United States Seventh Circuit

In a prisoner's 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit, claiming that his fourth amendment rights were violated when the officers used excessive force during and after his arrest, district court's grant of summary judgment in favor defendants on the ground that Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994) bars defendant's claim because his assertion that he did not oppose being taken into custody contradicts his conviction for resisting arrest is reversed as, Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384 (2007) holds that a claim that accrues before a criminal conviction may and usually must be filed without regard to the conviction's validity, and that a claim asserting that a search or seizure violated the fourth amendment accrues immediately. Therefore, his claim that he did not resist being taken into custody is incompatible with his conviction and any proceedings based on this contention must be stayed or dismissed, but defendant's claims that the police used excessive force to effect custody and that the police beat him severely even after reducing him to custody are consistent with a conviction for resisting arrest and may thus proceed.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/16/2010
• Published 04/16/2010

Judges

• EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge., Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and POSNER and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Seventh Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Ty Evans, Pendleton, IN, pro se.


• For Appellees:
  
• John F. Kautzman, Ruckelshaus, Roland, Hasbrook & O'Connor, Marc Pe-Caine Sultzer, Office of the Corporation Counsel, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendants-Appellees.