490
Thomas, J., concurring
attributable to an unconstitutional conviction or sentence does not accrue until the conviction or sentence has been invalidated.10
Applying these principles to the present action, in which both courts below found that the damages claims challenged the legality of the conviction, we find that the dismissal of the action was correct. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is
Affirmed.
Justice Thomas, concurring.
The Court and Justice Souter correctly begin their analyses with the realization that "[t]his case lies at the intersection of . . . the Civil Rights Act of 1871, Rev. Stat. § 1979, as amended, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, and the federal habeas corpus statute, 28 U. S. C. § 2254." Ante, at 480; post, at 491. One need only read the respective opinions in this case to under-10 Justice Souter also adopts the common-law principle that one cannot use the device of a civil tort action to challenge the validity of an outstanding criminal conviction, but thinks it necessary to abandon that principle in those cases (of which no real-life example comes to mind) involving former state prisoners who, because they are no longer in custody, cannot bring postconviction challenges. Post, at 500. We think the principle barring collateral attacks—a longstanding and deeply rooted feature of both the common law and our own jurisprudence—is not rendered inapplicable by the fortuity that a convicted criminal is no longer incarcerated. Justice Souter opines that disallowing a damages suit for a former state prisoner framed by Ku Klux Klan-dominated state officials is "hard indeed to reconcile . . . with the purpose of § 1983." Post, at 502. But if, as Justice Souter appears to suggest, the goal of our interpretive enterprise under § 1983 were to provide a remedy for all conceivable invasions of federal rights that freedmen may have suffered at the hands of officials of the former States of the Confederacy, the entire landscape of our § 1983 jurisprudence would look very different. We would not, for example, have adopted the rule that judicial officers have absolute immunity from liability for damages under § 1983, Pierson v. Ray, 386 U. S. 547 (1967), a rule that would prevent recovery by a former slave who had been tried and convicted before a corrupt state judge in league with the Ku Klux Klan.
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