Marcos Poventud v. City of New York , 750 F.3d 121 ( 2014 )

12-1011-cv
Marcos Poventud v. City of New York, et al.
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
August Term, 2013
(Argued: September 25, 2013 Decided: January 14, 2014)
Docket No. 12-1011-cv
MARCOS POVENTUD,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
-v.-
CITY OF NEW YORK; Robert T. JOHNSON, in his official capacity as District
Attorney for Bronx County; Frankie ROSADO, Kenneth UMLAUFT, Christopher
DOLAN, and Daniel TOOHEY, individually and as members of the New York
City Police Department,
Defendants-Appellees.*
Before:
KATZMANN, Chief Circuit Judge, JACOBS, CALABRESI, CABRANES, POOLER, SACK, RAGGI,
WESLEY, HALL, LIVINGSTON, LYNCH, CHIN, LOHIER, CARNEY, and DRONEY, Circuit Judges.**
*
The Clerk of the Court is directed to amend the caption as listed above.
**
Senior Circuit Judges Calabresi and Sack were members of the initial three-
judge panel that heard this appeal and are therefore eligible to participate in en banc
rehearing. 28 U.S.C. § 46(c)(1).
1
WESLEY, J. filed the majority opinion in which KATZMANN, C.J., CALABRESI,
POOLER, SACK, HALL, LYNCH, LOHIER, and CARNEY, JJ., joined.
LYNCH, J. filed a concurring opinion.
LOHIER, J. filed a concurring opinion in which CALABRESI, POOLER, WESLEY, HALL,
and LYNCH, JJ., joined.
CHIN, J. filed an opinion dissenting in part and concurring in part.
JACOBS, J. filed a dissenting opinion in which CABRANES, RAGGI, LIVINGSTON, and
DRONEY, JJ., joined.
LIVINGSTON, J. filed a dissenting opinion in which JACOBS, CABRANES, RAGGI, and
DRONEY, JJ., joined.
Appeal from a decision of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York (Deborah A. Batts, Judge) granting summary judgment to
defendants and dismissing plaintiff’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims as barred by Heck v.
Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). A previously constituted panel of this Court held
that the plaintiff could sue under § 1983 because he was no longer in custody and
had no access to federal habeas relief. Poventud v. City of New York, 715 F.3d 57, 62
(2d Cir. 2013). Pursuant to a vote of the active judges of this Court, that opinion
is vacated. Following this rehearing en banc, and for the reasons discussed
herein, the Court holds that Heck does not apply to the plaintiff because his claim
pursuant to Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), does not necessarily imply that
his guilty plea is invalid. We need not reach the issue of whether Heck applies to
plaintiffs who have been released from prison or otherwise do not have access to
habeas.
VACATED and REMANDED.
2
JOEL B. RUDIN, Law Offices of Joel B. Rudin, New York, NY (Julia P.
Kuan, Romano & Kuan, New York, NY, on the brief), for
Plaintiff-Appellant Marcos Poventud.
MICHAEL B. KIMBERLY, Mayer Brown LLP, Washington, D.C.
(Richard D. Willstatter, National Association of Criminal
Defense Lawyers, White Plains, NY; Marc Fernich, New York
State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, New York,
NY; Charles A. Rothfeld, Paul W. Hughes, Mayer Brown LLP,
Washington, D.C.; on the brief), for Amicus Curiae National and
New York State Associations of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
MORDECAI NEWMAN (Leonard Koerner; Larry A. Sonnenshein; Linda
Donahue; Rachel Seligman Weiss; on the brief), for Zachary W.
Carter, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, New
York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees City of New York, et al.
CAITLIN HALLIGAN (Hilary Hassler, Assistant District Attorney, New
York County; Steven A. Bender, Assistant District Attorney,
Westchester County; Morrie I. Kleinbart, Assistant District
Attorney, Richmond County; Itamar J. Yeger, Assistant
District Attorney, Rockland County; on the brief), for Kathleen
M. Rice, President, District Attorneys Association of the State
of New York, New York, NY, for Amicus Curiae District
Attorneys Association of the State of New York.
BARBARA UNDERWOOD, Solicitor General (Richard Dearing, Deputy
Solicitor General; Won S. Shin, Assistant Solicitor General; on
the brief), for Eric T. Schneiderman, Attorney General of the
State of New York, New York, NY, for Amici Curiae States of
New York, Connecticut, and Vermont.
3
RICHARD C. WESLEY, Circuit Judge:
In June 1998, Marcos Poventud was convicted of attempted murder in the
second degree and several other related crimes. New York courts upheld
Poventud’s conviction on appeal. People v. Poventud, 300 A.D.2d 223 (1st Dep’t
2002), leave denied, 1 N.Y.3d 578 (2003). In 2004, Poventud successfully brought a
state collateral challenge to his conviction based on Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83
(1963), and People v. Rosario, 9 N.Y.2d 286 (1961). His conviction was vacated and
a new trial ordered. People v. Poventud, 802 N.Y.S.2d 605, 608 (Sup. Ct. Bronx
Cnty. 2005). While the State weighed appealing the Brady decision, Poventud
pled guilty to the lesser charge of attempted robbery in the third degree,
pursuant to a plea agreement that dismissed all other charges and stipulated to a
one-year sentence (time already served). Upon entry of the plea, Poventud was
immediately released. Thereafter, Poventud sued the City of New York and
various police officers alleging a violation of his constitutional rights in his 1998
trial.
Poventud’s § 1983 claim is centered on the state court determination that
he was denied access to evidence in the government’s possession that had a
reasonable probability of affecting the result of his trial. The district court was of
4
the view that this claim was at odds with Poventud’s later plea because, although
the withheld evidence supported the alibi Poventud employed at his 1998 trial,
his plea colloquy contradicted that defense. As a result, the district court
determined that Poventud’s § 1983 claims called into question the validity of his
2006 plea and granted summary judgment for the defendants. It based its
decision on a long-standing Supreme Court decision, Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S.
477 (1994), that precludes the use of § 1983 suits for damages that necessarily
have the effect of challenging existing state or federal criminal convictions.
Heck requires 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 § 1983 plaintiff
must prove that the [challenged] conviction or sentence has been reversed on
direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal
authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal
court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254.” 512 U.S. at 486-87.
Poventud did exactly what Heck required of him. He sought a state court
determination that his due process rights were violated in his jury trial, he
secured a state court judgment vacating his 1998 conviction, and the State chose
5
not to appeal. Heck, therefore, does not bar Poventud’s claims. Accordingly, the
district court’s summary judgment for defendants is vacated and the case is
remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.1
Background
In March 1997, two men robbed livery cab driver Younis Duopo and shot
him in the head or neck.2 An initial search of the cab by Crime Scene Unit
(“CSU”) detectives uncovered only a spent shell casing, five one dollar bills, and
a black hat from the back seat. The day after the shooting, and after CSU
searched the vehicle, New York City Police Department (“NYPD”) Detective
Frankie Rosado reported to the garage and conducted his own search of the cab;
this search revealed a wallet on the floor of the cab containing two ID cards that
1
Thus, our decision today has no need to address the question of whether a
plaintiff who challenges his allegedly unconstitutional conviction or incarceration, but is
no longer in custody and therefore has no access to habeas, has recourse to a federal
remedy under § 1983.
2
These facts are drawn from the Second Amended Complaint and the Plaintiff’s
Response to Defendants’ Rule 56.1 Statement and Statement of Additional Facts.
Although these facts may be disputed at trial, “[b]ecause this case comes to us on
[defendants’] motion for summary judgment, ‘the evidence of [Poventud] is to be
believed, and all justifiable inferences are to be drawn in [his] favor.’” Eastman Kodak Co.
v. Image Technical Servs., Inc., 504 U.S. 451, 456 (1992) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby,
Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986)).
6
belonged to Poventud’s brother, Francisco Poventud. Sergeant Kenneth Umlauft
prepared a photo array using the ID cards recovered from the cab; he showed
Duopo the array and Duopo unequivocally identified Francisco as his shooter.
The NYPD soon discovered that Francisco had been incarcerated at the time of
the crime and turned to Poventud, who did not resemble the photograph of
Francisco shown to Duopo, as the most likely carrier of Francisco’s wallet.3
On consecutive days one week after the crime, Rosado and NYPD officer
Daniel Toohey showed Duopo photo arrays containing Poventud’s picture;
Duopo did not identify Poventud as the perpetrator on either occasion. The day
after the second failed identification, NYPD officers showed Duopo Poventud’s
picture for a third time. Later that day, Duopo viewed Poventud’s picture for a
fourth time and he identified him as the shooter. The officers brought Poventud
3
Some of these facts are disputed by the panel’s dissenting opinion and in the
dissents filed with our opinion today. See Poventud v. City of New York, 715 F.3d 57, 66
(2d Cir. 2013) (Jacobs, Judge, dissenting). At trial the defendants are, of course, free to
argue to the jury that their version of these disputed facts is correct – for example, that
Duopo wrote that Francisco Poventud “looks like” the shooter, see id. at 66 (internal
quotation marks omitted); Francisco and Marcos bear a striking resemblance, see id. at
67; or the wallet was found “immediately” after the hold-up, Dissenting Op. of Judge
Jacobs, post, at 3. As noted above, in an order granting summary judgment, we construe
all genuine disputes of material fact in favor of the nonmoving party. United States v.
Sum of $185,336.07 U.S. Currency Seized from Citizen’s Bank Account L7N01967, 731 F.3d
189, 192 (2d Cir. 2013).
7
in to take his statement, at which point Duopo identified him in a lineup. Despite
NYPD policies forbidding such behavior, the officers neither preserved nor
disclosed to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office the photo array in which Duopo
mistakenly identified Francisco.
Assistant District Attorney (“ADA”) Gregg Turkin prosecuted Poventud
and codefendant Robert Maldonado, whom Duopo also identified in a lineup.
Before trial, Turkin asked Umlauft about some stray photographs in the file;
Umlauft explained them away without disclosing that he had completed a
separate photo array from which Duopo had identified Francisco as the shooter.
Turkin, ignorant of this information, did not disclose it to the defense.
At trial in 1998, Duopo was the only witness to identify Poventud as the
shooter. Defense counsel tried to impeach the credibility of Duopo’s
identification by focusing on the multiple attempts that it took to identify
Poventud; these efforts were bolstered by Duopo’s two additional mistaken
identifications of Maldonado’s brother as Poventud’s partner in crime.
Poventud’s defense was that he was not present in the cab; he testified that he
was at a neighbor’s apartment playing video games instead. He further posited
that Duopo was shot by three men who were arrested for another shooting of a
8
livery cab driver, seventeen days after the Duopo shooting, using the same gun
used to shoot Duopo. Although Umlauft testified, the defense, still unaware of
the victim’s misidentifications of Francisco, was unable to question Umlauft or
Duopo about them.
The jury submitted requests for more information about Duopo’s failures
to identify Poventud and a note indicating that it was “hopelessly deadlocked”
after four days of deliberations. It convicted both Poventud and Maldonado on
the fifth day; Poventud was convicted of attempted murder in the second degree,
attempted robbery in the first degree, assault in the first degree, and criminal
possession of a weapon in the second degree. The judge sentenced him to an
indeterminate sentence of 10 to 20 years’ imprisonment.
In 2002, Maldonado’s conviction was overturned by the New York Court
of Appeals, People v. Maldonado, 97 N.Y.2d 522 (2002), while Poventud’s
conviction was affirmed by the Appellate Division and leave to appeal to the
Court of Appeals was denied. People v. Poventud, 300 A.D.2d 223 (1st Dep’t 2002),
leave denied, 1 N.Y.3d 578 (2003).4 During Maldonado’s retrial, new ADA Jeremy
Shockett learned about Duopo’s erroneous identification of Francisco. Shockett
4
Leave was denied by Judge G.B. Smith. See N.Y. C.P.L. § 460.20(2).
9
disclosed this information to defense counsel. Maldonado was acquitted.
Based on the newly revealed information, Poventud moved, pursuant to
New York Criminal Procedure Law § 440.10, to vacate his conviction. People v.
Poventud, 802 N.Y.S.2d 605 (2005). Finding a violation of the disclosure
obligations under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and People v. Rosario, 9
N.Y.2d 286 (1961), the court vacated Poventud’s conviction in October 2005.
The District Attorney’s Office opposed Poventud’s release on bail and
indicated its desire to appeal the court’s § 440.10 decision. Pursuant to an
agreement with the prosecution, Poventud pled guilty in January 2006 to
attempted robbery in the third degree, a nonviolent class E felony, with a
stipulated one-year sentence. He was immediately released.
In May 2007, Poventud initiated this suit, alleging that his 1998 conviction
violated his constitutional right to due process. In 2009, he stayed this suit
pending a state court challenge to the validity of his guilty plea. Poventud
abandoned that collateral attack, however, and refocused on his claim under 42
U.S.C. § 1983.
In 2011, the defendants moved for summary judgment, asserting that Heck
v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, barred Poventud’s constitutional tort claims.
10
Poventud argued that his plea had nothing to do with his § 1983 claim, which
concerned his jury trial conviction that had been vacated as a result of his Brady
victory. Judge Batts rejected that view and granted the motion, finding that
Poventud’s § 1983 suit challenged a state court conviction (his plea) which had
not been vacated. Poventud v. City of New York, No. 07-CV-3998(DAB), 2012 WL
727802, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 6, 2012). Judge Batts saw a connection between the
undisclosed exculpatory evidence and Poventud’s defense at trial. She then
concluded that Poventud’s alibi was factually inconsistent with his subsequent
guilty plea. Id.5 Because of the relationship that she perceived between the
misidentification evidence and the erroneous alibi at Poventud’s 1998 trial, Judge
Batts required that Poventud prove a favorable termination of any charge arising
5
Specifically, Judge Batts wrote:
Plaintiff seeks to avoid the conclusion that his suit calls the validity of his
second conviction into question by arguing that his initial conviction was
invalidated and that he does not challenge his subsequent conviction by
guilty plea. Plaintiff’s argument is unavailing. Plaintiff’s guilty plea, which
resulted in his second conviction and sentence, was to conduct which
necessarily required his presence at the scene of the crime. To succeed on a
§ 1983 claim based on an alleged failure to reveal evidence supporting his
claim to have been elsewhere when the crime to which he pleaded guilty
occurred would thus call into question the validity of his conviction by guilty
plea.
Poventud, 2012 WL 727802, at *3.
11
from the criminal transaction that occurred with the shooting and robbery,
consistent with the requirements of malicious prosecution claims. Id. (citing, inter
alia, Smith-Hunter v. Harvey, 95 N.Y.2d 191, 196-97 (2002)). Because a plea to a
lesser-included charge does not meet that requirement, Judge Batts held that
Heck barred Poventud’s claim. Id.
Poventud appealed to a panel of this Court in 2012. In April 2013, a
divided panel held that Heck did not apply to Poventud’s lawsuit because he had
been released from prison and therefore no longer had access to habeas corpus
remedies. Poventud, 715 F.3d at 60.6 We ordered this rehearing en banc, vacated
the panel’s opinion,7 and, for the reasons stated below, find that Heck does not
bar Poventud’s § 1983 suit because his claim does not necessarily imply the
invalidity of his outstanding conviction.
6
To be fair, our request for briefing centered on the issue that provided the
decisional pivot for the panel majority – the relationship of access to habeas relief and the
use of § 1983. The result was that some of the briefing goes to a much broader issue
than that which we decide today.
7
In essence, the dissents want to revisit many of the issues that separated the
judges on the initial panel. The dissents’ continued unease with the earlier opinion is
irrelevant to the task at hand. As we note several times in this opinion, we decide this
matter on the narrowest possible grounds without passing any judgments on the views
previously expressed by either the members of the panel majority, who considered
themselves bound by circuit precedent in a way the en banc Court is not, or by the then
lone dissenter.
12
Governing Law
I. 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Heck, and the Invalidity of Outstanding Convictions
In passing the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, 17 Stat. 13, Congress created a
cause of action that gave “a remedy to parties deprived of constitutional rights,
privileges and immunities by an official’s abuse of his position.” Monroe v. Pape,
365 U.S. 167, 172 (1961), overruled on other grounds by Monell v. Dep’t of Social
Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978). “It was not the unavailability of state remedies but the
failure of certain States to enforce the laws with an equal hand that furnished the
powerful momentum behind this ‘force bill,’” Monroe, 365 U.S. at 174-75 (citation
omitted), which is now codified at 42 U.S.C. § 1983. This statute provides:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation,
custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia,
subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or
other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any
rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws,
shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or
other proper proceeding for redress, except that in any action brought
against a judicial officer for an act or omission taken in such officer’s
judicial capacity, injunctive relief shall not be granted unless a
declaratory decree was violated or declaratory relief was unavailable.
For the purposes of this section, any Act of Congress applicable
exclusively to the District of Columbia shall be considered to be a
statute of the District of Columbia.
The broad language of § 1983 suggests its applicability to cases involving
13
any constitutional deprivation. Indeed, the breadth of § 1983 made it appealing
to state prisoners who sought to challenge their confinement as unconstitutional.
However, “[t]he Supreme Court, in Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475 (1973), and
Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), has effectively subordinated the § 1983
remedy to the writ of habeas corpus when the remedies would overlap (and to
some extent, even when they do not).” Richard H. Fallon, Jr., John F. Manning,
Daniel J. Meltzer & David L. Shapiro, Hart & Wechsler’s The Federal Courts & The
Federal System 966 (6th ed. 2009).
In Preiser, the Supreme Court denied a cause of action under § 1983 for
state prisoners challenging their deprivation of good-conduct-time credits
pursuant to state administrative procedures and seeking “a determination that
[they were] entitled to immediate release or a speedier release from [state]
imprisonment.” 411 U.S. at 500. Because the prisoners were “challenging the
very fact or duration of [their] physical imprisonment,” id., which the Court
described as “the traditional function of the writ [of habeas corpus],” id. at 484, the
Court held that habeas corpus provided the sole vehicle to seek this relief, id at 500.
The prisoners conceded “that a state prisoner challenging his underlying
conviction and sentence on federal constitutional grounds in a federal court is
14
limited to habeas corpus,” and the Court declined to recognize a distinction
where the challenge was to a final administrative decision. Id. at 489.
The year after Preiser was decided, the Supreme Court addressed a due
process claim in which prisoners alleged that a prison’s procedures for
deprivation of good time credits were constitutionally defective and sought
restoration of the credits, institution of a new plan by prison officials, and
“damages for the deprivation of civil rights resulting from the use of the
allegedly unconstitutional procedures.” Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 553
(1974). The Court held that Preiser foreclosed the complaint’s quest for
“restoration of good-time credits.” Id. at 554. However, “Preiser expressly
contemplated that claims properly brought under § 1983 could go forward while
actual restoration of good-time credits is sought in state proceedings. [The
prisoners’] damages claim was therefore properly before the District Court and
required determination of the validity of the procedures employed for imposing
sanctions, including loss of good time . . . .” Id. (citation omitted).
In Heck, the Court noted the distinction between the fate of the prisoners’
plea for good-time credits and for damages arising from claims of administrative
process that ran afoul of due process. 512 U.S. at 482. Critically, the Court read
15
Wolff to permit prisoners to bring “a § 1983 claim for using the wrong
procedures, not for reaching the wrong result.” Id. at 482-83. Recognizing that a
due process claim could morph into a “wrong result” claim, the Court was
careful to note that the damages for the use of the wrong procedures did not
need to be “measured by the actual loss of good time.” Id. at 482. “Thus, the
claim at issue in Wolff did not call into question the lawfulness of the plaintiff’s
continuing confinement.” Id. at 483 (emphasis in original).8
Roy Heck was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for killing his wife.
512 U.S. at 478. While his direct appeal of his conviction was pending in state
court,9 Heck brought a § 1983 suit alleging that Indiana police and investigators
had “knowingly destroyed evidence which was exculpatory in nature and could
have proved [his] innocence,” id. at 479 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Heck’s § 1983 suit “sought, among other things, compensatory and punitive
8
A later decision clarified that even suits alleging the use of improper procedures
would be barred where “the nature of the challenge to the procedures could be such as
necessarily to imply the invalidity of the judgment.” Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641,
645 (1997).
9
The Indiana Supreme Court upheld Heck’s conviction while his § 1983 case was
pending before the Seventh Circuit. Id. at 479.
16
monetary damages,” but not release.10 Id. Heck sought reimbursement for the
violation of his constitutional rights based on his allegedly unlawful confinement.
The trouble was that Heck was still in prison pursuant to his judgment of
conviction as he pursued his suit.
Rejecting proposals for an exhaustion requirement, the Heck Court
explicitly held that damages actions could be brought by state prisoners before
exhausting all state remedies; however, it noted that this proposition “may not be
true . . . when establishing the basis for the damages claim necessarily
demonstrates the invalidity of the conviction. In that situation, the claimant can
be said to be ‘attacking the fact or length of confinement,’” which is
impermissible. 512 U.S. at 481-82 (quoting Preiser, 411 U.S. at 490) (emphasis and
alterations omitted). “[I]n 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 § 1983
plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct
10
Heck’s two attempts at securing habeas relief had come up short: “his first
petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Federal District Court was dismissed because it
contained unexhausted claims; and his second federal habeas petition was denied, and
the denial affirmed by the Seventh Circuit.” Id. at 479.
17
appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal
authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal
court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254.” Id. at 486-87. As
Heck’s civil claim relied on his innocence and challenged the validity of the
conviction that secured his incarceration, it met none of these criteria; he had no
cause of action under § 1983.
In its analysis, the Court relied on an analogy to the common law tort of
malicious prosecution “because, unlike the related cause of action for false arrest
or imprisonment, it permits damages for confinement imposed pursuant to legal
process.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 484. The Court focused on the favorable termination
requirement, an “element that must be alleged and proved in a malicious
prosecution action.” Id. The benefit of this rule is that it “‘avoids parallel
litigation over the issues of probable cause and guilt and it precludes the
possibility of the claimant[’s] succeeding in the tort action after having been
convicted in the underlying criminal prosecution, in contravention of a strong
judicial policy against the creation of two conflicting resolutions arising out of the
same or identical transaction.’” Id. (quoting 8 S. Speiser, C. Krause, & A. Gans,
American Law of Torts § 28:5, at 24 (1991)) (alteration omitted). To preserve
18
“finality and consistency,” id. at 485, the Court applied “the hoary principle that
civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of
outstanding criminal judgments . . . to § 1983 damages actions that necessarily
require the plaintiff to prove the unlawfulness of his conviction or confinement,
just as it has always applied to actions for malicious prosecution,” id. at 486.
The analogy to malicious prosecution continues throughout Heck. The
Court held that “[j]ust as a cause of action for malicious prosecution does not
accrue until the criminal proceedings have terminated in the plaintiff’s favor, so
also a § 1983 cause of action for damages attributable to an unconstitutional
conviction or sentence does not accrue until the conviction or sentence has been
invalidated.” Id. at 489-90 (internal citations omitted). However, the opinion
stops short of holding that malicious prosecution’s favorable termination
requirement, as applied at the common law, governs all § 1983 suits -- and for
good reason. The Heck Court dealt only with Heck’s claim and its interaction
with the available writ of habeas corpus. There was no reason for the Court to
attempt to divine every possible permutation of constitutional tort related to
criminal proceedings that might find its way into federal courtrooms as a § 1983
claim. The only issue in Heck was whether a § 1983 claim could be brought when
19
that claim suggested the invalidity of an existing state court conviction.
II. Malicious Prosecution Suits and Favorable Termination
Malicious prosecution suits require, as an element of the offense, “‘the
termination of the proceeding in favor of the accused.’” Smith-Hunter, 95 N.Y.2d
191, 195 (2002) (quoting Broughton v. State of New York, 37 N.Y.2d 451, 457
(1975)).11 “[U]nder the common law any final termination of a criminal
proceeding in favor of the accused, such that the proceeding cannot be brought
again, qualifies as a favorable termination for purposes of a malicious
prosecution action.” Smith-Hunter, 95 N.Y.2d at 195. (citations omitted). “A
termination is not favorable to the accused, [however], if the charge is withdrawn
or the prosecution abandoned pursuant to a compromise with the accused.
Indeed, it is hornbook law that ‘where charges are withdrawn or the prosecution
is terminated by reason of a compromise into which the accused has entered
voluntarily, there is no sufficient termination in favor of the accused.’” Id. at 196-
11
“‘Over the centuries the common law of torts has developed a set of rules to
implement the principle that a person should be compensated fairly for injuries caused
by the violation of his legal rights. These rules, defining the elements of damages and
the prerequisites for their recovery, provide the appropriate starting point for the
inquiry under § 1983 as well.’” Heck, 512 U.S. at 483 (quoting Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S.
247, 257-58 (1978)) (alteration omitted). “Thus, to determine whether there is any bar to
the present suit, we look first to the common law of torts.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 483.
20
97 (quoting Prosser and Keeton, Torts § 119, at 875 (5th ed. 1984)) (alterations
omitted); see also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 660(d) (1977).
In the context of § 1983 malicious prosecution cases, Heck’s bar is
coextensive with the favorable termination requirement. See, e.g., McNeill v.
People of City and State of N.Y., No. 06-CV-4843(NGG), 2006 WL 3050867, at *2-3
(E.D.N.Y. Oct. 24, 2006), aff’d by summary order, 242 F. App’x 777 (2d Cir. 2007);
Papeskov v. Brown, No. 97-CV-5351(SS), 1998 WL 299892, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. June 8,
1998), aff’d, 173 F.3d 845 (table) (2d Cir. 1999). In these cases, as in state malicious
prosecution cases, the tort cannot stand unless the underlying criminal cases
“‘finally end[] in failure.’” DiBlasio v. City of New York, 102 F.3d 654, 657 (2d Cir.
1996) (quoting Burt v. Smith, 181 N.Y. 1, 5 (1905)) (emphasis omitted). “It is not
surprising, therefore, that several United States Courts of Appeals have cited
[Heck v.] Humphrey as authority for the proposition that § 1983 claims for
malicious prosecution do not accrue until their respective criminal prosecutions
end in acquittal.” Id. at 658.
In DiBlasio – rightly decided and unaffected by our holding today – a panel
of this Court addressed Mario DiBlasio’s claim of malicious prosecution.
DiBlasio, convicted following a jury trial of criminal sale of cocaine and related
21
charges, secured vacatur of his conviction through a habeas suit brought in the
Eastern District of New York that alleged that the state failed to produce or
identify a confidential informant. Id. at 655. On retrial, DiBlasio was convicted of
only one of the lesser included offenses. Id. He then sued under § 1983, “alleging
malicious prosecution by the police officers.” Id. He contended that his
conviction of a lesser offense was a favorable result that entitled him to damages
for malicious prosecution on the more serious crimes. The district court
dismissed and we affirmed. Id. at 656, 659.
DiBlasio was successful in challenging his initial conviction, seemingly in
compliance with Heck’s mandate. He was retried and convicted, but only for a
lesser offense. DiBlasio contended that this was a favorable result as required by
Heck. Because DiBlasio’s claim was for malicious prosecution, the panel
disagreed. “Although in some instances a habeas court may terminate a criminal
proceeding in the defendant’s favor, the reversal of a conviction and remand for
a new trial does not constitute such a termination.” DiBlasio, 102 F.3d at 658. The
Court, applying the malicious prosecution standard, “h[e]ld that the criminal
proceeding terminated when DiBlasio was convicted on the retrial. The writ
could not be considered an ‘indication of innocence’ since DiBlasio conceded
22
both the possession and sale of the cocaine.” Id. The fact that the ultimate
conviction was on a lesser count was irrelevant, because the charges arising out
of the criminal transaction had to be brought together and as a whole “[t]he
State’s case did not end in failure or in DiBlasio’s favor.” Id. at 659. DiBlasio’s
§ 1983 malicious prosecution claim was thus properly Heck-barred (despite the
fact that his initial conviction was vacated) because malicious prosecution under
New York law requires “favorable termination of the proceedings” and a valid
conviction on the lesser crime prevented the court from finding a “favorable
termination.” Either the outstanding conviction was invalid, or the elements of
malicious prosecution were not met; DiBlasio is precisely the sort of case in which
“a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his
conviction.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 487.
Not every § 1983 claim that arises out of a criminal case requires that the
underlying criminal process reach a favorable termination. “Contrary to the
district court’s view in this case, Heck does not automatically bar a § 1983 claim
simply because the processes of the criminal justice system did not end up in the
plaintiff’s favor. A plaintiff need not prove that any conviction stemming from an
incident with the police has been invalidated, only a conviction that could not be
23
reconciled with the claims of his civil action.” VanGilder v. Baker, 435 F.3d 689,
692 (7th Cir. 2006) (emphasis retained, internal quotation marks and alterations
omitted); cf. Jackson v. Suffolk Cnty. Homicide Bureau, 135 F.3d 254, 257 (2d Cir.
1998) (“[A] claim for use of excessive force lacks the requisite relationship to the
conviction. . . . [A] finding that excessive force had in fact been used would not
necessarily require the invalidation of the conviction.”).
Unlike malicious prosecutions, many violations of constitutional rights,
even during the criminal process, may be remedied without impugning the
validity of a conviction. For example, when a suspect sues his arresting officer
for excessive force, a § 1983 suit may proceed even if the suspect is ultimately
convicted of resisting arrest. VanGilder, 435 F.3d at 692. When a plaintiff is
unlawfully arrested without probable cause, his § 1983 claim accrues before any
conviction. Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 397 (2007); see also Morris v. Noe, 672 F.3d
1185, 1193-94 n.2 (10th Cir. 2012). Even Heck acknowledges that many
unreasonable searches could lead to § 1983 actions that exist independent of the
termination of the criminal proceedings. Heck, 512 U.S. at 487 n.7; see also Gibson
v. Superintendent of N.J. Dep’t of Law & Pub. Safety-Div. of State Police, 411 F.3d 427,
448 (3d Cir. 2005), overruled on other grounds by Dique v. N.J. State Police, 603 F.3d
24
181, 188 (3d Cir. 2010).
III. Other § 1983 Claims, Including Brady Claims
This Court has emphatically and properly confirmed that Brady-based
§ 1983 claims necessarily imply the invalidity of the challenged conviction in the
trial (or plea) in which the Brady violation occurred.12 Amaker v. Weiner, 179 F.3d 48,
51-52 (2d Cir. 1999). That should come as no surprise; the remedy for a Brady
violation is vacatur of the judgment of conviction and a new trial in which the
defendant now has the Brady material available to her.
“‘There are three components of a true Brady violation: The evidence at
issue must be favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory, or
because it is impeaching; that evidence must have been suppressed by the State,
either willfully or inadvertently; and prejudice must have ensued.’” United States
v. Rivas, 377 F.3d 195, 199 (2d Cir. 2004) (quoting Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263,
281-82 (1999)). To establish prejudice, a plaintiff must show materiality:
‘A showing of materiality does not require demonstration by a
preponderance that disclosure of the suppressed evidence would have
12
We reject out of hand defendants’ contention that Brady violations cannot
provide a basis for a § 1983 claim. See, e.g., Haley v. City of Boston, 657 F.3d 39, 52 (1st
Cir. 2011); Beck v. City of Muskogee Police Dep’t, 195 F.3d 553, 560 (10th Cir. 1999); Walker
v. City of New York, 974 F.2d 293, 300 (2d Cir. 1992).
25
resulted ultimately in the defendant’s acquittal (whether based on the
presence of reasonable doubt or acceptance of an explanation for the
crime that does not inculpate the defendant). The touchstone of
materiality is a reasonable probability of a different result, and the
adjective is important. The question is not whether the defendant
would more likely than not have received a different verdict with the
evidence, but whether in its absence he received a fair trial, understood as a
trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence.’
Leka v. Portuondo, 257 F.3d 89, 104 (2d Cir. 2001) (quoting Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S.
419, 434 (1995)) (alterations omitted, emphasis added).13 “While Brady ensures a
fair trial, a defendant’s right to pre-trial disclosure under Brady is not conditioned
on his ability to demonstrate that he would or even probably would prevail at trial if
the evidence were disclosed,” much less that he is in fact innocent. Osborne v.
Dist. Att’y’s Office for Third Jud. Dist., 521 F.3d 1118, 1132 (9th Cir. 2008), rev’d on
other grounds, 557 U.S. 52 (2009). The remedy for a Brady claim is therefore a new
trial, as proof of the constitutional violation need not be at odds with his guilt.
See, e.g., United States v. Sipe, 388 F.3d 471, 493 (5th Cir. 2004).
This Court’s seminal Brady / Heck case was brought pro se by Anthony
Amaker, who had been convicted of second degree murder in Brooklyn in 1989.
13
Of course, when a defendant is not proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,
the only verdict “worthy of confidence” is an acquittal, regardless of the defendant’s
actual guilt.
26
See People v. Amaker, 195 A.D.2d 605, 605 (2d Dep’t 1993). The Appellate Division
affirmed his conviction, rejecting his ineffective assistance of counsel claim, id.;
leave to appeal was denied by the Court of Appeals. People v. Amaker, 82 N.Y.2d
804 (1993) (table decision). While incarcerated pursuant to his conviction,
Amaker brought a § 1983 suit alleging a conspiracy by “police, prosecutors, [his]
defense attorneys, the trial judge, an eyewitness, and various court personnel
. . . to secure [his] conviction . . . by manufacturing inculpatory evidence and
subsequently suppressing evidence probative of their misconduct.” Amaker v.
Weiner, 179 F.3d at 49. This Court appropriately rejected the argument that Heck
was not triggered by Amaker’s “claim that his right to meaningful court access
ha[d] been denied by the withholding of exculpatory evidence.” Id. at 51. “In
substance . . . this claim sounds under Brady v. Maryland, and therefore does
indeed call into question the validity of his conviction. Accordingly, it is barred
by Heck.” Id. (citation omitted). Success on Amaker’s claim would mean that his
conviction, which was not only still on the books but which actually provided the
basis for his ongoing incarceration, was the product of a Brady violation (and a
massive cover-up). Id.
But Heck does not present the same bar to § 1983 suits where the
27
underlying conviction has already been expunged; the conviction is no longer
“outstanding.” See, e.g., Moldowan v. City of Warren, 578 F.3d 351, 376-77 (6th Cir.
2009).14 Even when a defendant is retried, a § 1983 suit concerning the earlier
trial could not impeach the new trial’s result. Smith v. Gonzalez, 222 F.3d 1220,
1222 (10th Cir. 2000). A court “invalidate[s] the final judgment in [a] state
criminal trial when [it] vacate[s] [a] conviction.” Id. From that moment on, a
§ 1983 suit would not demonstrate the invalidity of the vacated conviction. Id. It
also would not impugn a retrial, which on its face could not replicate the
constitutional violations at issue (since the defendant must, by definition, have
been made aware of the Brady material before vacatur). Id.
Herein lies the district court’s error. The district court treated Poventud’s
case as though it were a malicious prosecution claim.15 It measured his
14
Judge Livingston ignores this distinction in arguing that Skinner v. Switzer, 131
S. Ct. 1289, 1300 (2011), comprises a general prohibition on Brady-based § 1983 claims.
Dissenting Op. of Judge Livingston, post, at 1. Skinner, citing Amaker, notes that
prisoners bringing Brady claims “seek a judgment qualifying them for immediate or
speedier release from imprisonment,” and that such claims are “within the traditional
core of habeas corpus.” Skinner, 131 S. Ct. at 1300 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Since Poventud, who is no longer incarcerated and has already won post-conviction
relief, does not seek release from imprisonment, the language that Judge Livingston
excerpts from Skinner is misleading and irrelevant to the issue now before us.
15
This is also the underlying premise of the dissents.
28
admission in the subsequent plea agreement against his claims in his Brady
submission. Because his 2006 plea was at odds with his alibi defense at his 1998
trial, Judge Batts concluded that his recovery for a Brady claim would call his plea
into question. That view misunderstands Brady and its correlation to § 1983
claims asserting only violations of the right to due process. The district court’s
view incorrectly presumes that, on the facts of this case, the State could violate
Poventud’s Brady rights only if Poventud is an innocent man. This last restriction
has no basis in the Brady case law; materiality does not depend on factual
innocence, but rather what would have been proven absent the violation. “[T]he
scope of a defendant’s [Brady-based] constitutional right[ ]is ultimately defined
retrospectively, by reference to the likely effect that the suppression of particular
evidence had on the outcome of the trial.” United States v. Coppa, 267 F.3d 132, 140 (2d
Cir. 2001) (emphasis added) (citing Strickler, 527 U.S. at 281).16 In this case,
16
Of course, there is a distinction between a victory at trial premised on the
State’s failure to prove one’s guilt and a victory premised on the court’s
misapprehension of the law. The dissents do not recognize this difference and therefore
misunderstand Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364 (1993), in which the Court assumed that
counsel’s failure to object based on then-prevailing but later-overturned circuit law was
deficient and evaluated whether the defendant suffered prejudice with an awareness of
the later-established legal standard. Failure to take advantage of the district court’s
likely application of the circuit court’s misapprehension of the law was not prejudicial
because a defendant has no right to benefit from a court’s erroneous view of the law.
29
Poventud has the right to argue to the jury that, with the main State witness
impeached, he would have been acquitted based on reasonable doubt or
convicted on a lesser charge.17
We find the First Circuit’s decision in Olsen v. Correiro analogous and
instructive. 189 F.3d 52, 55 (1st Cir. 1999). Olsen, convicted in 1986 of first degree
murder, secured vacatur (based on the investigating officers’ failure to disclose
impeachment evidence) and in 1992 pled nolo contendere to the lesser charge of
However, neither is the State entitled to sustain a conviction predicated on something
less than proof beyond a reasonable doubt. No defendant has the right to benefit from a
mistake of law; every defendant – even a guilty one – has the right to benefit from the
State’s heavy burden at a criminal trial.
17
The dissents ignore the important fact that Poventud’s guilty plea in 2006 was
not to the same charges for which he was originally convicted and sentenced to prison.
Judge Livingston’s reprisal of Judge Jacob’s lengthy dissent, in particular, ignores that
Poventud was lawfully convicted only of a class E felony and sentenced to one year’s
imprisonment. Dissenting Op. of Judge Livingston, post, at 16-17. Guilt of a lesser crime
is not inconsistent with the existence of reasonable doubt at an earlier trial for a more
serious crime. Poventud’s later plea does confirm some criminal liability for the acts
that occurred in Duopo’s cab, but it does not reaffirm that he would indisputably have
been found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to at least nine years’
imprisonment at his 1998 trial.
Judge Livingston’s dissent also reveals an inability or unwillingness to
distinguish between an argument that Poventud is innocent and an argument that the
State did not carry its burden of proving him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This is
why she argues that Poventud’s later-established presence at the scene of the crime
precludes him from alleging that the State did not prove him guilty beyond a
reasonable doubt. Dissenting Op. of Judge Livingston, post, at 2-3.
30
manslaughter, with the State’s agreement to recommend time served. Id. He was
sentenced to time served and released; he then sued under § 1983 “for damages
arising from the murder charge and conviction.” Id. He was awarded $1.5
million in compensatory damages based on his incarceration; that verdict was
overturned by the district court pursuant to Heck. A second trial resulted in a
verdict again in his favor, but this time with a damages award of only $6,000.
The First Circuit upheld the district court’s decisions. To permit Olsen to
collect a considerable sum in “incarceration-based damages” would have
impugned the validity of his later manslaughter conviction, as Olsen did not
serve a day in prison over his lawful sentence for manslaughter, despite his
initial murder conviction. Id. at 55, 69. However, the court did not disturb that
portion of the jury’s award that was based on “evidence of other damages
associated with his murder trial and conviction.” Id. at 55. The question of
damages was left for the jury, which was free to award damages so long as it
confined its consideration to the harms that flowed from the Brady violation and
not to the imprisonment attributable to his lawful conviction for manslaughter.
Id.
In other contexts, this Court has recognized procedural claims under
31
§ 1983 even when the denial of due process did not result in concrete injury.
Brody v. Village of Port Chester, 345 F.3d 103, 121 (2d Cir. 2003) (Sotomayor, Judge)
(“[Plaintiff] still may be entitled to declaratory relief and nominal damages in the
event a procedural due process violation is proven, even if the district court does
not find that [he] . . . would have prevailed” in the challenged proceeding).18
“Because the right to procedural due process is ‘absolute’ in the sense that it does
not depend upon the merits of a claimant’s substantive assertions, and because of
the importance to organized society that procedural due process be observed, we
believe that the denial of procedural due process should be actionable for
nominal damages without proof of actual injury.” Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247,
266 (1978) (internal citations omitted). The Supreme Court has recognized the
availability of § 1983 actions for “damages for the deprivation of civil rights
resulting from the use of the allegedly unconstitutional procedures.” Wolff, 418
U.S. at 553. It is for the district court and the jury to determine “to what
18
We should not be understood to imply that Poventud is entitled only to
nominal damages. As we explain below, the principal thrust of our comments
regarding nominal damages is that in light of their availability here, we need not
consider at this stage of the proceedings whether any of Poventud’s incarceration-based
damages are Heck-barred. This is a matter for the district court to decide in the first
instance.
32
damages, if any, [such a plaintiff] is entitled.” Brody v. Village of Port Chester, 434
F.3d 121, 132 n.8 (2d Cir. 2005).
IV. Poventud’s § 1983 Brady Claim Is Consistent with his Guilty Plea
Several of the foregoing principles circumscribe Poventud’s Brady-based
§ 1983 claim. First, his claim must relate to his 1998 conviction and not to the
2006 conviction.19 Amaker, 179 F.3d at 52. Second, had Poventud’s complaint
sounded in malicious prosecution, rather than in a procedural Brady-based claim,
that claim would have been barred because of the favorable termination element
of the malicious prosecution tort. DiBlasio, 102 F.3d at 657. Finally, Poventud
cannot seek to collect damages for the time that he served pursuant to his plea
agreement (that is, for the year-long term of imprisonment). Olsen, 189 F.3d at 55.
With these limitations in mind, we find that Poventud has stated a § 1983 claim.
On its face, Poventud’s complaint alleges deficiencies in his 1998 trial that
are entirely independent of the proceedings related to his 2006 plea. See Second
19
Nothing in this analysis weighs on whether or not Poventud is precluded from
challenging the validity of his 2006 conviction in a separate § 1983 action. A Brady
claim cannot challenge a conviction obtained after disclosure of the Brady material;
Poventud’s claim therefore relates only to his 1998 conviction. Having decided the
case on the narrower ground, we do not reach the broader issue on which the panel
rested its decision. Poventud, 715 F.3d at 60.
33
Amended Complaint at ¶¶ 1, 115-39. The complaint alleges that the defendants
“caused [his] unconstitutional conviction and subsequent imprisonment by
deliberately suppressing exculpatory evidence, known as ‘Brady material,’ and
also lying to and misleading prosecutors.” Id. ¶ 2. Because Poventud was aware
of the undisclosed exculpatory material prior to his guilty plea, his plea could not
have implicated the constitutional violations at issue in his trial. Following
vacatur of his conviction, a favorable judgment in this § 1983 action would not
render invalid any subsequent, plea-based judgment against Poventud. Cf.
Smith, 222 F.3d at 1222. Amaker (like Heck, essentially a Brady case) ensures that
Heck’s bar prevents Poventud from alleging a Brady violation with regard to any
valid conviction; however, unlike Amaker’s, Poventud’s complaint does not
challenge the conviction pursuant to which the State continues to view him a
felon. The 2006 conviction is a “clean” conviction, untainted by the Brady
violation associated with the 1998 conviction. Just as Poventud’s 1998 conviction
is expunged for future sentencing purposes, so, too, is it expunged for this § 1983
action.
Second, Poventud’s complaint states claims entirely distinct from malicious
prosecution. The complaint never mentions malicious prosecution, does not
34
allege most of the elements of malicious prosecution (including favorable
termination), and focuses heavily on the defendants’ failure to adhere to their
disclosure obligations. See Second Amended Complaint. Unlike DiBlasio’s
malicious prosecution claim, Poventud’s Brady claim is compatible with the
validity of his subsequent conviction.20
Poventud’s complaint seeks damages for his time in prison, but excludes
the time that he served pursuant to his unchallenged 2006 guilty plea. See Second
Amended Complaint ¶ 1. We need not decide what damages might be available
for Poventud, but we note that the Supreme Court has “recognized a § 1983 claim
for using the wrong procedures,” even where a plaintiff could not collect for the
court’s “reaching the wrong result.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 482-83. Although under
some circumstances, even a “challenge to the procedures could be such as
necessarily to imply the invalidity of the judgment,” Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S.
20
Assuming arguendo that Poventud’s claims did sound in malicious prosecution,
these claims would be barred. DiBlasio, 102 F.3d at 659. Specifically, claims that
undisclosed evidence included “evidence of innocence,” Second Amended Complaint
¶ 128, do suggest a malicious prosecution claim. However, while Heck’s complaint
alleged destruction of “evidence which was exculpatory in nature and could have
proved [his] innocence,” Heck, 512 U.S. at 479 (quotation marks omitted), Poventud’s
complaint is less concerned with his innocence and instead focuses on “evidence that an
identifying witness was unreliable, and evidence impeaching the credibility of
significant prosecution witnesses.” Second Amended Complaint ¶ 128.
35
641, 645 (1997), this logic applies only when the procedures resulted in a
judgment that has not been impugned. Moreover, “the denial of procedural due
process should be actionable for nominal damages without proof of actual
injury.” Carey, 435 U.S. at 266. The extent of Poventud’s damages stemming
from the Brady violation that do not call into question the validity of his 2006
guilty plea is a fact-specific question that should be addressed first by the district
court.21 However, the existence of a cause of action is clear.
Poventud’s allocution acknowledged his presence at the scene of the crime,
which was inconsistent with his alibi defense at trial. However, this does not
defeat the viability of his Brady claim. As explained above, Brady does not
require actual innocence, and even “‘[a] guilty man is entitled to a fair trial.’”
People v. Buchalter, 289 N.Y. 181, 225 (1942) (Lehman, Chief Judge, concurring). In
21
The dissents’ treatment of causation will startle those who regularly toil in the
world of tort law. The Restatement Third (which expressly says it will call proximate
cause “scope of liability”) is quite clear on the matter: “Duty is a question of law for the
court, see § 7, while scope of liability, although very much an evaluative matter, is
treated as a question of fact for the factfinder.” RESTATEMENT (THIRD) OF TORTS: PHYS. &
EMOT. HARM § 29 (2010). Ultimately, the problem here, as in much of the dissents, is the
dissents’ confusion between factors that may be appropriate – and even winning –
defenses to Poventud’s § 1983 claims, and factors that instead would lead to the
dismissal of the whole § 1983 action ab initio for violating the doctrine of Heck v.
Humphrey.
36
Brady, the Court held that Maryland violated the defendant’s constitutional rights
by withholding evidence relevant to his sentencing, despite the fact “that nothing
in the suppressed confession could have reduced the appellant Brady’s offense
below murder in the first degree” or related to his guilt or innocence. 373 U.S. at
90 (internal quotation marks omitted).
Heck requires that “a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or
sentence has been . . . declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make
such determination,” inter alia. 512 U.S. at 486-87. In this case, Poventud’s
challenged conviction has been. People v. Poventud, 802 N.Y.S.2d at 608. Heck’s
core concern of finality would not be undercut by Poventud’s success at trial;
Poventud’s claim is premised on an unchallenged finding made in state court.22
Were Poventud to win at trial – far from a foregone conclusion – the legal
status of his 2006 guilty plea would remain preserved. No element of his § 1983
Brady claim requires Poventud to prove his absence from the scene of the crime; if
22
As things stand in the New York courts, (1) Poventud successfully proved a
Brady violation in his first trial, which the State elected not to appeal; and (2) Poventud
pled guilty to attempted robbery in the third degree. We believe these two judgments
are logically consistent, and it is not clear why a third judgment, reaffirming the
existence of a Brady violation at the first trial, would suddenly impugn the second
conviction in a way that the outstanding judgment based on the same conviction does
not.
37
it did, his claim would be Heck-barred. Poventud’s success at trial would mean
only that his 1998 conviction was the product of a constitutional violation; in this
case, a New York State court has already reached this determination and vacated
the conviction as a result. See id.
Conclusion
Poventud’s claim is one of process. He asserts that members of the New
York City Police Department willfully withheld exculpatory evidence that called
into question the testimony of the only witness to place him at the scene of the
crime. Poventud’s claims are not the stuff of prison idleness or self-absorption;
he has proven his claims in state court and the State elected not to appeal his
victory. Poventud’s conviction was vacated because it rested on a constitutional
infirmity. Armed with the information previously denied him, Poventud
accepted an offer from the State to plead to a lesser offense. He now seeks to
recover from those who violated his right to a fair trial. He does not contest the
legitimacy of his plea (nor could he). His claim is restricted to the acts of the
police officers before and during his trial in 1998. Poventud’s victory in state
court, securing vacatur of his jury trial conviction, gave life to his claim and
38
separated it from the criminal activity that took place in the Bronx on March 6,
1997. Had Poventud claimed that the entire criminal process was one borne of
malice, then our decision would be different. But his claims are circumscribed to
the misdeeds of the police prior to his jury trial, and nothing more.
Judgment is VACATED and the case REMANDED to the district court for
further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
39
GERARD E. LYNCH, Circuit Judge, concurring:
I fully join in Judge Wesley’s thorough opinion for the Court. I write
separately to explain in simple terms why the Court’s decision is consistent not
only with governing law, but also with the basic assumptions of our
jurisprudence.
The question before the Court is whether the rule of Heck v. Humphrey,
512 U.S. 477, 486-87 (1994), which prohibits a criminal defendant from obtaining
damages for wrongful prosecution, conviction or imprisonment until and unless
the conviction he complains of has been overturned, prevents the plaintiff
Marcos Poventud from suing the defendants for, as he alleges, obtaining a
conviction against him that led to his incarceration for almost nine years by
deliberately suppressing evidence that cast doubt on the critical identification
testimony of the victim.1 The short answer is that it does not, because the
criminal judgment against him was later vacated by the state court that entered it,
1
Because this is an appeal from a grant of summary judgment dismissing
Poventud’s civil complaint, the evidence must be construed in the light most favorable
to him drawing all reasonable inferences, and resolving all ambiguities in his favor.
Colavito v. N.Y. Organ Donor Network, 438 F.3d 214, 217 (2d Cir. 2006). In this case,
that is not simply a legal requirement; the findings of the state court on Poventud’s
post-conviction motion to vacate his conviction provide a strong reason to believe that
these allegations are in fact true. When all of the evidence is heard at a civil trial, of
course, a jury may or may not agree with Poventud’s view of the evidence.
1
because the court found that the police had indeed rendered his trial unfair by
suppressing exculpatory evidence. The defendants argue, however, that we
should nevertheless forbid Poventud from seeking damages for that wrongful
conviction and sentence, because Poventud later, after the full facts were known
to both sides, pled guilty to a related but lesser offense, and was sentenced to one
year of imprisonment.
I
The fundamental complicating fact about this case is that Marcos Poventud
has been the subject of two efforts to adjudicate the charges against him, with
conflicting results. First, he was tried and convicted of extremely serious crimes,
including attempted murder, stemming from the robbery of a cabdriver named
Younis Duopo, and sentenced to ten to twenty years of imprisonment.2 It is that
conviction that Poventud contends, and that the state court found, was
profoundly unfair.
The principal evidence against Poventud was the testimony of the victim.
It does no disrespect to Mr. Duopo to note that a single-witness identification of
2
Poventud was convicted on four counts: attempted murder in the second
degree, attempted robbery in the first degree, assault in the first degree, and criminal
possession of a weapon.
2
this sort is hardly unassailable proof of Poventud’s guilt. Well-known scientific
evidence gives us sound reasons to believe that eyewitnesses generally, and
violent-crime victims specifically, are not always reliable observers or reporters.
The trauma of a highly frightening and stressful event and subsequent life
experiences, including the confounding effects of potentially suggestive police
investigatory procedures, often distort the victim’s recollection.3 But it would
disrespect Mr. Duopo to use our knowledge regarding the fallibility of human
memory to disqualify his testimony and require the dismissal of all charges
against a person that he, the crime victim, has positively identified as his
assailant. Thus, although we cannot be certain that Mr. Duopo’s identification
was correct, the law permits him to testify and the defense to cross-examine him,
and allows jurors, acting as the conscience of the community, to decide whether
the information before them is sufficient to persuade them beyond a reasonable
doubt of the defendant’s guilt. It is the role of the jury, fairly apprised of the facts
then known, to weigh the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence before them,
3
See Young v. Conway, 698 F.3d 69, 88-89 (2d Cir. 2012) (collecting studies
regarding the unreliability of eyewitness testimony), cert. denied, 134 S. Ct. 20 (2013);
see generally State v. Henderson, 208 N.J. 208 (2011) (reviewing various social science
research, laboratory experiments, and scientific evidence demonstrating that “an array
of variables can affect and dilute memory and lead to misidentifications”).
3
bearing in mind the inherent limitations on the victim’s ability to observe,
remember, and report what he saw. The jury at Poventud’s first trial, after
hearing the victim’s account and Poventud’s alibi defense, was persuaded
beyond a reasonable doubt of his guilt.
The justice of relying on the jury’s conclusion, however, depends critically
on the assumption that the jury knew all of the relevant facts about the reliability
of Mr. Duopo’s identification. It turned out, however, that the jury had been
deceived – not by Mr. Duopo, but by the authorities who covered up important
evidence about how he came to identify Poventud.
When a codefendant also convicted of the robbery secured a new trial due
to a legal error, evidence fortuitously came to light that Poventud’s initial trial
had not been fair. The rules had not been followed, and the result was not
reliable. The breach was no mere technicality; it went directly to the truth-
seeking function of the trial. The entire point of the first trial was to determine
the reliability of Mr. Duopo’s testimony, by fairly putting before the jury the facts
that would reasonably bear on whether his identification was accurate. The state
court would eventually determine, however, that the police officers investigating
the case had deliberately hidden the fact that Mr. Duopo had earlier identified
4
someone else. Perhaps a jury that knew that fact would still have found Mr.
Duopo’s identification sufficiently accurate to return a guilty verdict, or perhaps
taken together with the fact, which they did know, that it was not until the fourth
time that the police had shown him Poventud’s picture that Mr. Duopo finally
identified Poventud, the additional information would have created a reasonable
doubt. Surely, however, any reasonable juror would find this evidence highly
relevant, and significantly damaging to the identification’s reliability. For that
reason, the Supreme Court has made crystal clear that such evidence must be
disclosed to the defense. See Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963).
Without question, covering up facts so damaging to the case against a
defendant violates the defendant’s legal rights. This is not just a matter of the
rules of the road. By failing to disclose evidence that would cast significant
doubt on the principal evidence of Poventud’s guilt, the police did something
tantamount to fabricating false evidence of guilt: they deceived the jury into
thinking that the evidence of guilt was stronger than it was. When this
misconduct came to light, the state court did what the law, justice, and common
decency required, and vacated Poventud’s conviction. At that point, the
presumption of innocence was restored. Poventud was no longer legally guilty
5
of the four offenses of conviction, and could no longer be punished. By that time,
however, Poventud had already served nearly nine years in prison as
punishment for crimes of which he was then again presumed innocent.
The stage was now set for a second trial of the original charges. Though
now presumed innocent, Poventud still faced the accusation that he was Mr.
Duopo’s assailant, and he could be tried again – fairly this time, with all the facts
known to the jury. And perhaps, though it might seem unlikely, a new jury,
exposed to all the facts, might still have convicted him. At that point, however,
another aspect of our system came into play, the institution of plea bargaining.
Neither the prosecution nor the defense can predict the future, and both were
uncertain as to the likely outcome of a fair trial. The prosecutors, no doubt in
good faith, believed that they had the right man, and that a trial should result in
another conviction. But the chances of acquittal were obviously high. Even
assuming that Mr. Duopo were alive and well and available to testify, and would
again identify Poventud as his assailant, nearly a decade had passed since the
crime; his memory would be less clear, and his ability to persuasively identify
anyone would be considerably less certain. Moreover, the jury assessing his
testimony would now know, as the first jury had been prevented from knowing,
6
that Mr. Duopo had first identified someone who everyone agreed was not
involved in the crime. With the prosecution’s case significantly weakened,
Poventud’s alibi might look much more persuasive to the jury.
Poventud, however, could be no more confident than the prosecutors of
the outcome of a new trial. Even assuming that he knew himself to be innocent,
he also knew that he had been convicted once before, and he had already spent
almost nine years in prison. Indeed, he remained a prisoner, because he lacked
funds to pay his bail. Moreover, the prosecutors could appeal the vacatur of his
conviction, and they successfully resisted his attempt to have his bail reduced so
that he could remain at liberty while facing a second trial.
In these circumstances, the prosecutors offered Poventud an alternative to
trial: if he pled guilty to a lesser offense, they would agree to a sentence of one
year in prison – time he had long since served. In effect, if he accepted the plea
bargain, he would be released from prison. Poventud thus faced a stark choice:
he could continue to fight, risking the possibility that his sentence of up to twenty
years in prison would be restored against the hope of a complete acquittal. Or,
he could accept the offer, plead guilty, and go free immediately. Poventud accepted
the offer: he pled guilty to attempted robbery in the third degree, was sentenced
7
to a fraction of the time he had already spent in prison, and walked out of the
courthouse a free man.4
To recapitulate the results of the two trials of Marcos Poventud: at the first
proceeding, corrupted by police misconduct, a jury that was ignorant of the truth
about the identification witness, convicted him of attempted murder and three
other crimes leading to nine years of imprisonment on a ten-to-twenty year
sentence; at the second, he was convicted on his plea of guilty to third-degree
attempted robbery and was sentenced to one year.
Now Poventud seeks damages from those who, in effect, fabricated
evidence of his guilt by suppressing evidence that would have shaken, perhaps
fatally, the identification testimony used to convict him. The defendants seek to
have his suit dismissed, based on the same rule that would have prevented him
from suing while his initial conviction stood unchallenged, arguing that a fairly
obtained conviction by guilty plea (albeit to a lesser offense with sharply limited
4
Poventud’s guilty plea is legally valid. A defendant who is fully aware of the
consequences of pleading guilty may enter a binding plea of guilty, notwithstanding
powerful inducements to do so. At one point, Poventud sought to argue that his guilty
plea was not lawfully taken, by moving to withdraw his guilty plea as the product of
unfair deception by prosecutors – he claimed that the authorities had falsely told him
that they would appeal the vacatur of his conviction, even though they had already
decided not to. He later withdrew that motion, so we must treat the plea as legally
binding.
8
consequences) prevents a suit seeking damages for the wrongful conduct that
resulted in his earlier, more serious, now-vacated conviction, with its resulting
drastically more serious punishments.
It seems to me, as it does to a majority of the judges of this Court, that the
legal answer is simple. As Judge Wesley’s opinion demonstrates, the Supreme
Court’s holding that a legally valid conviction prevents a suit “to recover
damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment” explicitly
applies only until that “conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal,
expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make
such determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of
habeas corpus.” Heck, 512 U.S. at 486-87 (emphasis added). Poventud seeks to
recover damages for his initial conviction and for that portion of his lengthy
imprisonment that was attributable to that conviction. That conviction exists no
longer; a state court declared it invalid, and we must accept the outcome of the
legal process that holds him not guilty of those offenses. Heck thus does not bar
his suit.
It seems to me that the answer is equally simple from the standpoint of
simple justice. The state court decided that Poventud was not fairly tried, and
9
that the police deliberately suppressed evidence helpful to the defense in order to
make the case against him appear stronger than it was. His conviction of four
crimes including attempted murder, and sentence to 10 to 20 years in prison is a
legal and moral nullity, the result of a trial deliberately corrupted by the police.
Whether or not prosecutors might have successfully appealed that judgment, or
obtained the same conviction again after a second, fair trial, they chose not to
take those risks; whether or not Poventud would have been acquitted at a second
trial, he too elected not to take his chances. Our best – however imperfect –
approximation of the result that would have come from a fair trial is the result of
the plea bargain: conviction on a single, much less serious count, and a sentence
to only a year in prison.
We must accept as binding the outcome of these criminal proceedings: that
Poventud, at an unfair trial, suffered a much more serious conviction and
punishment than he received from a fair proceeding, with all the facts known. By
the same token, however, Poventud must accept the other outcome of the legal
process: his conviction, by plea of guilty, of the offense of attempted robbery in
the third degree, and his sentence to one year of imprisonment. Irrespective of
the difficulty of his choice to plead guilty, Poventud is legally guilty of that
10
offense. He therefore may not argue that he was wrongly prosecuted or charged;
he cannot claim that he was unfairly convicted of a crime, or that he was wrongly
required to serve a year in prison. But he certainly may argue that his initial,
more serious conviction was wrong, and wrongful, and that as a result of
deliberately unfair and corrupted processes he was forced to serve many
additional years in prison.5
II
There is thus a certain common sense, rough justice to the idea that
Poventud can seek damages for the difference between the outcomes of his first
and second processes, the first conducted outside the rules and the second within
them. It is reasonable to ask, however, where is the truth in all of this. I think
any fair-minded person will agree that the trial that led to Poventud’s initial
conviction was deeply – and intentionally – corrupted, and that its result is
unreliable. But Poventud has now admitted, under oath (albeit under deeply
questionable circumstances) that he was indeed involved in the robbery. Are we
5
On these points, I believe that Judge Chin’s position is entirely consistent with
that of the Court. The difference between the majority’s position and Judge Chin’s is
not about what Poventud may or may not argue in his civil lawsuit, but only about
whether his complaint has sought to make arguments that go beyond what the Court
permits, and accordingly whether some portion of that complaint must be dismissed.
11
to award damages, in effect, for the fact that Poventud lost the opportunity to be
acquitted of a crime that he may very well have committed because the rules
were not followed?
I believe that we must. As a matter of law, in order to prevent the horror
of convicting an innocent person, we insist that someone charged with a crime
may only be convicted and punished if the state can prove his or her guilt by a
very demanding standard of proof, beyond a reasonable doubt. If a defendant
cannot be thus proven guilty – if the evidence, however suggestive of guilt it may
be, does not rise to a sufficient level of strength, that defendant must be declared
not legally guilty of the crime charged. And certainly, if a defendant is found
legally guilty by a jury that has been deprived of the full story by government
misconduct, that conviction is void.
But do we not now know that Poventud is guilty, as a matter of fact,
because of his plea? I submit that we know no such thing. Poventud is legally
guilty of the crimes he was convicted of by a putatively fair process. That guilt is
as much a matter of legal convention as is his legal innocence of the more serious
charges of which he has never been fairly convicted.
No one who was not there will ever know for certain whether Marcos
12
Poventud participated in the robbery of Younis Duopo on March 6, 1997. Our
ignorance on that score is not a function of any weaknesses of our criminal justice
system; rather, it is a function of the limited scope of human knowledge. Our
legal system searches for the truth, but humankind lacks the capacity to obtain
absolute knowledge of the truth about past events. Cognizant of our limitations,
we nevertheless must act on the basis of the best information we can glean. To
that end, we have devised a system of trials and proof, by which we attempt to
develop objective evidence in order to make the best judgments we can about the
facts. As much as we strive to improve that system, so long as we remain
human, our legal system will remain imperfect. Mistakes are inevitable. The best
we can do is to follow our procedures, as imperfect as we know they are, and
accept and act upon the results that they produce.
At the conclusion of Poventud’s first trial, on the then-valid assumption
that the jury had been able to make a full and fair judgment of the strength of the
evidence against him, society was justified in punishing Poventud. Some might
well argue that we could and should devise better procedures for testing
identification evidence, but we must act under the rules we have been able to
agree on at present, and under those rules, the evidence was strong enough for a
13
legal finding of guilt.
It does not follow from the jury’s verdict that, in the eye of an omniscient
God, Poventud was actually guilty. We know, to our sorrow, that there
remained some risk that Mr. Duopo was mistaken and that he identified the
wrong man. If the trial was fair, however, it was the duty of the court to impose
punishment. If at some later date, overpowering proof of his innocence were to
emerge, we would vacate his conviction, and a decent society would seek to
compensate him, in some necessarily inadequate way, for the tragic error. But if
the trial was fair, and the witnesses honest, no one would have done Poventud a
legal wrong. If everyone involved – the victim, the police, the prosecutor, the
judge and jury – acted honorably and justly, any resulting mistake would be
attributable simply to human imperfection. At the end of his first trial, then,
Poventud was legally guilty of four offenses and was justly punished, whether or
not in actual fact he had committed those crimes. So long as the result of his trial
stood unimpaired, Poventud’s four-count conviction and sentence of 10 to 20
years’ imprisonment was legally correct, and, as a matter of law, Poventud was
barred from suing anyone he believed did him wrong by acting dishonorably
within the process that led to his conviction.
14
Those legal consequences could not stand, however, once it became clear
that the trial was not fair, that the rules had not been followed, that some of the
authorities whose job was to collect and present the evidence fairly had not
behaved honorably, that even within the assumptions of our already fallible
system the result was not reliable. Just as the jury’s verdict, premised on what
we erroneously thought was a fair trial, made it legally true that Poventud was
guilty, whether or not he had actually committed the crimes, vacatur of the
unfairly obtained conviction restored Poventud’s legal presumption of innocence,
but did not mean that Poventud did not commit the crime. The newly discovered
evidence of police misconduct does not prove Poventud’s innocence; it only
makes it somewhat less likely that he is guilty. Perhaps the police manipulation
of the evidence led to an innocent man’s conviction, but perhaps it unfairly
strengthened the case against the real robber.
In principle, the stage was then set for a second, fairer trial, with all of the
evidence available now to be presented to a new, unbiased jury. But the ability of
such a second trial to find the “real” truth had surely been compromised. The
police misconduct had not only prevented a fair trial in the first place, but given
the lapse of time before that misconduct was discovered, it was no longer
15
possible to replicate those original conditions. Almost nine years later, Mr.
Duopo’s identification testimony would be undermined not only by the newly
discovered impeaching evidence, but by the sheer passage of time. To that extent
(through no fault of his own, of course), Poventud’s chances of acquittal were
unfairly improved. That is why the prosecutors were moved to offer their
compromise proposal, by which Poventud could obtain immediate freedom in
exchange for an admission of guilt to a lesser crime.
Critics of American criminal justice may decry the very existence of plea
bargaining. But we permit such arrangements, in large part on the theory that, if
both sides are reasonably aware of the risks and likely outcomes of a trial, and of
the strength of the case against the defendant, a compromise outcome may well
be both procedurally fair and substantively just. But whatever the general merits
and demerits of such a system, it too was corrupted by the initial wrong that
undermined Poventud’s first trial. Just as the prosecutor’s case was weakened by
the passage of time, so was Poventud’s ability to make a fair choice between
alternatives. The choice of freedom in exchange for an admission would be easy
for a guilty man, but even an innocent one would be hard pressed to decline the
prosecution’s offer. A hero might resist the bargain and insist that he would not
16
accept the ignominy of falsely admitting guilt. One is reminded of John Proctor,
falsely accused of witchcraft in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, who goes to
the gallows rather than accept an offer that would let him go free in exchange for
a false confession. It is difficult to expect such heroism of mere mortals. Proctor,
though based on a historical figure, is after all a fictional character, and even he
first signed the false confession before having a change of heart. Poventud did
what I suspect most ordinary human beings would do in his situation, even if
they were innocent.
Within the rules of our system, however, having pled guilty to a crime
connected to the robbery, Poventud is legally guilty of that crime. We, and he,
must accept the outcome of the new, putatively fair, proceeding. Assuming, as
we must, that Poventud’s guilty plea was legally taken, Poventud is now legally
guilty of attempted robbery in the third degree, and was fairly punished by one
year of imprisonment. But we still do not know with certainty, any better than
we knew before his first trial, whether Poventud actually robbed Mr. Duopo. A
confession in open court is ordinarily powerful evidence of guilt, but we know
that false confessions have been obtained by pressures much less imposing than
17
those to which Poventud was subjected.6
The legal process, as the dissenters correctly note, is a search for truth. The
rule that the police violated here is one that is designed to make it more likely
that the truth will be found. But the truth is elusive, and can never be known
with certainty. Our legal procedures, even at their best, can only produce a
provisional truth, a legally accepted truth, an approximation of the truth that is
good enough to act upon, though known to be imperfect. I understand, and
agree with the dissenters, that a defendant cannot disavow legal guilt for an
offense to which he has lawfully pled guilty, no matter how much he might
claim, and whether or not an impartial observer might believe, that his choice to
plead guilty was made under circumstances under which an innocent person
might well enter such a plea. Poventud, as I have noted and as the Court
concludes, must accept the consequences of that plea.
But the dissenters appear to insist that his guilty plea represents not just a
legal truth, but an existential one. According to the dissenters, Poventud’s plea
6
See, e.g., People v. Wise, 752 N.Y.S.2d 837, 850 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. N.Y. County 2002)
(vacating convictions of Central Park Five); see generally Steven A Drizin & Richard A.
Leo, The Problem of False Confessions in the Post-DNA World, 82 N.C. L. Rev. 891
(2004) (analyzing 125 cases in which “indisputably innocent individuals confessed to
crimes they did not commit”).
18
requires us to treat him not only as if he were guilty of the lesser offense of which
he is legally guilty, and justly subjected to the relatively short sentence that he
accepted, but also as if he had been fairly convicted of the far more serious
crimes, and fairly subjected to the drastically more stringent sentence, that
resulted when the authorities cheated and suppressed evidence that might have
led to his acquittal.7 That version of “the truth,” however, has no basis in law:
Poventud never pled guilty to those more serious offenses, and he was found
guilty of them only after a deliberately and tortiously flawed process. Poventud
seeks to sue the defendants because they distorted the search for the truth and
obtained a conviction that cannot fairly stand. As the dissenters correctly note,
the very purpose of the rules that the defendants violated is to “ensure that
[such] miscarriage[s] of justice do[] not occur.” See Dissenting Op. of Judge
Jacobs, post, at 14-15.
To hold that the legal system must stand by the results it fairly generates
7
Judges Jacobs and Livingston both would exalt Poventud’s plea allocution by
characterizing it as a “solemn admission.” Dissenting Op. of Judge Jacobs, post, at 6;
see also Dissenting Op. of Judge Livingston, post, at 7. But Poventud’s plea is no more
“solemn,” and no less self-serving than his sworn testimony at trial, which Judge
Livingston characterizes as perjurious. Id. at 2. In each case, Poventud was under oath;
in each case, he said what was in his interest to say at the time. With respect, it seems to
me that it is the dissenters who are “pick[ing] and choos[ing],” id. at 12, which of
Poventud’s statements they prefer to believe.
19
according to its rules is not to espouse a “sporting theory of justice.” Id. at 1. We
seek accurate results, reached by fair procedures. We do the best we can, and we
live with the results. The result of the legal process here is that Poventud is
legally guilty only of a lesser offense and worthy of a lesser punishment, and that
he suffered drastically more serious consequences as a result of deliberate
wrongdoing. It is no more a “sporting theory” to insist that society stand by the
part of the resulting criminal judgment that found Poventud not liable for that
portion of his punishment that was unfairly obtained than it is to deny him any
right to argue that he is innocent of the crime to which he pled guilty when
presented with an offer that perhaps only a hero could refuse. It seems to me
deeply inconsistent for the dissenters to insist (rightly in my and the Court’s
view) that Poventud is bound by the legal fact of his guilty plea, despite the very
real possibility that he might have been factually innocent notwithstanding the
plea, but then to refuse to accept the legal fact that Poventud was unfairly
subjected to greater punishment because of the equally real possibility that he
might have been factually guilty notwithstanding the prosecution’s inability to
convict him of the greater crimes for which he suffered that punishment.
To stand by the results that our system produces is simply to accept the
20
limitations of our knowledge, and the inevitable separation between a truth that
we cannot fully know, and the judgments reached by inevitably flawed human
processes. The dissenters would accept Poventud’s plea not merely as legal
truth, but as an absolute truth that frees the defendants from accountability for
having distorted the truth-seeking process to his detriment. The Court correctly
treats all aspects of the outcome as specific legal judgments with very particular
legal consequences, but nothing more. Poventud now seeks to argue to a jury
that he should be awarded damages for the difference between the consequences
that resulted from a legally conducted process and those he was forced to suffer
as a result of an unfair, distorted one, from the persons he claims are responsible
for the obstruction of the truth-seeking process. The Court correctly permits him
the opportunity to make that argument.
21
RAYMOND J. LOHIER, JR., Circuit Judge, concurring:
I agree with the majority opinion. Because the nature of Poventud’s claims
lies at the heart of our in banc dispute, I write separately to address how we
identify those claims and how the dissenting opinions misconstrue them.
The Second Amended Complaint (the “Complaint”) alone properly frames
our understanding of Poventud’s claims. We ignore the extraneous assertions in
Poventud’s summary judgment and other briefs in determining what claims he
asserted. Moreover, we construe the Complaint in the light most favorable to
Poventud, the non-moving party, and draw all inferences and resolve all
ambiguities in his favor. See Gould v. Winstar Commc’ns, Inc., 692 F.3d 148, 157-58
(2d Cir. 2012).
The dissenting opinions view the Complaint as littered with assertions of
Poventud’s actual innocence. As a result, they construe the Complaint as
ultimately alleging actual innocence as the basis for Poventud’s Brady claim, and
they conclude that the claim “’sounds in’ malicious prosecution.” Dissenting Op.
of Judge Jacobs, post, at 31. There are two problems with their reading. First,
even if the Complaint had contained a malicious prosecution claim, the dismissal
of that claim on summary judgment would not require the dismissal of
Poventud’s Brady claim, which in no way depends on a showing of actual
innocence. Second, reading the Complaint broadly to claim malicious
prosecution or actual innocence neglects our appellate obligation to read the
Complaint in a manner – here, narrowly – that favors rather than maligns
Poventud’s position.
Indeed, under any reading of the Complaint I have trouble uncovering a
claim of actual innocence. The allegations concerning Poventud’s Brady claim are
contained in paragraphs 115 to 125 of the Complaint and state that the officers
“lied about, and otherwise failed to disclose the Brady material.” See, e.g., Second
Am. Compl. ¶ 118. Paragraph 121 alleges that the officers’ “conduct operated to
deprive Plaintiff of his rights . . . to timely disclosure of all material evidence
favorable to the defense” “and to not be convicted or punished based upon the
government’s knowing use of false or misleading testimony.” Id. ¶ 121.
Nowhere in these paragraphs does Poventud allege that he was actually
innocent.
In urging a contrary view, my dissenting colleagues point to paragraph
128. That paragraph states that the undisclosed material “included, but was not
limited to, evidence of innocence, evidence that an identifying witness was
2
unreliable, and evidence impeaching the credibility of significant prosecution
witnesses.” Id. ¶ 128. I grant that one might be able to read paragraph 128 as
broadly as possible and conclude that it constitutes a claim of actual innocence.
But such a reading again neglects our duty to construe the Complaint in the light
most favorable to Poventud. Gould, 692 F.3d at 157-58. As a textual matter, the
phrase “there is evidence of innocence” is not synonymous with the claim “I am
innocent.” Rather, the more natural reading of Poventud’s reference to
“evidence of innocence” is simply that the withheld evidence was material for
Brady purposes – in other words, that it would have tended to lead to a verdict of
not guilty at trial.
Confined by the allegations in the Complaint and read fairly and
narrowly, as they should be, Poventud’s claims clearly concern “the misdeeds of
the police prior to his jury trial, and nothing more.” Maj. Op., ante, at 39. So
read, they neither sound in malicious prosecution nor proclaim Poventud’s
actual innocence.
To ensure that the relevant record is straight, I attach the Complaint in its
entirety as an appendix.
3
12-1011-CV
Poventud v. City of New York
DENNY CHIN, Circuit Judge
I respectfully concur in part and dissent in part. I believe the district
court correctly held that plaintiff-appellant Marcos Poventud's claims were based
on factual allegations that are inconsistent with his 2006 conviction for attempted
robbery. I agree, however, that the judgment should be vacated and the case
remanded for further proceedings to the extent that Poventud's claims do not
imply the invalidity of his 2006 conviction.
I
The question presented is whether Poventud's claims under Brady v.
Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87 (1963), are barred by the Supreme Court's decision in
Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486-87 (1994). Heck requires the district court to
consider:
[W]hether a judgment 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. But if
the district court determines that the plaintiff's action, even if
successful, will not demonstrate the invalidity of any outstanding
criminal judgment against the plaintiff, the action should be allowed
to proceed, in the absence of some other bar to the suit.
512 U.S. at 487 (footnotes omitted). The en banc majority concludes that Heck
does not bar Poventud's claims. I disagree, in part.
The Second Amended Complaint (the "Complaint") asserts only one
cause of action against the individual defendants, for denial of due process and a
fair trial. (Compl. ¶¶ 115-25) (Dkt. No. 52). That one cause of action, however, is
based on several factual claims, including Poventud's contentions that the police
failed to disclose that the victim (Younis Duopo) identified Poventud's brother
(Francisco) and thereafter covered up and lied about this evidence.
But there are other factual claims in the Complaint as well. The
Complaint alleges, at least implicitly, that one of the detectives planted
Francisco's wallet in the backseat of the livery cab. (Id. ¶¶ 13-17, 36-38). It
alleges that after Duopo incorrectly identified Francisco, the detectives targeted
Poventud and manipulated Duopo into falsely identifying Poventud. (Id. ¶¶ 22-
33, 45-46). It asserts that three other men, one of whom resembled the
description of the shooter provided by Duopo, were arrested approximately two
weeks later in the same general vicinity for robbing a livery cab with the same
weapon that had been used to shoot Duopo. (Id. ¶¶ 42-44). It alleges, at least
implicitly, that Poventud was not at the scene of the robbery because he was at a
neighbor's apartment playing video games when the crime occurred. (Id. ¶ 40).
-2-
All of these factual claims paint a picture of innocence, and thus they
necessarily imply the invalidity of Poventud's 2006 conviction. Indeed, the
Complaint characterizes the purportedly exculpatory evidence as "evidence of
innocence" (id. ¶ 128), and Poventud argued, in his opposition to defendants'
summary judgment motion below, that he "is innocent." (Pl.'s Mem. in Opp'n to
Mot. for Summ. J., at 1 (Dkt. No. 68) (emphasis in original); see also id. (plaintiff
"could continue to maintain his innocence . . . [o]r, he could admit a crime he had
not committed and be released -- immediately") (emphasis in original)).1
Poventud is not, however, innocent, as his 2006 conviction makes
clear. He pled guilty to attempted robbery in the third degree, and admitted to a
state court judge that he was present at the place and time of the robbery and
that he attempted to steal personal property from another person by using force,
i.e., a weapon. Hence, the wallet was not planted, Duopo correctly identified
Poventud, and Poventud was not at a neighbor's apartment playing video
games.
The district court, of course, decided the case that was before it, and
it recognized that Poventud's claims were centered on his claim of innocence. It
1
On appeal, while Poventud argues that his claims are not dependent on his
innocence (see Appellant En Banc Br., at 24 ("he does not, for the purpose of his claim,
assert, or need to establish, that he is innocent")), he has continued to argue that he is in
-3-
concluded -- correctly, in my view -- that Poventud's factual assertions called into
question the validity of his 2006 conviction. See Poventud v. City of New York, No.
07-civ-3998(DAB), 2012 WL 727802, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 6, 2012). Hence, I do not
believe that the district court erred, as the en banc majority suggests, in
measuring Poventud's admissions in his guilty plea against the factual assertions
of his Brady claim. (See Maj. Op., ante, at 28-29).
The en banc majority observes that "Brady does not require actual
innocence, and even "'[a] guilty man is entitled to a fair trial."'" (Maj. Op., ante, at
36 (quoting People v. Buchalter, 289 N.Y. 181, 225 (1942) (Lehman, Chief Judge,
concurring))). I do not disagree. Moreover, I agree that Poventud was entitled to
the disclosure of exculpatory evidence, regardless of whether he was guilty or
innocent. He was entitled to know that Duopo had identified Francisco, even
though Francisco was undeniably the wrong man. I have trouble, however, with
the notion that Poventud can ask a jury for damages now based on the argument
that he had the right to try to persuade the jury in 1998 that he was not present --
when he admitted in his guilty plea that he was present and participated in the
robbery. Indeed, I do not accept the proposition that Poventud should be able to
argue to a jury now that had he known about Duopo's misidentification of
fact innocent (see, e.g., id., at 5 ("Poventud had sworn his innocence for nine years.")).
-4-
Francisco in 1998, he would have been able to persuade the jury then that he was
not present at the robbery -- when he was in fact there.
Accordingly, I believe the district court correctly held that
Poventud's claims, to the extent discussed above, call into question the validity of
his 2006 conviction.
II
I agree with the majority that there are claims in the case that
Poventud may pursue that do not call into question the validity of his 2006
conviction. Where a conviction is set aside because of a Brady violation, a
subsequent guilty plea will not necessarily foreclose all claims for damages, for
there may be claims that do not impugn the integrity of the guilty plea.2 One
could imagine such a situation, for example, where police officers withheld
exculpatory information about the presence of a weapon at the scene in a
2
To establish a Brady violation, a claimant must show that "[t]he evidence at
issue [is] favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory, or because it is
impeaching; [the] evidence must have been suppressed by the State, either willfully or
inadvertently; and prejudice must have ensued." DiSimone v. Phillips, 461 F.3d 181, 192
(2d Cir. 2006) (quoting Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 281-82 (1999)). To establish
prejudice a plaintiff must show materiality. As the Supreme Court has explained, the
"touchstone of materiality is a 'reasonable probability' of a different result, and the
adjective is important. The question is not whether the defendant would more likely
than not have received a different verdict with the evidence, but whether in its absence
he received a fair trial, understood as a trial resulting in a verdict worthy of confidence."
Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 434 (1995).
-5-
burglary case. If the defendant is convicted of burglary in the second degree and
later discovers that the police failed to disclose exculpatory evidence about the
presence of the weapon, the defendant could still pursue a § 1983 claim based on
the Brady violation even if the conviction is vacated and he subsequently pleads
guilty to burglary in the third degree. Such a claim would not call into question
the validity of the guilty plea, as the defendant could argue that the weapon was
not his and that he was injured by the Brady violation as he was convicted of the
more serious offense of burglary in the second degree.
Although Poventud's 2006 conviction forecloses arguments as to his
innocence or his presence at the scene of the crime, he may still show that
defendants' alleged actions caused him harm, as he asserts a number of claims
that do not call into question the validity of his guilty plea. The Complaint
alleges, for example, that defendants "knew that Duopo's misidentification of
Francisco Poventud was highly relevant to the Bronx District Attorney's
evaluation of the strength of the evidence against [him]" and "to the court's
decision whether to grant reasonable bail." (Compl. ¶ 47; see also id. ¶ 53 ("the
court was misled concerning the strength of the case against Plaintiff and set
prohibitively high bail of $100,000, causing Plaintiff to be incarcerated until
trial")). Poventud may be able to prove that had the Brady evidence been
-6-
disclosed, his bail would have been set at a lower amount, he would have been
able to make bail, and he would not have been imprisoned for the full nine years
before pleading guilty to a lower level felony.
Furthermore, Poventud alleges that at least one of the defendants
(Umlauft) continued to lie to and mislead prosecutors by denying that any
undisclosed identification had occurred. (Id. ¶¶ 2, 117, 120). Poventud had a
"right not to be deprived of liberty as a result of the fabrication of evidence by a
government officer acting in an investigatory capacity." Zahrey v. Coffey, 221 F.3d
342, 344 (2d Cir. 2000). The Complaint contends that after Poventud filed his
motion to vacate his conviction based on the Brady violation, Umlauft lied to the
new prosecutor (Shockett), stating he had indeed disclosed the misidentification
to both the original prosecutor (Turkin) and defense attorneys at the time of trial.
(Compl. ¶¶ 103-06). Poventud also contends that Turkin informed Shockett that
Umlauft never disclosed the Brady material, but Shockett did not share Turkin's
account with the defense. (Appellant En Banc Br., at 18-19). Accordingly, the
State opposed Poventud's motion by submitting Umlauft's false affidavit and
relied on Umlauft's false testimony at an evidentiary hearing. (Compl. ¶¶ 107-
10). Moreover, Poventud argues that, based on Umlauft's continued lies, the
State filed a notice of appeal of the trial court's finding that a Brady violation
-7-
occurred at Poventud's first trial and successfully opposed Poventud's bail
motion. (Appellant En Banc Br., at 15-16). These are claims that Poventud could
at least arguably pursue without impugning the integrity of his guilty plea.
III
In sum, while I believe that the district court correctly held that
Poventud's 2006 conviction forecloses any claims asserting that he was innocent
or that he was not present at the scene of the crime, I agree that the Complaint
sets forth claims that Poventud may pursue without necessarily impugning the
validity of his guilty plea. These claims, in my view, are not foreclosed by Heck.
-8-
DENNIS JACOBS, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
In Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), the Supreme Court ruled that a
proper respect for finality and consistency of judgments bars actions under 42
U.S.C. § 1983 that require “impugning” an extant conviction.  Id. at 486 n.5.  In
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and its progeny, the prosecution’s
constitutional obligation to disclose information that is material to the defense
has been located in the truth‐seeking function of a trial, and not in any “sporting
theory of justice.”  Id. at 90.  The majority opinion undermines both the finality
premise of Heck and the truth‐seeking foundation of Brady.  It holds that Marcos
Poventud, who secured a new trial from the State of New York based on a police
officer’s failure to disclose information that might have impeached the victim’s
identification of Poventud as the armed robber of a livery cab, can sue for Brady
damages even though Poventud resolved the charges against him on remand by
entering a guilty plea (to a lesser offense) that made clear that the eyewitness
identification was sound, and that Poventud’s alibi defense at the first trial was
perjury.
I respectfully dissent from this decision and write to explain why the
majority’s reasoning impairs the future application of Heck and Brady in this
1
Circuit.
I
On the evening of March 6, 1997, between Oliver Place and Marion Avenue
in the Bronx, a livery cab driver, Younis Duopo, was held up at gunpoint and
shot in the neck.  Poventud and a co‐defendant were indicted for the armed
robbery and attempted murder.  At Poventud’s trial, the central issue was
identity: Poventud and some of his friends testified that on the date and at the
time of the robbery, he was with them elsewhere, playing video games; Duopo,
the victim, identified Poventud as his assailant, both pretrial from a photo array
and again at the trial itself.
Rejecting Poventud’s testimony and crediting the victim’s identification,
the jury convicted Poventud of attempted murder in the second degree,
attempted robbery in the first degree, assault in the first degree, and criminal
possession of a weapon in the first degree.  He was sentenced to serve an
indeterminate sentence of 10 to 20 years.  The conviction and sentence were
affirmed on appeal. See People v. Poventud, 300 A.D.2d 223, 224, 752 N.Y.S.2d
654 (1st Dep’t 2002).
In 2005, the New York Supreme Court, Bronx County, vacated the
2
conviction and ordered a retrial on the ground that the prosecution had failed to
disclose impeachment evidence in violation of Brady.  Immediately after the
hold‐up, police found photo identification of Poventud’s brother, Francisco, in a
wallet found in Duopo’s cab.  From a photo array, Duopo selected a photograph
of Francisco, which he initialed and dated.  When it was ascertained that
Francisco had been in prison at the time of the crime, Marcos Poventud became a
suspect.  The state court vacated on the ground that Brady was violated by the
State’s failure to disclose Duopo’s initial identification of Francisco as the
assailant.  See People v. Poventud, 10 Misc. 3d 337, 341, 802 N.Y.S.2d 605 (N.Y.
Sup. Ct. 2005).  A new trial was ordered.
The vacatur afforded Poventud the opportunity to test the reliability of the
identification before a jury on retrial, but he chose instead to resolve the
outstanding charges by pleading guilty to the lesser included offense of
attempted robbery in the third degree.  At the ensuing guilty plea proceeding,
Poventud admitted his armed presence at the scene and his participation in the
robbery:
COURT: In this case it’s charged that on or about March
6, 1997, at approximately 8:40 in the evening, in the area
of Oliver Place and Marion, M‐A‐R‐I‐O‐N, Avenue here
3
in the county of the Bronx, you did attempt to steal
personal property from another person by using force,
in that you used a weapon in your attempt to steal
personal property.  Are those charges true?
THE DEFENDANT: Yes.
This plea colloquy thus conclusively confirmed the jury’s key findings of fact:
that Duopo’s ultimate identification of Marcos Poventud was sound and that
Poventud’s trial testimony (and that of his friends) was false.
Poventud was re‐sentenced to one year in prison and, having already
served nine years, was released.1  Soon after his release, Poventud filed this
action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 seeking money damages for alleged violation of his
Brady right.  He then obtained a stay of that action and filed (but later withdrew)
a motion challenging the voluntariness of his plea.  On defendants’ motion for
summary judgment in the § 1983 action, Judge Batts ruled that Poventud’s claims
were barred by Heck, and dismissed the case.  See Poventud v. City of New York,
No. 07 Civ. 3998 (DAB), 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 30763, 2012 WL 727802 (S.D.N.Y.
Mar. 6, 2012).
1
Judge Lynch argues that the one‐year sentence of the plea‐bargain here is an
“approximation of the result that would have come from a fair trial,” Concurring Op. of
Judge Lynch, ante, at 10, as though a prosecutor would not take account of the time
already served in negotiating a plea following vacatur.
4
On Poventud’s appeal of Judge Batts’s ruling, the three‐judge panel of this
Court divided.  See Poventud v. City of New York, 715 F.3d 57 (2d Cir. 2013).
The majority held that the Heck bar is subject to a gaping, unprecedented
exception: namely, that any person convicted of a crime can bring a § 1983 action
necessarily implying the invalidity of that conviction if he cannot currently bring
a habeas petition‐‐including any person released from prison after the service of
his sentence.  The dissent rejected that theory and concluded that Poventud did
not benefit from any exception to Heck (if one even exists).
A majority of the active judges voted to decide in banc the scope of the
Heck bar and (if necessary) any exceptions to it.  The in banc majority again
reverses the district court’s dismissal.  In doing so, however, it abandons the
panel majority’s reasoning, relying instead on a point of law that received merely
passing reference in a footnote to the panel majority’s opinion.  See Poventud v.
City of New York, 715 F.3d 57, 61 n.2 (2d Cir. 2013) (expressing doubt that
5
success on § 1983 claim would impugn Poventud’s guilty plea, but declining to
reach the issue).
II
Poventud’s 2006 judgment was entered on his guilty plea, made in open
court and with the assistance of counsel, and has not been disturbed.2
Poventud’s solemn admission of guilt, which places him at the scene of the crime,
armed, with the intent to commit robbery, “quite validly removes the issue of
factual guilt from the case,” Menna v. New York, 423 U.S. 61, 62 n.2 (1975) (per
curiam) (emphasis in original), and is admissible against Poventud for all
purposes, Mitchell v. United States, 526 U.S. 314, 324 (1999).
The majority opinion does not dispute that, if the success of a § 1983 claim
would necessarily impugn a criminal conviction, the complaint must be
dismissed unless the plaintiff can “prove that the conviction . . . has been
reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a
2
Judge Lynch is radically skeptical about the plea, even though it is the only fact
that is authoritatively settled; but he treats as true (and deplores) (1) findings of the
state court that were discredited by the plea, and that in any event do not bind any
defendant here, see infra at 17‐18 & n.5, (2) allegations of the Complaint, which we treat
as true solely as a tool of analysis, and (3) sworn statements made by Poventud for the
purpose of litigation.  Judge Lynch subjects only the plea itself to metaphysical tests of
knowability.
6
state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a
federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.”  Heck, 512 U.S. at 486‐87; see
also Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 393 (2007)(noting that Heck bar applies where
§ 1983 claim would necessarily “impugn” an extant conviction).  None of those
things have happened here.
The in banc majority nevertheless holds (1) that Poventud may sue for
damages pursuant to § 1983 on the theory that Poventud’s Brady‐based § 1983
claim does not impugn the (extant) judgment entered on his guilty plea, and (2)
that the (vacated) judgment entered on his 1998 conviction was favorably
terminated within the meaning of Heck.  I will take these two determinations one
by one, to show that Poventud’s claim‐‐as pled and as rewritten by the
majority‐‐impugns the 2006 judgment, see infra Points III, IV, V, and that the
vacatur of the 1998 judgment was not a favorable termination because it
culminated in the guilty plea, see infra Point VI.
III
Because Poventud’s guilty plea is central to the two‐part showing I have
just summarized, I begin with an overarching point: Poventud’s complaint
unambiguously impugns the validity of his guilty plea by asserting actual
7
innocence.  The complaint does this, moreover, both as it is pled and as it is
presented on the motion for summary judgment.
The Second Amended Complaint (the “Complaint”) alleges that the
prosecution’s evidence that Poventud was present at the crime scene was
inherently unreliable, and even insufficient itself to sustain a conviction.  See
Second Am. Compl. ¶¶ 36‐41, 69‐74, 128.  The Complaint characterizes the
withheld evidence as “evidence of innocence.”  Id. ¶ 128.
Poventud’s sworn affidavit submitted in opposition to defendants’ motion
for summary judgment on Heck grounds declare his innocence in unequivocal
terms: “I did not commit the crime.  I am innocent.”  Aff. of Marcos Poventud, ¶
5 (July 19, 2011).  So too does his opposition briefing impugn his guilty plea
directly:  “Plaintiff knew that maintaining his innocence had resulted in spending
nine years in prison, and bowed to the pressure to ‘admit’ guilt because it would
result in his immediate release.”  Pl’s Resp. to Defs’ Rule 56.1 Statement and
Statement of Additional Facts, ¶ 269.  Finally, Poventud’s damages theory, as set
out in his summary judgment papers, is squarely premised on having served jail
time notwithstanding his innocence or, at best, on having served time in excess of
the one‐year sentence on his 2006 conviction.
8
Moreover, Poventud’s briefs to the three‐judge panel everywhere declare
his innocence and attack the reliability of his guilty plea.  So do his papers on
rehearing in banc: Poventud repeats the claim that his guilty plea was obtained
through coercion, and thus is entitled to no credence: “[Poventud’s] allocution to
the ‘facts’ consisted of answering ‘yes,’ unsworn, to the court’s summary of the
allegations against him.”  Appellant’s Br. 16‐17.
Throughout this entire litigation, then, Poventud has categorically insisted
that he is innocent of any participation in the Duopo robbery and that his 2006
plea was obtained through coercion.  The majority opinion, for reasons easy to
understand, undertakes to recast Poventud’s claim as seeking damages only for
the procedural impairment of his original trial, and posits that Poventud might
just prevail if he follows the majority’s lead and seeks damages on different
allegations of fact for a different loss and on a different theory.  But Poventud, a
savvy and counseled litigant, is the “master of the complaint,” and his
allegations, submissions, and underlying theories of liability and damages
should be taken at face value.  Holmes Grp., Inc. v. Vornado Air Circulation Sys.,
Inc., 535 U.S. 826, 831 (2002) (internal quotation marks omitted).  Now, after two
amendments to Poventud’s complaint, a summary judgment motion on Heck
9
grounds, a thorough district court opinion, a full appeal to a three‐judge panel
(complete with dissent), and consideration in banc after further briefing and oral
argument, it is not premature to decide this case on the consistently‐argued
allegations and theories of the plaintiff.
Poventud’s guilty plea‐‐placing him at Duopo’s shooting, armed, with the
intent to commit robbery‐‐simply “c[an]not be reconciled with the claims of his
civil action,” VanGilder v. Baker, 435 F.3d 689, 692 (7th Cir. 2006): Poventud
swears that he “was nowhere near the crime scene at Oliver Place and Marion
Avenue.”  Poventud Aff. ¶ 6.  Thus, Heck plainly bars this action unless
Poventud can invoke some Heck exception, a proposition we foreclose.3  See infra
3
As to Judge Chin’s opinion, we are in accord with his doctrinal analysis in Point
I, supra.  We respectfully differ with Judge Chin, however, as to the limited reversal he
proposes.  Judge Chin identifies the following surviving Brady “claims”: misleading the
district attorney when he gauged the strength of the case (pretrial and post‐vacatur);
and misleading the state court in the setting of bail.  See Concurring Op. of Judge Chin,
ante, at 6‐7.  However, Brady is a trial right, formulated to safeguard the fairness of trial
outcomes; it does not require disclosure of impeachment evidence during pretrial
events, however critical.  See United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 633 (2002) (holding that
the failure to disclose impeachment evidence prior to a guilty plea does not amount to a
Brady violation); Friedman v. Rehal, 618 F.3d 142, 154 (2d Cir. 2010) (considering that
Ruiz’s reasoning likely also extends to exculpatory evidence) (citing 6 LaFave, et al.,
Criminal Procedure § 24.3(b), at 369 (3d ed. 2007)).  By the same token, the Brady
disclosure obligation is not (as Judge Chin assumes) a defendant’s right at the
preliminary evaluation by a prosecutor or in a bail hearing.
In any event, the “claims” Judge Chin purports to uphold are not claims or
causes of action; they are theories of damages posited in aid of an impossible cause of
10
Point VII.
IV
But let us assume that Poventud is not the master of his Complaint, and
that he seeks § 1983 damages (as the majority would have it) only for the
procedural flaw in his 1998 trial.  The Heck bar still forestalls Poventud from
going forward.
In urging otherwise, the majority maintains that neither Poventud’s extant
2006 conviction nor his vacated 1998 conviction erects a Heck bar to his pursuit of
Brady damages.  Specifically, the majority concludes that a damages award for a
Brady violation in connection with Poventud’s 1998 conviction (after trial) would
not impugn the integrity of the conviction in 2006 (based on the guilty plea).
Further, the majority concludes that the vacatur of the 1998 conviction, even with
a remand for retrial, was sufficient to satisfy the favorable termination predicate
of Heck notwithstanding our holding in DiBlasio v. City of New York, 102 F.3d
654 (2d Cir. 1996), because Poventud’s Brady claim does not sound in malicious
action.  Whether a Brady violation occurred is a distinct inquiry from whether a
particular harm‐‐such as the denial of bail‐‐flowed from that violation.  And, as we
demonstrate below, the former, critical inquiry cannot be answered in Poventud’s case
without impugning his guilty plea.
11
prosecution and is, in any event, more focused on withheld evidence than on
actual innocence.
The majority’s analysis is premised on a fundamental distortion of Brady.
The goal of Brady is to advance the truth at trial and to promote a result
consistent with underlying guilt or innocence; the evil of a Brady violation is that
it saps confidence in the verdict and impairs the fairness of the trial in terms of its
substantive outcome.  “Our Court and others have long recognized that Brady
violations obscure a trial’s truth‐seeking function . . . .”  United States v. Mahaffy,
693 F.3d 113, 134 (2d Cir. 2012).  “The message of Brady and its progeny is that a
trial is not a mere ‘sporting event’; it is a quest for truth in which the prosecutor,
by virtue of his office, must seek truth even as he seeks victory.”  Monroe v.
Blackburn, 476 U.S. 1145, 1148 (1986) (Marshall, J., dissenting from denial of
certiorari).  Brady was formulated to advance the search for truth, not to provide
a guilty defendant with a sporting chance at acquittal; for that reason, the Brady
Court expressly refused to raise a “sporting theory of justice” to “the dignity of a
constitutional right.”  373 U.S. at 90.
Accordingly, there is no Brady deprivation absent a concern that the truth‐
finding function of the trial has been thwarted.  See infra Point V.A.  That is why
12
prosecutors have no constitutional obligation to disclose “any information that
might affect the jury’s verdict”; as the Supreme Court has emphasized, such a
“constitutional standard of materiality approaches the ‘sporting theory of justice’
which the Court expressly rejected in Brady.”  United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97,
108 (1976); see also Brady, 373 U.S. at 90.
The majority assumes that Brady is a rule of procedure detached from its
ultimate goal.  That leads the majority to allow § 1983 damages even though the
undisclosed evidence is (as we now know) not material to innocence or the
seriousness of the crime, and even though the evidence would have been helpful
only to strengthen Poventud’s perjurious alibi.  This error permeates the majority
opinion, turning all its meticulous analysis to error and subverting Brady itself.
This is a mistake, and a serious one.  The majority reconceives Brady as a
device for preserving the defendant’s odds of winning an acquittal by any means,
and by perjury in particular.  The majority’s faulty premise thereby corrupts
Brady, and diminishes it.
V
The “truth‐finding function” of Brady inheres in the elements of a Brady‐
based § 1983 action‐‐namely, materiality, causation, and damages.  But none of
13
these elements can be proven without impugning Poventud’s guilty plea, and
that tactic is blocked by Heck.  I take up each element in turn.
A
As to materiality: the constitutional right defined by Brady and its progeny
is the criminal defendant’s procedural due process right to the disclosure of
“evidence that is material to his guilt or punishment.”  Cone v. Bell, 556 U.S. 449,
469 (2009) (citing Brady, 373 U.S. at 87).  “[E]vidence is ‘material’ within the
meaning of Brady when there is a reasonable probability that, had the evidence
been disclosed, the result of the proceeding would have been different.”  Id. at
469‐70.  So, to establish a Brady violation at his civil trial, Poventud must show
not only that the impeachment evidence at issue is favorable to him and was
undisclosed, but that it is “material either to guilt or to punishment.”  Brady, 373
U.S. at 87.
This is always a retrospective determination, as nondisclosure is material
only when “the favorable evidence could reasonably be taken to put the whole
case in such a different light as to undermine confidence in the verdict.”  Kyles v.
Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 435 (1995).  Brady’s materiality standard thus implements
the underlying purpose of Brady itself: to “ensure that a miscarriage of justice
14
does not occur.”  See United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 675 (1985).  As the
Supreme Court has emphasized, “[t]he proper standard of [Brady] materiality
must reflect our overriding concern with the justice of the finding of guilt.”
Agurs, 427 U.S. at 112 (1976); see also United States v. Coppa, 267 F.3d 132, 139
(2d Cir. 2001) (holding that the “essential purpose” of Brady is to “ensur[e] the
reliability of [a] criminal verdict”).
Consistent with Brady’s focus on the reliability of criminal judgments, a
prosecutor’s failure to turn over exculpatory or impeachment evidence is a Brady
violation rising to the level of constitutional error only when this failure
“undermine[s] confidence in the outcome of the trial.”  Bagley, 473 U.S. at 682;
see also Kyles, 514 U.S. at 434 (citing Bagley, 473 U.S. at 678) (vacatur required
where verdict is not “worthy of confidence”).  The mere failure to disclose
favorable evidence is not enough, because such a rule “would impose an
impossible burden on the prosecutor and would undermine the interest in the
finality of judgments.”  Bagley, 473 U.S. at 675 n.7.  Moreover, if nondisclosure
alone were sufficient, independent of any concern about the reliability of the
ultimate outcome, Brady damages could be recovered even by a defendant who
was acquitted‐‐a proposition that several courts of appeals and district courts in
15
our Circuit have rejected.4
Accordingly, as the Supreme Court said in Strickler v. Greene, a Brady
claim is not made out by showing “any breach of the broad obligation to disclose
disculpatory evidence,” because “there is never a real ‘Brady violation’ unless the
nondisclosure was so serious that there is a reasonable probability that the
suppressed evidence would have produced a different verdict.”  527 U.S. 263, 281
(1999).  Thus, “[i]f there is no reasonable doubt about guilt whether or not the
additional evidence is considered,” the Supreme Court said in Agurs, “there is no
justification for a new trial.”  427 U.S. at 112‐13.
The state court vacated Poventud’s 1998 conviction on the ground that the
4
See Livers v. Schenck, 700 F.3d 340, 359 (8th Cir. 2012) (stating that “there was no
Brady violation because [the plaintiffs] were not convicted” where plaintiffs were
acquitted); accord Morgan v. Gertz, 166 F.3d 1307, 1310 (10th Cir. 1999); Cannistraci v.
Kirsopp, No. 1:10‐cv‐980, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 68399, 2012 WL 1801733 (N.D.N.Y. May
16, 2012); Ambrose v. City of New York, 623 F. Supp. 2d 454, 467‐71 (S.D.N.Y. 2009); see
also Flores v. Satz, 137 F.3d 1275, 1278 (11th Cir. 1998) (per curiam) (no Brady § 1983
claim following prosecution’s determination not to prosecute); McCune v. City of
Grand Rapids, 842 F.2d 903, 907 (6th Cir. 1988) (no Brady violation where charges were
dismissed before trial); Grenier v. Jonas, No. 1:09‐CV‐121, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20658,
2010 WL 883743 (D. Vt. Mar. 5, 2010) (same); cf. Mosley v. City of Chicago, 614 F.3d 391,
397 (7th Cir. 2010) (reviewing other circuits’ case law holding that “a trial that results in
an acquittal can never lead to a claim for a Brady violation because the trial produced a
fair result, even without the exculpatory evidence,” but not deciding the issue); Smith v.
Almada, 640 F.3d 931, 941‐42 (9th Cir. 2011) (Gwin, D.J., specially concurring).
16
State’s failure to disclose Duopo’s initial identification of Poventud’s brother,
Francisco, eroded confidence in the verdict.  On the record before the state court,
confidence was impaired because the nondisclosure had bearing on the accuracy
of the critical identification made by the victim, and (reciprocally) on Poventud’s
alibi defense.  In short, the withheld information was material from that court’s
perspective in time.
Poventud, however, will be unable to rely on the materiality finding of the
state court in this § 1983 suit.  There can be no estoppel because none of the
defendants (the police officers, the district attorney, and the City) were parties in
the criminal appeal, and no defendant here is in privity with any litigant in the
criminal appeal.  See Brown v. New York, 60 N.Y.2d 897, 898‐99, 458 N.E.2d 1250
(1983) (concluding that issue preclusion did not apply against the defendant
municipality in a civil action for false arrest and assault based on dismissal of a
criminal charge because the district attorney and the municipality do not “stand
in sufficient relationship to apply the doctrine”); see also Stancuna v. Sherman,
563 F. Supp. 2d 349, 353‐54 (D. Conn. 2008) (“Although the Second Circuit does
not appear to have expressly so held, a number of other circuits have held that
government employees in their individual capacities are not in privity with their
17
government employer.” (collecting cases)).5
Poventud, therefore, will be required to prove by a preponderance that the
nondisclosure was material, i.e., that it caused a result that is wrong or unworthy
of confidence.  But his own guilty plea forecloses that possibility.  It
establishes‐‐beyond doubt‐‐that the undisclosed impeachment evidence could
only have been used at Poventud’s trial to insinuate falsely that Younis Duopo, a
truthful witness offering an accurate identification of Poventud as his robber,
should not be believed.  In short, the plea establishes that the supposed Brady
evidence is wholly immaterial.
The plea gives the necessary assurance categorically, because the
nondisclosure that justified vacatur by the state court in 2005 no longer calls into
question the correct resolution of the only issue on which this nondisclosure had
bearing.  The victim’s identification of Poventud was sound.  The failure to
5
Stancuna interpreted the preclusive effect of an earlier federal judgment.
Although New York law determines the preclusive effect of a judgment entered in New
York, see Migra v. Warren City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75, 81 (1984), there is
“no significant difference between New York’s preclusion law and federal preclusion
law,” Pike v. Freeman, 266 F.3d 78, 90 n.14 (2d Cir. 2001); see also Marvel Characters,
Inc. v. Simon, 310 F.3d 280, 286 (2d Cir. 2002) (“The parties agree that there is no
discernible difference between federal and New York law concerning res judicata and
collateral estoppel.”).
18
provide Poventud with impeachment material with which to challenge that
identification, moreover, is shown to be immaterial by virtue of Poventud’s own
solemn admission.  Poventud cannot have it both ways: he cannot state that he is
guilty, that he was present on the day in question and participated in the crime,
but that he was nonetheless prejudiced at his trial by the nondisclosure of
evidence that could have helped him only by suggesting that the accurate
testimony of the victim should not be believed.  This conclusion flows from the
meaning and purpose of Brady.
The majority disregards Poventud’s guilty plea and seeks to focus only on
the vacatur of the 1998 judgment.   The Supreme Court, however, has counseled
against such a blinkered approach.  Thus, in Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364
(1993), a habeas petitioner alleged ineffective assistance because his counsel
failed to interpose an objection based on circuit precedent that was later
overruled.  Notably, the standard for ineffective assistance is the same
retrospective standard that is used to assess Brady materiality: namely, whether
there is a “reasonable probability” that but for the claimed error, the result would
have been different.  Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984).  Fretwell,
like Brady, rejects the sporting chance approach to the criminal trial and focuses
19
on the justice of the ultimate result.6  Fretwell concluded that the outcome of the
proceeding was correct despite counsel’s failure to object: the petitioner had not
been deprived of constitutionally effective assistance, only of “the chance to have
the state court make an error in his favor.”  506 U.S. at 371 (internal quotation
marks omitted).  The petitioner could not premise a constitutional claim, the
Court concluded, on “a windfall to which the law does not entitle him.”  Id. at
370.  The same retrospective look, under the same standard, yields the same
result for Poventud: he would receive an impermissible windfall if afforded
damages for the nondisclosure of impeachment material that he could only have
used to make accurate testimony appear unreliable.
B
As to causation: Poventud must also satisfy the elements of the § 1983
action derived from the common law of torts‐‐specifically, causation.  See Smith
v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 34 (1983).  “The Supreme Court has made it crystal clear
that principles of causation borrowed from tort law are relevant to civil rights
6
The majority’s discussion of Fretwell, tactically consigned to its footnote 16,
rejects my characterization of the majority’s approach as advancing a “sporting chance”
theory.  See Maj. Op., ante, at 29‐30 n.16.  However, the footnote forthrightly lays out
the majority’s approach in a way that adopts and implements the sporting chance
theory and demonstrates how it will operate on remand in this case.  See id.
20
actions brought under section 1983.”  Warner v. Orange Cnty. Dep’t of Prob., 115
F.3d 1068, 1071 (2d Cir. 1996) (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted).
Poventud’s claim therefore cannot be salvaged by recasting it (as the majority
does) as one potentially seeking nominal damages for no more than a violation of
procedural due process.  To recover money damages of even one dollar,
Poventud must prove that the undisclosed material was both the factual and the
proximate cause of the harm he has identified: wrongful imprisonment.  And
causation must be shown even on the majority’s theory that the harm Poventud
suffered was the mere inconvenience of standing trial.  Poventud cannot sustain
this burden without challenging his guilty plea and the resulting 2006 conviction,
which is barred by Heck.
First, Poventud must show that the constitutional violation that he alleges
was an actual cause of his injury.  In the Brady context, the causation inquiry
“essentially replicates the materiality inquiry with a heightened burden of
proof”: that is, “[h]aving already shown a reasonable probability that he would
not have been convicted but for the withholding of evidence, a plaintiff must
then make the same showing by a preponderance of the evidence.”  Drumgold v.
Callahan, 707 F.3d 28, 49 (1st Cir. 2013).  Poventud, who cannot establish
21
materiality without impugning his guilty plea, is likewise blocked from proving
factual causation.
Second, to prevail on his Brady claim, Poventud must prove that the failure
to give him impeachment material was a proximate cause of his harm, whether
the harm claimed is prison, separation from family and friends, the
inconvenience of sitting through his trial, or some sort of risk premium for the
increased chance of conviction or a longer sentence.  “[I]n all § 1983 cases, the
plaintiff must prove that the defendant’s action was a proximate cause of the
plaintiff’s injury.”  Gierlinger v. Gleason, 160 F.3d 858, 872 (2d Cir. 1998).
Although proximate cause is generally a question to be determined by the
trier of fact, “where the actual cause of the injury is undisputed, . . . proximate
cause . . . is a question of law for the court.”  Caraballo v. United States, 830 F.2d
19, 22 (2d Cir. 1987) (citations omitted).  The proximate cause inquiry focuses on
“whether a cause is a substantial factor in bringing about the harm, or whether
the cause is too remotely or insignificantly related to the harm to be a legal basis
for liability.”  Henrietta D. v. Bloomberg, 331 F.3d 261, 278‐79 (2d Cir. 2003)
(citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
This proximate cause determination has a moral dimension because
22
proximate cause recognizes only those causal factors that society is prepared to
hold legally responsible for a given consequence.  See Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply
Corp., 547 U.S. 451, 467 (2006) (“That is, to recover, a plaintiff must show . . . that
his injury is sufficiently connected to the tort that ‘the moral judgment and
practical sense of mankind [will] recognize responsibility in the domain of morals
. . . .’”) (quoting Sutherland, Law of Damages 18 (1882)); Dobbs et al., The Law of
Torts § 185, at 622 (2d ed. 2011) (“[P]roximate cause is not about causation at all
but about the significance of the defendant’s conduct or the appropriate scope of
liability in light of moral and policy judgments about the very particular facts of
the case.”).
Poventud cannot establish proximate cause in a § 1983 trial without
impugning his guilty plea.  That is because he must show that the State’s failure
to provide him with impeachment evidence was a substantial factor in causing
him injury, and a factor that renders damages appropriate as a matter of law.  But
as already established at some length, the undisclosed evidence here could only
have been useful to Poventud in one very particular way: to support an inference
that Poventud was elsewhere at the time of the crime.  Poventud has now
solemnly admitted that this inference is wholly false.  Moreover, Poventud’s
23
theory of proximate causation ignores the obvious point that his alleged injury
was caused by his own participation in the crime.  To find proximate cause on
such facts would read moral judgment out of the proximate cause determination
just as a finding of materiality would embrace the “sporting chance” approach to
the criminal trial.  Brady, 373 U.S. at 90 (refusing to accord a trial strategy of this
sort “the dignity of a constitutional right”).  Accordingly, Poventud cannot prove
proximate cause without impugning his guilty plea and inviting the court to
disbelieve it.
C
As to damages: the majority opinion appears to be the first to hold that
money damages may be awarded for an alleged Brady violation occurring at the
trial of a criminal defendant who thereafter pleads guilty (or is convicted at
retrial) of the same underlying crime (or any lesser included offense).7  Our Court
7
One case approaches such a result.  In Olsen v. Correiro, 189 F.3d 52 (1st Cir.
1999), the plaintiff’s murder conviction was overturned due to the suppression of
evidence at his first trial, and he subsequently entered a plea of nolo contendere to
manslaughter.  Id. at 55.  The First Circuit rejected his request for incarceration‐based
damages, holding that this request was barred either because it went beyond “the limits
of § 1983 actions” or because it was prohibited by the doctrine of proximate cause.  Id.
at 67‐68.  The Court nevertheless permitted‐‐without much reasoning‐‐the recovery of
$6,000, which appears to be composed of an attorney’s fee and a small punitive
damages award.
24
has twice considered whether § 1983 damages are available in analogous cases.
We affirmed the dismissal of two § 1983 complaints claiming such damages:
when a vacated conviction was compromised by a subsisting guilty plea, and
when an initial charge was resolved by a plea to a lesser included offense.  In
both cases, we deemed that result sufficiently evident that we decided the issue
by summary order.  See McNeill v. People of City & State of N.Y., No. 06‐CV‐
4843, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77085, 2006 WL 3050867, (E.D.N.Y. Oct. 24, 2006),
summarily aff’d, 242 F. App’x 777, 778‐79 (2d Cir. 2007) (“Although Appellant’s
state court conviction was vacated, his subsequent guilty plea stands as a bar,
under Heck, to a § 1983 action.”); Papeskov v. Brown, No. 97 Civ. 5351, 1998 WL
299892, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. June 8, 1998) (Sotomayor, J.) (“[A] plea of guilty, even to a
charge lesser than that for which the plaintiff was arrested, bars a § 1983
action.”), summarily aff’d, 173 F.3d 845 (2d Cir. 1999).
The only district judge in this Circuit to deal with identical facts viewed it
as elementary that Heck would bar the entirety of the plaintiff’s Brady‐based §
1983 claim, however framed:  “Even if plaintiff seeks damages solely for any
‘extra’ time served, it nevertheless imputes an illegitimacy to her plea and
sentence.  We do not see any basis for, or find any authority supporting, the
25
separation of these two periods of imprisonment for purposes of a § 1983 action.”
Stein v. Cnty. of Westchester, 410 F. Supp. 2d 175, 179 (S.D.N.Y. 2006) (Conner,
J.).  No authority for the majority’s position has materialized since Judge Conner
decided Stein.
To claim damages based on imprisonment is inherently difficult given
Poventud’s guilty plea to holding up Mr. Duopo.  As a backup theory, the
majority opinion recognizes as valid Brady claims that “did not result in concrete
injury.”  Maj. Op., ante, at 32.  But Brady is not a pure process claim.  If it were,
criminal defendants could claim damages based on a monetization of the
increased probability of conviction they faced by reason of the suppression of the
evidence, regardless of whether the prosecution ended in acquittal or conviction.
This, of course, would defy Heck, which was itself a Brady claim, as well as
Amaker v. Weiner, 179 F.3d 48, 51 (2d Cir. 1999), which the majority purports to
follow.  More importantly, this approach is incompatible with the purpose of
Brady, which is to ensure confidence in the outcome of criminal proceedings in
terms of guilt or innocence.  Brady’s materiality standard requires a showing of
prejudice that inherently looks to whether the defendant was, in fact, concretely
26
injured.8
VI
Heck bars Poventud’s claim for the additional reason that there has been
no favorable outcome of the 1998 conviction within the meaning of that
precedent.
The 1998 judgment was neither reversed nor “expunged.”  Maj. Op., ante,
at 34.  Reversal would mandate entry of an opposite judgment that dismisses the
indictment, and an expungement would obliterate, wipe out and annihilate the
conviction, whereas, in fact, Poventud’s 1998 conviction was “vacated” in
contemplation of a retrial.  That was a contingent rather than a final outcome.
Vacatur is not necessarily an “outcome” if an outcome is how a proceeding
comes out at the end.
As the majority concedes, vacatur of Poventud’s 1998 conviction with
remand for retrial is not a final favorable termination as that term was
8
Thus, we disagree that the majority can successfully salvage Poventud’s
Complaint by recasting it as one for nominal damages.  See Maj. Op., ante, at 31‐32.
Poventud’s Brady “injury” could only be the frustration of his ability to bolster
perjurious testimony, and thereby defeat the trial’s truth‐seeking function‐‐i.e., the
“sporting chance” that is not afforded by Brady and its progeny.  The line of cases cited
in footnote 4, supra, supports this conclusion that nominal damages are not available
for Brady violations (at least in this case).  See supra at 16 n.4.
27
understood at common law, because at common law a final favorable
termination meant “that the proceeding cannot be brought again,” and no final
favorable termination is obtained when a prosecution is “abandoned pursuant to
a compromise with the accused.”  Maj. Op., ante, at 20; see also id. at 33.
Moreover, the vacatur of the 1998 judgment cannot be deemed a favorable
outcome under Heck without uncoupling the vacataur from the guilty plea to
which it led.  It would follow from that analysis‐‐as Poventud conceded at oral
argument and as the majority concedes‐‐that a vacatur is a favorable outcome for
Heck purposes even if it is followed by a plea to the very same offenses as the
vacated conviction (rather than to a lesser included offense), and even if it is
followed by conviction on the very same offenses after a retrial.  That is
counterintuitive.  Mere vacatur can develop into a favorable outcome if the
prosecution is abandoned and the charges against the defendant are dismissed.
However, vacatur does not yield a favorable outcome when, as here, original
charges are compromised pursuant to a plea agreement that results in a
conviction for a lesser included crime.  In DiBlasio, this Court expressly held that
a conviction for a lesser included offense after vacatur does not constitute a
favorable termination for purposes of Heck.  I think most criminal defendants
would agree that a vacatur leading only to retrial or a plea is, generally speaking,
28
an outcome that can be considered a complete victory only for defense counsel.
The majority recites that it complies with the favorable termination rule of
DiBlasio, but then tries to narrow the rule to the particular constitutional claim
there at issue: malicious prosecution.  This narrowing fails because Heck, itself
premised on Brady error, drew an analogy to malicious prosecution
requirements‐‐an analogy that, as the majority recognizes, was not coincidental
but “continues throughout Heck.”  Maj. Op., ante, at 19.  Heck explains that,
under common law, “a cause of action for malicious prosecution does not accrue
until the criminal proceedings have terminated in the plaintiff’s favor,” and
concluded that “so also a § 1983 cause of action for damages attributable to an
unconstitutional conviction or sentence does not accrue until the conviction or
sentence has been invalidated.”  512 U.S. at 489‐90.  Those terms‐‐“terminated in
plaintiff’s favor” and “invalidated”‐‐are synonymous, rather than distinct.  See
DiBlasio, 102 F.3d at 659 (“If interpreted literally, this sentence would seem to
mean that any time a conviction is overturned by a writ of habeas corpus there
has been a final determination in favor of the accused.  We are not convinced that
this is what the [Heck] Court intended.”); cf. Heck, 512 U.S. at 493 (Souter, J.,
concurring) (noting that the Heck majority “transplanted” the common law
29
favorable termination requirement to § 1983 claims that impugn an extant
conviction).
To explain away incompatible precedents, a footnote in the majority
opinion suggests a division of Brady claims between (1) those involving withheld
exculpatory evidence that could have proved innocence and thus “do suggest a
malicious prosecution claim[,]” and (2) those that, like Poventud’s, are “less
concerned with . . . innocence and [that] instead focus[] on ‘evidence that an
identifying witness was unreliable, and evidence impeaching the credibility of
significant prosecution witnesses.’”  Maj. Op., ante, at 35 n.20 (quoting Second
Am. Compl. ¶ 128).  According to the majority, the first subset requires a final
favorable termination as understood by the common law and this Court in
DiBlasio, and the second does not.  Id.
The distinction that the majority draws does not favor its result.  The
majority thinks that the Complaint does not suggest malicious prosecution; but
the Complaint describes a nefarious “police cover‐up” leading to a “wrongful
attempted murder and robbery conviction.”  Second Am. Compl. ¶ 1.  Thus it is
alleged that the police targeted Poventud with no evidence of his guilt (much less
probable cause), id. ¶¶ 14‐17, 24, 35‐46, purposely failed to investigate leads that
would have exonerated him, and withheld evidence that would have impeached
30
the victim’s identification.9
The majority thinks that the Complaint is “less concerned with innocence”
and more concerned with witness impeachment.  But the Complaint flatly alleges
that the suppressed identification is “evidence of innocence.”  Second Am.
Compl. ¶ 128.  And it is alleged to be “evidence of innocence” because, “[a]t the
time of the crime, [Poventud] did not physically resemble his brother, nor did
[he] resemble [his brother] as he was depicted in the old photograph identified
by Duopo.”  Id. ¶ 25.  Thus, although the evidence that was withheld would have
been useful to impeach Duopo’s credibility, it is, at bottom, evidence that
Poventud was not Duopo’s assailant.  These allegations, which run throughout
the Complaint, certainly “sound in” malicious prosecution, though the claim is
ultimately brought under Brady.10
9
For example, the police “did not investigate [Poventud’s] alibi, but simply
proceeded with processing [his] arrest.”  Second Am. Compl. ¶ 41.  And when the gun
used to shoot Duopo was linked to a later shooting, “[r]ather than take the risk that
Duopo would identify Martinez [the suspect in the later shooting] and undercut their
case against [Poventud], police did not show Martinez to Duopo in a photo array or a
lineup.”  Id.
10
The majority fails to suggest how district courts are to parse a complaint
allegation‐by‐allegation to determine which Brady‐based § 1983 claims are Heck‐barred
because they “sound in” malicious prosecution.  This doctrine is high‐maintenance as
well as novel, unnecessary, and erroneous.
31
The majority’s distinction between Brady‐exculpatory claims and Brady‐
impeachment claims is, in any event, novel and unworkable.  It implies that a
defendant may bear a heavier Heck burden in pursuing a Brady claim if the
withheld evidence is actually exculpatory than if it is merely impeaching.  Even a
mediocre lawyer can blend one of these leaky categories into the other.
Moreover, what can justify this curious distinction other than the “sporting
chance” view of Brady that has been expressly rejected by the Supreme Court?
The proper distinction to be drawn from Heck and its progeny is not
between malicious prosecution and Brady claims, much less between Brady‐
exculpatory and Brady‐impeachment claims.  Rather, it is between (1)
constitutional claims that impugn a conviction (whether because the plaintiff
claims he is innocent or because he claims the trial’s substantive outcome cannot
be trusted) and (2) constitutional claims that do not (of which excessive force
claims are the most obvious example).  When dealing with the former, as we do
here, we should faithfully apply our favorable termination precedent, which
avoids the pitfalls, inconsistences, and surprises of the majority’s approach.11
11
Judge Lynch’s concurrence does little else but impugn the 2006 judgment.
(Judge Calabresi and Judge Sack laid siege to it in the majority opinion of the three‐
judge panel, so that makes three judges to have done so.)  To impugn the plea, Judge
Lynch attacks the plea‐bargaining process (as though pleas are not always the product
32
Precedent compels us to conclude that the Heck bar blocks Poventud’s
claim.  Poventud’s criminal proceeding did not terminate until he pled guilty to a
lesser included offense.  DiBlasio, 102 F.3d at 658.  Therefore, Poventud’s Brady‐
based § 1983 claim “does indeed call into question the validity of his conviction.”
Amaker, 179 F.3d at 51.
VII
Because we conclude that Poventud’s claim necessarily implies the
invalidity of his extant conviction, we reach the issues that launched this
rehearing in banc: whether the Heck bar applies only to persons in custody, as
the majority of the three‐judge panel held; whether there are any exceptions to
the Heck bar; and whether any exceptions that may exist would save Poventud’s
claim.  We reject the holding of the majority opinion issued by the three‐judge
panel, an opinion which has in any event been vacated.  Assuming arguendo that
there are some exceptions to Heck, we conclude that Poventud’s action could not
come within them.
of pressure), observes the imperfect reliability of eyewitnesses, puts in doubt the ability
to know anything about human conduct, see Concurring Op. of Judge Lynch, ante, at 3,
17, and concedes the “legal[] valid[ity]” of the plea only in grudging and perfunctory
terms‐‐chiefly in a footnote, id. at 8 n.4.
33
On the basis of self‐described dicta signed by five Supreme Court Justices
(three of whom are no longer on the Court), a Circuit split has opened as to
whether some exceptions to Heck may be permitted.  In a nutshell, these Justices
posited that “a former prisoner, no longer ‘in custody,’ may bring a § 1983 action
establishing the unconstitutionality of a conviction or confinement without being
bound to satisfy a favorable‐termination requirement that it would be impossible
as a matter of law for him to satisfy.”  Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 21 (1998)
(Souter, J., concurring) (emphasis added).
Several Circuits have concluded that the Spencer concurrences cannot
override Heck’s binding precedent.  See, e.g., Entzi v. Redmann, 485 F.3d 998,
1003 (8th Cir. 2007); Gilles v. Davis, 427 F.3d 197, 209‐10 (3d Cir. 2005); Randell v.
Johnson, 227 F.3d 300, 301 (5th Cir. 2000) (per curiam); Figueroa v. Rivera, 147
F.3d 77, 80 (1st Cir. 1998).  These courts hold that Heck’s bar is absolute, heeding
the Supreme Court’s admonition that, even if binding precedent “appears to rest
on reasons rejected in some other line of decisions, the Court of Appeals should
follow the case which directly controls, leaving to [the Supreme] Court the
prerogative of overruling its own decisions.”  Agostini v. Felton, 521 U.S. 203, 237
(1997) (internal quotation marks omitted).
34
Other Circuits have nevertheless held that Spencer’s dicta allows courts to
recognize unusual and compelling circumstances in which Heck’s holding does
not absolutely foreclose a claim.  See, e.g., Burd v. Sessler, 702 F.3d 429, 435‐36
(7th Cir. 2012); Cohen v. Longshore, 621 F.3d 1311, 1317 (10th Cir. 2010); Wilson
v. Johnson, 535 F.3d 262, 267‐68 (4th Cir. 2008); Powers v. Hamilton Cnty. Pub.
Defender Comm’n, 501 F.3d 592, 603 (6th Cir. 2007); Guerrero v. Gates, 442 F.3d
697, 704 (9th Cir. 2006); Harden v. Pataki, 320 F.3d 1289, 1298 (11th Cir. 2003).
There is no need to choose a side in this split because the narrow exception
articulated by Justice Souter would be inapplicable here in any event.  The
motivating concern in the Spencer dicta was that circumstances beyond the
control of a criminal defendant might deprive him of the opportunity to
challenge a federal constitutional violation in federal court.  Poventud is not such
a person.
Poventud challenged his first conviction in state court and won‐‐making it
unnecessary for him to seek federal habeas relief.  At that point, Poventud had
the option of defending in an untainted trial or of pleading guilty to the same
crime on reduced charges and accepting a reduced sentence.  He chose to plead.
Poventud then had the option of filing a motion to challenge the voluntariness of
35
his plea‐‐and Poventud did so, but he withdrew it prior to an evidentiary
hearing.  It was therefore by no means “impossible as a matter of law,” Spencer,
523 U.S. at 21 (Souter, J., concurring), for Poventud to challenge his conviction
and thereby satisfy Heck’s favorable termination requirement; he simply decided
not to.
On this one point, the full in banc court seems to be unanimous.  The
majority disclaims any occasion to “reach the broader issue on which the panel
rested its decision[,]” Maj. Op., ante, at 33 n.19, which is that the Heck bar does
not survive the release of the plaintiff from custody, see Poventud, 715 F.3d at 60.
The majority opinion nevertheless acknowledges that, if Poventud’s Brady claim
were cast in terms of malicious prosecution, it would be barred by DiBlasio,
which is of course a Heck‐bar case.  That could not happen if (as the majority of
the three‐judge panel held in this case) the Heck bar operates only so long as a §
1983 plaintiff is in jail, and is removed when he is at liberty (as Poventud is and
has been).  In acknowledging that their analysis “circumscribe[s] Poventud’s
Brady‐based § 1983 claim” in several ways, the majority acknowledges the bar to
a civil claim challenging the subsisting 2006 judgment.  Thus, notwithstanding
that Poventud is as free as any of us, the majority’s footnote 20 reflects the
36
holding that certain of his claims could well be “barred” by Heck.12  Maj. Op.,
ante, at 35 n.20.  Similarly, the majority’s footnote 22 is at pains to deny that a §
1983 judgment in favor of Poventud would impugn his 2006 conviction, see id. at
37 n.21‐‐a consideration that would be obviated but for the bar of Heck.  The
majority may say and claim passim that it does not decide whether release from
custody removes the Heck bar, see also id. at 6 n.1; id. at 12 n.7, but the text and
mandate of the majority opinion suggest otherwise.  It is useless to deny gravity
while falling.
The majority opinion thus necessarily rejects the idea that, once a criminal
defendant is at liberty, Heck no longer bars § 1983 claims challenging subsisting
judgments‐‐the Heck analysis that we went in banc to reconsider.
VIII
The majority erodes Heck and corrupts Brady by adopting a deeply
flawed notion of due process‐‐due process as a “sporting chance.”  This holding
will have consequences, none of them salutary.
The moral force of a guilty plea will no longer “quite validly remove[] the
12
Insofar as the majority endeavors to limit Heck’s bar to malicious prosecution
claims, I rely on this opinion’s discussion as to why that effort fails as a matter of
doctrine and as it relates to Poventud’s claims specifically.  See supra at 29‐33.
37
issue of factual guilt from the case,” Menna, 423 U.S. at 62 n.2 (emphasis
omitted), but will be merely an admission to be evaded in § 1983 lawsuits
impugning the results of extant state criminal proceedings.  Individuals who
have been fairly convicted of serious crimes will seek and receive damages for
being deprived of a better opportunity for perjury, while people who are actually
innocent and exonerated based on new evidence have no cause of action for
damages‐‐not to mention the victims of crime such as Mr. Duopo, shot in the
neck while on the job.  This case illustrates why the sporting chance theory of
criminal justice that was rejected by the Brady Court is beneath the dignity of a
constitutional right.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, I would affirm the decision of the district court.
38
DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON, Circuit Judge, dissenting:
Until today, Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and its progeny represented
a safeguard against the miscarriage of justice.  In this Circuit – at least until such
time as today’s error is corrected – Brady now includes, with our imprimatur, the
right  to  recompense  for  a  denial  of  the  opportunity  to  commit  perjury  more
successfully.
I concur fully in Judge Jacobs’s powerful dissent, which explains how the
majority effectively (but unjustifiably) inters Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994),
as it relates to convictions obtained after an earlier verdict is set aside for Brady error.
I write separately to make the point that Poventud’s claim, apart from undermining
the  basic  premises  of  Heck  v.  Humphrey,  also  simultaneously  distorts  Brady  v.
Maryland and its progeny beyond recognition.  Disregarding the Supreme Court’s
recognition that Brady claims “have ranked within the traditional core of habeas
corpus and outside the province of § 1983,” Skinner v. Switzer, 131 S. Ct. 1289, 1300
(2011), the majority ignores the single fact that Poventud’s guilty plea necessarily
defeats his Brady claim on the merits by rendering implausible any contention that
the undisclosed impeachment evidence is material.  The undisclosed evidence (as
Poventud’s  guilty  plea  now  establishes)  could  only  have  been  used  at  trial  to
1
support  a  perjurious  defense.    Today’s  startling  conclusion  –  that  in  such
circumstances, a defendant can nevertheless state a claim for recompense arising
from Brady v. Maryland – spells serious trouble for future applications of Brady in this
Circuit.
* * *
The  relevant  facts  are  simple,  albeit  elided  in  the  majority’s  presentation.
First,  Poventud’s  2006  guilty  plea  admits  Poventud’s  presence  and  armed
participation in a crime that left Younis Duopo deprived of his money and shot in
the neck.  Second, this plea, as the majority acknowledges, is wholly and diametrically
“at odds with [the] alibi” Poventud presented at his 1998 trial, Maj. Op., ante, at 29
– a trial in which Poventud took the stand and introduced witnesses falsely to attest
that  he  was  elsewhere  on  the  date  in  question,  playing  video  games.    Third,
Poventud’s  §  1983  action,  premised  on  Brady,  presses  but  one  complaint:  that
Poventud at his 1998 trial was deprived of impeachment evidence he could have
used to support his alibi defense by suggesting Duopo was mistaken in identifying
him as the robber.  Finally, in permitting this § 1983 claim to proceed, the majority
concludes  that  Poventud’s  guilty  plea  –  notwithstanding  that  this  plea  is
fundamentally at odds with his alibi defense – poses no obstacle to his Brady claim.
2
This is, indeed, a startling result.  A “counseled plea of guilty is an admission
of factual guilt so reliable,” the Supreme Court has said, “that, where voluntary and
intelligent, it quite validly removes the issue of factual guilt from the case.”  Menna
v.  New  York,  423  U.S.  61,  62  n.2  (1975)  (per  curiam)  (emphasis  in  original).    The
Supreme Court’s Brady jurisprudence makes clear, moreover, that constitutional
error for Brady purposes is only present when, considering the undisclosed evidence
in light of the record as a whole, there is reasonable doubt.1  Thus, the Supreme
Court said in United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 112 (1976), that, “if the omitted
evidence creates a reasonable doubt that did not otherwise exist, constitutional error
has been committed.”  But if this is not the case – “[i]f there is not reasonable doubt
about guilt whether or not the additional evidence is considered,” id. at 112‐13 – no
1
To be clear, the question in assessing Brady materiality is not whether it is more
likely than not that a defendant would have been acquitted if the undisclosed evidence had
been  revealed  (or  whether,  considering  this  evidence,  the  proof  would  have  been
sufficient).    Rather,  the  question  is  whether,  considering  the  record  as  a  whole,  the
undisclosed evidence “could reasonably be taken to put the whole case in such a different
light as to undermine confidence in the verdict.”  Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 290 (1999)
(internal quotation marks omitted); see also Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 434 (1995) (citing
United States v. Bagley, 473 U.S. 667, 678 (1985)) (defining a “reasonable probability” of a
different  result  in  terms  of  “a  probability  sufficient  to  undermine  confidence  in  the
outcome”).    Such  is  not  the  case  for  information  that  might  simply  “affect  the  jury’s
verdict,” without sapping confidence in the result.  United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 108
(1976).
3
constitutional  error  has  occurred.    The  majority  determines,  contrary  to  this
authority,  that  Poventud  can  make  out  a  Brady  claim  arising  from  the  failure  to
provide  him  with  impeachment  evidence  at  his  1998  trial  even  though  this
undisclosed evidence (as Poventud’s guilty plea now establishes) could only have
been used to support a perjurious defense.  The lack of significant authority in favor
of such a surprising result is an indication (and should have been a caution) that
something in the majority’s analysis is amiss.
That something is a basic fidelity to Brady.  The majority charges that it is the
district court that “misunderstands Brady” by “incorrectly presum[ing] that, on the
facts of this case, the State could violate Poventud’s Brady rights only if Poventud is
an innocent man.”  Maj. Op., ante, at 29.  To be sure, Brady can work in favor of the
guilty, as well as those wrongly accused, but it is the majority (and not the district
court)  that  misapplies  the  Brady  rule.    Fashioned  as  a  safeguard  against  the
miscarriage  of  justice,  see  United  States  v.  Bagley,  473  U.S.  667,  675  (1985),  Brady
imposes a fundamental obligation on the prosecution to disclose evidence for use
at  trial  that  is  “favorable  to  [the]  accused”  and  “material  either  to  guilt  or  to
punishment,” Brady, 373 U.S. at 87.  Where nondisclosure of such evidence occurs,
regardless  whether  the  undisclosed  evidence  was  intentionally  or  negligently
4
withheld  (or,  indeed,  withheld  in  the  absence  of  any  fault  on  the  part  of  the
prosecution team), there is constitutional error: as the Supreme Court has said, such
error  occurs  “because  of  the  character  of  the  evidence,  not  the  character  of  the
prosecutor.”  Agurs, 427 U.S. at 110.  The constitutional concern is thus with a guilty
verdict at trial in a circumstance in which the nondisclosure of favorable, material
evidence “undermines confidence in the outcome,” Bagley, 473 U.S. at 678, raising
the concern of a possible miscarriage of justice, see United States v. Coppa, 267 F.3d
132, 139 (2d Cir. 2001) (noting that the “essential purpose” of Brady and its progeny
“is to protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial by ensuring the reliability of any
criminal verdict against him”).
The  majority  thus  errs,  and  badly  so,  in  addressing  the  question  whether
Poventud may proceed with his § 1983 Brady claim without regard to an essential
element that Poventud must prove at his civil trial: namely, the materiality of the
undisclosed evidence.  For as the Supreme Court has repeatedly said, a Brady claim
is  not  made  out  by  showing  “any  breach  of  the  broad  obligation  to  disclose
exculpatory evidence.”  See Strickler v. Greene, 527 U.S. 263, 281 (1999); see also United
States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 628 (2002) (noting that “the Constitution does not require
the prosecutor to share all useful information with the defendant”).  Brady error
5
occurs only when favorable undisclosed evidence is material when considered in
light of the record as a whole.  For “[i]f there is no reasonable doubt about guilt
whether or not the additional evidence is considered, there is no justification for a
new trial,” and there is no constitutional error.  Agurs, 427 U.S. at 112‐13; see also Bagley,
473 U.S. at 678 (noting that “a constitutional error occurs . . . only if the evidence is
material in the sense that its suppression undermines confidence in the outcome of
the trial”).
At least until now, the character of the Brady right, focused as it is on the
central question of whether the nondisclosure of favorable, material evidence saps
confidence in the ultimate determination of guilt at trial, has placed most Brady
claims “within the traditional core of habeas corpus and outside the province of
§ 1983.”  Skinner, 131 S. Ct. at 1300.2  The majority’s analysis, however, suggests that
§  1983  will  hereinafter  be  available  to  any  defendant  whose  initial  conviction  is
2
The majority states, erroneously, that I argue “that Skinner v. Switzer, 131 S. Ct.
1289, 1300 (2011), comprises a general prohibition on Brady‐based § 1983 claims.”  Maj. Op.,
ante,  at  28  n.14.    I  do  not.    Skinner  simply  recognizes,  accurately,  that  because  Brady
evidence “is, by definition, always favorable to the defendant and material to his guilt or
punishment,” and because parties asserting Brady violations “generally do seek a judgment
qualifying them” for immediate or speedier release, 131 S. Ct. at 1300, Brady claims have
most often sounded in habeas.  My point is merely that the majority’s reformulation of the
Brady  right  –  a  reformulation  that  dispenses  with  Poventud’s  obligation  to  prove
materiality at his civil trial – changes this calculus for a not insignificant set of cases.
6
vacated for Brady error but who awaits retrial; or pleads guilty after vacatur; or is
even convicted of the very same crime upon retrial.  For in none of these cases, as the
majority  puts  it,  would  “a  favorable  judgment  in  [the]  §  1983  action  .  .  .  render
invalid” any subsequent state court judgment.  Maj. Op., ante, at 34.  And favorable
termination,  in  the  majority’s  view,  is  a  hoary  old  requirement  associated  with
malicious prosecution and not Brady claims, despite the fact that Heck itself involved
a Brady claim.  See Heck, 512 U.S. at 479 (stating that Heck’s pro se complaint alleged,
inter  alia,  that  the  defendants  had  “knowingly  destroyed  evidence  which  was
exculpatory  in  nature  and  could  have  proved  [Heck’s]  innocence”  (internal
quotation marks omitted)).
The Supreme Court has held that “impeachment information is special in
relation  to  the  fairness  of  a  trial,”  so  that  “the  Constitution  does  not  require  the
Government to disclose material impeachment evidence prior to entering a plea
agreement  with  a  criminal  defendant.”    Ruiz,  536  U.S.  at  629,  633  (emphasis  in
original).  But the Court has not yet considered a case like this one – where a § 1983
plaintiff seeks Brady damages after being convicted at trial, having his conviction
vacated for the nondisclosure of impeachment evidence, and then pleading guilty,
now solemnly admitting to the very proposition that the undisclosed trial evidence
7
could have been used to impeach.  It has long been understood, however, that “the
scope  of  the  government’s  constitutional  duty”  pursuant  to  Brady  –  “and,
concomitantly, the scope of a defendant’s constitutional right – is ultimately defined
retrospectively.”  Coppa, 267 F.3d at 140.  And this is enough to doom Poventud’s
§ 1983 claim.
Poventud’s  guilty  plea,  establishing  (as  it  does)  that  the  undisclosed
impeachment evidence about which Poventud complains could only have been used
by  him  at  trial  to  impeach  Duopo’s  accurate  identification  of  Poventud  as  his
assailant, forecloses the possibility that Poventud’s Brady claim can succeed.  This
is  not  to  excuse  the  conduct  of  police  in  failing  to  provide  Poventud  with  the
information at trial that Duopo, from his hospital bed, first identified Poventud’s
brother as the assailant, before Poventud was a suspect at all.3  Poventud’s trial
conviction was vacated on this ground, and properly so.  But Poventud has now
solemnly admitted that he committed the crime that on March 6, 1997, at about 8:40
in the evening, left Younis Duopo in the area of Oliver Place and Marion Avenue in
3
As Judge Jacobs’s dissent accurately states, Poventud’s brother became a suspect
when  police  recovered  his  photo  identification  from  a  wallet  found  in  Duopo’s  cab.
Suspicion focused on Poventud when police learned that his brother was in prison on the
day of the crime.
8
the Bronx, bleeding from a gunshot wound.  Poventud’s guilty plea establishes, as
a matter of law, that he was the armed assailant and that Duopo was not mistaken
in identifying him – in short, that the undisclosed impeachment evidence is utterly
immaterial.  Thus, even if Poventud’s § 1983 claim were not barred by Heck – and it
is – it should have been dismissed on the pleadings.  For Poventud, having admitted
in his guilty plea to the truth of what the undisclosed evidence could only have helped
him  falsely  deny,  cannot  possibly  allege  the  elements  of  a  cognizable  Brady  claim
under any pleading standard.  See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6); see also Conley v. Gibson,
355 U.S. 41, 45‐46 (stating that a complaint should be dismissed if “it appears beyond
doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would
entitle him to relief”), abrogated by Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007)
(rejecting Conley in favor of the plausibility standard).
The  majority  avoids  this  conclusion  by  reading  materiality  out  of  a  Brady
claim  –  by  suggesting,  inexplicably,  that  whenever  favorable  evidence  goes
undisclosed, and the defendant is convicted at trial, the State has ipso facto failed to
prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and a Brady violation has been established.4
4
The majority also obliquely suggests, without explanation, that materiality might
be shown here by virtue of the fact that Poventud pled guilty to a lesser included offense
and not to the same charges on which he was convicted at trial.  See Maj. Op., ante, at 30
9
The  elements  of  a  Brady  claim,  however,  are  well  settled  and  require  both  the
nondisclosure of favorable evidence and a showing that the undisclosed evidence
is material – that the undisclosed evidence creates a reasonable doubt as to guilt or
punishment, considering the record as a whole.  See, e.g., Alexander v. McKinney, 692
F.3d  553,  556  (7th  Cir.  2012)  (“In  order  to  bring  a  Brady  claim  [under  §  1983],  a
plaintiff must demonstrate that: (1) the prosecution suppressed evidence; (2) the
evidence was favorable to the accused; and (3) the evidence was material, that is,
there was a reasonable probability that prejudice ensued.”); accord Smith v. Almada,
640 F.3d 931, 939 (9th Cir. 2011); Ambrose v. City of New York, 623 F. Supp. 2d 454, 467
(S.D.N.Y. 2009).  Poventud, having admitted in his guilty plea that he was present
and that he participated in the crime, cannot at his § 1983 trial contend that the
undisclosed impeachment evidence raises a question as to these very propositions.
In short, he cannot establish materiality as a matter of law.
Judge Lynch, in his concurrence, similarly disregards the element of Brady
materiality, asserting that Brady damages should be awarded to Poventud “for the
n.17.  The  majority  is  correct  that  the  nondisclosure  of  favorable  evidence  material  to
punishment constitutes Brady error. See Brady, 373 U.S. at 87.  But here, the undisclosed
impeachment evidence is not material to punishment: it goes solely to the question whether
Duopo’s identification of Poventud as one of the robbers was accurate – in short, to the
question whether Poventud committed the crime at all.
10
fact that Poventud lost the opportunity to be acquitted of a crime that he may very
well have committed because the rules were not followed” at the trial that preceded
his guilty plea.  Concurring Op. of Judge Lynch, ante, at 12.  Poventud’s plea, he
argues, should not preclude such damages because “humankind lacks the capacity
to obtain absolute knowledge of the truth about past events.”  Id. at 13.  The truth,
he notes (in an observation perhaps made once or twice before), “is elusive, and can
never be known with certainty.”  Id. at 18.  Judge Lynch charges that the dissenters,
apparently forgetting “the limited scope of human knowledge,” “appear to insist
that [Poventud’s] guilty plea represents not just a legal truth, but an existential one.”
Id. at 13, 18.
With respect, it is the majority that refuses to give Poventud’s guilty plea its
ordinary, legal effect.  Perhaps because cognizant of the limits of human knowledge,
the Supreme Court has cautioned that a guilty plea “is a grave and solemn act to be
accepted only with care and discernment.”  Brady v. United States, 397 U.S. 742, 748
(1970).  “Central to the plea,” the Court has said, “and the foundation for entering
judgment against the defendant is the defendant’s admission in open court that he
committed the [charged] acts . . . .  He thus stands as a witness against himself.”  Id.;
see also Tollet v. Henderson, 411 U.S. 258, 267 (1973) (noting that a criminal defendant
11
who  has  solemnly  admitted  his  guilt  in  open  court  “may  not  thereafter  raise
independent claims relating to the deprivation of constitutional rights that occurred
prior to the entry of the guilty plea”).
Judge Lynch argues that Poventud’s guilty plea is no more reliable than his
alibi  testimony  at  trial.    But  he  cites  no  authority  (and  there  is  none)  for  the
proposition that judges may pick and choose which guilty pleas should be afforded
their ordinary legal effect.5  As a legal matter, moreover (and without any need to
claim omniscience), only one of Poventud’s conflicting accounts of where he was
and what he was doing on the night of March 6, 1997, is part of an outstanding
criminal judgment that is binding upon him in other proceedings – including for
purposes of collateral estoppel in a civil suit such as this.  See Allen v. McCurry, 449
U.S. 90, 102‐04 (1980) (holding that collateral estoppel precludes a § 1983 plaintiff
from relitigating facts established in a prior criminal conviction).
In the circumstances of this case, in which Poventud’s guilty plea affirms the
truth of what the impeachment evidence could only have helped him deny at trial,
5
Ironically,  Judge  Lynch’s  concurrence  also  makes  apparent  what  the  majority
refuses to admit in its disavowal of the Heck v. Humphrey bar: namely, that Poventud’s
effort to prove materiality at his § 1983 trial will, of necessity, involve the impugning of his
extant conviction.
12
Poventud’s plea renders him unable to prove materiality at his § 1983 trial.  Because
a  counseled  guilty  plea,  where  voluntary  and  intelligent,  “removes  the  issue  of
factual  guilt  from  the  case,”  Menna,  423  U.S.  at  62  n.2,  the  omitted  evidence  no
longer creates a reasonable doubt that did not otherwise exist.  See Agurs, 427 U.S.
at 112‐13 (noting that omitted evidence “must be evaluated in the context of the
entire record” and observing that where such evidence raises no reasonable doubt,
constitutional error has not occurred).  Poventud cannot establish materiality as a
matter of law.  And the majority avoids this conclusion only by dispensing with this
element of a Brady claim.
Judge Lynch argues that “simple justice” requires the “common sense, rough
justice” result the majority reaches here.  Concurring Op. of Judge Lynch, ante, at 9,
11.  Poventud obtained his rough justice, however, when the state court, on a record
that did not include Poventud’s subsequent admission to participation in the crime,
properly determined that the nondisclosure of Duopo’s initial misidentification of
Poventud’s brother required vacatur of Poventud’s trial conviction and remand for
a  new  trial.    Poventud’s  indeterminate  sentence  of  10  to  20  years  was  set  aside.
Poventud,  however,  has  now  solemnly  admitted  that  he  was  the  robber  –  that
Duopo’s trial identification was accurate and, in effect, that Poventud’s alibi defense
13
was  perjurious.    It  is  neither  “common  sense”  nor  “justice”  to  conclude  that  a
counseled  defendant  who  negotiates  a  guilty  plea  after  the  vacatur  of  a  trial
conviction for Brady error, admitting the truth of what the undisclosed evidence
could only have been used at trial to deny, may thereafter impugn that negotiated
plea in a § 1983 suit in which he stridently asserts both his innocence and his right
to substantial compensation.  By refusing to afford Poventud’s plea its ordinary legal
effect,  the  majority,  contrary  to  Brady  and  its  progeny,  adopts  “a  constitutional
standard of materiality [that] approaches the ‘sporting theory of justice’ which the
Court expressly rejected in Brady.”  Agurs, 427 U.S. at 108.
The majority charges that the dissenters “misunderstand” Lockhart v. Fretwell,
506 U.S. 364 (1993).  Maj. Op., ante, at 29 n.16.  In fact, it is the majority that refuses
to take the wise counsel of that case, which makes apparent that materiality must be
assessed  retrospectively  –  and  here,  requires  taking  Poventud’s  guilty  plea  into
account.  Fretwell involved an ineffective assistance claim.  As Judge Jacobs points
out,  the  prejudice  component  of  such  claims,  as  first  articulated  in  Strickland  v.
Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), requires courts, in determining whether a defense
lawyer’s  conduct  has  deprived  a  defendant  of  his  Sixth  Amendment  rights,  to
undertake a retrospective inquiry – as with Brady – into whether an asserted error
14
has produced an unreliable result at trial.  In Fretwell, the Supreme Court declined
to find constitutional error  in  trial counsel’s failure to raise an objection that, as
Justice O’Connor said in her concurrence, “very well may have been sustained had
it been raised at trial” but which, by the time the Court took up the question, was
“wholly  meritless  under  current  governing  law.”    Fretwell,  506  U.S.  at  374.    The
Court determined that it was not appropriate to assess the effectiveness of counsel
“under the laws existing at the time of trial” because such an approach would “grant
the defendant a windfall to which the law does not entitle him” and be inconsistent
with the focus of Strickland’s prejudice component on the reliability and fairness of
the ultimate result.  Id. at 369‐71 (majority opinion).
Similarly here, Poventud’s guilty plea, attesting to the accuracy of Duopo’s
identification of Poventud as his assailant, forecloses Poventud’s Brady‐based § 1983
claim by establishing the immateriality of the undisclosed evidence as a matter of
law.    Vacatur  of  Poventud’s  trial  conviction  was  required  because,  prior  to
Poventud’s  plea,  the  nondisclosure  of  the  impeachment  material  created  a
reasonable doubt as to the accuracy of Duopo’s identification.  See Agurs, 427 U.S.
at 112 (“[I]f the omitted evidence creates a reasonable doubt that did not otherwise
exist,  constitutional  error  has  been  committed.”).    Poventud’s  subsequent  guilty
15
plea, however, establishes the immateriality of the nondisclosure categorically.  And
contrary  to  the  majority’s  position,  there  is  no  constitutional  error  from  the
nondisclosure  of  immaterial  evidence  –  evidence  that  does  nothing  more  than
increase a defendant’s odds at trial, irrespective of “our overriding concern with the
justice  of  the  finding  of  guilt.”    Id.    For,  once  again,  “[t]hat  statement  of  a
constitutional standard of materiality approaches the ‘sporting theory of justice’
which the Court expressly rejected in Brady.”  Id. at 108.
* * *
As Judge Jacobs’s principal dissent makes clear, this case is easily resolved
with a faithful application of Heck.  For while the majority assures us that Heck does
not apply because “a favorable judgment in this § 1983 action would not render
invalid” Poventud’s “plea‐based judgment,” Maj. Op., ante,  at  34, this is wholly
beside the point.  Heck does not bar § 1983 actions that invalidate state convictions,
but those where success in a plaintiff’s damages suit would necessarily impugn his
extant state conviction, implying its invalidity.  See Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 393
(2007)  (noting  that  the  Heck  bar  applies  where  §  1983  claim  would  necessarily
“impugn” an extant conviction).  Poventud cannot prove the elements of his § 1983
claim – cannot prove, in Judge Lynch’s words, that the failure to provide Poventud
16
with the omitted impeachment material corrupted the trial’s fact‐finding process –
without establishing that the nondisclosed impeachment evidence is material.  To do
this, Poventud must establish that considering the record as a whole, the omitted
impeachment material creates a reasonable doubt as to whether he was Duopo’s
assailant.  See Agurs, 427 U.S. at 112 (noting that materiality has been established “if
the  omitted  evidence  creates  a  reasonable  doubt  that  did  not  otherwise  exist,”
considering the record as a whole).  In other words, he must draw into question –
impugn – the veracity of his own plea.  In such circumstances, the Heck bar clearly
applies.
Even if this were not the case, however (and it certainly is), Poventud’s Brady
claim still fails on the merits.  Judge Lynch says that “[n]o one who was not there
will ever know for certain whether Marcos Poventud participated in the robbery of
Younis  Duopo.”    Concurring  Op.  of  Judge  Lynch,  ante,  at  12‐13.    But  affording
Poventud’s guilty plea its ordinary legal effect requires no such certitude (existential
or  otherwise),  but  only  that  we  take  Poventud  himself  at  his  solemn  word.
Poventud has stated, in entering a guilty plea, that he committed the crime.  He
could have continued to deny it and, if successful in his state court proceeding,
thereafter sued for damages pursuant to § 1983.  Having chosen to plead guilty,
17
however, Poventud has also pled himself out of his Brady‐based § 1983 claim by
establishing  the  utter  immateriality  of  the  impeachment  evidence  that  was  not
produced at trial.  In holding otherwise – in permitting Poventud to have it both
ways – the majority adopts a “sporting chance” approach to Brady materiality that
the Supreme Court has expressly rejected.  See Brady, 373 U.S. at 90 (rejecting such
an approach as beneath “the dignity of a constitutional right”).
As  the  majority  acknowledges,  this  Court  convened  en  banc  to  decide  a
different issue from the one it reaches today.  With regret, I concur in Judge Jacobs’s
forecast that the majority’s effort here with respect to the issue we do decide will
prove  nearly  impossible  for  district  courts  faithfully  to  apply.    Our  Heck
jurisprudence will suffer.  So will our efforts to identify – and rectify – Brady error.
Until  today,  Brady  and  its  progeny  represented  a  safeguard,  however
imperfect, against the miscarriage of justice.  See Bagley, 473 U.S. at 675 (noting that
Brady’s purpose is “to ensure that a miscarriage of justice does not occur”); accord
Agurs,  427  U.S.  at  112  (observing  that  materiality  standard  “must  reflect  our
overriding concern with the justice of the finding of guilt”).  In this Circuit – at least
until  such  time  as  today’s  error  is  corrected  –  Brady  is  instead  the  right  to
recompense for being denied the opportunity to commit perjury more successfully.
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