NOTICE: This opinion is subject to
formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the
United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter
of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington,
D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in
order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print
goes to press.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 18–485
_________________
EDWARD G. McDONOUGH, PETITIONER
v.
YOUEL SMITH, individually and as SPECIAL DISTRICT ATTORNEY FOR THE
COUNTY OF RENSSELAER, NEW YORK, aka TREY SMITH
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the second circuit
[June 20, 2019]
Justice Sotomayor delivered the opinion of the
Court.
Petitioner Edward McDonough alleges that
respondent Youel Smith fabricated evidence and used it to pursue
criminal charges against him. McDonough was acquitted, then sued
Smith under 42 U. S. C. §1983. The courts below,
concluding that the limitations period for McDonough’s
fabricated-evidence claim began to run when the evidence was used
against him, determined that the claim was untimely. We hold that
the limitations period did not begin to run until McDonough’s
acquittal, and therefore reverse.
I
This case arises out of an investigation into
forged absentee ballots that were submitted in a primary election
in Troy, New York, in 2009. McDonough, who processed the ballots in
his capacity as a commissioner of the county board of elections,
maintains that he was unaware that they had been forged. Smith was
specially appointed to investigate and to prosecute the matter.
McDonough’s complaint alleges that Smith then
set about scapegoating McDonough (against whose family Smith
harbored a political grudge), despite evidence that McDonough was
innocent. Smith leaked to the press that McDonough was his primary
target and pressured him to confess. When McDonough would not,
Smith allegedly fabricated evidence in order to inculpate him.
Specifically, McDonough alleges that Smith falsified affidavits,
coached witnesses to lie, and orchestrated a suspect DNA analysis
to link McDonough to relevant ballot envelopes.
Relying in part on this allegedly fabricated
evidence, Smith secured a grand jury indictment against McDonough.
McDonough was arrested, arraigned, and released (with restrictions
on his travel) pending trial. Smith brought the case to trial a
year later, in January 2012. He again presented the allegedly
fabricated testimony during this trial, which lasted more than a
month and ended in a mistrial. Smith then reprosecuted McDonough.
The second trial also lasted over a month, and again, Smith
elicited allegedly fabricated testimony. The second trial ended
with McDonough’s acquittal on all charges on December 21, 2012.
On December 18, 2015, just under three years
after his acquittal, McDonough sued Smith and other defendants
under §1983 in the U. S. District Court for the Northern District
of New York. Against Smith, McDonough asserted two different
constitutional claims: one for fabrication of evidence, and one for
malicious prosecution without probable cause. The District Court
dismissed the malicious prosecution claim as barred by
prosecutorial immunity, though timely. It dismissed the
fabricated-evidence claim, however, as untimely.
McDonough appealed to the U. S. Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit, which affirmed. 898 F.3d 259 (2018). The
Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court’s disposition of
the malicious prosecution claim. As for the timeliness of the
fabricated-evidence claim, because all agreed that the relevant
limitations period is three years,
id., at 265, the question
was when that limitations period began to run: upon McDonough’s
acquittal, or at some point earlier. In essence, given the dates at
issue, McDonough’s claim was timely only if the limitations period
began running at acquittal.
The Court of Appeals held that McDonough’s
fabricated-evidence claim accrued, and thus the limitations period
began to run, “when (1) McDonough learned that the evidence was
false and was used against him during the criminal proceedings; and
(2) he suffered a loss of liberty as a result of that evidence.”
Ibid. This rule, in the Second Circuit’s view, followed from
its conclusion that a plaintiff has a complete fabricated-evidence
claim as soon as he can show that the defendant’s knowing use of
the fabricated evidence caused him some deprivation of lib- erty.
Id., at 266. Those events undisputedly had occurred by the
time McDonough was arrested and stood trial.
Ibid.
As the Second Circuit acknowledged,
id.,
at 267, other Courts of Appeals have held that the statute of
limitations for a fabricated-evidence claim does not begin to run
until favorable termination of the challenged criminal
proceedings.[
1] We granted
certiorari to resolve the conflict, 586 U. S. ___ (2019), and
now reverse.
II
The statute of limitations for a
fabricated-evidence claim like McDonough’s does not begin to run
until the criminal proceedings against the defendant (
i.e.,
the §1983 plaintiff) have terminated in his favor. This conclusion
follows both from the rule for the most natural common-law analogy
(the tort of malicious prosecution) and from the practical
considerations that have previously led this Court to defer accrual
of claims that would otherwise constitute an untenable collateral
attack on a criminal judgment.
A
The question here is when the statute of
limitations began to run. Although courts look to state law for the
length of the limitations period, the time at which a §1983 claim
accrues “is a question of federal law,” “conforming in general to
common-law tort principles.”
Wallace v.
Kato,
549 U.S.
384, 388 (2007). That time is presumptively “when the plaintiff
has ‘a complete and present cause of action,’ ”
ibid.,
though the answer is not always so simple. See,
e.g.,
id., at 388–391, and n. 3;
Dodd v.
United
States,
545 U.S.
353, 360 (2005). Where, for example, a particular claim may not
realistically be brought while a violation is ongoing, such a claim
may accrue at a later date. See
Wallace, 549 U. S., at
389.
An accrual analysis begins with identifying
“ ‘the specific constitutional right’ ” alleged to have
been infringed.
Manuel v.
Joliet, 580 U. S. ___,
___ (2017) (slip op., at 12) (quoting
Albright v.
Oliver,
510 U.S.
266, 271 (1994) (plurality opinion)). Though McDonough’s
complaint does not ground his fabricated-evidence claim in a
particular constitutional provision, the Second Circuit treated his
claim as arising under the Due Process Clause. 898 F. 3d, at
266. McDonough’s claim, this theory goes, seeks to vindicate a
“ ‘right not to be deprived of liberty as a result of the
fabrication of evidence by a government officer.’ ”
Ibid. (quoting
Zahrey v.
Coffey,
221 F.3d 342, 349 (CA2 2000)); see also,
e.g.,
Napue v.
Illinois,
360 U.S.
264, 269 (1959). We assume without deciding that the Second
Circuit’s articulations of the right at issue and its contours are
sound, having not granted certiorari to resolve those separate
questions. See
Heck v.
Humphrey,
512 U.S.
477, 480, n. 2 (1994) (accepting the lower courts’
characterization of the relevant claims).[
2]
B
As noted above, this Court often decides
accrual questions by referring to the common-law principles
governing analogous torts. See
Wallace, 549 U. S., at
388;
Heck, 512 U. S., at 483. These “principles are
meant to guide rather than to control the definition of §1983
claims,” such that the common law serves “ ‘more as a source
of inspired examples than of prefabricated components.’ ”
Manuel, 580 U. S., at ___ (slip op., at 12).
Relying on our decision in
Heck,
McDonough analogizes his fabricated-evidence claim to the
common-law tort of malicious prosecution, a type of claim that
accrues only once the underlying criminal proceedings have resolved
in the plaintiff’s favor. 512 U. S., at 484; Prosser &
Keeton §119, at 871, 874–875; Restatement (Second) of Torts §§653,
658 (1976); 3 D. Dobbs, P. Hayden, & E. Bublick, Law of Torts
§§586, 590, pp. 388–389, 402–404 (2d ed. 2011) (Dobbs). McDonough
is correct that malicious prosecution is the most analogous
common-law tort here.
Common-law malicious prosecution requires
showing, in part, that a defendant instigated a criminal proceeding
with improper purpose and without probable cause. Restatement
(Second) of Torts §653; see also Dobbs §586, at 388–389; Prosser
& Keeton §119, at 871.[
3]
The essentials of McDonough’s claim are similar: His claim requires
him to show that the criminal proceedings against him—and
consequent deprivations of his liberty[
4]—were caused by Smith’s malfeasance in fabricating
evidence. At bottom, both claims challenge the integrity of
criminal prosecutions undertaken “pursuant to legal process.” See
Heck, 512 U. S., at 484.[
5]
We follow the analogy where it leads: McDonough
could not bring his fabricated-evidence claim under §1983 prior to
favorable termination of his prosecution. As
Heck explains,
malicious prosecution’s favorable-termination requirement is rooted
in pragmatic concerns with avoiding parallel criminal and civil
litigation over the same subject matter and the related possibility
of conflicting civil and criminal judgments. See
id., at
484–485; see also Prosser & Keeton §119, at 874; Dobbs §589, at
402. The requirement likewise avoids allowing collateral attacks on
criminal judgments through civil litigation.
Heck, 512
U. S., at 484. These concerns track “similar concerns for
finality and consistency” that have motivated this Court to refrain
from multiplying avenues for collateral attack on criminal
judgments through civil tort vehicles such as §1983.
Id., at
485; see also
Preiser v.
Rodriguez,
411 U.S.
475, 490 (1973) (noting the “strong policy requiring exhaustion
of state remedies” in order “to avoid the unnecessary friction
between the federal and state court systems”);
Younger v.
Harris,
401 U.S.
37, 43 (1971) (“Since the beginning of this country’s history
Congress has, subject to few exceptions, manifested a desire to
permit state courts to try state cases free from interference by
federal courts”). Because a civil claim such as McDonough’s,
asserting that fabricated evidence was used to pursue a criminal
judgment, implicates the same concerns, it makes sense to adopt the
same rule.[
6]
Heck confirms the strength of this
analogy. In
Heck, a prisoner serving a 15-year sentence for
manslaughter sought damages under §1983 against state prosecutors
and an investigator for alleged misconduct similar to that alleged
here, including knowingly destroying exculpatory evidence and
causing an illegal voice identification procedure to be employed at
the prisoner’s trial. 512 U. S., at 478–479. The Court took as
a given the lower courts’ conclusion that those claims all
effectively “challeng[ed] the legality of” the plaintiff’s
conviction.
Id., at 480, n. 2. Looking first to the
common law, the Court observed that malicious prosecution
“provide[d] the closest analogy to” such claims because, unlike
other potentially analogous common-law claims, malicious
prosecution “permits damages for confinement imposed pursuant to
legal process.”
Id., at 484.
Emphasizing the concerns with parallel
litigation and conflicting judgments just discussed, see
id., at 484–486, the Court in
Heck held that “in
order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction
or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose
unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid,” a
plaintiff in a §1983 action first had to prove that his conviction
had been invalidated in some way,
id., at 486. This
favorable-termination requirement, the Court explained, applies
whenever “a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily
imply” that his prior conviction or sentence was invalid.
Id., at 487.
This case differs from
Heck because the
plaintiff in
Heck had been convicted, while McDonough was
acquitted. Although some claims do fall outside
Heck’s ambit
when a conviction is merely “anticipated,”
Wallace, 549
U. S., at 393, however, McDonough’s claims are not of that
kind, see
infra, at 11–12. As articulated by the Court of
Appeals, his claims challenge the validity of the criminal
proceedings against him in essentially the same manner as the
plaintiff in
Heck challenged the validity of his conviction.
And the pragmatic considerations discussed in
Heck apply
generally to civil suits within the domain of habeas corpus, not
only to those that challenge convictions. See
Preiser, 411
U. S., at 490–491. The principles and reasoning of
Heck
thus point toward a corollary result here: There is not “ ‘a
complete and present cause of action,’ ”
Wallace, 549
U. S., at 388, to bring a fabricated-evidence challenge to
criminal proceedings while those criminal proceedings are ongoing.
Only once the criminal proceeding has ended in the defendant’s
favor, or a resulting conviction has been invalidated within the
meaning of
Heck, see 512 U. S., at 486–487, will the
statute of limitations begin to run.[
7]
C
The soundness of this conclusion is reinforced
by the consequences that would follow from the Second Circuit’s
approach, which would impose a ticking limitations clock on
criminal defendants as soon as they become aware that fabricated
evidence has been used against them. Such a rule would create
practical problems in jurisdictions where prosecutions regularly
last nearly as long as—or even longer than—the relevant civil
limitations period. See Brief for Petitioner 53–55; Brief for
Criminal Defense Organizations et al. as
Amici Curiae
23–24. A significant number of criminal defendants could face an
untenable choice between (1) letting their claims expire and (2)
filing a civil suit against the very person who is in the midst of
prosecuting them. The first option is obviously undesir- able, but
from a criminal defendant’s perspective the latter course, too, is
fraught with peril: He risks tipping his hand as to his defense
strategy, undermining his privilege against self-incrimination, and
taking on discovery obligations not required in the criminal
context. See
SEC v.
Dresser Industries, Inc., 628
F.2d 1368, 1376 (CADC 1980) (en banc). Moreover, as noted above,
the parallel civil litigation that would result if plaintiffs chose
the second option would run counter to core principles of
federalism, comity, consistency, and judicial economy. See
supra, at 7–8.
Smith suggests that stays and ad hoc abstention
are sufficient to avoid the problems of two-track litigation. Such
workarounds are indeed available when claims falling outside
Heck’s scope nevertheless are initiated while a state
criminal proceeding is pending, see
Wallace, 549 U. S.,
at 393–394 (noting the power of district courts to stay civil
actions while criminal prosecutions proceed);
Heck, 512
U. S., at 487–488, n. 8 (noting possibility of
abstention), but Smith’s solution is poorly suited to the type of
claim at issue here. When, as here, a plaintiff’s claim
“necessarily” questions the validity of a state proceeding,
id., at 487, there is no reason to put the onus to safeguard
comity on district courts exercising case-by-case
discretion—particularly at the foreseeable expense of potentially
prejudicing litigants and cluttering dockets with dormant, unripe
cases. Cf.
Panetti v.
Quarterman,
551 U.S.
930, 943 (2007) (noting that a scheme requiring “conscientious
defense attorneys” to file unripe suits “would add to the burden
imposed on courts, applicants, and the States, with no clear
advantage to any”). The accrual rule we adopt today, by contrast,
respects the autonomy of state courts and avoids these costs to
litigants and federal courts.
In deferring rather than inviting such suits, we
adhere to familiar principles. The proper approach in our federal
system generally is for a criminal defendant who believes that the
criminal proceedings against him rest on knowingly fabricated
evidence to defend himself at trial and, if necessary, then to
attack any resulting conviction through collateral review
proceedings. McDonough therefore had a complete and present cause
of action for the loss of his liberty only once the criminal
proceedings against him terminated in his favor.
III
Smith’s counterarguments do not sway the
result.
First, Smith argues that
Heck is
irrelevant to McDonough’s claim, relying on this Court’s opinion in
Wallace.
Wallace held that the limitations period
begins to run on a §1983 claim alleging an unlawful arrest under
the Fourth Amendment as soon as the arrestee “becomes detained
pursuant to legal process,” not when he is ultimately released. 549
U. S., at 397. The Court rejected the plaintiff’s reliance on
Heck, stating that the
Heck rule comes “into play
only when there exists ‘a conviction or sentence that has
not been . . . invalidated,’ that is to say, an
‘outstanding criminal judgment.’ ”
Wallace, 549
U. S., at 393. The Court thus declined to adopt the
plaintiff’s theory “that an action which would impugn
an
anticipated future conviction cannot be brought until that
conviction occurs and is set aside,” because doing so in the
context of an action for false arrest would require courts and
litigants “to speculate about whether a prosecution will be
brought, whether it will result in conviction, and whether the
pending civil action will impugn that verdict—all this at a time
when it can hardly be known what evidence the prosecution has in
its possession.”
Ibid. (citations omitted).[
8]
Smith is correct that
Heck concerned a
plaintiff serving a sentence for a still-valid conviction and that
Wallace distinguished
Heck on that basis, but
Wallace did not displace the principles in
Heck that
resolve this case. A false-arrest claim,
Wallace explained,
has a life independent of an ongoing trial or putative future
conviction—it attacks the arrest only to the extent it was without
legal process, even if legal process later commences. See 549
U. S.
, at 389–390, 393. That feature made the claim
analogous to common-law false imprisonment.
Id., at 389. By
contrast, a claim like McDonough’s centers on evidence used to
secure an indictment and at a criminal trial, so it does not
require “speculat[ion] about whether a prosecution will be
brought.”
Id., at 393. It directly challenges—and thus
necessarily threatens to impugn—the prosecution itself. See
Heck, 512 U. S., at 486–487.
Second, Smith notes (1) that a
fabricated-evidence claim in the Second Circuit (unlike a malicious
prosecution claim) can exist even if there is probable cause and
(2) that McDonough was acquitted. In other words, McDonough
theoretically could have been prosecuted without the fabricated
evidence, and he was not convicted even with it. Because a
violation thus could exist no matter its effect on the outcome,
Smith reasons, “the date on which that outcome occurred is
irrelevant.” Brief for Respondent 26.
Smith is correct in one sense. One could imagine
a fabricated-evidence claim that does not allege that the
violation’s consequence was a liberty deprivation occasioned by the
criminal proceedings themselves. See n. 2,
supra. To be
sure, the argument for adopting a favorable-termination requirement
would be weaker in that context. That is not, however, the nature
of McDonough’s claim.
As already explained, McDonough’s claim remains
most analogous to a claim of common-law malicious prosecution, even
if the two are not identical. See
supra, at 6–7.
Heck
explains why favorable termination is both relevant and required
for a claim analogous to malicious prosecution that would impugn a
conviction, and that rationale extends to an ongoing prosecution as
well: The alternative would impermissibly risk parallel litigation
and conflicting judgments. See
supra, at 7–8. If the date of
the favorable termination was relevant in
Heck, it is
relevant here.
It does not change the result, meanwhile, that
McDonough suffered harm prior to his acquittal. The Court has never
suggested that the date on which a constitutional injury first
occurs is the only date from which a limitations period may run.
Cf.
Wallace, 549 U. S., at 389–391, and n. 3
(explaining that the statute of limitations for false-arrest claims
does not begin running when the initial arrest takes place). To the
contrary, the injury caused by a classic malicious prosecution
likewise first occurs as soon as legal process is brought to bear
on a defendant, yet favorable termination remains the accrual date.
See
Heck, 512 U. S., at 484.[
9]
Third and finally, Smith argues that the
advantages of his rule outweigh its disadvantages as a matter of
policy. In his view, the Second Circuit’s approach would provide
more predictable guidance, while the favorable-termination approach
fosters perverse incentives for prosecutors (who may become
reluctant to offer favorable resolutions) and risks foreclosing
meritorious claims (for example, where an outcome is not clearly
“favorable”). These arguments are unconvincing. We agree that clear
accrual rules are valuable but fail to see how assessing when
proceedings terminated favorably will be, on balance, more
burdensome than assessing when a criminal defendant “learned that
the evidence was false and was used against him” and deprived him
of liberty as a result. 898 F. 3d, at 265. And while the risk
of foreclosing certain claims and the potential incentive effects
that Smith identifies could be valid considerations in other
contexts,[
10] they do not
overcome the greater danger that plaintiffs will be deterred under
Smith’s theory from suing for redress of egregious misconduct, see
supra, at 10—nor do they override the guidance of the common
law and precedent.
IV
The statute of limitations for McDonough’s
§1983 claim alleging that he was prosecuted using fabricated
evidence began to run when the criminal proceedings against him
terminated in his favor—that is, when he was acquitted at the end
of his second trial. The judgment of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit is therefore reversed, and the case
is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.