Court Opinion

ID: 9491879
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:26:22.841406+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:59.561993
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the result.
This case can be decided in a straightforward manner. In Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 117 S.Ct. 1584, 137 L.Ed.2d 906 (1997), the Supreme Court applied the rule previously announced in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), to judgments in prison disciplinary proceedings. In Balisok, the Court considered a state prisoner’s § 1983 challenge to the disciplinary proceeding that resulted in the loss of good time credits. It concluded that the prisoner’s “claim for declaratory relief and money damages, based on allegations of deceit and bias on the part of the decision-maker that necessarily imply the invalidity of the punishment imposed, is not cognizable under § 1983” and therefore must be brought in habeas. Id. at 648.
Most recently, the Court’s pronouncements in another case have stated the rule in Bali-sok with more precision and, in so doing, have provided a common-sense ground for decision in the matter now before us. In Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 118 S.Ct. 978, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998), the Supreme Court considered the habeas petition of a prisoner whose sentence, during the pendency of the litigation, had terminated. In a case challenging the revocation of parole rather than the loss of good time credits, the Supreme Court held that the expiration of the habeas petitioner’s sentence caused his petition to be moot because it no longer presented an Article III case or controversy.1 See id. at 983-*112986. The Court briefly considered Heck in relation to the petitioner’s claim and concluded that the petitioner still might bring a § 1983 damages claim, without being barred by Heck, as long as he sought damages for the respondents’ use of the wrong procedures rather than for their reaching the wrong result. See id. at 988 (citing Heck, 512 U.S. at 482-83, 114 S.Ct. 2364).
Of particular noteworthiness to us, as we review Mr. Carr’s ease, however, is the fact that the Justices concurring and dissenting in Spencer clarified their positions concerning the scope of Heck. Justice Souter, joined by Justices O’Connor, Ginsburg and Breyer, stated “that a former prisoner, no longer ‘in custody,’ may bring a § 1983 action establishing the unconstitutionality of a conviction or confinement without being bound to satisfy a favorable-termination requirement that would be impossible as a matter of law for him to satisfy.” Id. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 990 (Souter, J., concurring). Justice Ginsburg reiterated her agreement in her separate concurrence: “I have come to agree with Justice Souter’s reasoning: Individuals without recourse to the habeas statute merely because they are not ‘in custody’ (people merely fined or whose sentences have been fully served, for example) fit within § 1983’s ‘broad reach.’ ” Id. (Ginsburg, J., concurring). In addition, Justice Stevens stated in his dissent that, “[gjiven 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 § 1983.” Id. at-, 118 S.Ct. at 992 (Stevens, J., dissenting).
This pragmatic limitation on the rule of Balisok is not new to this court. In two earlier decisions, five members of this court, including a member of the present panel, have noted that, after these dicta pronouncements in Spencer concerning the breadth of Heck, a majority of the Supreme Court “would treat Heck as inapplicable when eol-lateral review is impossible.” Sylvester v. Hanks, 140 F.3d 713, 714 (7th Cir.1998); see also Nance v. Vieregge, 147 F.3d 589, 591 (7th Cir.) (noting that five Justices concluded in Spencer “that the approach of Heck does nót govern when other relief is impossible”), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 119 S.Ct. 426, 142 L.Ed.2d 347 (1998) (emphasis in original). Other circuits also have taken this view.2
Given the availability of this straightforward basis of decision, I cannot understand the panel majority’s reluctance to base our resolution of the case before us on it. Instead, the panel majority elects to ground its holding on a waiver of the general Balisok rule by the State of Illinois. It is a fair reading of the record to conclude that the Illinois Attorney General did not pursue the possible extension of Heck to prison disciplinary proceedings until the advent of this court’s decision in Miller v. Indiana Department of Corrections, 75 F.3d 330 (7th Cir.1996). The district court apparently thought that this approach was, in light of the state of the law, a permissible one, and I see no reason to armchair quarterback the trial court’s decision in that regard.
Such an aggressive use of the waiver doctrine against the state with respect to a defense grounded in the state’s sovereignity indeed sets a precedent with which this court may have difficulty living.^ This situation is exacerbated by the reality that, even in this instance, the waiver doctrine is not being applied evenhandedly. A study of the original record in Miller reveals that the Indiana Attorney General never suggested the applicability of Heck to prison disciplinary proceedings. Yet that officer was not berated for not having defended the interests of Indiana and, moreover, was given the benefit of Heck without having asked for it. Indeed, this court compounded the problem by first deciding Miller without oral argument by unpublished order despite the fact that it announced a new governing legal principle.
*1130In sum, I cannot understand the court’s reluctance to decide this case in a straightforward manner. Reliance on waiver, although affording an opportunity to chide another institution of government on how it conducts itself (an area in which federal judges ought to exercise significant restraint), requires that we incur significant institutional costs ourselves. Respect for the discretion of the trial court and evenhandedness in our own decisions are important cornerstones of our work. Today’s decision will be a hard one with which to live not only as a matter of precedent but also as a matter of institutional health.

. The Court noted that, in the past, it had presumed that a wrongful conviction had collateral consequences that continue after the petitioner’s sentence had expired and that were adequate to meet Article Ill’s injuiy-in-fact requirement. In this case, however, the Court declined to presume that collateral consequences resulted from the petitioner’s parole revocation, and it concluded that the petitioner demonstrated no such collateral consequences to the revocation of parole. See Spencer, 523 U.S. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 985-87. Although it allowed for the possibility that a § 1983 damages claim might be brought to challenge a procedural defect that did not “necessarily imply the invalidity” of the revocation, id. at -, 118 S.Ct. at 988 (quoting Heck, 512 U.S. at 487, 114 S.Ct. 2364), it concluded that this was not such a case. The Court affirmed the dismissal of the habeas petition as moot. The Supreme Court also commented:
As for petitioner’s concern that law enforcement officials and district judges will repeat with impunity the mootness-producing abuse that he alleges occurred here: We are confident that, as a general matter, district courts will prevent dilatory tactics by the litigants and will not unduly delay their own rulings; and that, where appropriate, corrective mandamus will issue from the courts of appeals.

Id.

. See Cabrera v. City of Huntington Park, 159 F.3d 374, 380 n. 6 (9th Cir.1998) (per curiam) (noting that, after Spencer, "it is questionable whether Heck’s holding would command a majority of the Supreme Court today” but that "Heck remains good law"); Figueroa v. Rivera, 147 F.3d 77, 81 n. 3 (1st Cir.1998) (noting that dicta from concurring and dissenting opinions in Spencer "may cast doubt upon the universality of Heck’s 'favorable termination’ requirement,” but obeying the Court’s admonition that lower federal courts follow its directly applicable precedent, even if that precedent appears weakened by later pronouncements).