Cite as: 523 U. S. 1 (1998)
Opinion of the Court
IV
Petitioner raises three more arguments, none of which seems to us well taken. First, he contends that since our decision in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477 (1994), would foreclose him from pursuing a damages action under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, unless he can establish the invalidity of his parole revocation, his action to establish that invalidity cannot be moot. This is a great non sequitur, unless one believes (as we do not) that a § 1983 action for damages must always and everywhere be available. It is not certain, in any event, that a § 1983 damages claim would be foreclosed. If, for example, petitioner were to seek damages "for using the wrong procedures, not for reaching the wrong result," see Heck, 512 U. S., at 482-483, and if that procedural defect did not "necessarily imply the invalidity of" the revocation, see id., at 487, then Heck would have no application all. See also Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U. S. 641, 645-649 (1997); id., at 649-650 (Ginsburg, J., concurring).
Secondly, petitioner argues in his reply brief that this case falls within the exception to the mootness doctrine for cases that are "capable of repetition, yet evading review." Reply Brief for Petitioner 5. "[T]he capable-of-repetition doctrine applies only in exceptional situations," Lyons, supra, at 109, "where the following two circumstances [are] simultaneously present: ' "(1) the challenged action [is] in its duration too short to be fully litigated prior to cessation or expiration, and (2) there [is] a reasonable expectation that the same complaining party [will] be subject to the same action again," ' " Lewis, 494 U. S., at 481 (quoting Murphy v. Hunt, 455 U. S. 478, 482 (1982) (per curiam), in turn quoting Weinstein v.
has spent six of the last seven years in custody on three separate felony convictions, surely it is also produced by the criminal misdemeanor conviction of a model citizen. Perhaps for obvious reasons, the damage to reputation upon which the dissent would rest its judgment has not been asserted before us by petitioner himself.
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