USCA1 Opinion
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
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No. 93-2164
HECTOR GUZMAN-RIVERA, ET AL.,
Plaintiffs, Appellants,
v.
HECTOR RIVERA-CRUZ, ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Gilberto Gierbolini, U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Cyr, Circuit Judge,
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Bownes, Senior Circuit Judge,
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and Stahl, Circuit Judge.
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Victoria A. Ferrer-Kerber, with whom Alvaro R. Calder n, Jr. and
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Law Offices of Alvaro R. Calder n, Jr. were on brief for appellants.
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Jos R. Gaztambide-A eses, with whom Benito I. Rodr guez-Mass
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and Law Offices of Gaztambide & Plaza were on brief for appellees.
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July 13, 1994
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CYR, Circuit Judge. Plaintiffs Hector Guzman Rivera
CYR, Circuit Judge.
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("Guzman") and family members appeal a district court judgment
dismissing Guzman's civil rights action against various present
and former officials of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico as time-
barred. We vacate the summary judgment entered by the district
court and remand for further proceedings.
I
I
BACKGROUND
BACKGROUND
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On Christmas Eve, 1987, the manager of a Domino's Pizza
establishment in Carolina, Puerto Rico, was shot and killed
during an armed robbery. Eyewitnesses identified Guzman as the
perpetrator. Guzman, who was living in New York at the time, was
extradited, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 119 years' impris-
onment. In the wake of the conviction, Guzman's father, Hector
Guzman Fernandez, instigated an independent investigation which
yielded an "informant" who claimed to have provided the weapon
used in the robbery and to know the identity of the real culprit.
Guzman's father, proof in hand, set out on August 21, 1989, to
secure his son's exoneration.
During the fall of 1989 and the spring of 1990, Guz-
man's father repeatedly corresponded and met with defendants-
appellees Hector Rivera Cruz, Secretary of Justice, and either
Luis Feliciano Carreras, Director of the Prosecutor's Office, or
his successor, Pedro Geronimo Goyco (collectively, the defen-
dants). During an investigation conducted by the Civil Rights
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Division of the Puerto Rico Justice Department in March 1990, an
eyewitness recanted her identification; the informant confirmed
that Guzman was not the killer and identified the real perpetra-
tor; and Guzman's mother attested that her son was in New York at
the time of the murder.
The mounting evidence of Guzman's innocence notwith-
standing, even after the Civil Rights Division issued its own
investigative report concluding that Guzman had not committed the
murder, the Director of the Prosecutor's Office refused to
authorize Guzman's release. Indeed, at a meeting in April 1990
Guzman's father was informed that the Prosecutor's Office would
take no corrective action regarding Guzman until the actual
perpetrator had been taken into custody.
At or about June 15, 1990, Guzman filed a motion for
new trial with the San Juan Superior Court and served the Secre-
tary of Justice with a motion for release. Before the Secretary
of Justice acted on the motion for release, the Governor of
Puerto Rico, in response to a request from Guzman's father,
directed Guzman's release on June 15, 1990.
Guzman instituted the present action on June 14, 1991.
Defendants countered with a motion to dismiss, see Fed. R. Civ.
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P. 12(b)(6), asserting prosecutorial immunity and the statute of
limitations. The district court later entered summary judgment
for all defendants-appellees, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b), 56, on
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the ground that the action was time-barred under the applicable
one-year statute of limitations. On appeal, Guzman argues that
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summary judgment was improvidently granted on the limitations
defense because a trialworthy issue existed as to the date on
which the section 1983 claim accrued. We agree.
II
II
DISCUSSION
DISCUSSION
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We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, employ-
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ing the same criteria incumbent upon the district court in the
first instance. Velez-Gomez v. SMA Life Assur. Co., 8 F.3d 873,
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874-75 (1st Cir. 1993). Summary judgment is appropriate where
the record, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving
party, reveals no genuine issue as to any material fact, and the
moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id.
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Although it is clear that the one-year personal injury
limitation applies to the present action, see, e.g., Lafont-
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Rivera v. Soler-Zapata, 984 F.2d 1, 2 (1st Cir. 1993); see also
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P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 31, 5298 (1991), federal law controls the
accrual of section 1983 claims. Lafont-Rivera, 984 F.2d at 3.
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The first step in fixing accrual is to identify the actual injury
of which the plaintiff complains. Heck v. Humphrey, 62 U.S.L.W.
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4594, 4598 (U.S. June 24, 1994) (prescribing federal accrual
analysis in section 1983 actions predicated on the alleged
invalidity of an underlying criminal conviction); see also
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LaFont-Rivera, 984 F.2d at 3. Guzman essentially contends that
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the defendant officials owed him a constitutionally-based duty to
investigate substantial post-conviction allegations of innocence
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and to release him from confinement upon presentation of an
unspecified quantum of exculpatory evidence. The district court
indulged Guzman's theory for purposes of its limitations ruling.
Although we note scant authority for the theory,1 we need not
determine its viability at this juncture because the actual
injury implicitly alleged is that Guzman was wrongfully convicted
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and/or wrongfully detained after defendants were apprised of the
exculpatory evidence. We consider the accrual issue in this
light.
The Supreme Court recently clarified the circumstances
in which section 1983 can be used to redress alleged constitu-
tional deprivations sounding in malicious prosecution, false
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1Guzman relies on a fragment of dicta from Maslauskas v.
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United States, 583 F. Supp. 349 (D. Mass. 1984) a Federal Tort
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Claims Act case wherein the court observed that "in certain
circumstances the government owes prisoners a continuing duty to
uncover 'the absence of a constitutionally adequate basis for
confinement,'" id. at 351 (citing Steubig v. Hammel, 446 F. Supp.
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31, 33 (M.D. Pa. 1977)) but ignores the very next clause in
the district court opinion which emphasizes that the government
generally "does not owe the prisoner a continuing duty to review
and re-review" the basis for confinement, id. Moreover, Steubig,
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like O'Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975), involved an
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attempt to use section 1983 to redress excessive confinement
arising from an inaccurate assessment of the progress of a
patient involuntarily committed to a mental health facility. Of
course, as the district court itself suggested, see Maslauskas,
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583 F. Supp. at 351, the government's "continuing duty to review
and re-review" the basis for confinement is more clear in those
circumstances. Other cases relied on by Guzman are likewise
inapposite. See Lewis v. O'Grady, 853 F.2d 1366 (7th Cir. 1988)
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(section 1983 used to redress excessive confinement arising from
mistaken incarceration of plaintiff after judicial exoneration);
Haygood v. Younger, 769 F.2d 1350 (9th Cir. 1985) (en banc)
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(section 1983 used to redress excessive confinement arising from
miscalculation of sentence), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1020 (1986).
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imprisonment, and false arrest, by outlining the federal accrual
analysis applicable to claims akin to the present:
[I]n order to recover for damages for alleg-
edly unconstitutional conviction or imprison-
ment, or for other harm caused by actions
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whose unlawfulness would render a conviction
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or sentence invalid, a 1983 plaintiff must
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prove that the conviction or sentence has
been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by
executive order, declared invalid by a state
tribunal authorized to make such determina-
tion, or called into question by a federal
court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.
* * *
[Accordingly,] a 1983 cause of action
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for damages attributable to an unconstitu-
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tional conviction or sentence does not accrue
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until the conviction or sentence has been
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invalidated.
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Heck, 62 U.S.L.W. at 4598 (emphasis added). We now apply the
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Heck analysis to the present action.
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It is clear from the summary judgment record that
Guzman was released from prison on June 15, 1990, less than one
year prior to the filing of the instant action. Therefore, if
the conviction was "reversed[,] . . . expunged . . . [or] held
invalid," id., by competent executive or judicial action2 not
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earlier than June 14, 1990, an actionable section 1983 claim "for
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harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render [his]
conviction or sentence invalid," id., would not be time-barred.
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2Guzman's brief on appeal represents that his release was
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prompted by the intervention of the Governor of Puerto Rico.
However, the official record of the Puerto Rico Administration of
Corrections indicates that Guzman was released on bond June 15,
1990, after his motion for new trial had been granted. The
record does not disclose whether a new trial has ever been
conducted, nor whether any governmental action has been taken to
expunge or invalidate the conviction.
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The summary judgment proceedings included in the appellate record
do not enable a determination as to whether, and if so, when,
Guzman's conviction was undone. Consequently, as the accrual
issue cannot be resolved on the present record, summary judgment
was premature. See, e.g., Greenburg v. Puerto Rico Maritime
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Shipping Auth., 835 F.2d 932, 934 (1st Cir. 1987) (if material
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factual issues require resolution before pivotal legal issue can
be decided, summary judgment must be vacated).
III
III
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
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The district court judgment must be vacated. The case
shall be remanded to permit the district court to determine
whether Guzman's conviction was ever invalidated as required
under Heck. See Heck, 62 U.S.L.W. at 4598. If not, the section
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1983 claims against all defendants shall be dismissed, without
prejudice, as premature. Otherwise, any actionable section 1983
claim shall be deemed to have accrued not earlier than the date
on which Guzman's conviction was reversed, expunged or otherwise
determined invalid, see id.
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The district court judgment is vacated; the case is
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remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion;
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costs to appellants.
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