Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/544/03-287/case.php
Timestamp: 2020-02-19 08:36:48
Document Index: 798620428

Matched Legal Cases: ['§1983', '§1983', '§1983', '§2254', '§1983', '§1983', '§1983', '§1983', '§1983', '§1983', '§1983', '§1983', '§1997']

Breyer, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C.J., and Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia, Souter, Thomas, and Ginsburg, JJ., joined. Scalia, J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Thomas, J., joined. Kennedy, J., filed a dissenting opinion.
The Court initially addressed the relationship between §1983 and the federal habeas statutes in Preiser v. Rodriguez, supra. In that case, state prisoners brought civil rights actions attacking the constitutionality of prison disciplinary proceedings that had led to the deprivation of their good-time credits. Id., at 476. The Court conceded that the language of §1983 literally covers their claims. See §1983 (authorizing claims alleging the deprivation of constitutional rights against every "person" acting "under color of" state law). But, the Court noted, the language of the federal habeas statutes applies as well. See 28 U. S. C. §2254(a) (permitting claims by a person being held "in custody in violation of the Constitution"). Moreover, the Court observed, the language of the habeas statute is more specific, and the writ's history makes clear that it traditionally "has been accepted as the specific instrument to obtain release from [unlawful] confinement." Preiser, 411 U. S., at 486. Finally, habeas corpus actions require a petitioner fully to exhaust state remedies, which §1983 does not. Id., at 490-491; see also Patsy v. Board of Regents of Fla., 457 U. S. 496, 507 (1982). These considerations of linguistic specificity, history, and comity led the Court to find an implicit exception from §1983's otherwise broad scope for actions that lie "within the core of habeas corpus." Preiser, 411 U. S., at 487.
In Wolff v. McDonnell, supra, the Court elaborated the contours of this habeas corpus "core." As in Preiser, state prisoners brought a §1983 action challenging prison officials' revocation of good-time credits by means of constitutionally deficient disciplinary proceedings. 418 U. S., at 553. The Court held that the prisoners could not use §1983 to obtain restoration of the credits because Preiser had held that "an injunction restoring good time improperly taken is foreclosed." 418 U. S., at 555. But the inmates could use §1983 to obtain a declaration ("as a predicate to" their requested damages award) that the disciplinary procedures were invalid. Ibid. They could also seek "by way of ancillary relief [,] an otherwise proper injunction enjoining the prospective enforcement of invalid prison regulations." Ibid. (emphasis added). In neither case would victory for the prisoners necessarily have meant immediate release or a shorter period of incarceration; the prisoners attacked only the "wrong procedures, not ... the wrong result (i.e., [the denial of] good-time credits)." Heck, supra, at 483 (discussing Wolff).
The dissent disagrees with our legal analysis and advocates use of a different legal standard in critical part because, in its view, (1) a habeas challenge to a sentence (a "core" challenge) does not necessarily produce the prisoner's "release" (so our standard "must be ... wrong"), see post, at 1-2, 4; and (2) Heck's standard is irrelevant because Heck concerned only damages, see post, at 4. As to the first, we believe that a case challenging a sentence seeks a prisoner's "release" in the only pertinent sense: It seeks invalidation (in whole or in part) of the judgment authorizing the prisoner's confinement; the fact that the State may seek a new judgment (through a new trial or a new sentencing proceeding) is beside the point. As to the second, Balisok applied Heck's standard and addressed a claim seeking not only damages, but also a separate declaration that the State's procedures were unlawful. See 520 U. S., at 643, 647-648.
We do not find this argument persuasive. In context, Heck uses the word "sentence" to refer not to prison procedures, but to substantive determinations as to the length of confinement. See Muhammad v. Close, 540 U. S. 749, 751, n. 1 (2004) (per curiam) ("[T]he incarceration that matters under Heck is the incarceration ordered by the original judgment of conviction"). Heck uses the word "sentence" interchangeably with such other terms as "continuing confinement" and "imprisonment." 512 U. S., at 483, 486; see also Balisok, supra, at 645, 648 (referring to the invalidity of "the judgment" or "punishment imposed"). So understood, Heck is consistent with other cases permitting prisoners to bring §1983 challenges to prison administrative decisions. See, e.g., Wolff, 418 U. S., at 554-555; Muhammad, 540 U. S., at 754; see also ibid., (rejecting "the mistaken view ... that Heck applies categorically to all suits challenging prison disciplinary proceedings"). Indeed, this Court has repeatedly permitted prisoners to bring §1983 actions challenging the conditions of their confinement--conditions that, were Ohio right, might be considered part of the "sentence." See, e.g., Cooper v. Pate, 378 U. S. 546 (1964) (per curiam); Wilwording v. Swenson, 404 U. S. 249, 251 (1971) (per curiam). And this interpretation of Heck is consistent with Balisok, where the Court held the prisoner's suit Heck-barred not because it sought nullification of the disciplinary procedures but rather because nullification of the disciplinary procedures would lead necessarily to restoration of good-time credits and hence the shortening of the prisoner's sentence. 520 U. S., at 646.
Second, Ohio says that a decision in favor of respondents would break faith with principles of federal/state comity by opening the door to federal court without prior exhaustion of state-court remedies. Our earlier cases, however, have already placed the States' important comity considerations in the balance, weighed them against the competing need to vindicate federal rights without exhaustion, and concluded that prisoners may bring their claims without fully exhausting state-court remedies so long as their suits, if established, would not necessarily invalidate state-imposed confinement. See Part II, supra. Thus, we see no reason for moving the line these cases draw--particularly since Congress has already strengthened the requirement that prisoners exhaust state administrative remedies as a precondition to any §1983 action. See 42 U. S. C. §1997e(a); Porter v. Nussle, 534 U. S. 516, 524 (2002).