Thornton v. Brown, No. 11-56146 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 challenging the imposition and enforcement of two conditions of his parole: a residency restriction and a requirement that he submit to electronic monitoring using a GPS device. The district court dismissed the action under Rule 12(b)(6), concluding that habeas corpus provided the exclusive federal remedy for plaintiff's claims. The court held, however, that such an action was not barred by Heck v. Humphrey if it was not a collateral attack on either the fact of a parolee's confinement as a parolee or the parolee's underlying conviction or sentence. Because petitioner's action was such an attack, the court reversed and remanded .
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel reversed the district court’s order dismissing, pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), a civil rights action involving a constitutional challenge to the imposition and enforcement of two conditions of plaintiff’s parole: a residency restriction and a requirement that plaintiff submit to electronic monitoring using a Global Positioning System device. The district court, citing Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 489–90 (1973), and Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 487 (1994), concluded that habeas corpus provided the exclusive federal remedy for plaintiff’s claims. The panel held that an action which challenges the conditions of parole is not barred by Heck if it is not a collateral attack on either the fact of a parolee’s confinement as a parolee or the parolee’s underlying conviction or sentence. The panel held that because in this case plaintiff challenged just two parole conditions, which were imposed through a discretionary decision of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, his success would neither result in speedier release from parole nor imply, either directly or indirectly, the invalidity of the criminal judgments underlying that parole term. Therefore Heck did not bar him from proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Dissenting, Judge Ikuta stated that as a matter of California law, plaintiff’s challenges, if successful, would necessarily demonstrate that a portion of his underlying sentence was invalid. Judge Ikuta stated that because the Supreme Court has held such challenges must be brought in a habeas petition, not under § 1983, she would affirm the district court.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on February 18, 2014.
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