Statute of Limitations – Habeas Corpus

Listen to this article

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Johnnie Lee Savory v. William Cannon, Sr.,

Case No.: 17-3543

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and EASTERBROOK, KANNE, ROVNER, SYKES, HAMILTON, BARRETT, BRENNAN, SCUDDER and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Statute of Limitations – Habeas Corpus

Johnnie Lee Savory spent thirty years in prison for a 1977 double murder that he insists he did not commit. Even after his release from prison, he continued to assert his innocence. Thirty-eight years after his conviction, the governor of Illinois pardoned Savory. Within two years of the pardon, Savory filed a civil rights suit against the City of Peoria (“City”) and a number of Peoria police officers alleging that they framed him. The district court found that the claims accrued more than five years before Savory filed suit, when he was released from custody and could no longer challenge his conviction in habeas corpus proceedings. Because the statute of limitations on his claims is two years, the district court dismissed the suit as untimely. Savory appealed to this court, and the panel reversed and remanded after concluding that the claim was timely under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), because it accrued at the time of Savory’s pardon, within the two-year limitations period. We granted the defendants’ petition for rehearing en banc and vacated the panel’s opinion and judgment. We again conclude that Heck controls the outcome here, and we reverse and remand for further proceedings.

Reversed and remanded

Full Text

Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.