Case out of the Fifth Circuit, written by Judge Willett, on Heck v. Humphrey and the so-called Heck bar or habeas exception to § 1983:
A former county ADA in Texas moonlighted for two decades as law clerk to the judges of that district. He was discovered in 2019 and disbarred. Erma Wilson was convicted of cocaine possession in 2001 and received an 8-year suspended sentence. Wilson learned about the conflict when a capital conviction was overturned on habeas (she was not among the many people who received written notice from the DA about the conflict) and brought a § 1983 action, more than two decades after her conviction and more than a decade after completing her sentence.
Heck precludes § 1983 damages actions that would functionally call into question the validity of a conviction or sentence; habeas provides the sole federal vehicle for challenging state convictions. A § 1983 plaintiff must show “favorable termination” as an element of her claim. The problem arises when, as in Wilson, an individual no longer is in custody and thus cannot challenge the conviction or sentence through habeas. The Heck majority adopted favorable termination as an absolute rule. Justice Souter concurred in the judgment to argue that favorable termination should apply only at the “intersection” of habeas and § 1983, where both vehicles might be available; it should not apply when habeas is unavailable because the plaintiff no longer is in custody. Souter illustrates with a hypo that basically matches this case–a procedurally compromised conviction where the person does not learn about the compromise until after his release from custody.