by Richard Resch

The Supreme Court of the United States unanimously held that a plaintiff previously convicted of violating a city ordinance may proceed with a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit seeking only forward-looking relief – specifically, a declaration that the ordinance violates the First Amendment and an injunction against its future enforcement – notwithstanding the prior conviction. Resolving a split between the Fifth and Ninth Circuits, the Court ruled that Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), which bars the use of § 1983 to mount collateral attacks on prior convictions for the purpose of obtaining release from custody or monetary damages, has no bearing on suits that are entirely future-oriented in both their allegations and their requested remedies.

Because the Petitioner’s action did not seek release from custody, damages, expungement, or any other relief tied to his prior conviction, and instead sought only to prevent future enforcement of the ordinance, the concerns that motivated Heck, i.e., parallel litigation and conflicting judgments regarding the same past conduct, were absent, the Court reasoned. It acknowledged that success in Olivier’s suit would, “strictly speaking,” mean his prior conviction was unconstitutional but held that Heck’s “necessarily imply” language must be read in context and does not reach suits that are wholly prospective in both their allegations and requested relief.

Background

Gabriel Olivier is a street preacher in Mississippi whose religious convictions lead him to share his faith in public settings. He frequently preached on sidewalks near an amphitheater in the City of Brandon, where events attracted sizable audiences. After expressive activity in that area caused disruptions, the City enacted an ordinance in 2019 requiring anyone engaged in “protests” or “demonstrations” near scheduled events to remain in a “designated protest area.” Olivier returned to the amphitheater in 2021 but found the designated area too remote for effective communication. He proceeded instead to the sidewalk fronting the venue with his signs and loudspeaker, where the Brandon police chief arrested him.

Olivier pleaded no contest in municipal court. The court imposed a $304 fine, one year of probation, and 10 days of imprisonment conditioned on any further violation during probation. Olivier did not appeal, paid his fine, and served no jail time.

Wanting to resume preaching near the amphitheater, Olivier filed a § 1983 action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi against the City and its police chief. His complaint alleged that the ordinance violated the Free Speech Clause. Although Olivier originally also sought damages for the City’s prior enforcement of the ordinance against him, he abandoned that request as the suit progressed. By the time the case reached the Supreme Court, he sought only a declaration of unconstitutionality and an injunction barring future enforcement. He sought neither reversal of nor compensation for his conviction, and he affirmatively disclaimed any intention to use a favorable judgment to obtain expungement or avoid collateral consequences.

The District Court dismissed the suit under Heck, reasoning that success would “undermine” Olivier’s municipal court conviction. The Fifth Circuit affirmed on the same theory, holding that Heck precluded any §1983 claim that would “necessarily imply the invalidity of the plaintiff’s criminal conviction,” regardless of whether the plaintiff sought only prospective relief.

The Fifth Circuit subsequently denied rehearing en banc, but 8 of 17 judges dissented. Those judges maintained that Heck prohibits only the “retrospective use” of § 1983 to collaterally attack convictions and does not reach forward-looking injunctive relief. The dissenters identified a circuit split with the Ninth Circuit, which had held that Heck does not preclude suits for prospective relief. See Martin v. Boise, 920 F.3d 584 (9th Cir. 2019).

The Supreme Court granted certiorari after Olivier advanced two independent reasons why Heck should not bar his suit. First, he sought only purely prospective relief, and second, he allegedly had not been in custody and therefore had no habeas avenue. The Court resolved the case on the first ground and did not decide the second. It also noted that Olivier’s no-custody premise “appears to be wrong” because a person on probation is generally “in custody” for habeas purposes. Minnesota v. Murphy, 465 U.S. 420 (1984). But the Court treated any contrary argument as forfeited because the City had not raised it below.

Analysis

The Court established at the outset that before Heck, the City would have had no plausible argument for blocking Olivier’s suit. A plaintiff facing a credible threat of prosecution may use §1983 to challenge a local law as unconstitutional and to prevent its future enforcement. See Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U.S. 452 (1974). In Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U.S. 705 (1977), the Supreme Court applied this principle even where the plaintiff had been previously convicted under the challenged statute. The Wooley Court permitted the suit because the plaintiff sought “wholly prospective” relief, desired “only to be free from prosecutions for future violations,” and brought a suit that was “in no way designed to annul the results of a state trial.” Wooley. Without access to such a suit, the plaintiff would be trapped “between the Scylla of intentionally flouting state law and the Charybdis of forgoing what he believes to be constitutionally protected activity,” the Wooley Court warned.

The Heck Bar and Its
Later Refinements

The Court then turned to Heck, which the City contended required a different outcome. In that case, a state prisoner serving a manslaughter sentence filed a §1983 damages action alleging prosecutorial and investigative misconduct that produced his conviction. The Heck Court held that §1983 could not be used for that purpose because such a suit constituted a “collateral attack” on the conviction’s validity, encroaching on habeas corpus territory. Permitting it would invite “parallel litigation” and potentially “conflicting” judgments about the same conduct. Heck. The resulting rule bars “§1983 damages actions that necessarily require the plaintiff to prove the unlawfulness of his conviction or confinement.” Heck.

However, the Court noted that subsequent decisions distinguished backward-looking claims from those directed at the future. In Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641 (1997), the Supreme Court held that although a prisoner could not recover damages without demonstrating the invalidity of a prior punishment, thereby intruding on habeas, a request for “prospective injunctive relief” compelling fairer procedures going forward could “properly be brought under §1983” because it did not depend on showing the “invalidity of a previous” sentencing decision. Balisok. The Supreme Court reached a consistent result in Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74 (2005), permitting prisoners to seek an injunction requiring constitutionally adequate parole procedures “in the future.” Such “future relief” was “distant” from “the core of habeas” and therefore fell outside the Heck bar, according to the Supreme Court.

Measured against these precedents, Olivier’s action falls squarely outside the scope of both habeas and Heck, the Court concluded. Olivier was not contesting the “validity of [his] conviction or sentence” for the purpose of securing release or obtaining damages. Nance v. Ward, 597 U.S. 159 (2022). The Court observed that his objective was entirely prospective – to be free from future prosecutions under the ordinance. Because his suit does not function as a collateral attack on the prior conviction, it cannot produce the parallel litigation or conflicting judgments that undergirded the Heck decision, the Court reasoned.

The City’s “Necessarily Imply” Argument and the Court’s Response

The City’s principal counterargument centered on a single sentence from Heck directing courts to “consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence.” Heck. Although the original formulation applied explicitly “[w]hen a state prisoner seeks damages,” the City noted that later decisions had repeated the “necessarily imply” test without that qualifying language. See, e.g., Dotson; Skinner v. Switzer, 562 U.S. 521 (2011). Because declaring the ordinance unconstitutional would logically indicate that Olivier’s conviction should not have occurred, the City argued the bar applied.

The Court acknowledged that, read literally, the language fit. Nevertheless, it rejected the argument, invoking the principle that “general language in judicial opinions should be read as referring in context to circumstances similar to [those] then before the Court.” Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States, 598 U.S. 264 (2023). In its original context, the “necessarily imply” formulation identified claims that amounted to disguised attacks on prior convictions, i.e., suits premised on proof that misconduct rendered a conviction invalid, the Court explained. In contrast, the Court noted that Olivier’s suit involves no backward-looking component. Both the allegations and the requested relief are entirely future-oriented, even if success incidentally reveals that a past conviction should not have occurred.

The Court underscored this conclusion with a hypothetical. If a citizen with no criminal record filed an identical suit to enjoin the same ordinance, no one would contend that Heck posed an obstacle, but under the City’s reasoning, even that suit would “necessarily imply the invalidity” of Olivier’s conviction. This absurd consequence confirmed that the “necessarily imply” language cannot stretch as far as the City urged, the Court explained.

The Court further observed that the City’s position would recreate the dilemma Wooley was designed to prevent. Olivier would be forced either to violate the ordinance and risk prosecution or to surrender speech he believes the Constitution protects. The Court stated it had refused to impose that choice in Wooley and would not impose it here.

The Court expressly reserved the question whether a person currently in custody for violating a challenged statute may bring a comparable §1983 suit for prospective relief, noting that the Government as amicus curiae had urged that this issue be left for a future case.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the Fifth Circuit and remanded the case for further proceedings. See: Olivier v. City of Brandon, 2026 U.S. LEXIS 1272 (2026).  

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