SCOTUS sides with street preacher in First Amendment case

A street preacher’s failure to appeal his conviction for violating a municipal ordinance confining protests or demonstrations within designated areas did not bar him for later suing for prospective relief enjoining enforcement of the law, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court has ruled.

The case involved a constitutional challenge to an ordinance adopted in 2019 by Brandon, Mississippi that requires all individuals or groups engaging in “protests” or “demonstrations” stay within a “designated protest area” around the time their events were scheduled.

Plaintiff Gabriel Olivier is a Christian street preacher who believes that sharing his religious views with others is fundamental aspect of his religion. In his evangelical pursuits, Olivier typically uses loudspeakers and signs to communicate his message.

In 2021, Olivier was arrested for violating the Brandon ordinance by preaching on the sidewalk in front of an amphitheater rather than in a nearby designated protest area. Beforehand, Olivier had inspected the designated area but found it too remote for his purposes.

Olivier pleaded no contest in municipal court. The court imposed a $304 fine and one year of probation. The judge also sentenced Olivier to 10 days in prison to be served only if he violated the terms of his probation by violating the city’s ordinance. Olivier did not appeal, paying the fine and serving no prison time.

Olivier subsequently brought a §1983 suit against city in federal court, alleging the ordinance violated his First Amendment free speech rights. In his lawsuit, Olivier sought a declaration that the ordinance violated the First Amendment as well as an injunction prohibiting city officials from enforcing the ordinance in the future.

The city argued that, because Olivier’s conviction for violating the ordinance had not been appealed, his claim was barred under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1994 decision in Heck v. Humphrey. Under Heck, §1983 suits are barred to the extent they challenge the validity of a prior conviction or sentence.

Following Heck, a federal judge dismissed Olivier’s suit. The 5th Circuit affirmed.

But a unanimous Supreme Court reversed, holding that because Olivier sought purely prospective relief, his lawsuit could proceed notwithstanding his prior conviction for violating the Brandon ordinance.

Click here to read the full text of the U.S. Supreme Court’s March 20 decision in Olivier v. City of Brandon.

BULLET POINTS: “Olivier’s suit does not, as habeas suits do, ‘collateral[ly] attack’ the old conviction. It thus cannot give rise, as Heck feared, to ‘parallel litigation’ respecting his prior conduct. Nor does it risk ‘conflicting’ judgments over how that conduct was prosecuted or punished. The suit, after all, is not about what Olivier did in the past, and depends on no proof addressed to his prior conviction. Unlike in Heck, the suit merely attempts to prevent a future prosecution. So the Heck bar does not come into play.

“The City’s main argument to the contrary (echoing the decisions below) rests on one sentence of our Heck opinion. That supposedly dispositive line states: ‘[W]hen a state prisoner seeks damages in a §1983 suit, the district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, the complaint must be dismissed’ (unless the conviction has already been invalidated). Of course, Olivier does not ‘seek[]damages’ in his §1983 suit, but the City points out that several post-Heck decisions dropped the sentence’s prefatory phrase while repeating the rest. And in the City’s view, that modified inquiry suggests that the Heck bar should apply to Olivier’s suit. That is because, the City says, a judgment in Olivier’s favor would ‘necessarily imply the invalidity of [his] prior conviction[].’ To declare the city ordinance unconstitutional, as Olivier seeks, would be to imply that no one — including Olivier — should have been convicted under that law. …

“We think, with the benefit of hindsight … that the sentence relied on [by the City] swept a bit too broad. That language was used in Heck to identify claims that were really assaults on a prior conviction, even though involving some indirection. One example was found in Heck itself: a claim seeking not straightforward reversal of a conviction (and release from custody), but damages attributable to that conviction, requiring proof that police misconduct made it invalid. Another example Heck offered was yet further attenuated. A person convicted of resisting arrest — defined as preventing an officer from effecting a lawful arrest — brings a §1983 action for damages against the arresting officer for violation of his Fourth Amendment right not to be unreasonably seized. The damages sought, unlike in Heck, are not attributable to his conviction (for resisting arrest); they are damages deriving only from the underlying arrest. Still, a ‘§1983 action will not lie’ because the plaintiff, to prevail, ‘would have to negate an element of the offense of which he has been convicted’— i.e., that the underlying arrest was ‘lawful.’ Once again, the suit requires looking back to conduct involved in a prior conviction, and offering contradictory proof. By contrast, there is no looking back in Olivier’s suit. Both in the allegations made, and in the relief sought, the suit is all future-oriented — even if, as a kind of byproduct, success in it shows that something past should not have occurred. The Heck Court did not consider such a suit, and the Heck language was not meant to address it.”

— Justice Elena Kagan, opinion of the court