Olivier v. City of Brandon, Mississippi, et al. (24-993)
- Term
- OT 2025
- Argued
- 2025-12-03
- Decided
- 2026-03-20
- Vote
- 9-0 for Olivier
- Opinion
- Justice Kagan
- Majority
- Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Jackson
The case in brief
Facts
Gabriel Olivier is a Christian street preacher who sometimes preached on the sidewalks near an amphitheater in the City of Brandon, Mississippi. In 2019, the City passed an ordinance requiring people holding protests or demonstrations around event times to stay inside a designated protest area. In 2021, Olivier was arrested for breaking that rule, and he pleaded no contest (meaning he did not fight the charge) in city court. He later sued the City in federal court under a law called Section 1983, which lets people sue local officials for violating their constitutional rights; he argued the ordinance violates his free-speech rights and asked only for an order blocking its future enforcement. The trial court ruled that an earlier Supreme Court case, Heck v. Humphrey, barred his suit because of his prior conviction, and the federal appeals court agreed.
Question
Does Heck v. Humphrey stop a person who was convicted under a city ordinance from suing under Section 1983 to block only future enforcement of that ordinance?
Conclusion
Olivier won in a unanimous 9-0 decision written by Justice Kagan, and the Court reversed the lower court and sent the case back. The Court held that Heck does not bar a suit that seeks only to prevent future prosecutions, even if the person was previously convicted under the challenged law. The Court reasoned that such a forward-looking suit does not attack the old conviction or risk conflicting rulings about past conduct, and that Heck's broad wording must be read in the context of that case. The Court noted it was not deciding whether someone still in custody for violating a law could bring this kind of suit.
Opinion of the Court
Authored by Justice Kagan (5,776 words total).
Volume 607 U. S. Part 2 Pages 552–567
THE SUPREME COURT March 20, 2026
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certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fth circuit No. 24–993. Argued December 3, 2025—Decided March 20, 2026 Petitioner Gabriel Olivier is a street preacher in Mississippi who believes that sharing his religious views with fellow citizens is an important part of exercising his faith. His vocation sometimes took him to the sidewalks near an amphitheater in the City of Brandon, where he could fnd sizable audiences attending events. In 2019, the City adopted an ordinance requiring all individuals or groups engaging in “protests” or “demonstrations,” at around the time events were scheduled, to stay within a “designated protest area.” In 2021, Olivier was arrested for violating that ordinance. He pleaded no contest in municipal court. The court imposed a $304 fne, one year of probation, and 10 days of imprisonment to be served only if he violated the ordinance during his probation. Olivier did not appeal, paid the fne, and served no prison time. Because he still wanted to preach near the amphitheater, Olivier fled suit against the City in federal court under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, alleging that the city ordinance violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment by consigning him and other speakers to the amphitheater's protest area. The complaint seeks, as a remedy, a declaration that the ordinance infringes the First Amendment and an injunction preventing city offcials from enforcing the ordinance in the future. In other words, the relief requested is only prospective; Olivier seeks neither the reversal of, nor compensation for, his prior conviction. The parties contested in the lower courts whether this Court's decision in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U. S. 477—which prohibits the use of § 1983 to challenge the validity of a prior conviction or sentence so as to obtain release from custody or monetary damages—bars the suit from going forward. On the City's view of Heck, a person previously convicted of violating a statute cannot challenge its constitutionality under § 1983 because success in the suit would cast doubt on the prior conviction's correctness. On Olivier's contrary view, Heck does not apply when a plaintiff seeks wholly prospective relief, rather than relief relating to the prior conviction. The District Court agreed with the City's understanding of Heck and found Olivier's suit barred. The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affrmed on the same reasoning.
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Held: Olivier's suit seeking purely prospective relief—an injunction stopping offcials from enforcing an ordinance in the future—can proceed,
Syllabus notwithstanding Olivier's prior conviction for violating that ordinance; Heck does not hold otherwise. Pp. 560–567. (a) Before the Court's decision in Heck, the City would have had no plausible basis for claiming Olivier's suit is barred. That type of suit falls within § 1983's heartland: Assuming a credible threat of prosecution, a plaintiff may bring a § 1983 action to challenge a local law as violating the Constitution and to prevent that law's future enforcement. See, e. g., Steffel v. Thompson, 415 U. S. 452. In Wooley v. Maynard, 430 U. S. 705, the Court held that rule to apply even when the plaintiff was previously convicted under the challenged law. The Court explained that because the suit at issue sought “wholly prospective” relief—“only to be free from prosecutions for future violations”—and was “in no way designed to annul the results of a state trial,” § 1983 provided an avenue for the plaintiff 's claim. Id., at 711. Were it otherwise, the plaintiff would have been trapped “between the Scylla of intentionally fouting state law and the Charybdis of forgoing what he believes to be constitutionally protected activity.” Id., at 710. The Court's decision in Wooley, taken alone, would defeat the City's attempt to prevent Olivier's suit from going forward, but the City argues the Court's later decision in Heck requires the opposite result. In Heck, the Court held that a state prisoner could not use § 1983 to seek damages attributable to his allegedly unconstitutional conviction. The Court reasoned that such a suit in truth mounts a “collateral attack” on the validity of the conviction, and thus intrudes on the habeas statute's domain. 512 U. S., at 485. And such a suit could lead to “parallel litigation” and “conficting” judgments about the same conduct, with the § 1983 suit suggesting that the plaintiff should be released even as criminal or habeas proceedings found the opposite. Id., at 484. Hence the so-called Heck bar on “§ 1983 damages actions that necessarily require the plaintiff to prove the unlawfulness of his conviction or confnement.” Id., at 486. “[W]hen a state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983 suit,” the Court went on, “the district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence.” Id., at 487. The Court subsequently drew a line between Heck-type claims and those seeking forward-looking relief. In Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U. S. 641, the Court held that while a state prisoner could not obtain damages for an alleged past violation, a claim for “prospective injunctive relief ”— the use of fairer procedures in the future—may “properly be brought under § 1983,” because it does not depend on showing the “invalidity of a previous” sentencing decision. Id., at 648. In Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U. S. 74, the Court allowed state prisoners to bring a § 1983 suit requesting an injunction requiring the State to “comply with constitu-
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