In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 14‐2115
RODNEY ROLLINS,
Plaintiff‐Appellant,
v.
JOSEPH WILLETT, et al.,
Defendants‐Appellees.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.
No. 13 C 7211 — James B. Zagel, Judge.
____________________
SUBMITTED SEPTEMBER 22, 2014 — DECIDED OCTOBER 21, 2014
____________________
Before CUDAHY, POSNER, and KANNE, Circuit Judges.
POSNER, Circuit Judge. This is an appeal from a judgment
in favor of police officers, the chief of police, and the mayor
of the Village of Glenwood, Illinois. They are the defendants
in a suit brought by Rodney Rollins under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
charging an unlawful seizure. Rollins had driven into the
parking lot of an Aldi’s grocery store and gotten out of his
car when a police officer emerged from a police car that had
pulled up behind him and ordered him to get back into his
2 No. 14‐2115
car and show the officer his driver’s license, registration, and
proof of insurance. He refused to cooperate with the officer,
as well as with two other officers who later arrived at the
scene, was arrested, and two months later pleaded guilty to
driving on a suspended or revoked license. He then brought
this suit, charging that the police had no basis for ordering
him back into his car, and that their doing so constituted an
unreasonable seizure of him. The district court dismissed the
suit on the authority of Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477
(1994), which held that a section 1983 suit can’t be brought if
a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would imply that his
conviction in a prior proceeding had been invalid. Or as ex‐
plained in a later Supreme Court decision, “civil tort actions
are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of
outstanding criminal judgments. Congress … has deter‐
mined that habeas corpus is the appropriate remedy for state
prisoners attacking the validity of the fact or length of their
confinement, and that specific determination must override
the general terms of § 1983.” Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 392
(2007) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). So
suppose a defendant convicted of possessing illegal drugs
found on his person sued the officer who had found the
drugs, alleging that the officer planted them. If he won the
suit, it would imply the invalidity of his drug conviction.
The suit would therefore be barred by the rule of Heck v.
Humphrey. See, e.g., Okoro v. Callaghan, 324 F.3d 488 (7th Cir.
2003).
This case is different. Rollins pleaded guilty. There isn’t
any doubt that he was guilty—that he’d been driving on a
suspended or revoked license. If he can prove that the action
of the police in forcing him to get back in his car and show
them his driving papers was unconstitutional, that cannot
No. 14‐2115 3
change the fact that he was driving without a valid license.
Illegal searches and seizures frequently turn up irrefutable
evidence of guilt. The evidence can be suppressed if the gov‐
ernment attempts to present it at trial, but there was no trial.
A finding that the defendant was illegally seized—the find‐
ing he seeks in this suit—would therefore have no relevance
to the validity of his guilty plea and ensuing conviction.
The case is like Reynolds v. Jamison, 488 F.3d 756 (7th Cir.
2007). The plaintiff had pleaded guilty to telephone harass‐
ment and then brought a false‐arrest claim. Whether the ar‐
resting officer had probable cause to arrest the plaintiff had
no bearing on the validity of the guilty plea and conviction,
and so Heck was irrelevant. Id. at 767. Lockett v. Ericson, 656
F.3d 892 (9th Cir. 2011), is similar. The plaintiff had pleaded
nolo contendere to charges that he was driving under the
influence and then sued the police for having searched his
home without probable cause and in the course of the search
having obtained evidence concerning the DUI charge. The
court held that whether the search had been unlawful could
not affect the plaintiffʹs conviction because the conviction
had not been based on any evidence introduced against him,
so again Heck was inapplicable. Id. at 896–97. And in this
case as well.
The district judge did say that the “plaintiff should also
understand that his remaining claims fail, even if they are
not Heck‐barred,” such as his claim that the police had un‐
lawfully demanded that he show them his driver’s license
and when he refused ordered him out of the car and sub‐
jected him to a full custodial search and arrest. But the
judge ignored the fact that there was no evidence that the
police had seized the plaintiff lawfully by ordering him
4 No. 14‐2115
back into his car—the action that precipitated his arrest,
thus extending the seizure.
The case must be remanded for reconsideration of the
plaintiff’s Fourth Amendment claim, unclouded by Heck.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.