arguing that, under 

Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976), the Heck bar can never come into 
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 11 

Opinion of the Court

 JUSTICE BREYER argues in dissent that equitable tolling

should apply “so long as the issues that [a §1983] claim 

would raise are being pursued in state court.” Post, at 4. 

We know of no support (nor does the dissent suggest any) 

for the far-reaching proposition that equitable tolling is

appropriate to avoid the risk of concurrent litigation. As 

best we can tell, the only rationale for such a rule is the

concern that “petitioner would have had to divide his 

attention between criminal and civil cases.” Post, at 1. 

—————— 

play in a §1983 suit seeking damages for a Fourth Amendment violation, so that “a habeas remedy was never available to [petitioner] in the 

first place.” Post, at 3 (opinion concurring in judgment). This reads 

Stone to say more than it does. Under Stone, Fourth Amendment 

violations are generally not cognizable on federal habeas, but they are 

cognizable when the State has failed to provide the habeas petitioner

“an opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment

claim.” 428 U. S., at 482. Federal habeas petitioners have sometimes 

succeeded in arguing that Stone’s general prohibition does not apply. 

See, e.g., Herrera v. LeMaster, 225 F. 3d 1176, 1178 (2000), aff’d on this

point, 301 F. 3d 1192, 1195, n. 4 (CA10 2002) (en banc); United States 

ex rel. Bostick v. Peters, 3 F. 3d 1023, 1029 (CA7 1993); Agee v. White, 

809 F. 2d 1487, 1490 (CA11 1987); Doescher v. Estelle, 666 F. 2d 285, 

287 (CA5 1982); Boyd v. Mintz, 631 F. 2d 247, 250–251 (CA3 1980); see

also 2 R. Hertz & J. Liebman, Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and 

Procedure §§27.1–27.3, pp. 1373–1389 (5th ed. 2005). At the time of a 

Fourth Amendment wrong, and at the time of conviction, it cannot be

known whether a prospective §1983 plaintiff will receive a full and fair

opportunity to litigate his Fourth Amendment claim. It thus remains 

the case that a conflict with the federal habeas statute is possible, that

a Fourth Amendment claim can necessarily imply the invalidity of a 

conviction, and that if it does it must, under Heck, be dismissed. 

 Insofar as JUSTICE STEVENS simply suggests that Heck has no bearing 

here because petitioner received a full and fair opportunity to litigate

his Fourth Amendment claim in state court, the argument is equally

untenable. At the time that petitioner became detained pursuant to

legal process, it was impossible to predict whether this would be true. 

And even at the point when his limitations period ended, state proceedings on his conviction were ongoing; full and fair opportunity up to that 

point was not enough. Stone requires full and fair opportunity to

litigate a Fourth Amendment claim “at trial and on direct review.” 428 

U. S., at 494–495, n. 37 (emphasis added). 
12 WALLACE v. KATO 

Opinion of the Court 

But when has it been the law that a criminal defendant, or 

a potential criminal defendant, is absolved from all other 

responsibilities that the law would otherwise place upon 

him? If a defendant has a breach-of-contract claim against 

the prime contractor for his new home, is he entitled to

tolling for that as well while his criminal case is pending?

Equitable tolling is a rare remedy to be applied in unusual

circumstances, not a cure-all for an entirely common state 

of affairs. Besides its never-heard-of-before quality, the

dissent’s proposal suffers from a more ironic flaw. Although the dissent criticizes us for having to develop a 

system of stays and dismissals, it should be obvious that

the omnibus tolling solution will require the same. Despite the existence of the new tolling rule, some (if not 

most) plaintiffs will nevertheless file suit before or during

state criminal proceedings. How does the dissent propose 

to handle such suits? Finally, the dissent’s contention

that law enforcement officers would prefer the possibility 

of a later §1983 suit to the more likely reality of an immediate filing, post at 5, is both implausible and contradicted

by those who know best. As no fewer than 11 States have 

informed us in this litigation, “States and municipalities

have a strong interest in timely notice of alleged misconduct by their agents.” Brief for State of Illinois et al. as 

Amici Curiae 18. 

* * * 

We hold that the statute of limitations upon a §1983

claim seeking damages for a false arrest in violation of the 

Fourth Amendment, where the arrest is followed by

criminal proceedings, begins to run at the time the claimant becomes detained pursuant to legal process. Since in 

the present case this occurred (with appropriate tolling for 

the plaintiff’s minority) more than two years before the 

complaint was filed, the suit was out of time. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is affirmed. 

It is so ordered. 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 1 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 05–1240 

ANDRE WALLACE, PETITIONER v. KRISTEN 

KATO ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

[February 21, 2007] 

JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom JUSTICE SOUTER joins,

concurring in the judgment. 

While I do not disagree with the Court’s conclusion, I 

reach it by a more direct route. The alleged Fourth 

Amendment violation at issue in this case had two distinct 

consequences for petitioner: First, it provided him with a

federal cause of action for damages under 42 U. S. C. 

§1983, and second, it provided him with an objection to the

admissibility of certain evidence in his state criminal trial. 

The crux of petitioner’s argument before this Court is that 

Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), provides the 

appropriate rule of accrual for his §1983 claim. As both he 

and the majority note, Heck held 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. . . . Thus, when a state prisoner seeks 

damages in a §1983 suit, the district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff 
2 WALLACE v. KATO 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

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 486–487 (footnote omitted). 

Relying on this principle, petitioner contends that his 

federal cause of action did not accrue until after the criminal charges against him were dropped.

Unlike the majority, my analysis would not depend on

any common-law tort analogies.1 Instead, I would begin 

where all nine Justices began in Heck. That case, we 

unanimously agreed, required the Court to reconcile §1983 

with the federal habeas corpus statute.2 In concluding 

that Heck’s damages claim was not cognizable under 

§1983, we found that the writ of habeas corpus, and not 

§1983, affords the “‘appropriate remedy for state prisoners 

attacking the validity of the fact or length of their con-

—————— 

1See Heck, 512 U. S., at, 492 (SOUTER, J., concurring in judgment) 

(“Common-law tort rules can provide a ‘starting point for the inquiry 

under §1983,’ Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 258 (1978), but . . . [a]t 

the same time, we have consistently refused to allow common-law 

analogies to displace statutory analysis, declining to import even wellsettled common-law rules into §1983 ‘if [the statute’s] history or purpose counsel against applying [such rules] in §1983 actions.’ Wyatt v. 

Cole, 504 U. S. 158, 164 (1992)” (brackets in original)). 

2See id., at 480 (“This case lies at the intersection of the two most 

fertile sources of federal-court prisoner litigation—the Civil Rights Act 

of 1871, Rev. Stat. §1979, as amended, 42 U. S. C. §1983, and the 

federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U. S. C. §2254”); id., at 491 (SOUTER, 

J., concurring in judgment) (“The Court begins its analysis as I would, 

by observing that ‘this case lies at the intersection of the two most

fertile sources of federal-court prisoner litigation—the Civil Rights Act 

of 1871, . . . 42 U. S. C. §1983, and the federal habeas corpus statute, 28

U. S. C. §2254’ ”); id., at 490 (THOMAS, J., concurring) (“The Court and 

JUSTICE SOUTER correctly begin their analyses with the realization that

‘this case lies at the intersection of . . . the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. 

Stat. §1979, as amended, 42 U. S. C §1983, and the federal habeas 

corpus statute, 28 U. S. C. §2254’ ”). 
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 3 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

finement.’” Id., at 482 (quoting Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 

U. S. 475, 490 (1973)). Given our holding in Stone v. 

Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 481–482 (1976), however, that writ 

cannot provide a remedy for this petitioner. And because 

a habeas remedy was never available to him in the first 

place, Heck cannot postpone the accrual of petitioner’s

§1983 Fourth Amendment claim.3 So while it may well be 

appropriate to stay the trial of claims of this kind until

after the completion of state proceedings, see, e.g., Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706, 731 (1996); cf. 

Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), I am aware of no 

legal basis for holding that the cause of action has not 

accrued once the Fourth Amendment violation has been 

completed.

The Court regrettably lets the perfect become the enemy 

of the good. It eschews my reasoning because “[f]ederal 

habeas petitioners have sometimes succeeded in arguing

that Stone’s general prohibition does not apply.” Ante, at 

11, n. 5 (emphasis added). However, in the vast run of 

cases, a State will provide a habeas petitioner with “an 

opportunity for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim,” Stone, 428 U. S., at 482, and Heck will not 

apply. It is always possible to find aberrant examples in

the law, but we should not craft rules for the needle rather 

than the haystack in an area like this. 

—————— 

3See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U. S. 1, 21 (1998) (SOUTER, J., joined by 

O’Connor, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., concurring) (concluding that a 

plaintiff may bring §1983 claim if he could not bring the same claim

under the habeas statute); ibid. (GINSBURG, J., concurring) (“I have 

come to agree with JUSTICE SOUTER’s reasoning: Individuals without 

recourse to the habeas statute because they are not ‘in custody’ . . . fit

within §1983’s ‘broad reach’ ”); id., at 25, n. 8 (STEVENS, J., dissenting) 

(“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”). 
_________________ 

_________________ 

Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 1 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

No. 05–1240 

ANDRE WALLACE, PETITIONER v. KRISTEN 

KATO ET AL. 

ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF

APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT

[February 21, 2007] 

JUSTICE BREYER, with whom JUSTICE GINSBURG joins,

dissenting. 

I agree with the Court that the accrual date of a 42 

U. S. C. §1983 claim is not postponed by the presence of a 

possible bar to suit under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 

477 (1994). I also agree with the rest of the Court and 

with JUSTICE STEVENS that had petitioner timely filed his 

§1983 case, the Federal District Court might have found it

appropriate to stay the trial of his claims until the completion of state proceedings. E.g., Quackenbush v. Allstate 

Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706, 731 (1996). In the absence of a 

stay, a litigant like petitioner would have had to divide his

attention between criminal and civil cases with attendant 

risks of loss of time and energy as well as of inconsistent 

findings.

The Court’s holding, however, simply leads to the question of what is to happen when, for example, the possibility of a Heck problem prevents the court from considering

the merits of a §1983 claim. And I disagree with the 

Court’s insistence upon a rule of law that would require 

immediate filing, followed by an uncertain system of stays, 

dismissals, and possible refiling. Ante, at 9–10, n. 4 (majority opinion); ante, at 3 (STEVENS, J., concurring in 

judgment). I disagree because there is a well-established

legal tool better able to deal with the problems presented 
2 WALLACE v. KATO 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

by this type of suit. 

Where a “plaintiff because of disability, irremediable 

lack of information, or other circumstances beyond his

control just cannot reasonably be expected to sue in time,”

courts have applied a doctrine of “equitable tolling.” 

Miller v. Runyon, 77 F. 3d 189, 191 (CA7 1996) (Posner, 

C. J.). The doctrine tolls the running of the limitations

period until the disabling circumstance can be overcome.

(This is why the limitations period does not run against a

falsely arrested person until his false imprisonment ends. 

His action has certainly accrued because, as the majority

recognizes, he can file his claim immediately if he is able 

to do so. Ante, at 4, 6, n. 3.) 77 F. 3d, at 191; see also 

Cada v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 920 F. 2d 446, 450–453 

(CA7 1990).

In particular, equitable tolling could apply where a

§1983 plaintiff reasonably claims that the unlawful behavior of which he complains was, or will be, necessary to a

criminal conviction. It could toll the running of the limitations period: (1) from the time charges are brought until

the time they are dismissed or the defendant is acquitted

or convicted, and (2) thereafter during any period in which

the criminal defendant challenges a conviction (on direct 

appeal, on state collateral challenge, or on federal habeas) 

and reasonably asserts the behavior underlying the §1983

action as a ground for overturning the conviction. 

I find it difficult to understand why the Court rejects the

use of “equitable tolling” in regard to typical §1983 plaintiffs. Ante, at 10. The Court’s alternative—file all §1983 

claims (including potentially Heck-barred claims) at once

and then seek stays or be subject to dismissal and refiling—suffers serious practical disadvantages. For one 

thing, that approach would force all potential criminal

defendants to file all potential §1983 actions soon lest they 

lose those claims due to protracted criminal proceedings. 

For another, it would often require a federal court, seeking 
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 3 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

to determine whether to dismiss an action as Heck barred 

or to grant a stay, to consider issues likely being litigated 

in the criminal proceeding (Was the Constitution violated?

Was the violation-related evidence necessary for conviction?). The federal court’s decision as to whether a claim 

was Heck barred (say, whether the alleged constitutional

violation was central to the state criminal conviction)

might later bind a state court on conviction review. Because of this, even a claim without a likely Heck bar might

linger on a federal docket because the federal court (or the 

plaintiff who has been forced to early file) wishes to avoid

interfering with any state proceedings and therefore must

postpone reaching, not only the merits of the §1983 claim, 

but the threshold Heck inquiry as well.

Principles of equitable tolling avoid these difficulties. 

Since equitable tolling obviates the need for immediate 

filing, it permits the criminal proceedings to winnow the

constitutional wheat from chaff, and thereby increase the

likelihood that the constitutionally meritless claims will 

never (in a §1983 action) see the light of day. See Allen v. 

McCurry, 449 U. S. 90, 95–96 (1980) (federal court gives 

preclusive effect to constitutional determinations as to 

issues already litigated in state court). Moreover, an 

appropriate equitable tolling principle would apply not 

only to state criminal proceedings as here, but also to state

appellate proceedings, state collateral attacks, and federal 

habeas proceedings.

Of course, §1983 ordinarily borrows its limitations 

principles from state law. 42 U. S. C. §1988(a). And I do 

not know whether or which States have comparable equitable tolling principles in place. If a given state court 

lacks the necessary tolling provision, however, §1983, in

my view, permits the federal courts to devise and impose 

such principles. See Hardin v. Straub, 490 U. S. 536, 538– 

540 (1989) (“[G]aps in federal civil rights acts should be

filled by state law, as long as that law is not inconsistent 
4 WALLACE v. KATO 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

with federal law” and its “chief goals of compensation and

deterrence or its subsidiary goals of uniformity and federalism” (footnote omitted)); Heck v. Humphrey, 997 F. 2d 

355, 358 (CA7 1993) (Posner, J.) (articulating why federal

tolling regime may apply to §1983 claims), aff’d on other 

grounds, 512 U. S., at 489. Cf. Board of Regents of Univ. 

of State of N. Y. v. Tomanio, 446 U. S. 478, 490 (1980).

The use of equitable tolling in cases of potential temporal conflict between civil §1983 and related criminal proceedings is consistent with, indeed, it would further, 

§1983’s basic purposes. It would provide for orderly adjudication, minimize the risk of inconsistent legal determinations, avoid clogging the courts with potentially unnecessary “protective” filings, and, above all, assure a plaintiff 

who possesses a meritorious §1983 claim that his pursuit

of criminal remedies designed to free him from unlawful 

confinement will not compromise his later ability to obtain 

civil §1983 redress as well. 

The Court is wrong in concluding that the principle I

have described would “place” the tolling “question” in

“jurisprudential limbo.” Ante, at 10. Under the approach 

I propose, supra, at 2, a potential §1983 plaintiff knows his

claim is being tolled so long as the issues that claim would 

raise are being pursued in state court. Such a rule is 

prophylactic (it will sometimes toll claims that would not 

be barred by Heck), but under such an approach neither 

the plaintiff, nor the defendant, nor the federal court need

speculate as to whether the claims are in any way barred 

until the state court has had the opportunity to consider

the claims in the criminal context. 

A tolling principle certainly seems to me to create

greater order than the rule the majority sets out, whereby

all criminal defendants must file their §1983 suits immediately, some will be stayed, some dismissed, and then

some may be refiled and entitled to tolling, ante, at 10, 

n. 4. The majority acknowledges that tolling may be 
Cite as: 549 U. S. ____ (2007) 5 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

necessary to protect the plaintiff who previously filed and 

was dismissed. Ibid. Why not simply apply that tolling 

principle across the board?

The majority is also wrong when it suggests that the

proposed equitable tolling rule would create a significant 

problem of lack of notice. Ante, at 12. Because the rule 

would toll only while the potential §1983 plaintiff is challenging the alleged misconduct in a state court, the State

itself would have notice of the plaintiff’s claims. For similar 

reasons, the potential individual §1983 defendants, the 

state officers, would also likely have notice of the charge. 

But even if they do not, I believe that many would prefer to

forgo immediate notice, for it comes with a pricetag attached—the price consists of being immediately sued by the

filing of a §1983 lawsuit, rife with stays and delays, which

otherwise, in the course of time (as claims are winnowed in 

state court) might never have been filed. 

The Court’s suggested limitations system, like an equitable tolling rule, will produce some instances in which a

plaintiff will file a §1983 lawsuit at an initially uncertain

future date. Ante, at 10, n. 4. And, under both approaches, 

in the many §1983 suits that do not involve any Heck bar, a 

defendant can and will file immediately and his suit would 

proceed (for there is no tolling unless the potential §1983

plaintiff is asserting in a conviction challenge that a constitutional violation did impugn his conviction). My problem 

with the Court’s approach lies in its insistence that all 

potential plaintiffs (including those whose suits may be 

Heck barred) file immediately—even though their suits 

cannot then proceed. With tolling, only rarely would a 

plaintiff choose to file a potentially Heck-barred §1983 suit 

while his criminal case is pending; and in those cases the 

district court could, if it wished, stay the action, or simply

dismiss the suit without prejudice, secure in the knowledge that the suit could be timely filed at a later date. 

The Court’s refusal to admit the equitable tolling possi-
6 WALLACE v. KATO 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

bility means that large numbers of defendants will be sued

immediately by all potential §1983 plaintiffs with arguable 

Heck issues, no matter how meritless the claims; these 

suits may be endlessly stayed or dismissed and then, at

some point in the future, some defendants will also be sued

again. With equitable tolling, however, defendants will be

sued once, in suits with constitutional claims that a state 

court has not already found meritless, at a time when the 

suit can be promptly litigated. Given the practical difficulties of the Court’s approach, I would not rule out now, in 

advance, the use of an equitable tolling rule along the lines

I have described. 

Because this matter has not been fully argued, I would

vacate the Seventh Circuit’s determination and remand 

for consideration of the issues I here raise. For these 

reasons, I respectfully dissent.