Adversarial Process

II

 This case exposes an area of friction between the policies underlying statutes of limitations and the aims of judicial finality and consistency. The interest of preventing premature lawsuits whose outcomes might conflict with outstanding convictions sometimes requires rules of accrual that undermine the certainty and repose that statutes of limitations are intended to provide. In Heck, we struggled with these competing interests in the context of §1983 claims and proffered a rule of deferred accrual that, we think, achieves a satisfactory balance between them. Because the bright-line rule of immediate accrual established by the Seventh Circuit in the proceedings below creates the precise danger that we sought to address in Heck, namely that §1983 suits would be used as vehicles to collaterally attack convictions, we feel compelled to reverse.

 Section 1983 of Title 42 of the United State Code provides for a claimant’s right to seek relief from anyone who, under color of law, causes a deprivation of the claimant’s Constitutional rights. Unreasonable searches and seizures proscribed by the Fourth Amendment give rise to a cause of action under this section. Monroe v. Pape, 765 U.S. 167 (1961).

 Whether a §1983 alleging a violation of the Fourth Amendment action is barred by the statute of limitations hinges on two questions. First, when did the action accrue? Second, has the statutory period for bringing the action elapsed since the date of accrual? For clarity’s sake, we will address these questions in reverse order, dealing first with the more straightforward issue of how long a person has to bring a §1983 action after it accrues.

 A. Statute of Limitations

 The duration of the statue of limitations for §1983 claims is borrowed from the state’s general statute of limitations for personal injury actions. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 276 (1985). Tolling principles are also borrowed from state law. Board of Regents, University of State of New York v. Tomanio, 446 U.S. 478, 484 (1980). See Hardin v. Straub, 490 U.S. 261, 266-71 (1985). In Illinois, the statute of limitations that applies to personal injury claims is two years. 735 ILCS § 5/13-202. Where the plaintiff is a minor on the date that the action accrues, the statutory period is tolled until the plaintiff’s eighteenth birthday. 735 ILCS § 5/13-211.

 In this case, petitioner filed his §1983 claim nine years after his unlawful arrest and one year after his conviction was nullified and the state dropped his case. If petitioner’s claim accrued at the time of his arrest, as respondent and the Seventh Circuit contend, then his claim is time-barred, even taking into account the tolling of the statutory period until his eighteenth birthday. On the other hand, if petitioner’s claim accrued when the state dismissed all charges against him, as petitioner argues, then his suit fell easily within the two year statutory period. The issue then is at what point did his claim accrue?

 B. Accrual

 While state law provides the tolling principles and statute of limitations in §1983 actions, federal law controls the issue of accrual. See Wilson, 471 U.S. 261, 276 (1985); Hardin, 490 U.S. 261, 266-71 (1985).

 Under federal law, although § a 1983 claim for damages arising from an unlawful search or seizure is presumed to accrue at the time of the search or seizure itself (in Wallace’s case, at the time of the arrest), in Heck v. Humphrey, we held that this presumption can be rebutted by a showing that the success of the §1983 claim would necessarily invalidate an outstanding conviction. Under those circumstances, accrual is deferred until the conviction is overturned and criminal charges are dropped. Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994).

 Respondents offer several reasons why deferred accrual should not apply to the present case. We will briefly review those arguments here and then discuss each in further detail below. First, respondents contend that the Heck rule only reaches constitutional claims that must be brought through the vehicle of a habeas corpus action. Brief of Respondents 24-27. As Respondent notes, habeas was unavailable at the time petitioner filed his §1983 claim because his incarceration had already ended. Respondent’s argument, however, misses the point of our decision in Heck, which was concerned primarily with the danger of collateral attacks on convictions, not with end runs around habeas. As we explain below, the deferred accrual rule applies to every §1983 action whose success would impugn the validity of an outstanding criminal conviction, regardless of the availability of a habeas corpus.

 Alternatively, respondents argue that even if Heck does apply, petitioner has failed to make a case for deferred accrual because success on his §1983 claim would not “necessarily” have undermined his outstanding conviction as the Heck rule requires. Brief of Respondents 14-24. This argument, we think, misunderstands the meaning of the word “necessarily.” Respondents contend that because, in some cases, doctrines like independent source, harmless error, and attenuation can cleanse a conviction of a Fourth Amendment violation, it follows that a §1983 claim based on an unreasonable search or seizure can never “necessarily” invalidate an outstanding conviction. Id. We disagree. In footnote six of Heck we provide an example of a situation in which a successful §1983 would undermine a conviction—specifically, where the legality of the search or seizure in question goes to an essential element of the crime charged. Heck, 512 U.S. at 487 n.6. The Seventh Circuit and respondents argue that this footnote merely carves out an exception to the general rule that Fourth Amendment violations never “necessarily” invalidate convictions. Wallace, 440 F.3d. at 428; Brief of Respondent 14-24. We think the plain language of Heck and common sense suggest otherwise.

 As we explain below, the term “necessarily” encompasses cases in which the finding of a Fourth Amendment violation would seem to require the exclusion of crucial evidence in a parallel criminal proceeding. The determination of what “necessarily” invalidates a conviction requires a fact-specific inquiry into whether doctrines like independent source, harmless error, and attenuation would, in each particular case, cleanse the criminal proceeding of the Fourth Amendment violation. Here, it seems Wallace’s success on a §1983 for damages arising from his unlawful arrest would have invalidated the use of his confession in his criminal trial and, consequently, undermined his conviction—this is the very sort of outcome we sought to avoid in Heck. Deferred accrual is  therefore appropriate.

 The remainder of respondent’s case in support of a bright-line rule of immediate accrual rests on public policy arguments—namely that case-by-case inquiries by federal judges hearing §1983 claims would entail high administrative costs and undermine the repose provided by statutes of limitations. See Brief of Respondents 27-37. We find these arguments unpersuasive and address them each in turn.

 The petitioner, in advocating a rule of deferred accrual, draws heavily on the common law and analogies between §1983 and other areas of federal jurisprudence. He also suggests that the timing of accrual of a cause of action depends on the scope and timing of damages sought. See Brief of Petitioner 22-31. We find these arguments unconvincing. Our ruling today in favor of the petitioner stems exclusively from Heck and the concern for judicial finality and consistency that that decision reflects.

  1. The Discovery Rule

 The general rule for federal claims is that they accrue, for limitations purposes, as soon as the claimant discovers or reasonably should have discovered an injury for which he has a right to seek relief. See Rotella v. Wood, 528 U.S. 549, 555 (2000). When a person’s Fourth Amendment rights have been violated by a false arrest, as Wallace’s were in this case, the injury occurs at the time of the arrest itself. United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984). 

 Because “[t]he Fourth Amendment contains no provision expressly precluding the use of evidence obtained in violation of its commands,” Id. at 906, we have “emphasized repeatedly that the government’s use of evidence [so] obtained . . . does not itself violate the Constitution.” Pennsylvania Board of Probation & Parole v. Scott, 524 U.S. 357, 362 (1998). To put it simply, “[t]he wrong condemned by the Fourth Amendment is ‘fully accomplished’ by the unlawful search or seizure itself.” United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984) (quoting United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 354 (1974)). The general rule, therefore, for §1983 claims alleging unlawful arrests is that they accrue immediately upon the unlawful arrest.

 Petitioner advances a “continuing seizure” theory to suggest that the Fourth Amendment wrong, in this case, lasted for the eight year duration of his imprisonment. He borrows the “continuing seizure” idea from Justice Ginsburg’s concurring opinion in Albright v. Oliver, 510 U.S. 266 (1994), in which she suggested that a person may be considered “seized” for Fourth Amendment purposes “so long as he is bound to appear in court and answer the state’s charges.” It does not make sense, in the present case, to say that respondents’ Fourth Amendment seizure of petitioner ran for the entirety of his criminal trial. Here respondents’ actual custody of the claimant lasted only from the time of arrest to the time of arraignment, when custody transferred from the City of Chicago to the Illinois state court system.  Moreover, even if the detectives had committed some kind of “continuing seizure” that extended beyond the arraignment, it would not delay the accrual of petitioner’s §1983 claims. A “continuing” violation postpones accrual only if there is continuing misconduct by the defendant himself or the plaintiff suffers an injury that is not actionable at the outset of the defendant’s wrongful acts. See, e.g., National Railroad Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002). As already stated, it is well established that the wrong condemned by the Fourth Amendment proscription against unreasonable seizures of persons is fully accomplished at the moment of an unlawful arrest, without more. See United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897 (1984). A continuation of that seizure would not give rise to any additional cause of action that was not available at the seizure’s outset. The general rule stands—a Fourth Amendment action for a false arrest accrues immediately upon the arrest.

 This discovery rule—that a claim for damages accrues when the claimant discovers or reasonably should have discovered his injury—reflects a careful balancing of claimants’ rights against the underlying purpose of statutes of limitations: to promote the reasonably diligent presentation of claims. See United States v. Kubrick, 444 U.S. 111, 124 (1979). That rule applies to §1983 claims for damages arising from Fourth Amendment violations

  2. The Heck Exception.

 A problem arises, however, when success on the Fourth Amendment claim would necessarily impugn the validity of an outstanding conviction. In Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 477, 485 (1994) we addressed this problem, reaffirming the “hoary principle that civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments.” The aims of judicial finality and consistency, we said, would be undermined if a §1983 action were allowed to proceed that necessarily required the plaintiff to prove the unlawfulness of his conviction or confinement. Id.

 The facts in Heck were as follows: a prisoner who had been convicted in state court of voluntary manslaughter filed a §1983 claim in federal court alleging that prosecutors had engaged in an “unlawful, unreasonable, and arbitrary investigation” leading to his arrest, had knowingly destroyed exculpatory evidence, and caused an “illegal and unlawful voice identification procedure” to be used at his trial. Id. at 479-480.  If the prisoner had succeeded on these §1983 claims, they would have served as effective challenges to the legality of his conviction, and the state would have been obliged to release him even though he had not sought such relief. Id. In upholding the lower court’s dismissal of the prisoner’s §1983 claim, we held that any claim for damages arising from actions whose unlawfulness would necessarily render a conviction or sentence invalid, is not cognizable under §1983 and does not accrue until the plaintiff can show that his conviction was overturned or the criminal charges against him were otherwise dismissed. Id. at 485.

 In Heck, the prisoner’s §1983 action alleging an “unreasonable investigation” had a close parallel in the common law to a “malicious prosecution” claim. In order to succeed on a claim for malicious prosecution, at common law, a claimant had to show the termination of all prior criminal proceedings in the claimant’s favor. This requirement “preclude[d] the possibility of the claimant [sic] succeeding in the tort action after having been convicted in the underlying criminal prosecution, in contravention of the strong judicial policy against  the creation of two conflicting resolutions arising out of the same or identical transactions.” Id. at 484 (internal quotation marks omitted). Our decision in Heck applies this common law requirement of a “favorable termination” to §1983 actions, but only to those §1983 actions whose success would “necessarily” invalidate an outstanding conviction. We have instructed the district courts to consider, when hearing a prisoner’s §1983 claim, whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would “necessarily” imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the §1983 claim is not deemed to have accrued and the complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff shows that the conviction or sentence has already been overturned or that the criminal charges against him have been otherwise dropped. If, on the other hand, the district court determines that the plaintiff’s action, even if successful, would not “necessarily” demonstrate the invalidity of any outstanding criminal judgment against the plaintiff, the §1983 action has accrued and should be allowed to proceed. Id. 512 U.S. at 487.

 In United States v. Crews, 445 U.S. 463 (1980), we held that “[a]n illegal arrest, without more, has never been viewed . . . as a defense to a valid conviction.” Statements that are the fruits of an illegal arrest, however, are inadmissible at trial, Wong Sun v. United States, 371 U.S. 471, 484-86 (1963). The admission of such statements provides a valid defense to a conviction, if the defendant could not have been convicted but for the inclusion of the tainted evidence. Id.

 Respondents contend that Heck is nevertheless inapplicable to Fourth Amendment actions because the rule of deferred accrual only reaches claims that must be brought through the vehicle of a habeas corpus action. Brief of Respondents 24-25. At the time Wallace filed his §1983 claim, habeas was unavailable as a means of challenging his imprisonment because his incarceration had already ended. Respondents claim, therefore, that Wallace’s §1983 action for his false arrest does not warrant Heck treatment. This argument misunderstands the primary reason for the deferred accrual rule in Heck. In proffering that rule, our main concern was that §1983 not be used as a vehicle for collateral attacks on state criminal convictions. Heck, 512 U.S. at 484-485. We also noted in Heck that, without the delayed accrual rule, §1983 claims might intrude upon the domain of the habeas corpus statute because criminal defendants would turn to §1983, which has no state-remedy exhaustion requirement, before turning to the habeas corpus, which does have state-remedy exhaustion requirement. Id. at 482. Congress has determined that habeas corpus is the exclusive federal remedy for state prisoners attacking the validity of their imprisonment. Id. Preservation of this exclusive remedy was an argument for delayed accrual in Heck, but was never the central justification for our decision. The fact that habeas corpus was not available to Wallace in this case, negates the “habeas corpus justification” for the application of the delayed accrual rule. It does not, however, negate Heck’s other more central justification for the rule—namely the avoidance of collateral attacks on state convictions.

 The question of how and whether to apply the Heck rule to a §1983 claim for an illegal arrest or other Fourth Amendment violation has caused some controversy among the circuits. Unlike the prisoner’s “unreasonable investigation” claim in Heck, the success of which would have, as a matter of law, invalidated his conviction, a successful §1983 claim asserting violations of the Fourth Amendment does not always impugn a conviction because of doctrines like independent source, inevitable discovery, and, especially, harmless error. Id. at 487 n.7. Citing this distinction, at least two Circuits, other than the Seventh, have declined to apply delayed accrual to §1983 actions for Fourth Amendment violations (except where the alleged Fourth Amendment violation goes to an element of the underlying criminal charge). A large majority of the Circuits, however, have held that the Heck rule does apply. We agree with the more prevalent view.

 The split in the Circuits stems from different understandings of the meaning of the word “necessarily.”  Compare Wallace, 440 F.3d at 428, with Gibson, 411 F.3d at 427 (3d Cir 2005). The deferred accrual rule of Heck only applies if success in the §1983 claim would “necessarily” invalidate an outstanding conviction. Id. at 487. In dicta, we explained that where fruits of an unlawful search have been introduced in a criminal trial, success on a §1983 claim for that unlawful search would not “necessarily” invalidate a subsequent conviction if doctrines like independent source, inevitable discovery, and harmless error apply. Id. at 487 n.7. The determination of whether these doctrines would save a conviction, however, requires a case-by-case, fact-specific inquiry by the district court judge hearing the §1983 claim. Id. at 487.

 Respondents advocate a general rule that claims for damages arising out of a false arrest or other seizure prohibited by the Fourth Amendment never “necessarily” imply the invalidity of a conviction. See Brief of Petitioner 9. In arguing for this position, the respondents contend that the finding that an unreasonable search or seizure took place does not by itself “necessarily” imply that a conviction is invalid because such a conclusion would also require intervening determinations such as “no attenuation,” “no inevitable discovery,” or “no harmless error.” Id. at 12. Those intervening determinations, however, become mere formalities where, as in the present case, a prosecution depends entirely on evidence linked inexorably to the search or seizure that the defendant challenges as unconstitutional.

 In the present case, if a federal judge had concluded, before the end of Wallace’s state criminal trial, that Wallace’s arrest violated the Fourth Amendment, this finding would necessarily have invalidated any subsequent conviction at the state level, creating the very problem of collateral attacks we sought to address in Heck.  Because the prosecution based its case entirely on a confession that was clearly the unattenuated fruit of petitioner’s arrest, the success of Wallace’s federal §1983 action asserting the unconstitutionality of that arrest would necessarily have led to the conclusion that his conviction was unlawful. The absence of attenuation, independent sources, and harmless error are so plain from the facts of this case, that once Wallace’s arrest was declared unconstitutional, the invalidation of his outstanding conviction was an all but inevitable outcome. The rule from Heck is clear. A §1983 claim cannot serve as a vehicle to collaterally attack an outstanding conviction. Id. at 487. For this reason, Wallace’s §1983 claim did not accrue until his conviction was overturned and the criminal charges against him were otherwise dismissed.
 
 In footnote six of Heck we provide an example of a situation in which a successful §1983 claim based on a Fourth Amendment violation would “necessarily” undermine a conviction:

“An example of this latter category—a §1983 action that does not seek damages directly attributable to conviction or confinement but whose successful prosecution would necessarily imply that the plaintiff’s criminal conviction was wrongful—would be the following: A state defendant is convicted of and sentenced for the crime of resisting arrest, defined as intentionally preventing a peace officer from effecting a lawful arrest. . . . He then brings a §1983 action against the arresting officer, seeking damages for violation of his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures. In order to prevail in this §1983 action, he would have to negate an element of the offense of which he has been convicted. Regardless of the state law concerning res judicata, the §1983 action will not lie.”

Heck, 512 U.S. at 487 n.6 (citations omitted). The Seventh Circuit and respondents argue that this footnote merely carves out an exception to the general rule that Fourth Amendment violations never “necessarily” invalidate convictions. Wallace, 440 F.3d. at 428; Brief of Respondent 14-24. Indeed the Seventh Circuit, apparently inspired by footnote six, goes so far as to suggest that the only exception to the general rule of immediate accrual occurs where the Fourth Amendment violation in question bares on some essential element of the crime charged. Wallace, 440 F.3d. at 428. The language of the footnote, however, clearly identifies it as an “example” rather than an exception. Heck, 512 U.S. at 487 n.6.  Moreover, the fact that we chose as our example a case where the Fourth Amendment violation impugns the conviction as a matter of law, rather than as a matter of fact, does not in itself suggest that we meant “necessarily” to mean only “as a matter of law.” Many times, a district court’s determination of whether a Fourth Amendment violation impugns an outstanding conviction will turn on the facts of the particular case.

 Our paraphrasing of the Heck rule in Muhammad v. Close, 540 U.S. 749 (2004) (per curiam), belies any notion that by using the word “necessarily” we meant to limit the application of deferred accrual to only those instances where a successful §1983 action would lead mechanically and without any factual inferences to the invalidation of an outstanding conviction. In Muhammad, we replaced “necessarily” with “implicitly”, which connotes, more clearly, the need for a fact-specific inquiry.  Paraphrasing the Heck rule, we said:

“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.”

Muhammad, 540 U.S. at 751 (emphasis added).

 Where the fruits of a Fourth Amendment violation are introduced in a state criminal trial, and the criminal defendant files a §1983 claim for the underlying violation of his Constitutional rights, the district court hearing the claim must make a factual determination of whether the claimant’s success on the §1983 action would necessarily undermine his outstanding conviction. If success wouldn’t necessarily undermine the claimant’s conviction, the usual accrual rule applies; the §1983 claim accrues immediately upon the unlawful search or seizure. See Rotella, 528 U.S. at 555; Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U.S. 6, 8 (1981). If, on the other hand, success would necessarily undermine a conviction, the Heck rule of deferred accrual applies; the §1983 claim accrues only upon the overturn of the claimant’s conviction and the dismissal of criminal charges against him. The cases in which a Fourth Amendment violation provide a valid basis to challenge a conviction are admittedly rare, given the availability of doctrines like attenuation, independent source, and, especially, harmless error. For this reason, a presumption inheres in every §1983 claim that even if the claimant’s Fourth Amendment defense had prevailed in the criminal proceeding against him, he nevertheless would have been convicted. This presumption could be rebutted if, as in the present case, the only evidence of the claimant’s guilt is shown to be the unattenuated fruit of an illegal arrest. The burden of overcoming the presumption requires clear and convincing evidence and rests on the party wishing to delay accrual.
 
  3. Policy Arguments

 In their briefs, Respondents and amicus flesh out several pragmatic and policy-oriented arguments, hinted at by Seventh Circuit, against the adoption of a deferred accrual rule. See Brief of Respondents 27-34; Amicus Brief of National League of Counties 18-27. First, they claim that such a rule will force courts hearing §1983 claims alleging unlawful arrests to make either predictions or retrospective determinations about the relation of the arrests to the convictions. Brief of Respondents 27-28; Amicus Brief of National League of Counties 18-27. Respondents note that these determinations present difficulties due to their fact-intensive nature; for example, it is impossible to know, before the outset of a criminal trial, exactly what evidence the prosecution will present. Brief of Respondents 28-29. For this reason, ex ante determination of whether a conviction could stand despite the suppression of a challenged piece of evidence is troublesome. The same goes for the factual issues of attenuation and independent source.  Id. Moreover, the respondents contend that these fact-intensive inquiries will bog down the federal courts in time-consuming litigation over accrual issues. Id. at 34-35.

 The forgoing concerns are largely answered by our adoption of a presumption in favor of immediate accrual, placing the burden on the party wishing to delay accrual to show that the facts warrant such a delay. In most Fourth Amendment claims, the presumption will stand unchallenged and the court will not have to make additional inquiries. But, in the rare case where a party is able to show, by clear and convincing evidence, that the claimant’s success in the §1983 action will necessarily undermine an outstanding conviction, the Heck rule of delayed accrual should apply.

 Respondents further argue that the deferred accrual of false arrest actions conflicts with the fundamental purposes of statutes of limitations. Id. at 27. Statutes of limitations provide repose for potential defendants, foster accurate fact-finding, and promote judicial efficiency. Wilson, 471 U.S. at 275 n. 34. In Wilson, we observed:

“On a human level, uncertainty about [limitations periods] is costly to all parties. Plaintiffs may be denied their just remedy if they delay in their claims, having wrongly postulated that the courts would apply a longer statute. Defendants cannot calculate their contingent liabilities, not knowing with confidence when their delicts lie in repose.” Id.

 As an alternative to deferred accrual, respondents advocate a “stay” approach, where a §1983 action is placed on an inactive docket until the final adjudication of the underlying criminal case. Brief of Respondents 36. The problems of premature claims and stale and unavailable evidence that occur with deferred accrual would also arise under the “stay approach.” Also, the approach is fundamentally inconsistent with our holding in Heck, in which we denied the very existence of a §1983 action, when that action, if successful, would necessarily invalidate an outstanding conviction. 512 U.S. at 489. The stay approach advocated by respondents would have claimants filing their §1983 claims before they come into being. Finally, it should be noted that in the Circuits that have adopted a rule of accrual similar to the one proffered here, no data have surfaced to substantiate the respondents’ predictions of docket flooding and decreased judicial efficiency.

  4. Accrual vs. Damages

 To be clear, although we have embraced a rule of deferred accrual that favors the petitioner in this case, we stop well short of endorsing the petitioner’s expansive measure of damages, which would include his conviction and the full length of his incarceration. The petitioner makes several arguments for the application of a deferred accrual rule that seem to conflate the issue of accrual with the issue of damages. See Brief for Petitioner 14-23. He contends, for example, that, if a claimant seeks compensation for the entire period of his incarceration, then his §1983 claim for an unlawful arrest cannot accrue until his release from prison. Id. at 8. As we have said in the past, however, the timing of accrual and the recoverability of damages are entirely separate inquiries. Chardon, 454 U.S. at 8 (holding that §1983 claim for unconstitutional termination of public employees accrued when plaintiffs were notified of impending termination, not when they subsequently were discharged). The only issue before the court today is the timing of accrual.

 Petitioner also argues for the adoption of the Hazeltine rule, which departs somewhat from the “discovery” principle and Heck exception set out above. In Zenith Radio Corp. v Hazeltine Research, Inc., 401 U.S. 321 (1971), we said that a federal antitrust claim for future speculative damages does not accrue until the claimant actually suffers those damages. Id. at 338. Petitioner argues, by analogy to Hazeltine, that a §1983 claim for a false arrest similarly should not accrue until the damages arising from the false arrest become fully realized. Petitioner contends that those damages include the injury of being convicted and imprisoned. See Brief of Petitioner 30. We find flaws with the Petitioner’s analogy. When we proffered the rule of deferred accrual in Hazeltine, we limited its application to “antitrust and treble-damage actions,” noting that congress intended these private actions to protect, not only the individual victims of forbidden business practices, but also the general public. Id. at 339-40. The tremendous impact that violations of federal antitrust law have on the public puts those violations in a special category for accrual purposes. See Radovich, 352 U.S. at 454. The availability of treble damages under 15 U.S.C. § 15, evidences the special status of antitrust actions, and suggests their underlying purpose goes well beyond compensation for individual injuries. Because claimants prosecuting violations of antitrust laws do so, not only for themselves, but also on behalf of the public, such claims merit a more permissive rule of accrual. See Id. This is not so for claims arising under §1983, whose sole purpose is the creation of a private tort remedy for individuals who have suffered “unconstitutional action under color of law.”  Mitchum v. Foster, 407 U.S. 225, 238-239 (1972). See Heck, 512 at 483. To put it another way, the concern for the public welfare that justifies a departure from the “discovery” rule in many antitrust cases, does not also inhere in §1983 claims.

  5. Lessons from the Common Law

 Drawing on the common law of torts, the petitioner makes several other arguments for deferred accrual that we find similarly unpersuasive. In Heck we suggested that underlying both the common law of torts and §1983 is the basic principle “that a person should be compensated fairly for injuries caused by violation of his rights.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 483 (quoting Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 257-58 (1978)). Common law rules defining the elements of tort actions and establishing the prerequisites of recovery, therefore, provide useful “starting points” in any §1983 inquiry. Id.

 Seizing on this, the petitioner makes several arguments from the common law to support his contention that a §1983 claim for an unreasonable seizure accrues upon the claimant’s release from incarceration. Brief of Petitioner 23-29. First, petitioner attempts to draw support from the principles underlying the common law torts of false arrest and false imprisonment. Id. at 23.  These two causes of action are closely related; under the common law “a person who is falsely arrested is at the same time falsely imprisoned.” Whirl v. Kern, 407 F.2d 781, 790 (5th Cir. 1969). Because a common law claim for false imprisonment requires a showing of unlawful detention, it bares a close resemblance to its §1983 constitutional counterpart, which requires an “unreasonable. . .  seizure.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. As the petitioner notes, it is an “almost universal rule” that common law claims for false imprisonment accrue upon termination of the imprisonment. Collins v. Los Angeles County, 241 Cal.App.2d 451, 455 (1966). Petitioner argues, by analogy, that this same rule of accrual should apply to §1983 claims arising from unlawful arrests. Brief of Petitioner 23.

 We find this argument unpersuasive. In Hartman v. Moore, 126 S.Ct. 1695, 1702 (1944) we noted that “[t]he common law is best understood. . . more as a source of inspired examples than of prefabricated components of [§1983] torts.” We decline to adopt the rule suggested by the petitioner, steeped in common law though it may be, because it provides inadequate protection against parallel litigation of Fourth Amendment issues at the state and federal level. If a defendant’s §1983 claim for false imprisonment accrued automatically upon his release from prison pending his criminal trial (for example, after he makes bail), the issue of the legality of his arrest might come up before the state criminal court (for example, in the form of a motion to suppress the fruits of the arrest) and the federal court at the same time. This outcome is at odds with the “strong judicial policy against the creation of two conflicting resolutions arising out of the same or identical transaction.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 484 (quoting Speiser, C. Krause, & A. Gans, American Law of Torts § 28:5, p. 24 (1991)).

 Ironically, if we accepted petitioner’s proposed rule, his claim would have accrued too soon for his eventual filing of the §1983 action to have fallen within the statutory limitations period. Under the common law rule, the termination of imprisonment that triggers accrual of a false imprisonment claim is not at the end of the criminal proceedings, but rather when the plaintiff is released from custody upon charging, either on bail or otherwise. See Colloins, 50 Cal. Rptr. at 589; Stanford v. City of Manchester, 539 S.E.2d 845, 847 (Ga. Ct. App. 2000). Inasmuch as respondent police detectives maintained an unlawful imprisonment of Wallace after his arrest, that imprisonment ended promptly at the arraignment, when Wallace was transferred from detectives’ custody and admitted to bail. See 725 ILCS 5/109-1 (2004). The Illinois state court’s determination of petitioner’s future custodial status constituted an intervening act that severed respondents’ liability. The common law accrual principle recommended by the petitioner would have his Fourth Amendment claim accruing at the time of his arraignment, just a few days after his arrest, and would place his eventual filing of a §1983 action well outside the statutory limitations period.

 The petitioner also analogizes the present action to a common law claim for malicious prosecution to support the proposition that recoverable damages in this case, as in a malicious prosecution case, include compensation for loss of time, loss of income, loss of credit, emotional distress, harm to reputation generally, and defense expenditures. See Brief for Petitioner 28.  The only issue presently before the Court is the timing of accrual, which, as we already stated, is entirely separate from the issue of damages. In responding to petitioner’s point, however, we refer to our observation in Heck that “[i]f 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.” 512 U.S. at 484 (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting W. Page Keeton, Dan B. Dobbs, Robert E. Keeton, & David G. Owen, Prosser and Keeton the Law of Torts 888 (5th ed. 1984)).

In arguing for a more expansive measure of damages in a Fourth Amendment action for false arrest, petitioner sites Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335 (1986), in which we stated that “a wrongdoer’s liability in §1983 should be read against the background of tort liability that makes a man responsible for the natural consequences of his actions,” Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 187 (1961). Tort law, however, also recognizes that “intervening acts” can break the chain of events and relieve the initial actor of responsibility for an injury that is produced. See, e.g., Pittsburgh Reduction Co. v. Horton, 113 S.W. 647 (1908). In the leading tort case of Pittsburgh Reduction Co. v. Horton, for example, the defendant was held not liable for a boy’s hand injuries caused by dynamite caps that the defendant negligently left. Because the boy’s mother knew of the caps and did nothing, the defendant was absolved of responsibility for the subsequent injuries to the boy. The mother’s forbearance constituted an intervening act that broke the chain of causation. Id. In the case of a false arrest, the arraignment and posting of bond marks the involvement of the court system in the continuation of the arrestee’s detention. This involvement constitutes an intervening act that relieves the perpetrators of liability for future damages. See Heck, 512 U.S. at 484. In any event, as we already stated, the only issue presently before the court is the timing of accrual, which is entirely separate from the issue of damages. Petitioner’s §1983 action accrued upon the overturning of his conviction and the dismissal of the criminal charges against him.

III

 In determining the rule of accrual for a Fourth Amendment action under §1983, the judicial policy of promoting finality and declining opportunities for collateral attack weigh just as heavily as they did in Heck, where we decided to delay accrual of a §1983 claim for an “unreasonable investigation” since its success would have called into question the validity of an outstanding conviction.  In the present case, petitioner’s constitutional injury was complete as soon as he was unlawfully arrested in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Although a §1983 claim for damages arising from an unlawful search or seizure is presumed to accrue at the time of the search or seizure itself, that presumption can be rebutted by a showing, upon clear and convincing evidence, that the success of the §1983 claim would necessarily invalidate an outstanding conviction. Under those circumstances, accrual is deferred until that conviction is overturned and criminal charges are dropped. A district court judge hearing a §1983 claim for damages arising from an unlawful arrest (or any violation of the constitution) must make a fact-specific inquiry into whether a finding that the arrest violated the Fourth Amendment would implicitly invalidate a conviction. The present case provides a clear example of a §1983 claim that, if successful, would implicitly (necessarily) invalidate an outstanding conviction. The only evidence offered against Wallace in his criminal trial was a statement he gave to police shortly after his unlawful arrest. Because the confession was clearly an unattenuated fruit of his unlawful arrest, his success in prosecuting a Fourth Amendment claim for damages would implicitly invalidate his conviction. According to the deferred accrual rule in Heck, therefore, Wallace’s §1983 claim could not have accrued until his conviction was overturned and his criminal charges were dropped. His Fourth Amendment claim, therefore, was not barred by the applicable two year statute of limitations. Judgment reversed.

CONCUR BY: BREYER

CONCUR:
 JUSTICE BREYER, concurring.

 I agree with the Court’s ruling but think the aims of judicial “finality and consistency,” Heck, 512 U.S. at 485, would be better served by a federal tolling rule than by a federal rule of accrual.  The rule I propose would toll the statute of limitations for any §1983 claim while a criminal prosecution is pending. The advantage of this rule over the accrual rule proffered in Heck is that its implementation would not require case-by-case, fact-specific inquiries by federal court judges and would avoid time consuming litigation on the issue of accrual. As noted by the Court, generally state law, not federal law, governs tolling principles. See Hardin v. Straub 490 U.S. 536 (1989). But where the application of state statute of limitations law confounds the goals of federal law, the federal courts are free to craft a remedial tolling principle. Id. at 539.  Here, the lack of a tolling rule for §1983 claims at the state level creates the danger of inconsistent judgments in criminal court proceedings and federal §1983 actions and allows §1983 to serve as an “end-run” around the federal habeas corpus statute which is supposed to be the exclusive remedy for prisoners seeking to challenge their imprisonment.   The imposition of a federal tolling rule to remedy these problems would be desirable.