Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994)
E403305
Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision that limits when prisoners can seek damages under § 1983 by holding that such claims are barred if success would necessarily imply the invalidity of an outstanding criminal conviction or sentence unless that conviction has been overturned.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994) canonical | 2 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3981299 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994) Context triple: [42 U.S.C. § 1983, interpretedBy, Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994)]
-
A.
South Dakota v. Dole
South Dakota v. Dole is a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s power to condition federal highway funds on states adopting a minimum drinking age of 21, helping define the scope of the federal spending power.
-
B.
Katzenbach v. Morgan
Katzenbach v. Morgan is a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s power under the Fourteenth Amendment to prohibit certain state voting restrictions, reinforcing federal authority to protect voting rights.
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C.
Gebhart v. Belton
Gebhart v. Belton was a landmark Delaware school segregation case whose rulings in favor of Black students became one of the four consolidated cases decided in Brown v. Board of Education, contributing to the Supreme Court’s rejection of “separate but equal” in public education.
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D.
Milliken v. Bradley
Milliken v. Bradley is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited the scope of school desegregation remedies by ruling that courts could not impose cross-district busing plans absent proof of interdistrict segregation.
-
E.
Bolling v. Sharpe
Bolling v. Sharpe is a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racial segregation in Washington, D.C. public schools unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994) Target entity description: Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision that limits when prisoners can seek damages under § 1983 by holding that such claims are barred if success would necessarily imply the invalidity of an outstanding criminal conviction or sentence unless that conviction has been overturned.
-
A.
South Dakota v. Dole
South Dakota v. Dole is a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s power to condition federal highway funds on states adopting a minimum drinking age of 21, helping define the scope of the federal spending power.
-
B.
Katzenbach v. Morgan
Katzenbach v. Morgan is a 1966 U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld Congress’s power under the Fourteenth Amendment to prohibit certain state voting restrictions, reinforcing federal authority to protect voting rights.
-
C.
Gebhart v. Belton
Gebhart v. Belton was a landmark Delaware school segregation case whose rulings in favor of Black students became one of the four consolidated cases decided in Brown v. Board of Education, contributing to the Supreme Court’s rejection of “separate but equal” in public education.
-
D.
Milliken v. Bradley
Milliken v. Bradley is a landmark 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision that limited the scope of school desegregation remedies by ruling that courts could not impose cross-district busing plans absent proof of interdistrict segregation.
-
E.
Bolling v. Sharpe
Bolling v. Sharpe is a 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case that held racial segregation in Washington, D.C. public schools unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
United States Supreme Court case
ⓘ
federal civil rights case ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
federal prisoners
ⓘ
state prisoners ⓘ |
| areaOfLaw |
civil rights law
ⓘ
constitutional law ⓘ federal courts ⓘ habeas corpus ⓘ |
| arguedDate | November 3, 1993 ⓘ |
| citation | 512 U.S. 477 ⓘ |
| citationStyle | Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994) ⓘ |
| concurrenceBy |
David H. Souter
ⓘ
Harry A. Blackmun ⓘ John Paul Stevens ⓘ |
| country |
United States
ⓘ
linked to:
United States of America
|
| court | Supreme Court of the United States ⓘ |
| decidedDate | June 24, 1994 ⓘ |
| decisionDate | 1994 ⓘ |
| docketNumber | 93-6188 ⓘ |
| effect |
channels challenges to the validity of convictions primarily into habeas corpus proceedings
ⓘ
limits use of § 1983 to collaterally attack criminal convictions ⓘ |
| holding |
A state prisoner cannot recover damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, unless the conviction or sentence has been reversed, expunged, declared invalid, or called into question by a federal habeas writ.
ⓘ
A § 1983 claim for damages that would necessarily imply the invalidity of an outstanding criminal conviction or sentence does not accrue until the conviction or sentence has been invalidated. ⓘ |
| joinedByInMajority |
Anthony M. Kennedy
ⓘ
Clarence Thomas ⓘ Sandra Day O’Connor ⓘ William H. Rehnquist ⓘ |
| jurisdiction | United States federal law ⓘ |
| legalDoctrine |
Heck bar
ⓘ
linked to:
Heck
favorable termination requirement for § 1983 damages actions challenging convictions ⓘ |
| legalProvisionInvolved |
28 U.S.C. § 2254
ⓘ
42 U.S.C. § 1983 ⓘ |
| legalRule | Known as the Heck bar, § 1983 damages actions are barred if success would necessarily imply the invalidity of a conviction or sentence that has not been set aside. ⓘ |
| majorityOpinionBy | Antonin Scalia ⓘ |
| overruledBy | none ⓘ |
| page | 477 ⓘ |
| petitioner | Roy Heck ⓘ |
| precedentFor |
Edwards v. Balisok
ⓘ
McDonough v. Smith ⓘ Wallace v. Kato ⓘ Wilkinson v. Dotson ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
42 U.S.C. § 1983 damages actions
ⓘ
habeas corpus as exclusive remedy for challenges to fact or duration of confinement ⓘ |
| reporter | United States Reports ⓘ |
| respondent | Humphrey ⓘ |
| status | good law as of 2024 ⓘ |
| volume | 512 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994) Description of subject: Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), is a U.S. Supreme Court decision that limits when prisoners can seek damages under § 1983 by holding that such claims are barred if success would necessarily imply the invalidity of an outstanding criminal conviction or sentence unless that conviction has been overturned.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject linked to:
Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994)