Eric Lund v. Jeffrey Datzman, et al.

Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), held that, unless and until a criminal conviction is set aside, the convicted individual is barred from bringing any civil claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that “would necessarily imply the invalidity” of the conviction. Id. at 486-87. The individual thus may not seek relief that either is “directly attributable to conviction” or would require disproving “an element of the offense.” Id. at 486 & n.6. By contrast, “a suit for damages attributable to an allegedly unreasonable search may lie even if the challenged search produced evidence that was introduced in [the] criminal trial.” Id. at 487 n.7. As footnote 7 of Heck explained, “such a § 1983 action, even if successful, would not necessarily imply that the plaintiff’s conviction was unlawful,” “[b]ecause of doctrines like independent source and inevitable discovery … and especially harmless error.” Id. That footnote has spawned a deep and acknowledged circuit split presenting this important question: Whether the Heck v. Humphrey bar on § 1983 suits is categorically inapplicable when a convicted individual brings a Fourth Amendment claim seeking damages for an unreasonable search or seizure but not for the conviction obtained using fruits of the constitutional violation, regardless of whether the factual record reveals a particular exclusionary-rule exception or harmless-error theory that could potentially sustain the conviction’s validity despite the violation.