Shakur Muhammad, Aka John E. Mease v. Mark Close (540 U.S. 749)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided February 25, 2004 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 540 U.S. 749 · 124 S. Ct. 1303
- Decided
- February 25, 2004
- Term
- October Term 2003
- Vote
- 9–0
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party lost
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
Opinion excerpt
Per Curiam. I Federal law opens two main avenues to relief on complaints related to imprisonment: a petition for habeas corpus, 28 U. S. C. § 2254, and a complaint under the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. Stat. § 1979, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Challenges to the validity of any confinement or to particulars affecting its duration are the province of habeas corpus, Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 500 (1973); requests for relief turning on circumstances of confinement may be presented in a § 1983 action. Some cases are hybrids, with a prisoner seeking relief unavailable in habeas, notably damages, but on allegations that not only support a claim for recompense, but imply the invalidity either of an underlying conviction or of a particular ground for denying release short of serving the maximum term of confinement. In Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), we held that where success in a prisoner’s § 1983 damages action would implicitly question the validity of conviction or duration of sentence, the litigant must first achieve favorable termination of his available state, or federal habeas, opportunities to challenge the underlying conviction or sentence. Accordingly, in Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U. S. 641 (1997), we applied Heck in the circumstances of a § 1983 action claiming damages and equitable relief for a procedural defect in a prison’s administrative process,…
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