WALLACE v. KATO et al.

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384 OCTOBER TERM, 2006
Syllabus
WALLACE v. KATO et al.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for
the seventh circuit
No. 05–1240. Argued November 6, 2006—Decided February 21, 2007
In January 1994, Chicago police arrested petitioner, a minor, for murder.
He was tried and convicted, but the charges were ultimately dropped in
April 2002. In April 2003, he filed this suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983
against the city and several of its officers, seeking damages for, inter
alia, his unlawful arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The
District Court granted respondents summary judgment, and the Sev
enth Circuit affirmed, ruling that the § 1983 suit was time barred be
cause petitioner’s cause of action accrued at the time of his arrest, not
when his conviction was later set aside.
Held: The statute of limitations upon a § 1983 claim seeking damages for
a false arrest in violation of the Fourth Amendment, where the arrest is
followed by criminal proceedings, begins to run at the time the claimant
becomes detained pursuant to legal process. Pp. 387–397.
(a) The statute of limitations in a § 1983 suit is that provided by the
State for personal-injury torts, e. g., Owens v. Okure, 488 U. S. 235, 249–
250; here, two years under Illinois law. For false imprisonment and its
subspecies false arrest, “[t]he . . . cause[s] of action . . . provid[ing] the
closest analogy to claims of the type considered here,” Heck v. Hum
phrey, 512 U. S. 477, 484, the statute of limitations begins to run when
the alleged false imprisonment ends, see, e. g., 4 Restatement (Second)
of Torts § 899, Comment c, that is, in the present context, when the
victim becomes held pursuant to legal process, see, e. g., Heck, supra, at
484. Thus, petitioner’s false imprisonment did not end, as he contends,
when he was released from custody after the State dropped the charges
against him, but rather when he appeared before the examining magis
trate and was bound over for trial. Since more than two years elapsed
between that date and the filing of this suit—even leaving out of the
count the period before he reached his majority—the action was time
barred. Pp. 387–392.
(b) Petitioner’s contention that Heck compels the conclusion that his
suit could not accrue until the State dropped its charges against him is
rejected. The Heck Court 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 sen
tence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sen

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Syllabus
tence has been [set aside]. A claim for damages bearing that relation
ship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not
cognizable under § 1983.” 512 U. S., at 486–487. Even assuming that
the Heck deferred-accrual rule would be applied to the date petitioner
was first held pursuant to legal process, there was in existence at that
time no criminal conviction that the cause of action would impugn.
What petitioner seeks is the adoption of a principle going well beyond
Heck: that an action which would impugn an anticipated future convic
tion cannot be brought until that conviction occurs and is set aside.
The impracticality of such a speculative rule is obvious.
The fact that § 1983 actions sometimes accrue before the setting aside
of—indeed, even before the existence of—the related criminal conviction
raises the question whether, assuming the Heck bar takes effect when
the later conviction is obtained, the statute of limitations on the once
valid cause of action is tolled as long as the Heck bar subsists. How
ever, this Court generally refers to state-law tolling rules, e. g., Hardin
v. Straub, 490 U. S. 536, 538–539, and is unaware of Illinois cases provid
ing tolling in even remotely comparable circumstances. Moreover, a
federal tolling rule to this effect would create a jurisprudential limbo in
which it would not be known whether tolling is appropriate by reason
of the Heck bar until it is established that the newly entered conviction
would be impugned by the not-yet-filed, and thus utterly indeterminate,
§ 1983 claim. Pp. 392–397.
440 F. 3d 421, affirmed.
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J.,
and Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito, JJ., joined. Stevens, J., filed an
opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Souter, J., joined, post,
p. 397. Breyer, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Ginsburg, J.,
joined, post, p. 400.
Kenneth N. Flaxman argued the cause for petitioner.
With him on the briefs was John J. Bursch.
Benna Ruth Solomon, Deputy Corporation Counsel of the
City of Chicago, argued the cause for respondents. With
her on the brief were Myriam Zreczny Kasper, Chief Assist
ant Corporation Counsel, Jane Elinor Notz, Assistant Cor
poration Counsel, and Lawrence Rosenthal.*
*Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the State of
Illinois et al. by Lisa Madigan, Attorney General of Illinois, Gary Feiner
man, Solicitor General, and Michael Scodro, Deputy Solicitor General, and

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386 WALLACE v. KATO
Opinion of the Court
Justice Scalia delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner filed suit under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C.
§ 1983, seeking damages for an arrest that violated the
Fourth Amendment. We decide whether his suit is timely.
I
On January 17, 1994, John Handy was shot to death in the
city of Chicago. Sometime around 8 p.m. two days later,
Chicago police officers located petitioner, then 15 years of
age, and transported him to a police station for questioning.
After interrogations that lasted into the early morning hours
the next day, petitioner agreed to confess to Handy’s murder.
An assistant state’s attorney prepared a statement to this
effect, and petitioner signed it, at the same time waiving his
Miranda rights.
Prior to trial in the Circuit Court of Cook County, peti
tioner unsuccessfully attempted to suppress his station
house statements as the product of an unlawful arrest. He
was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 26
years in prison. On direct appeal, the Appellate Court of
Illinois held that officers had arrested petitioner without
probable cause, in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Peo
ple v. Wallace, 299 Ill. App. 3d 9, 17–18, 701 N. E. 2d 87, 94
(1998). According to that court (whose determination we
are not reviewing here), even assuming petitioner willingly
accompanied police to the station, his presence there “esca
by the Attorneys General for their respective jurisdictions as follows: Troy
King of Alabama, Carl C. Danberg of Delaware, Robert J. Spagnoletti of
the District of Columbia, Tom Miller of Iowa, Mike McGrath of Montana,
Wayne Stenehjem of North Dakota, W. A. Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma,
Henry McMaster of South Carolina, Mark L. Shurtleff of Utah, Rob Mc-
Kenna of Washington, and Peggy A. Lautenschlager of Wisconsin; for
Cook County, Illinois, by Richard A. Devine, Patrick T. Driscoll, Jr.,
Louis R. Hegeman, Paul Castiglione, and Veronica Calderon Malavia;
and for the National League of Cities et al. by Richard Ruda and D. Bruce
La Pierre.

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lated to an involuntary seizure prior to his formal arrest.”
Id., at 18, 701 N. E. 2d, at 94. After another round of ap
peals, the Appellate Court concluded on August 31, 2001,
that the effect of petitioner’s illegal arrest had not been
sufficiently attenuated to render his statements admissible,
see Brown v. Illinois, 422 U. S. 590 (1975), and remanded
for a new trial. Judgt. order reported sub nom. People v.
Wallace, 324 Ill. App. 3d 1139, 805 N. E. 2d 756 (2001). On
April 10, 2002, prosecutors dropped the charges against
petitioner.
On April 2, 2003, petitioner filed this § 1983 suit against the
city of Chicago and several Chicago police officers, seeking
damages arising from, inter alia, his unlawful arrest.1 The
District Court granted summary judgment to respondents
and the Court of Appeals affirmed. According to the Sev
enth Circuit, petitioner’s § 1983 suit was time barred because
his cause of action accrued at the time of his arrest, and not
when his conviction was later set aside. Wallace v. Chicago,
440 F. 3d 421, 427 (2006). We granted certiorari, 547 U. S.
1205 (2006).
II
Section 1983 provides a federal cause of action, but in sev
eral respects relevant here federal law looks to the law of
the State in which the cause of action arose. This is so for
the length of the statute of limitations: It is that which the
State provides for personal-injury torts. Owens v. Okure,
488 U. S. 235, 249–250 (1989); Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261,
279–280 (1985). The parties agree that under Illinois law,
this period is two years. Ill. Comp. Stat., ch. 735, § 5/13–202
(West 2003). Thus, if the statute on petitioner’s cause of
action began to run at the time of his unlawful arrest, or
even at the time he was ordered held by a magistrate, his
1 All of petitioner’s other state and federal claims were resolved ad
versely to him and are not before us. We expressly limited our grant of
certiorari to the Fourth Amendment false-arrest claim. See 547 U. S.
1205 (2006). The city of Chicago is no longer a party to this suit.

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§ 1983 suit was plainly dilatory, even according him tolling
for the two-plus years of his minority, see § 5/13–211. But
if, as the dissenting judge argued below, the commencement
date for running of the statute is governed by this Court’s
decision in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), that date
may be the date on which petitioner’s conviction was va
cated, in which case the § 1983 suit would have been timely
filed.
While we have never stated so expressly, the accrual date
of a § 1983 cause of action is a question of federal law that is
not resolved by reference to state law. The parties agree,
the Seventh Circuit in this case so held, see 440 F. 3d, at 424,
and we are aware of no federal court of appeals holding to
the contrary. Aspects of § 1983 which are not governed by
reference to state law are governed by federal rules con
forming in general to common-law tort principles. See
Heck, supra, at 483; Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 257–258
(1978). Under those principles, it is “the standard rule that
[accrual occurs] when the plaintiff has ‘a complete and pres
ent cause of action,’ ” Bay Area Laundry and Dry Cleaning
Pension Trust Fund v. Ferbar Corp. of Cal., 522 U. S. 192,
201 (1997) (quoting Rawlings v. Ray, 312 U. S. 96, 98 (1941)),
that is, when “the plaintiff can file suit and obtain relief,”
Bay Area Laundry, supra, at 201. There can be no dispute
that petitioner could have filed suit as soon as the allegedly
wrongful arrest occurred, subjecting him to the harm of in
voluntary detention, so the statute of limitations would nor
mally commence to run from that date.
There is, however, a refinement to be considered, arising
from the common law’s distinctive treatment of the torts
of false arrest and false imprisonment, “[t]he . . . cause[s]
of action [that] provid[e] the closest analogy to claims of
the type considered here,” Heck, supra, at 484. See 1
D. Dobbs, Law of Torts § 47, p. 88 (2001). False arrest and
false imprisonment overlap; the former is a species of the
latter. “Every confinement of the person is an imprison

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ment, whether it be in a common prison or in a private house,
or in the stocks, or even by forcibly detaining one in the
public streets; and when a man is lawfully in a house, it is
imprisonment to prevent him from leaving the room in which
he is.” M. Newell, Law of Malicious Prosecution, False Im
prisonment, and Abuse of Legal Process § 2, p. 57 (1892)
(footnote omitted). See also 7 S. Speiser, C. Krause, &
A. Gans, American Law of Torts § 27:2, pp. 940–942 (1990).
We shall thus refer to the two torts together as false impris
onment. That tort provides the proper analogy to the cause
of action asserted against the present respondents for the
following reason: The sort of unlawful detention remediable
by the tort of false imprisonment is detention without legal
process, see, e. g., W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, &
D. Owen, Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts § 11, p. 54,
§ 119, pp. 885–886 (5th ed. 1984); 7 Speiser, supra, § 27:2, at
943–944, and the allegations before us arise from respond
ents’ detention of petitioner without legal process in January
1994. They did not have a warrant for his arrest.
The running of the statute of limitations on false imprison
ment is subject to a distinctive rule—dictated, perhaps, by
the reality that the victim may not be able to sue while he
is still imprisoned: “Limitations begin to run against an ac
tion for false imprisonment when the alleged false imprison
ment ends.” 2 H. Wood, Limitation of Actions § 187d(4),
p. 878 (rev. 4th ed. 1916); see also 4 Restatement (Second) of
Torts § 899, Comment c (1977); A. Underhill, Principles of
Law of Torts 202 (1881). Thus, to determine the beginning
of the limitations period in this case, we must determine
when petitioner’s false imprisonment came to an end.
Reflective of the fact that false imprisonment consists of
detention without legal process, a false imprisonment ends
once the victim becomes held pursuant to such process—
when, for example, he is bound over by a magistrate or ar
raigned on charges. 1 Dobbs, supra, § 39, at 74, n. 2; Keeton,
supra, § 119, at 888; H. Stephen, Actions for Malicious Prose

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cution 120–123 (1888). Thereafter, unlawful detention forms
part of the damages for the “entirely distinct” tort of mali
cious prosecution, which remedies detention accompanied,
not by absence of legal process, but by wrongful institution
of legal process.2 Keeton, supra, § 119, at 885–886; see 1
F. Harper, F. James, & O. Gray, Law of Torts § 3.9, p. 3:36
(3d ed. 1996); 7 Speiser, supra, § 27:2, at 943–945. “If there
is a false arrest claim, damages for that claim cover the time
of detention up until issuance of process or arraignment, but
not more. From that point on, any damages recoverable
must be based on a malicious prosecution claim and on the
wrongful use of judicial process rather than detention itself.”
Keeton, supra, § 119, at 888; see also Heck, supra, at 484; 8
Speiser, supra, § 28:15, at 80. Thus, petitioner’s contention
that his false imprisonment ended upon his release from cus
tody, after the State dropped the charges against him, must
be rejected. It ended much earlier, when legal process was
initiated against him, and the statute would have begun to
run from that date, but for its tolling by reason of petition
er’s minority.3
2 We have never explored the contours of a Fourth Amendment
malicious-prosecution suit under § 1983, see Albright v. Oliver, 510 U. S.
266, 270–271, 275 (1994) (plurality opinion), and we do not do so here. See
generally 1 M. Schwartz, Section 1983 Litigation § 3.18[C], pp. 3–605 to
3–629 (4th ed. 2004) (noting a range of approaches in the lower courts).
Assuming without deciding that such a claim is cognizable under § 1983,
petitioner has not made one. Petitioner did not include such a claim in
his complaint. He in fact abandoned a state-law malicious-prosecution
claim in the District Court, and stated, in his opposition to respondents’
first motion for summary judgment, that “Plaintiff does not seek to
raise . . . a malicious prosecution claim under § 1983,” Record, Doc. 17, p. 3,
n. 5. In this Court, he has told us that respondents are “mistaken in
characterizing petitioner’s cause of action as involving ‘unwarranted
prosecution.’ ” Reply Brief 12.
3 This is not to say, of course, that petitioner could not have filed suit
immediately upon his false arrest. While the statute of limitations did
not begin to run until petitioner became detained pursuant to legal
process, he was injured and suffered damages at the moment of his arrest,

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Opinion of the Court
Petitioner asserts that the date of his release from custody
must be the relevant date in the circumstances of the present
suit, since he is seeking damages up to that time. The the
ory of his complaint is that the initial Fourth Amendment
violation set the wheels in motion for his subsequent convic
tion and detention: The unlawful arrest led to the coerced
confession, which was introduced at his trial, producing his
conviction and incarceration. As we have just explained, at
common law damages for detention after issuance of process
or arraignment would be attributable to a tort other than
the unlawful arrest alleged in petitioner’s complaint—and
probably a tort chargeable to defendants other than the re
spondents here. Even assuming, however, that all damages
for detention pursuant to legal process could be regarded as
consequential damages attributable to the unlawful arrest,
that would not alter the commencement date for the statute
of limitations. “Under the traditional rule of accrual . . . the
tort cause of action accrues, and the statute of limitations
commences to run, when the wrongful act or omission results
in damages. The cause of action accrues even though the
full extent of the injury is not then known or predictable.”
1 C. Corman, Limitation of Actions § 7.4.1, pp. 526–527 (1991)
(footnote omitted); see also 54 C. J. S., Limitations of Actions
§ 112, p. 150 (2005). Were it otherwise, the statute would
begin to run only after a plaintiff became satisfied that he
had been harmed enough, placing the supposed statute of
repose in the sole hands of the party seeking relief.
We conclude that the statute of limitations on petitioner’s
§ 1983 claim commenced to run when he appeared before the
examining magistrate and was bound over for trial. Since
more than two years elapsed between that date and the filing
and was entitled to bring suit at that time. See Adler v. Beverly Hills
Hospital, 594 S. W. 2d 153, 156 (Tex. Civ. App. 1980) (“We may concede
that a person falsely imprisoned has the right to sue on the first day for
his detention”).

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of this suit—even leaving out of the count the period before
he reached his majority—the action was time barred.
III
This would end the matter, were it not for petitioner’s con
tention that Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S., at 477, compels
the conclusion that his suit could not accrue until the State
dropped its charges against him. In Heck, a state prisoner
filed suit under § 1983 raising claims which, if true, would
have established the invalidity of his outstanding conviction.
We analogized his suit to one for malicious prosecution, an
element of which is the favorable termination of criminal
proceedings. Id., at 484. We said:
“[I]n order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitu
tional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm
caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a
conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must
prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed
on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared
invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such de
termination, or called into question by a federal court’s
issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U. S. C. § 2254.
A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a con
viction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is
not cognizable under § 1983.” Id., at 486–487 (footnote
omitted).
We rested this conclusion upon “the hoary principle that civil
tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the
validity of outstanding criminal judgments.” Id., at 486.
“ ‘Congress,’ ” we said, “ ‘has determined that habeas corpus
is the appropriate remedy for state prisoners attacking the
validity of the fact or length of their confinement, and that
specific determination must override the general terms of
§ 1983.’ ” Id., at 482 (quoting Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S.
475, 490 (1973)).

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As the above excerpts show, the Heck rule for deferred
accrual is called into play only when there exists “a convic
tion or sentence that has not been . . . invalidated,” that is
to say, an “outstanding criminal judgment.” It delays what
would otherwise be the accrual date of a tort action until the
setting aside of an extant conviction which success in that
tort action would impugn. We assume that, for purposes of
the present tort action, the Heck principle would be applied
not to the date of accrual but to the date on which the statute
of limitations began to run, that is, the date petitioner be
came held pursuant to legal process. See supra, at 389–390.
Even at that later time, there was in existence no criminal
conviction that the cause of action would impugn; indeed,
there may not even have been an indictment.
What petitioner seeks, in other words, is the adoption of a
principle that goes well beyond Heck: that an action which
would impugn an anticipated future conviction cannot be
brought until that conviction occurs and is set aside. The
impracticality of such a rule should be obvious. In an action
for false arrest it would require the plaintiff (and if he brings
suit promptly, the court) to speculate about whether a prose
cution will be brought, whether it will result in conviction,
and whether the pending civil action will impugn that ver
dict, see Heck, 512 U. S., at 487, n. 7—all this at a time when
it can hardly be known what evidence the prosecution has in
its possession. And what if the plaintiff (or the court)
guesses wrong, and the anticipated future conviction never
occurs, because of acquittal or dismissal? Does that event
(instead of the Heck-required setting aside of the extant con
viction) trigger accrual of the cause of action? Or what if
prosecution never occurs—what will the trigger be then?
We are not disposed to embrace this bizarre extension of
Heck. If a plaintiff files a false-arrest claim before he has
been convicted (or files any other claim related to rulings
that will likely be made in a pending or anticipated criminal
trial), it is within the power of the district court, and in ac

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cord with common practice, to stay the civil action until the
criminal case or the likelihood of a criminal case is ended.
See id., at 487–488, n. 8 (noting that “abstention may be an
appropriate response to the parallel state-court proceed
ings”); Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706, 730
(1996). If the plaintiff is ultimately convicted, and if the
stayed civil suit would impugn that conviction, Heck will re
quire dismissal; otherwise, the civil action will proceed, ab
sent some other bar to suit. Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U. S.
641, 649 (1997); Heck, 512 U. S., at 487.
There is, however, one complication that we must address
here. It arises from the fact that § 1983 actions, unlike the
tort of malicious prosecution which Heck took as its model,
see id., at 484, sometimes accrue before the setting aside of—
indeed, even before the existence of—the related criminal
conviction. That of course is the case here, and it raises the
question whether, assuming that the Heck bar takes effect
when the later conviction is obtained, the statute of limita
tions on the once valid cause of action is tolled as long as the
Heck bar subsists. In the context of the present case: If
petitioner’s conviction on April 19, 1996, caused the statute
of limitations on his (possibly) impugning but yet-to-be-filed
cause of action to be tolled until that conviction was set aside,
his filing here would have been timely.
We have generally referred to state law for tolling rules,
just as we have for the length of statutes of limitations.
Hardin v. Straub, 490 U. S. 536, 538–539 (1989); Board of
Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y. v. Tomanio, 446 U. S. 478,
484–486 (1980). Petitioner has not brought to our attention,
nor are we aware of, Illinois cases providing tolling in even
remotely comparable circumstances. (Indeed, petitioner did
not even argue for such tolling below, though he supported
its suggestion at oral argument.) Nor would we be inclined
to adopt a federal tolling rule to this effect. Under such a
regime, it would not be known whether tolling is appropriate
by reason of the Heck bar until it is established that the

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newly entered conviction would be impugned by the not
yet-filed, and thus utterly indeterminate, § 1983 claim.4 It
would hardly be desirable to place the question of tolling vel
non in this jurisprudential limbo, leaving it to be determined
by those later events, and then pronouncing it retroactively.
Defendants need to be on notice to preserve beyond the nor
mal limitations period evidence that will be needed for their
defense; and a statute that becomes retroactively extended,
by the action of the plaintiff in crafting a conviction
impugning cause of action, is hardly a statute of repose.5
4 Had petitioner filed suit upon his arrest and had his suit then been
dismissed under Heck, the statute of limitations, absent tolling, would
have run by the time he obtained reversal of his conviction. If under
those circumstances he were not allowed to refile his suit, Heck would
produce immunity from § 1983 liability, a result surely not intended. Be
cause in the present case petitioner did not file his suit within the limita
tions period, we need not decide, had he done so, how much time he would
have had to refile the suit once the Heck bar was removed.
5 Justice Stevens reaches the same result by arguing that, under
Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465 (1976), the Heck bar can never come into
play in a § 1983 suit seeking damages for a Fourth Amendment violation,
so that “a habeas remedy was never available to [petitioner] in the first
place.” Post, at 399 (opinion concurring in judgment). This reads Stone
to say more than it does. Under Stone, Fourth Amendment violations
are generally not cognizable on federal habeas, but they are cognizable
when the State has failed to provide the habeas petitioner “an opportunity
for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim.” 428 U. S., at
482. Federal habeas petitioners have sometimes succeeded in arguing
that Stone’s general prohibition does not apply. See, e. g., Herrera v.
LeMaster, 225 F. 3d 1176, 1178 (2000), aff ’d on this point, 301 F. 3d 1192,
1195, n. 4 (CA10 2002) (en banc); United States ex rel. Bostick v. Peters, 3
F. 3d 1023, 1029 (CA7 1993); Agee v. White, 809 F. 2d 1487, 1490 (CA11
1987); Doescher v. Estelle, 666 F. 2d 285, 287 (CA5 1982); Boyd v. Mintz,
631 F. 2d 247, 250–251 (CA3 1980); see also 2 R. Hertz & J. Liebman,
Federal Habeas Corpus Practice and Procedure §§ 27.1–27.3, pp. 1373–1389
(5th ed. 2005). At the time of a Fourth Amendment wrong, and at the
time of conviction, it cannot be known whether a prospective § 1983 plain
tiff will receive a full and fair opportunity to litigate his Fourth Amend
ment claim. It thus remains the case that a conflict with the federal ha

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Justice Breyer argues in dissent that equitable tolling
should apply “so long as the issues that [a § 1983] claim would
raise are being pursued in state court.” Post, at 403. We
know of no support (nor does the dissent suggest any) for
the far-reaching proposition that equitable tolling is appro
priate to avoid the risk of concurrent litigation. As best we
can tell, the only rationale for such a rule is the concern that
“petitioner would have had to divide his attention between
criminal and civil cases.” Post, at 400. But when has it
been the law that a criminal defendant, or a potential crimi
nal defendant, is absolved from all other responsibilities that
the law would otherwise place upon him? If a defendant
has a breach-of-contract claim against the prime contractor
for his new home, is he entitled to tolling for that as well
while his criminal case is pending? Equitable tolling is a
rare remedy to be applied in unusual circumstances, not a
cure-all for an entirely common state of affairs. Besides its
never-heard-of-before quality, the dissent’s proposal suffers
from a more ironic flaw. Although the dissent criticizes us
for having to develop a system of stays and dismissals, it
should be obvious that the omnibus tolling solution will re
quire the same. Despite the existence of the new tolling
rule, some (if not most) plaintiffs will nevertheless file suit
before or during state criminal proceedings. How does the
dissent propose to handle such suits? Finally, the dissent’s
beas statute is possible, that a Fourth Amendment claim can necessarily
imply the invalidity of a conviction, and that if it does it must, under Heck,
be dismissed.
Insofar as Justice Stevens simply suggests that Heck has no bearing
here because petitioner received a full and fair opportunity to litigate his
Fourth Amendment claim in state court, the argument is equally untena
ble. At the time that petitioner became detained pursuant to legal proc
ess, it was impossible to predict whether this would be true. And even
at the point when his limitations period ended, state proceedings on his
conviction were ongoing; full and fair opportunity up to that point was
not enough. Stone requires full and fair opportunity to litigate a Fourth
Amendment claim “at trial and on direct review.” 428 U. S., at 494–495,
n. 37 (emphasis added).

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contention that law enforcement officers would prefer the
possibility of a later § 1983 suit to the more likely reality of
an immediate filing, post, at 403–404, is both implausible and
contradicted by those who know best. As no fewer than 11
States have informed us in this litigation, “States and munic
ipalities have a strong interest in timely notice of alleged
misconduct by their agents.” Brief for State of Illinois et al.
as Amici Curiae 18.
* * *
We hold that the statute of limitations upon a § 1983 claim
seeking damages for a false arrest in violation of the Fourth
Amendment, where the arrest is followed by criminal pro
ceedings, begins to run at the time the claimant becomes
detained pursuant to legal process. Since in the present
case this occurred (with appropriate tolling for the plaintiff ’s
minority) more than two years before the complaint was
filed, the suit was out of time. The judgment of the Court
of Appeals is affirmed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Souter joins, con
curring in the judgment.
While I do not disagree with the Court’s conclusion,
I reach it by a more direct route. The alleged Fourth
Amendment violation at issue in this case had two distinct
consequences for petitioner: First, it provided him with a
federal cause of action for damages under Rev. Stat. §1979,
42 U. S. C. § 1983, and second, it provided him with an objec
tion to the admissibility of certain evidence in his state crim
inal trial. The crux of petitioner’s argument before this
Court is that Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), pro
vides the appropriate rule of accrual for his § 1983 claim. As
both he and the majority note, Heck held:
“[I]n order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitu
tional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm
caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a

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398 WALLACE v. KATO
Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must
prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed
on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared
invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such de
termination, or called into question by a federal court’s
issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U. S. C. § 2254. . . .
Thus, when a state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983
suit, the district court must consider whether a judg
ment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply
the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would,
the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can
demonstrate that the conviction or sentence has already
been invalidated.” Id., at 486–487 (footnote omitted).
Relying on this principle, petitioner contends that his federal
cause of action did not accrue until after the criminal charges
against him were dropped.
Unlike the majority, my analysis would not depend on any
common-law tort analogies.1 Instead, I would begin where
all nine Justices began in Heck. That case, we unanimously
agreed, required the Court to reconcile § 1983 with the fed
eral habeas corpus statute.2 In concluding that Heck’s dam
1 See Heck, 512 U. S., at 492 (Souter, J., concurring in judgment)
(“Common-law tort rules can provide a ‘starting point for the inquiry
under § 1983,’ Carey v. Piphus, 435 U. S. 247, 258 (1978), but . . . [a]t the
same time, we have consistently refused to allow common-law analogies
to displace statutory analysis, declining to import even well-settled
common-law rules into § 1983 ‘if [the statute’s] history or purpose counsel
against applying [such rules] in § 1983 actions.’ Wyatt v. Cole, 504 U. S.
158, 164 (1992)” (brackets in original)).
2 See id., at 480 (“This case lies at the intersection of the two most fertile
sources of federal-court prisoner litigation—the Civil Rights Act of 1871,
Rev. Stat. § 1979, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, and the federal habeas
corpus statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2254”); id., at 491 (Souter, J., concurring in
judgment) (“The Court begins its analysis as I would, by observing that
‘this case lies at the intersection of the two most fertile sources of federal
court prisoner litigation—the Civil Rights Act of 1871, . . . 42 U. S. C.
§ 1983, and the federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2254’ ”); id., at
490 (Thomas, J., concurring) (“The Court and Justice Souter correctly

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Stevens, J., concurring in judgment
ages claim was not cognizable under § 1983, we found that
the writ of habeas corpus, and not § 1983, affords the “ ‘appro
priate remedy for state prisoners attacking the validity of
the fact or length of their confinement.’ ” Id., at 482 (quot
ing Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U. S. 475, 490 (1973)). Given
our holding in Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, 481–482 (1976),
however, that writ cannot provide a remedy for this peti
tioner. And because a habeas remedy was never available
to him in the first place, Heck cannot postpone the accrual of
petitioner’s § 1983 Fourth Amendment claim.3 So while it
may well be appropriate to stay the trial of claims of this
kind until after the completion of state proceedings, see, e. g.,
Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S. 706, 731 (1996);
cf. Younger v. Harris, 401 U. S. 37 (1971), I am aware of
no legal basis for holding that the cause of action has not
accrued once the Fourth Amendment violation has been
completed.
The Court regrettably lets the perfect become the enemy
of the good. It eschews my reasoning because “[f]ederal ha
beas petitioners have sometimes succeeded in arguing that
Stone’s general prohibition does not apply.” Ante, at 395,
n. 5 (emphasis added). However, in the vast run of cases, a
State will provide a habeas petitioner with “an opportunity
for full and fair litigation of a Fourth Amendment claim,”
begin their analyses with the realization that ‘this case lies at the intersec
tion of . . . the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. Stat. § 1979, as amended, 42
U. S. C. § 1983, and the federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2254’ ”).
3 See Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U. S. 1, 21 (1998) (Souter, J., joined by
O’Connor, Ginsburg, and Breyer, JJ., concurring) (concluding that a
plaintiff may bring § 1983 claim if he could not bring the same claim under
the habeas statute); ibid. (Ginsburg, J., concurring) (“I have come to
agree with Justice Souter’s reasoning: Individuals without recourse to
the habeas statute because they are not ‘in custody’ . . . fit within § 1983’s
‘broad reach’ ”); id., at 25, n. 8 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (“Given 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 42 U. S. C. § 1983”).

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Stone, 428 U. S., at 482, and Heck will not apply. It is al
ways possible to find aberrant examples in the law, but we
should not craft rules for the needle rather than the haystack
in an area like this.
Justice Breyer, with whom Justice Ginsburg joins,
dissenting.
I agree with the Court that the accrual date of a 42 U. S. C.
§ 1983 claim is not postponed by the presence of a possible
bar to suit under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994).
I also agree with the rest of the Court and with Justice
Stevens that had petitioner timely filed his § 1983 case, the
Federal District Court might have found it appropriate to
stay the trial of his claims until the completion of state pro
ceedings. E. g., Quackenbush v. Allstate Ins. Co., 517 U. S.
706, 731 (1996). In the absence of a stay, a litigant like peti
tioner would have had to divide his attention between crimi
nal and civil cases with attendant risks of loss of time and
energy as well as of inconsistent findings.
The Court’s holding, however, simply leads to the question
of what is to happen when, for example, the possibility of a
Heck problem prevents the court from considering the mer
its of a § 1983 claim. And I disagree with the Court’s insist
ence upon a rule of law that would require immediate filing,
followed by an uncertain system of stays, dismissals, and
possible refiling. Ante, at 395, n. 4 (majority opinion); ante,
at 399 (Stevens, J., concurring in judgment). I disagree
because there is a well-established legal tool better able to
deal with the problems presented by this type of suit.
Where a “plaintiff because of disability, irremediable lack
of information, or other circumstances beyond his control
just cannot reasonably be expected to sue in time,” courts
have applied a doctrine of “equitable tolling.” Miller v.
Runyon, 77 F. 3d 189, 191 (CA7 1996) (Posner, C. J.). The
doctrine tolls the running of the limitations period until the
disabling circumstance can be overcome. (This is why the

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401 Cite as: 549 U. S. 384 (2007)
Breyer, J., dissenting
limitations period does not run against a falsely arrested
person until his false imprisonment ends. His action has
certainly accrued because, as the majority recognizes, he can
file his claim immediately if he is able to do so. Ante, at 389,
390–391, n. 3.) 77 F. 3d, at 191; see also Cada v. Baxter
Healthcare Corp., 920 F. 2d 446, 450–453 (CA7 1990).
In particular, equitable tolling could apply where a § 1983
plaintiff reasonably claims that the unlawful behavior of
which he complains was, or will be, necessary to a criminal
conviction. It could toll the running of the limitations pe
riod: (1) from the time charges are brought until the time
they are dismissed or the defendant is acquitted or convicted,
and (2) thereafter during any period in which the criminal
defendant challenges a conviction (on direct appeal, on state
collateral challenge, or on federal habeas) and reasonably as
serts the behavior underlying the § 1983 action as a ground
for overturning the conviction.
I find it difficult to understand why the Court rejects the
use of “equitable tolling” in regard to typical § 1983 plain
tiffs. Ante, at 394. The Court’s alternative—file all § 1983
claims (including potentially Heck-barred claims) at once and
then seek stays or be subject to dismissal and refiling—suf
fers serious practical disadvantages. For one thing, that ap
proach would force all potential criminal defendants to file
all potential § 1983 actions soon lest they lose those claims
due to protracted criminal proceedings. For another, it
would often require a federal court, seeking to determine
whether to dismiss an action as Heck barred or to grant a
stay, to consider issues likely being litigated in the criminal
proceeding (Was the Constitution violated? Was the
violation-related evidence necessary for conviction?). The
federal court’s decision as to whether a claim was Heck
barred (say, whether the alleged constitutional violation was
central to the state criminal conviction) might later bind a
state court on conviction review. Because of this, even a
claim without a likely Heck bar might linger on a federal

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402 WALLACE v. KATO
Breyer, J., dissenting
docket because the federal court (or the plaintiff who has
been forced to early file) wishes to avoid interfering with
any state proceedings and therefore must postpone reaching,
not only the merits of the § 1983 claim, but the threshold
Heck inquiry as well.
Principles of equitable tolling avoid these difficulties.
Since equitable tolling obviates the need for immediate filing,
it permits the criminal proceedings to winnow the constitu
tional wheat from chaff, and thereby increase the likelihood
that the constitutionally meritless claims will never (in a
§ 1983 action) see the light of day. See Allen v. McCurry,
449 U. S. 90, 95–96 (1980) (federal court gives preclusive ef
fect to constitutional determinations as to issues already liti
gated in state court). Moreover, an appropriate equitable
tolling principle would apply not only to state criminal pro
ceedings as here, but also to state appellate proceedings,
state collateral attacks, and federal habeas proceedings.
Of course, § 1983 ordinarily borrows its limitations princi
ples from state law. 42 U. S. C. § 1988(a). And I do not
know whether or which States have comparable equitable
tolling principles in place. If a given state court lacks the
necessary tolling provision, however, § 1983, in my view, per
mits the federal courts to devise and impose such principles.
See Hardin v. Straub, 490 U. S. 536, 538–540 (1989) (“[G]aps
in federal civil rights acts should be filled by state law, as
long as that law is not inconsistent with federal law” and its
“chief goals of compensation and deterrence or its subsidiary
goals of uniformity and federalism” (footnote omitted)); Heck
v. Humphrey, 997 F. 2d 355, 358 (CA7 1993) (Posner, J.) (ar
ticulating why federal tolling regime may apply to § 1983
claims), aff ’d on other grounds, 512 U. S., at 489. Cf. Board
of Regents of Univ. of State of N. Y. v. Tomanio, 446 U. S.
478, 490 (1980).
The use of equitable tolling in cases of potential temporal
conflict between civil § 1983 and related criminal proceedings
is consistent with, indeed, it would further, § 1983’s basic pur

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Breyer, J., dissenting
poses. It would provide for orderly adjudication, minimize
the risk of inconsistent legal determinations, avoid clogging
the courts with potentially unnecessary “protective” filings,
and, above all, assure a plaintiff who possesses a meritorious
§ 1983 claim that his pursuit of criminal remedies designed
to free him from unlawful confinement will not compromise
his later ability to obtain civil § 1983 redress as well.
The Court is wrong in concluding that the principle I have
described would “place” the tolling “question” in “jurispru
dential limbo.” Ante, at 395. Under the approach I pro
pose, supra, at 401, a potential § 1983 plaintiff knows his
claim is being tolled so long as the issues that claim would
raise are being pursued in state court. Such a rule is pro
phylactic (it will sometimes toll claims that would not be
barred by Heck), but under such an approach neither the
plaintiff, nor the defendant, nor the federal court need specu
late as to whether the claims are in any way barred until the
state court has had the opportunity to consider the claims in
the criminal context.
A tolling principle certainly seems to me to create greater
order than the rule the majority sets out, whereby all crimi
nal defendants must file their § 1983 suits immediately, some
will be stayed, some dismissed, and then some may be refiled
and entitled to tolling, ante, at 395, n. 4. The majority ac
knowledges that tolling may be necessary to protect the
plaintiff who previously filed and was dismissed. Ibid.
Why not simply apply that tolling principle across the board?
The majority is also wrong when it suggests that the pro
posed equitable tolling rule would create a significant prob
lem of lack of notice. Ante, at 396–397. Because the rule
would toll only while the potential § 1983 plaintiff is challeng
ing the alleged misconduct in a state court, the State itself
would have notice of the plaintiff ’s claims. For similar rea
sons, the potential individual § 1983 defendants, the state of
ficers, would also likely have notice of the charge. But even
if they do not, I believe that many would prefer to forgo

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404 WALLACE v. KATO
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immediate notice, for it comes with a pricetag attached—the
price consists of being immediately sued by the filing of a
§ 1983 lawsuit, rife with stays and delays, which otherwise,
in the course of time (as claims are winnowed in state court)
might never have been filed.
The Court’s suggested limitations system, like an equita
ble tolling rule, will produce some instances in which a plain
tiff will file a § 1983 lawsuit at an initially uncertain future
date. Ante, at 395, n. 4. And, under both approaches, in
the many § 1983 suits that do not involve any Heck bar, a
defendant can and will file immediately and his suit would
proceed (for there is no tolling unless the potential § 1983
plaintiff is asserting in a conviction challenge that a constitu
tional violation did impugn his conviction). My problem
with the Court’s approach lies in its insistence that all poten
tial plaintiffs (including those whose suits may be Heck
barred) file immediately—even though their suits cannot
then proceed. With tolling, only rarely would a plaintiff
choose to file a potentially Heck-barred § 1983 suit while his
criminal case is pending; and in those cases the district court
could, if it wished, stay the action, or simply dismiss the suit
without prejudice, secure in the knowledge that the suit
could be timely filed at a later date.
The Court’s refusal to admit the equitable tolling possibil
ity means that large numbers of defendants will be sued im
mediately by all potential § 1983 plaintiffs with arguable
Heck issues, no matter how meritless the claims; these suits
may be endlessly stayed or dismissed and then, at some point
in the future, some defendants will also be sued again. With
equitable tolling, however, defendants will be sued once, in
suits with constitutional claims that a state court has not
already found meritless, at a time when the suit can be
promptly litigated. Given the practical difficulties of the
Court’s approach, I would not rule out now, in advance, the
use of an equitable tolling rule along the lines I have
described.

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Breyer, J., dissenting
Because this matter has not been fully argued, I would
vacate the Seventh Circuit’s determination and remand for
consideration of the issues I here raise. For these reasons,
I respectfully dissent.