Opinion ID: 3012304
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: standard of review

Text: We must review the record to determine whether the District Court properly concluded that there was no genuine issue of material fact and that the defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Bushman v. Halm, 798 F.2d 651, 656 (3d Cir. 1986). We exercise plenary review over the District Court’s choice and interpretation of legal precepts as well as its application of those precepts to the historical facts. Orvosh v. Program of Group Ins. for Salaried Employees of Volkswagen of Am., Inc., 222 F.3d 123, 129 (3d Cir. 2000). III. Section 1983 and Prison Disciplinary Sanctions Whether Torres’s due process claim is cognizable under S 1983 raises two separate questions: whether the favorable termination rule applies to prison disciplinary sanctions that do not affect the fact or length of a prisoner’s confinement, and, more generally, whether the rule applies to persons who cannot seek habeas relief. Only if both questions are answered affirmatively does the favorable termination rule bar Torres’s claim; if the answer to either question is no, his claim is cognizable. With respect to the first question, the Supreme Court has _________________________________________________________________ 4. We acknowledge with appreciation the able and zealous pro bono representation of Torres by Philip N. Yannella, Esquire. 6 consistently distinguished between claims that necessarily implicate the fact or duration of confinement (which it has repeatedly held are subject to the favorable termination rule) and claims that relate only to the conditions of incarceration (which it has not suggested are subject to the favorable termination rule). Edwards v. Balisok , 520 U.S. 641, 646-48 (1997); Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 48687 (1994); Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 499 (1973). This line of cases instructs, and all but one of the circuit courts to consider the issue have held, that both current and former prisoners can use S 1983 to raise claims relating only to the conditions, and not the fact or duration, of their confinement without satisfying the favorable termination rule. Because Torres raises such a claim (and thus the answer to the first question above is no), we need not consider the second, broader question of whether the favorable termination rule applies to persons unable to petition for a writ of habeas corpus.5 _________________________________________________________________ 5. In Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1 (1998), five Justices announced in dicta that they would hold that the favorable termination rule applies only to prisoners who can assert their claims in a habeas proceeding. The issue in Spencer was whether a prisoner’s habeas petition, which sought to invalidate an order revoking his parole, still presented an Article III case or controversy after his reincarceration ended. Eight Justices held that it did not. 523 U.S. at 7, 14-18. In an attempt to demonstrate an injury-in-fact, the prisoner argued that his habeas petition could not be moot because, if it were, Heck’s favorable termination rule would bar him from bringing a S 1983 action, and he would be left without any federal forum in which he could seek redress for the parole revocation. Id. at 17. The opinion of the Court dismissed the prisoner’s contention as a great non sequitur, unless one believes (as we do not) that a S 1983 action for damages must always and everywhere be available. Id. However, five Justices--four in a concurrence, one in a dissent-- expressly rejected the majority’s great non sequitur dictum and said that the favorable termination rule applies only[to] inmates seeking S 1983 damages for unconstitutional conviction or confinement. Id. at 20-21 (Souter, J., concurring, joined by O’Connor, Ginsburg & Breyer, JJ.) (emphases added); id. at 25 n.8 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (agreeing with Justice Souter’s position). Current and former prisoners who cannot seek habeas relief, they said, can bring a S 1983 claim without satisfying the favorable termination rule even if they are challenging the legality of their conviction or the fact or duration of their confinement. Id. at 21. 7
In Preiser, the first case to address the overlap between S 1983 and the federal habeas laws, state prisoners deprived of good-time credits as a result of disciplinary proceedings sought restoration of the credits, which would have resulted in their immediate release, underS 1983. 411 U.S. at 476-77. The Supreme Court held that in light of the specific federal remedy provided by 28 U.S.C. S 2254, the prisoners’ request for injunctive relief was not cognizable under the broad language of S 1983. Id. at 489-90, 500. The Court explained that state prisoners attacking the validity of the fact or length of their confinement must proceed in federal court under the habeas laws, which expressly require exhaustion of adequate state remedies, and may not use S 1983 to circumvent this requirement.6 Id. at 489-90. However, the Court emphasized that a S 1983 action is a proper remedy for a state prisoner who is making a constitutional challenge to the conditions of his prison life, but not to the fact or length of his custody. Id. at 499. _________________________________________________________________ Since Spencer, the Second and Seventh Circuits have adopted this position. DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607, 617-18 (7th Cir. 2000) (relying on Spencer to overrule Anderson v. County of Montgomery, 111 F.3d 494, 499 (7th Cir. 1997), which held that Heck barred a former prisoner from challenging his conviction in a S 1983 suit even if he could not seek habeas relief); Leather v. Eyck, 180 F.3d 420, 424 (2d Cir. 1999) (holding that Heck did not bar a plaintiff who was convicted and fined--but not imprisoned--from alleging selective prosecution under S 1983 because he was never in custody and thus could not seek habeas relief). But see Randell v. Johnson, 227 F.3d 300, 300-01 (5th Cir. 2000) (per curiam) (holding that Heck barred a former prisoner from alleging under S 1983 that he was improperly made to serve two sentences for the same offense because he was not given credit for his initial prison stay); Figueroa v. Rivera, 147 F.3d 77, 80-81 (1st Cir. 1998) (holding that Heck barred the heirs of a prisoner who died in custody from challenging his conviction and imprisonment under S 1983). As noted, this case does not require us to consider the broader question of whether a S 1983 remedy must be available where habeas relief is not. 6. Section 1983 plaintiffs need not exhaust state remedies. Patsy v. Bd. of Regents of Fla., 457 U.S. 496, 501 (1982). 8 Damages are not available in habeas proceedings, so Preiser left open whether a prisoner can use aS 1983 damages action to challenge the constitutionality of his conviction. The Supreme Court addressed this issue in Heck, where a state prisoner sought damages--but not speedier release--under S 1983, alleging that his conviction was obtained through unlawful investigatory practices and the destruction of exculpatory evidence. 512 U.S. at 479. It held that the prisoner had no cause of action underS 1983 because the success of his suit would effectively invalidate his underlying conviction and sentence. Id. at 486-87, 490. The Court reasoned that the prisoner’s action was analogous to the common-law tort of malicious prosecution, an essential element of which is that the prosecution terminated in the accused’s favor. Id. at 484. This requirement eliminates the potential for conflicting resolutions arising from parallel civil and criminal proceedings, and prevents a prisoner from mounting a collateral attack on his conviction. Id. (citations omitted). The Heck Court concluded that the principle that civil tort actions cannot be used to undermine outstanding criminal judgments applies to S 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. Id. at 486. Heck thus adopted the favorable termination rule: if the success of a S 1983 damages suit would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence, the plaintiff ’s claim is cognizable only if he can prove that his conviction or sentence was reversed, invalidated, or called into question by a grant of federal habeas corpus relief. Id. at 486-87 (emphasis added).7 On the other hand, 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 _________________________________________________________________ 7. Stated from a statute-of-limitations perspective, a S 1983 cause of action for damages attributable to an unconstitutional conviction or sentence does not accrue until the conviction or sentence has been invalidated. Id. at 489-90. 9 be allowed to proceed, in the absence of some other bar to the suit. Id. at 487 (footnotes omitted) (emphasis in original).8 In Edwards, the Supreme Court applied Heck’s favorable termination rule to prison disciplinary sanctions that affect the duration of a prisoner’s incarceration. The case involved a state prisoner who lost 30 days of good-time credits and was placed in restrictive settings (isolation for 10 days, segregation for 20) after a hearing officer found him guilty of violating prison rules. 520 U.S. at 643. Alleging that the officer was biased against him and dishonestly suppressed exculpatory evidence, the prisoner sought declaratory relief and damages9 under S 1983. Id. at 643, 647. In contrast to Heck, where the prisoner directly attacked the constitutionality of his conviction, the prisoner in Edwards did not seek restoration of his good-time credits, and thus did not request relief that would alter the term of his confinement. Id. at 643-44. Nevertheless, the Court held that his claims were not cognizable under S 1983 because [t]he principal procedural defect he alleged (the bias of the hearing oficer) would, if established, necessarily imply the invalidity of the deprivation of his good-time credits. Id. at 646-48. Importantly, nothing in Edwards indicates that the favorable termination rule would have applied if the prisoner’s sanction had not affected the duration of his confinement. Indeed, the Court carefully framed the question presented as whether a claim for damages and declaratory relief brought by a state prisoner challenging the validity of the procedures used to deprive him of goodtime credits is cognizable under S 1983. Id. at 643. _________________________________________________________________ 8. Foreshadowing his Spencer opinion, see supra note 5, Justice Souter, joined by three other Justices, concurred in the judgment to caution that the Court’s broadly worded decision should not be read to impose a favorable termination requirement on persons who cannot seek habeas relief, lest those persons be rendered unable to redress a violation of their federal constitutional rights in any federal forum. Id. at 500-03. 9. The prisoner also requested an injunction designed to bar prison officials from suppressing evidence in the future, but the Supreme Court did not consider this issue because it was neither raised before it nor considered by the lower courts. Id. at 648-49. 10
Other circuit courts’ decisions and a recent ruling by our Court show that the favorable termination rule does not apply to prison disciplinary sanctions that affect only the conditions, and not the fact or duration, of a prisoner’s confinement. In Brown v. Plaut, 131 F.3d 163 (D.C. Cir. 1997), the D.C. Circuit held that a prisoner could seek damages under S 1983 for allegedly being placed in administrative segregation without due process. 10 Id. at 167-68. The Court explained that [t]he [Supreme] Court has never deviated from Preiser’s clear line between challenges to the fact or length of custody and challenges to the conditions of confinement. Id. at 168. It noted that Edwards repeatedly characteriz[ed] the plaintiff ’s claim as one that would necessarily imply the invalidity of the deprivation of his good-time credits and that Heck observed that the damages action in that case was in effect an attack on the fact or length of confinement. Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted); see also Anyanwutaku v. Moore, 151 F.3d 1053, 1055-56 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (holding that a prisoner’s claim that prison officials miscalculated his parole eligibility date was cognizable under S 1983 because D.C. parole decisions are entirely discretionary and the success of the claim thus would not necessarily accelerate the prisoner’s release). 11 _________________________________________________________________ 10. The plaintiff was a former prisoner, Brown, 131 F.3d at 165, but that did not factor into the D.C. Circuit’s analysis. 11. The D.C. Circuit also noted that the Supreme Court’s 1995 opinion in Sandin (which we discuss below) did not question a prisoner’s use of S 1983 to challenge disciplinary proceedings that affected only the conditions of his confinement. Brown, 131 F.3d at 168. However, the disciplinary sanction in Sandin was expunged, albeit before the prisoner brought his S 1983 action. 515 U.S. at 476. In addition, the D.C. Circuit reasoned that Heck was distinguishable because the former prisoner was challenging a decision that bears little resemblance to a judicial proceeding. Brown, 131 F.3d at 168. Because decisions to place inmates in administrative segregation are subject to greatly relaxed procedural requirements, they would almost certainly be accorded no collateral estoppel effect, and thus hardly need[ ] to be insulated from collateral attack. Id. However, the same could be said of the disciplinary sanction in Edwards, which the D.C. Circuit did not distinguish on this point. 11 Similarly, in Jenkins v. Haubert, 179 F.3d 19 (2d Cir. 1999), the Second Circuit held that a prisoner could seek damages and injunctive relief under S 1983 for being sentenced to keeplock, a particularly strict form of administrative segregation, allegedly in violation of due process.12 Id. at 20-21. The Court agreed with the D.C. Circuit that Heck and Edwards do not bar a prisoner from using S 1983 to challenge a prison disciplinary sanction that did not affect the fact or length of his confinement. Id. at 27. The Second Circuit explained that Preiser assumed that prisoners could challenge being placed in disciplinary segregation under S 1983, and that neither Heck nor Edwards suggested that the favorable termination rule applies when the fact or duration of a prisoner’s incarceration is not implicated.13 Id. The Seventh Circuit joined the Second and D.C. Circuits in DeWalt v. Carter, 224 F.3d 607 (7th Cir. 2000), holding that a state prisoner could seek damages under S 1983 for being subjected to a disciplinary sanction that cost him his prison job, allegedly based on his race and in retaliation for activities protected by the First Amendment. Id. at 611, 613. The Court explained that, unlike Preiser , Heck, and Edwards, the prisoner’s claims did not relate to the fact or duration of his confinement.14Id. at 616-17; accord Sheldon v. Hundley, 83 F.3d 231, 234 (8th Cir. 1996) (stating in dicta that prisoners who challenge disciplinary rulings that do not lengthen their sentence are probably outside the habeas statute and able to seek damages under S 1983 without showing favorable termination). _________________________________________________________________ 12. As in Brown, the Jenkins plaintiff was a former prisoner, 179 F.3d at 20, but the Second Circuit held that the same analysis applies regardless whether a S 1983 plaintiff remains in custody. Id. at 21. 13. While the Second Circuit also relied on the dicta in Spencer, it noted that its holding was fully supported by the D.C. Circuit’s reasoning in Brown. Jenkins, 179 F.2d at 27. 14. DeWalt, relying in part on the dicta in Spencer, overruled Stone-Bey v. Barnes, 120 F.3d 718, 721 (7th Cir. 1997), which held that, under Heck and Edwards, the favorable termination rule applies to prison disciplinary sanctions even though they do not affect the fact or length of a prisoner’s confinement. DeWalt, 224 F.3d at 617-18. 12 Most recently, we held in Leamer v. Fauver, No. 98-6007, 2002 WL 624068 (3d Cir. Apr. 19, 2002), that a sex offender incarcerated indefinitely at a specialized treatment center could bring a S 1983 suit alleging that state officials violated his constitutional rights by placing him on restrictive status and depriving him of therapy. 15 Id. at -9. We explained that the favorable termination rule applies only if a prisoner’s claim necessarily implicates the fact or duration of his confinement. Id. at . Although the disciplinary sanction prevented the offender from obtaining treatment that might expedite his release, it did not necessarily affect the length of his incarceration, and thus Heck and Edwards did not apply. Id. at -8.16 _________________________________________________________________ 15. Our research reveals that only one circuit court continues to insist that the favorable termination rule applies to claims that implicate only the conditions of a prisoner’s confinement. In Huey v. Stine, 230 F.3d 226 (6th Cir. 2000), the Sixth Circuit held that Heck and Edwards barred a prisoner from alleging under S 1983 that his Eighth Amendment rights were violated when he was put in detention and stripped of privileges for thirty days. Id. at 228, 230. Relying on its prior unpublished opinions, the Court failed to consider whether it mattered that the disciplinary measures at issue did not affect the duration of the prisoner’s incarceration. Id. at 228-29. The Sixth Circuit did not explain why it disagreed with every other court of appeals to address this issue. We believe that Huey’s extension of Heck and Edwards to claims that relate only to prison conditions is unwarranted. The Supreme Court has never questioned Preiser’s statement, see 411 U.S. at 499, that prisoners can challenge the conditions of their confinement under S 1983, and the primary concern underlying Heck and Edwards (the possibility that prisoners will use S 1983 to attack collaterally the fact or duration of their confinement) does not apply when the underlying disciplinary sanction relates only to the conditions of a prisoner’s incarceration. 16. Cf. Neal v. Shimoda, 131 F.3d 818, 824 (9th Cir. 1997) (holding that prisoners could use S 1983 to challenge being compelled to participate in a sex offender treatment program as a prerequisite for parole eligibility); Georgevich v. Strauss, 772 F.2d 1078, 1087 (3d Cir. 1985) (en banc) (holding that prisoners can contest parole procedures under S 1983 where the success of their claims would not necessarily affect the actual duration of [their] confinement). 13
In this context, we hold that Torres’s due process claim is cognizable under S 1983. Preiser concluded that a prisoner may use S 1983 to attack the conditions of his prison life, 411 U.S. at 499, and both Heck and Edwards adhered to Preiser’s clear line between challenges to the fact or length of custody and challenges to the conditions of confinement. Brown, 131 F.3d at 168. The favorable termination rule does not apply when a prisoner’sS 1983 claims can implicate only the conditions, and not the fact or duration, of his confinement. This is regardless whether he remains in custody, as in Leamer, 2002 WL 624068, at , and DeWalt, 224 F.3d at 616-17, or is no longer in custody, as in Jenkins, 179 F.3d at 27, and Brown, 131 F.3d at 168. Torres’s claim challenges the procedures by which he was sentenced to disciplinary detention and administrative segregation. Because these punishments did not alter the length of his incarceration, the success of his claim would not necessarily imply the invalidity of  the fact or duration of his confinement. Edwards, 520 U.S. at 646; Heck, 512 U.S. at 486-87. Thus the District Court erred in concluding that the favorable termination rule barred Torres from proceeding under S 1983.