Case: 22-30184 Document: 00516883884 Page: 1 Date Filed: 09/05/2023
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit
United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
____________ FILED
September 5, 2023
No. 22-30184 Lyle W. Cayce
____________ Clerk
Ellis Ray Hicks,
Plaintiff—Appellee,
versus
James M. LeBlanc, Secretary, Department of Public Safety and
Corrections, individually and in his official capacity; Terry Lawson,
Department of Corrections employee, individually and in his official capacity;
Tracy DiBenedetto; Sally Gryder; Angela Griffin,
Defendants—Appellants.
______________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Louisiana
USDC No. 3:19-CV-108
______________________________
Before Higginbotham, Southwick, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
Patrick E. Higginbotham, Circuit Judge:
We are seeing with some frequency claims of “overdetention,” now a
euphemism for prisoners illegally incarcerated beyond the terms of their
sentence. Unfortunately, many of these cases have come to this Court in
recent years. This is yet another from Louisiana.
Ellis Ray Hicks brings claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Louisiana
state law against Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections
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(“DPSC”) supervisory officials Tracy DiBenedetto, Angela Griffin, and
Sally Gryder in their individual capacities alleging that he was wrongfully
detained for sixty days after the expiration of his prison sentence. The district
court denied qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage for
DiBenedetto and Gryder but found Griffin enjoys qualified immunity.
DiBenedetto and Gryder timely appealed. We conclude in this interlocutory
appeal that the district court properly denied qualified immunity and
AFFIRM.
I.
A.
In July 2016, Hicks was arrested in Louisiana for a parole violation
stemming from a conviction in Arkansas. In January 2017, after serving 163
days of pretrial detention, Hicks pled guilty to the parole violation and was
sentenced to four years of hard labor with credit for time served in Arkansas.
Hicks alleges that he should have been released on February 24, 2018.
In February 2017, Terry Lawson, a DPSC employee, calculated
Hicks’ sentence to end on February 28, 2018. Hicks alleges that several
weeks later, Gryder ordered Lawson to recalculate the sentence. Lawson
then came up with a new date of May 23, 2019, essentially removing the
credit for time served in Arkansas. Although Gryder reviewed the sentence
and calculation, she did not instruct Lawson to include the credit for time
served in Arkansas.
When Hicks questioned the new release date, Brian Flynn, Claiborne
Parish Clerk of Court, told him he would not get credit for time served
“without an official document from the State of Arkansas showing the credits
that you are due.” Subsequently, Lawson privately informed Hicks that he
was not qualified to receive credit for time served.
2
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With the help of his family and friends, in June 2017 Hicks obtained a
letter from the Arkansas Department of Corrections confirming his time
served in Arkansas, prompting Gryder to order Lawson to recalculate the
sentence. Lawson then came up with yet another new date, which Hicks
alleges still did not include time in pretrial detention in Arkansas. Seeking to
assure his time was properly being included, in July 2017 Hicks moved to
clarify the record in the Louisiana Second Judicial District Court. Several
weeks later, the sentencing judge again ordered that Hicks’ sentence be “four
(4) years of hard labor with credit for all time served, including the time
served in the State of Arkansas.” In September 2017, DiBenedetto reviewed
a filing by Hicks under Louisiana’s Administrative Remedy Procedure
(“ARP”) asking that his 110 days in Arkansas pretrial detention be included
in his time calculation. A short time later, DiBenedetto informed Hicks that
the current calculation was correct and would not be modified.
Two months later, in November 2017, Lawson asked DiBenedetto to
instruct him as to whether he should include the additional time in Hicks’
time calculation. DiBenedetto informed Lawson that whether to include the
110 days of pretrial detention in the calculation depended on whether Hicks
was being held “under the same circumstances” or if Louisiana had a “hold”
on him. Lacking clarity, Lawson recalculated the release date to be July 11,
2018, and two days later sent a follow-up email to DiBenedetto, asking
whether there was “any ruling” on including the 110 days in Hicks’ time
calculation. DiBenedetto did not answer the question, but rather asked
Lawson to determine whether there was a “hold” on Hicks from Louisiana
before including the 110 days of pretrial detention in the recalculation of his
sentence.
In January 2018, Hicks filed another ARP concerning Lawson’s
refusal to consider his time-served credit. Hicks then moved in Louisiana
state court to enforce the sentencing judge’s order, which was granted on
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January 12, 2018. In a February 2018 state habeas hearing, the judge and the
District Attorney confirmed that the sentence included time served in
Arkansas, but also advised that the court could do nothing else to help him
and that he needed to file suit in Baton Rouge against DPSC. During this
time, Lawson told Hicks’ friends and family that “an awful lot of people were
calling him” about Hicks, that “anyone who messes with me gets longer
time,” and that “if someone keeps bothering me about their computations
they can do more time.”
In April 2018, Hicks’ attorney called Lawson inquiring why Hicks had
not been released. In a recorded phone call, Lawson advised the attorney that
“judges have no say whatsoever to us applying our time comp laws” and
confirmed that Hicks’ sentence excluded time for which he served in
Arkansas. Later that month, Gryder asked Lawson to call the Faulkner
County Sheriff’s Office to determine how much time Hicks spent in pretrial
detention in Arkansas. Lawson then called and informed Griffin that Hicks
“had enough credit to get released.” Gryder then manually recalculated
Hicks’ sentence, inputting dates for all time served in Arkansas. Although
Hicks was eligible for immediate release, Gryder changed his release date
from April 20, 2018 to April 25, 2018. Ending this saga, Hicks was released
from prison on April 25, 2018.
B.
Later that year, alleging that he was unlawfully detained for 60 days
after the expiration of his prison sentence, Hicks filed suit under 42 U.S.C. §
1983, bringing claims against DPSC, James LeBlanc, individually and in his
official capacity as the DPSC Secretary, and Lawson, individually and in his
4
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official capacity as a DPSC employee.1 In August 2019, DPSC, LeBlanc, and
Lawson moved to dismiss, asserting that: (1) monetary damages were barred
by Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity, (2) Hicks’ claims were barred
under Heck v. Humphrey,2 and (3) LeBlanc and Lawson were entitled to
qualified immunity. The district court: (1) dismissed the claims for monetary
damages against LeBlanc and Lawson in their official capacities under
sovereign immunity, (2) held that the Heck doctrine did not bar Hicks’
claims, and (3) held that LeBlanc and Lawson were not entitled to qualified
immunity.3 This Court reversed the decision denying LeBlanc’s qualified
immunity but affirmed the district court’s rejection of Lawson’s qualified
immunity assertion.4
Following discovery, Hicks filed a Second Amended Complaint
(“SAC”), the operative pleading here, asserting claims against Lawson and
LeBlanc, adding DiBenedetto, Gryder, and Griffin as defendants, and
dropping DPSC as a defendant.5 DiBenedetto, Gryder, and Griffin moved to
dismiss, asserting that Heck v. Humphrey bars Hicks’ § 1983 claims and that
they are entitled to the defense of qualified immunity for the individual
_____________________
1
Hicks v. Dep’t of Pub. Safety & Corr., No. 19-CV-108, 2020 WL 428116, at *2
(M.D. La. Jan. 27, 2020). Hicks asserted Fourteenth Amendment due process and First
Amendment free speech violations, a Monell failure to train/supervise claim, false
imprisonment, negligence, respondeat superior, indemnification, and a violation of Hicks’
rights under the Louisiana Constitution.
Id. at *2.
2
512 U.S. 477 (1994).
3
See generally Hicks, 2020 WL 428116.
4
See generally Hicks v. LeBlanc, 832 F. App’x 836 (5th Cir. 2020) (unpublished)
(per curiam).
5
Hicks sued DiBenedetto, Gryder, and Griffin in their individual capacities,
asserting Fourteenth Amendment due process violations, a Monell failure to
train/supervise claim (against Griffin alone), false imprisonment, negligence, and a
violation of Hicks’ rights under the Louisiana Constitution.
5
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capacity claims. The district court denied qualified immunity as to
DiBenedetto and Gryder and granted it as to Griffin.6 DiBenedetto and
Gryder (“Appellants”) timely appealed.
II.
Under the collateral order doctrine, we may review the denial of a
motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity immediately.7 For purposes
of this appeal, we accept the factual allegations in the SAC as true.8 When, as
here, the district court denies a motion to dismiss on qualified immunity
grounds, “we have jurisdiction only to decide whether the district court erred
in concluding as a matter of law that officials are not entitled to [qualified
immunity] on a given set of facts.”9 “We do not consider the correctness of
the plaintiff’s version of the facts.”10 We review a district court’s denial of a
motion to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds de novo.11
III.
A.
Appellants insist they are entitled to qualified immunity because they
neither violated Hicks’ constitutional rights nor acted unreasonably in light
of clearly established law. We disagree.
“The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials
_____________________
6
Hicks v. Dep’t of Pub. Safety & Corr., 595 F. Supp. 3d 463, 467 (M.D. La. 2022).
7
Kinney v. Weaver, 367 F.3d 337, 346 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc).
8
See, e.g., Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009).
9
Ramirez v. Escajeda, 921 F.3d 497, 499 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting Rich v. Palko,
920
F.3d 288, 293 (5th Cir. 2019)).
10
Id. at 500 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
11
See Ashcroft, 556 U.S. at 678; Club Retro, L.L.C. v. Hilton,
568 F.3d 181, 194 (5th
Cir. 2009).
6
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from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly
established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person
would have known.”12 Qualified immunity shields government officials
performing discretionary functions from civil damages liability “as long as
their actions could reasonably have been thought consistent with the rights
they are alleged to have violated.”13 “Qualified immunity includes two
inquiries. The first question is whether the officer violated a constitutional
right. The second question is whether the ‘right at issue was “clearly
established” at the time of the alleged misconduct.’”14 We may decide which
_____________________
12
Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quotation marks omitted).
13
Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638 (1987); see also Morgan v. Swanson,
659
F.3d 359, 371 (5th Cir. 2011) (“The basic steps of our qualified-immunity inquiry are wellknown: a plaintiff seeking to defeat qualified immunity must show: (1) that the official
violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that the right was ‘clearly established’
at the time of the challenged conduct.” (cleaned up)).
14
Morrow v. Meachum, 917 F.3d 870, 874 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting Pearson,
555 U.S.
at 232). We note that we have, at times, reformulated the test for qualified immunity by
adding an objective-unreasonableness component. See Porter v. Epps,
659 F.3d 440, 445 (5th
Cir. 2011) (“A public official is entitled to qualified immunity unless the plaintiff
demonstrates that (1) the defendant violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights and (2) the
defendant’s actions were objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established law at the
time of the violation.”). But to be clear, there is no “standalone ‘objective reasonableness’
element to the Supreme Court’s two-pronged test for qualified immunity.” Baker v.
Coburn,
68 F.4th 240, 251 n.10 (5th Cir. 2023), as revised (May 19, 2023). In other words,
to establish a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must: “(1) allege a violation of a right secured
by the Constitution or laws of the United States and (2) demonstrate that the alleged
deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law.” Pratt v. Harris
County, Texas,
822 F.3d 174, 180 (5th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted); see also Ashcroft v. al-Kidd,
563 U.S. 731, 735 (2011) (“Qualified immunity shields
. . . state officials from money damages unless a plaintiff pleads facts showing (1) that the
official violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that the right was clearly
established at the time of the challenged conduct.”); Crittindon v. LeBlanc,
37 F.4th 177,
185–86 (5th Cir. 2022) (noting that to determine whether the defense applies on a given set
of facts, “[f]irst, [this court] ask[s] whether the officer’s alleged conduct has violated a
federal right. Second, [this court] ask[s] whether the right in question was clearly
established at the time of the alleged violation, such that the officer was on notice of the
7
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question of the qualified immunity analysis to address first.15
B.
We begin with the second question, whether the right at issue was
clearly established at the time of the alleged misconduct.16 “In determining
what constitutes clearly established law, this [C]ourt first looks to Supreme
Court precedent and then to our own.”17 When there is no direct controlling
authority, “this [C]ourt may rely on decisions from other circuits to the
extent that they constitute a robust consensus of cases of persuasive
authority.”18 Ultimately, the touchstone is “fair warning: The law can be
clearly established ‘despite notable factual distinctions between the
precedents relied on and the cases then before the Court, so long as the prior
decisions gave reasonable warning that the conduct then at issue violated
constitutional rights.’”19 In other words, “[t]he relevant, dispositive inquiry
in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be
clear to a reasonable [official] that his [or her] conduct was unlawful in the
situation he [or she] confronted.”20
_____________________
unlawfulness of his or her conduct”), petition for reh’g en banc denied, 58 F.4th 844, 845 (5th
Cir. 2023).
15
Pearson, 555 U.S. at 242 (“[T]he judges of the district courts and the courts of
appeals are in the best position to determine the order of decisionmaking that will best
facilitate the fair and efficient disposition of each case.”).
16
Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982).
17
Shumpert v. City of Tupelo, 905 F.3d 310, 320 (5th Cir. 2018).
18
Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
19
Kinney, 367 F.3d at 350 (quoting Hope v. Pelzer,
536 U.S. 730, 740 (2002)).
20
Porter, 659 F.3d at 445.
8
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The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that no state may “deprive
any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”21 Clear
as day, the government cannot hold an inmate without the legal authority to
do so, for that would “deprive” a person of his “liberty . . . without due
process of law.”22 Applying this foundational concept to carceral sentences
and releases, it is clearly established that inmates have the right to timely
release from prison consistent with the terms of their sentences, a holding we
have long-held and repeatedly reaffirmed.23 Relevant here, the right to timely
release was clearly established well before 2017.24 And, Hicks’ right to timely
release was clearly established under these particular circumstances because
governing law required DPSC to follow the state court’s orders requiring
them to credit the Arkansas time.25
C.
Having established that Hicks’ right to timely release was clearly
established, we turn to the first question of qualified immunity: whether
_____________________
21
U.S. CONST. amend. XIV. § 1.
22
Id.
23
See Parker v. LeBlanc, 73 F.4th 400, 408 (5th Cir. 2023) (“We agree that there is
sufficient clearly established law regarding the constitutional right to a timely release from
prison.”); Crittindon,
37 F.4th at 188 (noting that the Fifth Circuit “has recognized the
clearly established right to timely release from prison”); see also Porter,
659 F.3d at 445
(“Our precedent establishes that a jailer has a duty to ensure that inmates are timely
released from prison.”); Douthit v. Jones,
619 F.3d 527, 532 (5th Cir. 1980) (“Detention of
a prisoner thirty days beyond the expiration of his sentence in the absence of a facially valid
court order or warrant constitutes a deprivation of due process.”).
24
See Douthit, 619 F.2d at 532.
25
See Boddye v. La. Dep’t of Corr., 175 So. 3d 437, 441 (La. Ct. App. 1st 2015) (“It
is well settled that the determination of the sentence a defendant is to serve . . . is made by
the trial judge, not the defendant’s custodian.”).
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Appellants violated Hicks’ clearly established constitutional right.26 Hicks’
right to timely release is clearly established, not just as a general proposition
of law, but specifically by the multiple state-court orders declaring that the
Arkansas time was to be credited.
Under section 1983, “supervisory officials are not liable for the actions
of subordinates on any theory of vicarious liability.”27 Thus, a supervisory
official may be held directly liable “only if he affirmatively participates in the
acts that cause the constitutional deprivation.”28 A supervisor may also be
liable for failure to supervise or train if “(1) the supervisor either failed to
supervise or train the subordinate official; (2) a causal link exists between the
failure to train or supervise and the violation of the plaintiff’s rights; and (3)
the failure to train or supervise amounts to deliberate indifference.”29
Hicks invokes both theories of § 1983 liability. He argues that
DiBenedetto and Gryder should be liable for directly participating in the
violation of his rights, and that Appellants should be liable for their deliberate
indifference to Lawson’s violation of his constitutional rights. We agree.
Hicks plausibly alleges that DiBenedetto and Gryder were direct
participants in violating his right to timely release from prison. According to
the complaint, DiBenedetto reviewed all of Hicks’ ARPs, knew he was not
being credited for the Arkansas time, yet did not take any action to correct
the error. Indeed, she personally informed Hicks that her (incorrect)
calculation was correct and refused to modify it despite Hicks’ pointing out
_____________________
26
Morrow, 917 F.3d at 874 (“The first question is whether the officer violated a
constitutional right.”).
27
Thompkins v. Belt, 828 F.2d 298, 303 (5th Cir. 1987)).
28
Porter, 659 F.3d at 446.
29
Id.
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that his Arkansas time was not credited. And when Lawson asked
DiBenedetto whether he should include the Arkansas time credits,
DiBenedetto did not instruct Lawson to include the time—even though by
then the state court had clarified that Hicks’ Arkansas time was to be
credited. Gryder, too, directly participated in Hicks’ overdetention by
manually altering Hicks’ release date to extend the period of imprisonment
despite knowing that Hicks was, at that point, already being held past the
expiration of his sentence.
The alleged facts also lead to a plausible inference that Appellants, as
supervisors, were deliberately indifferent to Lawson’s violation of Hicks’
clearly established right to timely release from prison. Deliberate
indifference, of course, is a “stringent standard of fault, requiring proof that
a [government] actor disregarded a known or obvious consequence of his
action.”30 “For an official to act with deliberate indifference, the official must
both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a
substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the
inference.”31
In Crittindon, we held that a jury could find prison officials deliberately
indifferent to the plaintiffs’ right to timely release when the officials received
calls from the plaintiffs’ mothers about their release dates and discussed it
among themselves but did nothing about it for 17 days.32 Under those facts,
_____________________
30
Porter, 659 F.3d at 446–47.
31
Est. of Davis ex rel. McNully v. City of N. Richland Hills, 406 F.3d 375, 381 (5th
Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted).
32
37 F.4th at 189.
11
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we held, “[a] reasonable factfinder could find that their conduct sums to
deliberate indifference to Crittindon and Burse’s overdetention.”33
These facts are worse than in Crittindon. According to the complaint,
DiBenedetto and Gryder both knew—for months—that Hicks had on
numerous occasions contested Lawson’s failure to apply the Arkansas credit,
yet neither trained nor supervised Lawson even after it was confirmed that
the Arkansas credit was to be applied to Hicks’ sentence. Indeed, when
Lawson asked DiBenedetto (his supervisor) “whether he should include”
the Arkansas time, DiBenedetto did not instruct Lawson to follow the court’s
clarifying order—indeed it appears she did not give him any training or
supervision on this issue for nearly a month. DiBenedetto also did nothing in
response to one of Hicks’ (several) administrative grievances “specifically
regarding Lawson refusing the consider [the] Arkansas time” even though,
by then, multiple authorities had unequivocally stated that the Arkansas time
was to be included. Worst of all, DiBenedetto knew that “DOC staff have
discovered approximately one case of overdetention per week for the last nine
years,” with “inmates . . . sometimes incorrectly incarcerated for periods of
up to a year.” Yet she did nothing. As for Gryder, she too knew of Lawson’s
lack of training and supervision as he miscalculated—over and over again—
Hicks’ time credits. Importantly, upon learning that Hicks was entitled to
“immediate release,” she “manually changed his release date from April 20,
2018 to April 25, 2018, deliberately holding him for an additional five (5)
days.” On these facts, we draw the plausible inference that DiBenedetto and
Gryder disregarded the “known or obvious consequence” of their failure to
_____________________
33
Id.
12
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train and supervise Lawson.34 The district court did not err in denying
Appellants’ qualified immunity defense.
IV.
A.
Appellants also contend that Hicks’ claims are barred under the Heck
doctrine, as they argue Hicks challenges both the validity and duration of his
confinement.35 Hicks counters that Heck’s bar does not apply to his claims
because he merely challenges his overdetention. Hicks is correct: Heck has
no place here.
As Hemingway once said, there is no need “to write in another way
what has been well written.”36 Such is the case here. In Crittindon, we
addressed allegations that “DPSC officials, in violation of the Fourteenth
Amendment, looked away from the administrative failure they knew was
leaving prisoners in jail who had served their sentences.”37 As in Crittindon,
Hicks does not challenge the validity of his sentence, merely the execution of
his release.38 He seeks to vindicate—not undermine—his sentence. As in
_____________________
34
See Crittindon, 37 F.4th at 186; Parker,
73 F.4th at 406.
35
512 U.S. 477 (1994).
36
See Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize Banquet Speech (Dec. 10, 1954).
37
Crittindon, 37 F.4th at 181.
38
Id. at 190 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court has emphasized that it was
“careful in Heck to stress the importance of the term ‘necessarily,’” such as when the
Court “acknowledged that an inmate could bring a challenge to the lawfulness of a search
pursuant to § 1983 in the first instance, even if the search revealed evidence used to convict
the inmate at trial, because success on the merits would not ‘necessarily imply that the
plaintiff’s conviction was unlawful.’” Nelson v. Campbell,
541 U.S. 637, 647 (2004)
(quoting Heck,
512 U.S. at 487 n.7). “To hold otherwise,” the Court continued, “would
have cut off potentially valid damages actions as to which a plaintiff might never obtain
13
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Crittindon, the Parties agree that Hicks was held in excess of his sentence.39
And as in Crittindon, if Hicks were to succeed based on the period he was
held beyond his original sentence, it would not invalidate the conviction or
its attendant sentence.40 Crittindon controls this case.41 Heck is no bar here.
The other cases upon which Appellants rely, Muhammad v. Close,42
and Colvin v. LeBlanc,43 also miss the mark. In Muhammad, a prisoner had a
confrontation with a prison guard, resulting in the prisoner being handcuffed
and subjected to pretrial detention on charges of “Threatening Behavior.”44
After six days in mandatory detention, the prisoner was acquitted of
threatening behavior but found guilty of the lesser infraction of insolence,
which would not have mandated pretrial detention.45 The prisoner
subsequently filed an action under § 1983, alleging that the guard had charged
him with threatening behavior and subjected him to mandatory pretrial
detention in retaliation for his prior lawsuits and grievance proceedings
against the guard.46 The Supreme Court held that Heck did not bar the § 1983
case because the plaintiff did not challenge his insolence conviction or any
subsequent detention, but only sought damages for the injuries sustained
_____________________
favorable termination–suits that could otherwise have gone forward had the plaintiff not
been convicted.” Id.
39
Crittindon, 37 F.4th at 190.
40
Id.
41
Id. at 190–92, petition for reh’g en banc denied,
58 F.4th 844, 845 (5th Cir. 2023).
42
540 U.S. 749 (2004).
43
2 F.4th 494 (5th Cir. 2021).
44
540 U.S. at 752.
45
Id.
46
Id. at 753.
14
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during the six days of prehearing detention.47 Thus, the plaintiff was
challenging only the conduct that subjected him to unnecessary pretrial
detention, and was not deemed to be seeking a judgment at odds with his
conviction.48 The Supreme Court concluded in Muhammad that challenges
to disciplinary proceedings are barred by Heck only if the § 1983 action would
be “seeking a judgment at odds with [the prisoner’s] conviction or with the
State’s calculation of time to be served in accordance with the underlying
sentence.”49 For that reason, Muhammad does not bar Hicks’ claims because
“the incarceration that matters under Heck is the incarceration ordered by
the original judgment of conviction.”50
Colvin similarly fails to support. In Colvin, James Colvin was
sentenced to eighty years in prison after a 1983 jury conviction in Louisiana.51
In 1986, he escaped from the Louisiana State Penitentiary, only to be
recaptured and sentenced to a new federal prison term.52 After being paroled
in 2004, Colvin then robbed a bank, for which he was sentenced to a new
term of imprisonment.53 When released in 2016, DPSC officials returned him
to Louisiana. While in Louisiana’s custody, Colvin filed a § 1983 suit, seeking
monetary damages for the “unconstitutional interruption” of his federal
sentence as well as the “illegal extradition” to Louisiana and an “artificial
_____________________
47
Id. at 754-55.
48
Id.
49
Id. at 754–55 (emphasis added).
50
Id. at 752 n.1.
51
Colvin, 2 F.4th at 496.
52
Id.
53
Id.
15
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extension” of his state sentence by thirty years.54 The defendants moved to
dismiss the case, arguing that the claims were barred by Heck, because Colvin
challenged the validity and duration of his detention.55 The district court
agreed.56 Colvin appealed, and we affirmed, holding that Colvin’s claims
were barred by Heck.57
However, we did not view the claim as one of unlawful overdetention.
To the contrary, this Court concluded that although the district court
“characterized Colvin’s claim as only involving the miscalculation of his
release date . . . Colvin actually challenges two independent acts: (1) the
‘artificial enhancement’ of his sentence, and (2) his illegal extradition.”58 We
then held that “a § 1983 damages action predicated on the sentence
calculation issue is barred by Heck because success on that claim would
necessarily invalidate the duration of his incarceration.”59 Hicks is not
challenging the number of days he was supposed to serve, but rather that he
was detained longer than the proper sentence imposed.
B.
Appellants’ last contention is that Heck bars any § 1983 claim that is
also cognizable in habeas at the time it accrues. In support of this argument,
Appellants rely on Preiser v. Rodriguez,60 which predates Heck. Appellants are
mistaken.
_____________________
54
Id.
55
Id.
56
Id. at 497.
57
Id. at 501.
58
Id. at 499.
59
Id. at 499 (emphasis added).
60
411 U.S. 475 (1973).
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In Preiser, state prisoners who had lost good-time credits as a result of
disciplinary proceedings brought an action under § 1983 for restoration of the
credits on the ground that the proceedings violated their due process rights.61
The prisoners would have been entitled to immediate release from prison if
their good-time credits had been restored.62 The Court held that the claims
thus fell within the core of habeas corpus and therefore had to be brought
under habeas, explaining that that the Great Writ is the “specific instrument
to obtain release” from unlawful imprisonment when a prisoner challenges
“the fact or duration of his confinement.”63
In a series of cases after Preiser, the Supreme Court articulated the
reach of its pronouncement, sorting state prisoner claims that fell within the
“core of habeas” and were required to be brought as a habeas action and
those which did not. In Wolff v. McDonnell, the Court reiterated that claims
for restoration of good-time credits were in the core of habeas and therefore
outside the scope of § 1983.64 Then the Court revisited Preiser in Heck when
it held that a § 1983 complaint must be dismissed if judgment for the plaintiff
would undermine the validity of his conviction or sentence.65 In Edwards v.
Balisok, the Court next held that a state prisoner’s challenge under § 1983
that “would necessarily imply the invalidity of the disciplinary hearing and
the resulting [deprivation of good-time credits]” fell within habeas’s
exclusive domain.66 And it later clarified Edwards in Muhammad, holding that
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61
Id. at 476–77.
62
Id. at 500.
63
Id. at 489–500.
64
18 U.S. 539, 554 (1974).
65
411 U.S. at 486–87.
66
520 U.S. 641, 644–48 (1997).
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such challenges to disciplinary proceedings are barred by Heck only if the §
1983 action would be “seeking a judgment at odds with [the prisoner’s]
conviction or with the State’s calculation of time to be served.”67
The upshot of these cases is that challenges to the validity of any
confinement or to particulars affecting its duration fall within the “core” of
habeas corpus and are barred under this line of precedent;68 “[b]y contrast,
constitutional claims that merely challenge the conditions of prisoner’s
confinement, whether the inmate seeks monetary or injunctive relief, fall
outside of that core and may be brought pursuant to § 1983 in the first
instance.”69 Preiser and its progeny do not implicate the claims here because
they are specifically beyond the “core” of habeas, as Hicks’ claims challenge
his overdetention, and by its terms do not implicate the fact or duration of his
confinement.70
The implications of Appellants’ arguments expose their weakness.
Applying Heck to any case also cognizable under habeas would obviate many
§ 1983 remedies the Supreme Court continues to recognize, such as those for
_____________________
67
540 U.S. at 754–55.
68
Hill v. McDonough, 547 U.S. 573, 579 (2006); see also Cook v. Tex. Dep’t. of Crim.
Just. Transitional Plan. Dep’t.,
37 F.3d 166, 168 (5th Cir. 1994) (“The core issue in
determining whether a prisoner must pursue habeas corpus relief rather than a [§ 1983]
action is to determine whether the prisoner challenges the ‘fact or duration’ of his
confinement or merely the rules, customs, and procedures affecting ‘conditions’ of
confinement.” (quoting Spina v. Aaron,
821 F.2d 1126, 1128 (5th Cir. 1987)).
69
Nelson, 541 U.S. at 643; see also Hill,
547 U.S. at 579; Wilkinson v. Dotson,
544
U.S. 74, 82 (2005) (“Because neither prisoner’s claim would necessarily spell speedier
release, neither lies at ‘the core of habeas corpus.’” (quoting Preiser,
411 U.S. at 489)).
70
The Supreme Court has not extended Heck as far as Appellants suggest. No
published precedent from this Court supports it. And here, the legality of the sentence and
of detention was never at issue. Hicks was released from custody not by a writ, but by a
phone call to the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office–habeas has no purchase in this situation.
Habeas had no role here. Hicks was released without the aid of any writ.
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First Amendment retaliatory arrest,71 malicious prosecution,72 and Fourth
Amendment unlawful pretrial detention,73 among others. Expanding Heck as
Appellants ask is a request that would overturn a wealth of this Court’s
precedent on those subjects.74
In sum, requiring overdetained plaintiffs to rely on state habeas would,
in practice, deprive them of a remedy under the federal Constitution.
Consider the following: Louisiana requires prisoners to avail themselves of
its Administrative Remedy Process, which can take up to 90 days,75 before
asserting the required state habeas claim.76 The habeas process can take
months, all the while the state can defeat a favorable outcome for the
plaintiffs by releasing the prisoners during the pendency of the habeas
proceedings, as doing so would leave the prisoner without a cognizable § 1983
claim. In other words, under Appellants’ conception of Heck, the state can
continue to detain prisoners for months past the expiration of their duly
imposed sentences without consequence under the federal Constitution.
This effectively utilizes the filing of state habeas proceedings as a cover for
Louisiana’s systemic failures. That, quite simply, is not the law. The district
court did not err in concluding that Hicks’ claims were not barred by Heck.
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71
See Nieves v. Bartlett, 139 S. Ct. 1715, 1723 (2019); see also Lozman v. City of Riviera
Beach, Fla.,
138 S. Ct. 1945, 1955 (2018).
72
See McDonough v. Smith, 139 S. Ct. 2149, 2156 (2019).
73
See Manuel v. City of Joliet, Ill., 580 U.S. 357 (2017).
74
See, e.g., Terwilliger v. Reyna, 4 F.4th 270, 277 (5th Cir. 2021) (considering a
§ 1983 suit for unlawful arrests without probable cause following the shootout at Twin
Peaks restaurant in Waco).
75
LA. ADMIN CODE TIT. 22, § 325(J)(1)(c) (2017).
76
“No prisoner suit shall assert a claim under state law until such administrative
remedies as are available are exhausted.” LA. STAT. ANN. § 15:1184.
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V.
“There isn’t always an explanation for everything.”77 Indeed, as our
Court remains plagued by claims arising from inexplicable and illegal
overdetention in Louisiana prisons, explanations scarcely arise, let alone
satisfy scrutiny upon our review.78 The problem is endemic in Louisiana,
where the process for calculating release dates is so flawed (to put it kindly)
that roughly one in four inmates released will have been locked up past their
release dates—for a collective total of 3,000-plus years.79
Appellants are not entitled to qualified immunity and these claims are
not barred by the Heck doctrine.
We AFFIRM.80
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77
Ernest Hemingway, A FAREWELL TO ARMS 81 (1929).
78
See Crittindon, 37 F.4th at 183.
79
Mariah Timms, Louisiana Prisons Hold Inmates Past Their Release Dates, Justice
Department Finds, WALL ST. J. (Jan. 25, 2023); Kanishka Singh, U.S. finds Louisiana
deliberately kept inmates past release date, REUTERS (Jan. 25, 2023); Lea Skene & Jacqueline
DeRoberts, State corrections overdetention woes, known since 2012, cost state millions, lawyer
alleges, THE ADVOCATE (Feb. 6, 2020).
80
Although the order appealed from is the denial of qualified immunity to just
DiBenedetto and Gryder, all defendants filed a notice of appeal. Because these other
defendants have not appealed a final judgment or an order appealable under the collateral
doctrine, we DISMISS the appeal of defendants James M. LeBlanc, Terry Lawson, and
Angela Griffin for lack of appellate jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We decline to exercise
pendent appellate jurisdiction over their appeal because the issues they raise are not
inextricably intertwined with the denial of qualified immunity. See Gros v. City of Grand
Prairie,
209 F.3d 431, 436–37 (5th Cir. 2000).
20
