Allen v. McCurry

Justice Stewart delivered the opinion of the Court.

At a hearing before his criminal trial in a Missouri court, the respondent, Willie McCurry, invoked the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to suppress evidence that had been seized by the police. The trial court denied the suppression motion in part, and McCurry was subsequently convicted after a jury trial. The conviction was later affirmed on appeal. State v. McCurry, 587 S. W. 2d 337 (Mo. App. 1979). Because he did not assert that the state courts had denied him a “full and fair opportunity” to litigate his search and seizure claim, McCurry was barred by this Court’s decision in Stone v. Powell, 428 U. S. 465, from seeking a writ of habeas corpus in a federal district court. Nevertheless, he sought federal-court redress for the alleged constitutional violation by bringing a damages suit under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 against the officers who had entered his home and seized the evidence in question. We granted certiorari to consider whether the unavailability of federal habeas corpus prevented the police officers from raising the state courts’ partial rejection of McCurry’s constitutional claim as a collateral estoppel defense to the § 1983 suit against them for damages. 444 TJ. S. 1070.

[*92] I In April 1977, several undercover police officers, following an informant’s tip that McCurry was dealing in heroin, went to his house in St. Louis, Mo., to attempt a purchase.[1] Two officers, petitioners Allen and Jacobsmeyer, knocked on the front door, while the other officers hid nearby. When McCurry opened the door, the two officers asked to buy some heroin “caps.” McCurry went back into the house and returned soon thereafter, firing a pistol at and seriously wounding Allen and Jacobsmeyer. After a gun battle with the other officers and their reinforcements, McCurry retreated into the house; he emerged again when the police demanded that he surrender. Several officers then entered the house without a warrant, purportedly to search for other persons inside. One of the officers seized drugs and other contraband that lay in plain view, as well as additional contraband he found in dresser drawers and in auto tires on the porch.