United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Submitted December 22, 2021*

Decided December 22, 2021 

Before

MICHAEL S. KANNE, Circuit Judge

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge

DAVID F. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge

No. 21-1433 

JOHN BROWN,

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

CITY OF CHICAGO, et al., 

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Northern District of Illinois, 

Eastern District. 

No. 20-cv-03599 

John F. Kness, 

Judge. 

O R D E R

John Brown, who had two criminal convictions vacated after serving the 

sentences, sued Cook County, the City of Chicago, and unnamed police officers and

prosecutors involved in his arrests and prosecutions. He alleged that the defendants

* We have agreed to decide the case without oral argument because the briefs and 

record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would not 

significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C).

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with FED. R. APP. P. 32.1
No. 21-1433 Page 2 

fabricated evidence and enforced an unconstitutional criminal statute to bring about his 

convictions. The district court dismissed the amended complaint at screening, 

concluding that Brown’s allegations were untimely or failed to state a claim. But his 

Due Process claim relates to his postconviction harm and is therefore timely because it

accrued only when he was exonerated. Therefore, we vacate the judgment with respect 

to that claim and the related state-law claims; otherwise, we affirm. 

We accept the well-pleaded facts in the complaint as true and review them in the 

light most favorable to Brown. Perez v. Fenoglio, 792 F.3d 768, 774 (7th Cir. 2015). One 

night in late 1994, Brown was leaving his friend’s car when police officers stopped him 

without any good reason and forcibly detained him while they searched the car. The 

officers found a gun in the car, but Brown knew nothing about it. Still, Brown was 

arrested, prosecuted, and, after pleading guilty in 1995, was sentenced to two years’ 

probation for Unlawful Use of a Weapon, 720 ILCS 5/24-1(a)(10). 

About one year into his probation for the 1995 conviction, Brown was again 

stopped by police officers, this time while parking in front of his own house. The 

officers searched his car and claimed to find a gun, though Brown maintains that there 

was no gun in the car before the search. Still, in 1996, he pleaded guilty to the charge of 

Unlawful Use of a Weapon by a Felon, 720 ILCS 5/24-1.1—the predicate felony being 

the 1995 conviction—and was sentenced to two years in prison followed by another 

year of probation. Brown finished serving this sentence in 1999. 

Almost 20 years later, the Illinois Supreme court found some of the state’s 

firearm prohibition laws unconstitutional in People v. Aguilar, 2 N.E.3d 321 (Ill. 2013), 

and then more of them in People v. Mosley, 33 N.E.3d 137 (Ill. 2015). Brown then 

successfully petitioned the Illinois courts to vacate both of his convictions for unlawful 

use of a weapon. The 1995 conviction under 720 ILCS 5/24-1(a)(10) was vacated because 

there was “no difference” between the statute Brown was convicted under and one that 

a state appellate court struck down in People v. Gamez, 86 N.E.3d 1194 (Ill. App. Ct. 

2017). The 1996 conviction under 720 ILCS 5/24-1.1 was vacated because it was 

predicated on the first. Brown also obtained a certificate of innocence for the 1995 

conviction because the charged conduct was not criminal. Thereafter, he sued the City 

of Chicago and Cook County under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based on the allegedly unlawful 

arrests and prosecutions that led to the now-vacated convictions. 

Because Brown was incarcerated for an unrelated offense, the district court 

screened his complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. After determining that the complaint 

did not state a claim, the district court gave Brown an opportunity to amend it. The 
No. 21-1433 Page 3 

amended complaint added unnamed police officers and prosecutors as defendants and

alleged that they violated his Fourth Amendment and Due Process rights by stopping 

him without probable cause, enforcing an unconstitutional law, fabricating evidence—

forcing him to confess—and, as to the second arrest, planting a gun. The complaint also 

alleged liability for City of Chicago and Cook County under Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs. 

of New York, 436 U.S. 658, (1972). The court again dismissed the complaint, this time 

with prejudice, concluding that Brown failed to plead a valid Monell claim, lacked any

timely claim related to his arrest, and could not bring what appeared to be a maliciousprosecution claim in a federal suit. The court further stated: “The acquittal of charges 

against the accused also precludes a federal Due Process claim stemming from the

criminal prosecution.” 

We review the dismissal of the complaint at screening de novo. Otis v. Demarasse, 

886 F.3d 639, 644 (7th Cir. 2018). Although our review is plenary, we agree with the 

district judge’s explanation that Brown did not sufficiently plead a Monell claim and 

that he has no timely Fourth Amendment claims. First, Brown did not plead a proper

Monell claim against either the City of Chicago or Cook County based on the 

enforcement of the later-vacated Illinois statute. Neither entity could be liable based on 

a policy of enforcing state criminal statutes in effect at the time. See Lemon v. Kurtzman, 

411 U.S. 192, 208–209 (1972) (officials not liable for good faith enforcement of 

presumptively valid state statute). That is the only policy that Brown identifies. 

Second, we agree with the district court that Brown’s Fourth Amendment 

claims—which relate to whether he was arrested and detained without probable 

cause—are untimely. There is a two-year statute of limitations for an Illinois-based 

§ 1983 claim. Johnson v. Winstead, 900 F.3d 428, 434 (7th Cir. 2018). And Brown’s claims

accrued when his pretrial detention ended, decades before his complaint in 2020. 

See Manuel v. City of Joliet, Ill., 903 F.3d 667, 669–670 (7th Cir. 2018) (Fourth Amendment 

claim of unlawful pretrial detention accrues when detention ends), enforcing 137 S. Ct. 

911, 920–22 (2017).

With respect to Brown’s claim of unlawful posttrial detention, however, we agree 

with Brown that the dismissal here was too hasty. In his amended complaint, Brown 

directly attacks the procedure and evidence used to convict him and send him to prison. 

According to the complaint, he was convicted and imprisoned because police presented

a “false and incomplete version of events to prosecutors,” wrote false reports, and gave 

false statements and testimony, while the prosecutors knew what the police were doing 

and, rather than intervening, happily played along. This set of allegations is properly 
No. 21-1433 Page 4 

characterized as a Due Process claim because, after a criminal conviction, “the Fourth 

Amendment drops out,” and a challenge to the conviction or ensuing incarceration 

arises under the Due Process Clause. Manuel v. City of Joliet, Ill., 137 S. Ct. at 920 n.8; see 

also Lewis v. City of Chicago, 914 F.3d 472, 480 (7th Cir. 2019). 

This type of claim did not accrue along with the Fourth Amendment challenge to 

the arrest and pretrial detention. Under the Supreme Court’s decisions in Heck v. 

Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), and McDonough v. Smith, 139 S. Ct. 2149 (2019), Brown 

could not pursue a § 1983 claim about his prosecution while his convictions remained 

valid because, if he succeeded, the integrity of the convictions would necessarily be 

called in to doubt. As Brown argues, his Due Process claim was barred until his 

convictions were vacated based on later developments in the law. 

Contrary to the district court’s ruling, moreover, our decision in Savory v. 

Cannon, 947 F.3d 409 (7th Cir. 2020) (en banc), makes clear that a federal claim’s 

similarity to the state-law tort of malicious prosecution is not fatal. The plaintiff in 

Savory was pardoned after spending 30 years in prison; he then brought § 1983 claims 

that “strongly resemble[d] the common law tort of malicious prosecution.” Id. at 417. 

We concluded that, until his pardon, those claims—which were premised on harms the 

plaintiff suffered after his criminal conviction—were barred by Heck. Id. at 418, 431. 

Brown, too, challenges not just his arrest but his postconviction detention. And like the 

plaintiff in Savory, and for that matter in Heck, he therefore raises cognizable federal 

claims. See Heck, 512 U.S. at 484; Savory, 947 F.3d at 418. 

The appellees now acknowledge that Heck barred Brown’s Due Process claim 

until recently but contend that the claim, though timely, still is not viable because the 

“sole ground” it stands on is the unconstitutionality of the statute he was convicted 

under in 1995. Citing Michigan v. DeFillippo, 443 U.S. 31 (1979), the appellees contend 

that Brown’s arrest, if made in good faith, cannot be unconstitutional solely because the 

underlying statute was later found to be. This argument is correct as far is it goes, but at 

most it provides an independent justification for dismissing the untimely Fourth 

Amendment claims. The Due Process claim does not arise from the arrest, but from the 

allegations of using a coerced confession and planted gun to convict him. See Savory, 

947 F.3d at 412. And it is inconsistent to contend, as the appellees do, that this claim is

distinct enough from the arrest-based claims to have been barred by Heck while the 

convictions stood but is simultaneously too embroiled in his arrests to stand separately.

The district court also dismissed Brown’s state law claims, presumably using its 

discretion to relinquish supplemental jurisdiction over them under 28 U.S.C. 
No. 21-1433 Page 5 

§ 1367(c)(3). Because the court cited no other basis for the dismissal of the state law 

claims, we note for completeness that, because we have reinstated the federal Due

Process claim, the state-law claims are revived, too. See Brunson v. Murray, 843 F.3d 698, 

715 (7th Cir. 2016). 

On remand, a first order of business should be to allow Brown to amend the 

complaint to identify the appropriate defendants for the Due Process claim, because 

under § 1983 Brown must name the individuals personally involved in the alleged 

constitutional violations, and he must do so within the statute of limitations. See FED. R.

CIV. P. 15(c)(1)(C); Herrera v. Cleveland, 8 F.4th 493 (7th Cir. 2021). Limited discovery 

might be needed, and Brown should be allowed to maximize the time he has to name 

the proper defendants. See Rodriguez v. Plymouth Ambulance Service, 577 F.3d 816, 821 

(7th Cir. 2009) (citing Billman v. Indiana Dep’t of Corr., 56 F.3d 785 (7th Cir. 1995)). We 

will therefore not make him wait the default period set by FED. R. APP. P. 41(b) for the 

mandate to issue.

We therefore VACATE the dismissal of Brown’s Due Process and state-law 

claims and REMAND for further proceedings. We AFFIRM the rest of the judgment.

The mandate shall issue forthwith.