Olivier v. City of Brandon
The Court holds that a person previously convicted under a law may still sue under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for purely prospective relief against that law's future enforcement. Heck v. Humphrey does not bar such a suit, because it does not collaterally attack the prior conviction.
Case background
Gabriel Olivier is a street preacher in Mississippi who sometimes preached on the sidewalks near an amphitheater in the City of Brandon. In 2019, the City adopted an ordinance requiring anyone engaging in “protests” or “demonstrations” around event times to stay within a “designated protest area.” In 2021, Olivier was arrested for violating the ordinance; he pleaded no contest in municipal court and received a $304 fine, a year of probation, and a suspended jail term. He did not appeal, paid the fine, and served no prison time. Wanting to keep preaching near the amphitheater, he sued the City in federal court under § 1983, alleging that the ordinance violates the Free Speech Clause and seeking only a declaration and an injunction against future enforcement. The District Court held the suit barred by Heck v. Humphrey, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed on the same reasoning.
Questions Presented
(1) Whether, as the Fifth Circuit holds in conflict with the Ninth and Tenth Circuits, this Court’s decision in Heck v. Humphrey bars § 1983 claims seeking purely prospective relief where the plaintiff has been punished before under the law challenged as unconstitutional.
(2) Whether, as the Fifth Circuit and at least four others hold in conflict with five other circuits, Heck v. Humphrey bars § 1983 claims by plaintiffs even where they never had access to federal habeas relief.
Holding
Olivier’s suit seeking purely prospective relief, an injunction stopping officials from enforcing the ordinance in the future, can proceed notwithstanding his prior conviction for violating that ordinance; Heck does not hold otherwise. Under Wooley v. Maynard, a plaintiff previously convicted under a law may bring a § 1983 suit to prevent its future enforcement. Heck bars § 1983 suits that are really collateral attacks on a prior conviction, and, as in Edwards v. Balisok and Wilkinson v. Dotson, a claim for forward-looking relief falls outside habeas’s core and Heck’s concerns. The Court did not reach the second question, whether Heck applies to plaintiffs who never had access to federal habeas relief. Reversed and remanded.
The Court
Justice Kagan delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
What this episode contains
This episode is an AI-narrated reading of the majority opinion in Olivier v. City of Brandon, written by Justice Kagan.
AI disclosure: The voice in this episode is AI-generated, using a machine learning model styled to loosely resemble the authoring justice. Tone, inflection, pacing, and emphasis are artifacts of the model and should not be attributed to Justice Kagan. The text being read is the Court’s published majority opinion, lightly adapted to improve readability for the spoken format.