Dan Epps

Maybe the standings have changed a little bit.

But Judges Ho and Oldham, both saying that we're interpreting this rule a little bit too broadly.

Even if you were previously convicted, you should be allowed to go to court and say, look, you can't keep enforcing this statute against me.

And this is under your alternate theory, right?

I'm just saying that's the ordinary rule of res judicata.

No, but I mean if you were putting the Heck v. Humphrey rule under that res judicata heading.

Okay.

And so this actually implicated two unresolved questions.

One is that one of these we've just been talking about is does this rule bar suits by someone who is just coming in and saying, hey, look, I know I was convicted before.

That's not the problem.

Please don't do this to me again.

And then also there's this other question about whether someone who was never in custody, so never in jail, never in prison, can bring a civil rights suit or whether those are also barred by the heck rule.

Yeah.

Now, the court is actually just, it does not going to resolve that question.

It could have used this case to resolve that question, but just does not.

But in footnote two, which you just mentioned, there's this interesting wrinkle, which the court says, actually, he probably, you know, everyone said he wasn't in custody, but actually, formally, we think he was in custody.

So maybe he could have filed a habeas action of some kind.

Okay.

So the court seems to find this pretty easy.

13-page opinion saying, yes, you can still bring these suits.