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Inmate’s No Contest Plea on Resisting Charge Is Inadmissible in Civil Case—Ninth Circuit
Opinion Says Plea May Not Serve as Basis for Dismissal of Complaint Asserting Excessive Force Allegations, Drawing Dissent
By a MetNews Staff Writer
A divided panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that a plea of nolo contendere is inadmissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence in a case, brought under 42 U.S.C. §1983, concerning the same incident as evidence, holding that allowing the case to proceed would violate the prohibition against using civil actions to challenge the validity of convictions.
At issue is the interplay between Rule 410(a) and the 1994 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Heck v. Humphrey which established that a prisoner’s §1983 suit for damages cannot proceed if “judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction or sentence.”
Rule 410(a) provides that evidence of a “nolo contendere plea” is generally “not admissible against the defendant who made the plea” in a separate “civil or criminal” proceeding.
The question arose after Jerry King, an inmate at the Kern Valley State Prison, filed a federal civil rights complaint in May 2017 asserting Eighth Amendment excessive force claims against correctional officers relating to an altercation at the facility that occurred on Aug. 17, 2016. After King filed the lawsuit, local prosecutors filed criminal charges against him for violating Penal Code §69 by resisting an executive officer.
Following the imposition of a stay in the civil case pending resolution of the criminal matter, King entered a nolo contendere plea in the state court in which he did not admit the truth of the allegations but stipulated to a factual basis for the charges based on law enforcement reports. During the March 2022 plea hearing, King repeatedly expressed concern about the impact of a plea on his pending lawsuit.
Heck Bar
Yesterday’s majority opinion, authored by Senior Circuit Judge William A. Fletcher and joined in by Circuit Judge Ana de Alba, acknowledges that “our court has previously applied the Heck bar in cases where the relevant criminal conviction was obtained through” a no contest plea but points out that “none of these previous decisions considered whether Rule 410 barred the admission of the nolo plea in the first place.”
Addressing the question head-on, Fletcher wrote:
“We now hold that Rule 410(a) bars admission of a nolo contendere plea to show that a §1983 plaintiff committed the crimes to which he pleaded nolo contendere. Our holding follows from a straightforward application of the text of the Rule.”
Saying that District Court Judge Jennifer L. Thurston of the Eastern District of California erred in finding that King’s §1983 complaint is barred by Heck based on the plaintiff’s plea in the criminal matter, the jurist said:
“King was willing to accept a plea offer only after reassurances that a plea of nolo contendere…would not preclude his civil suit. As Defendants themselves note, ‘Rule 410 is meant to encourage compromise in criminal cases, which, in turn, lessens the burden on courts, defendants and prosecutors, producing a more efficient criminal justice system.’ That is precisely what happened here.”
Circuit Judge Consuelo M. Callahan dissented, characterizing the decision as “wrong” and opining that “the majority’s strained reading of Rule 410(a) would subject state officials to a broad swath of civil cases that as a matter of fact imply the invalidity of the plaintiffs’ underlying convictions and thus should be barred.” She called for the decision to be overturned.
Judgment on Pleadings
The case came before the Ninth Circuit after the defendants filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that King’s claims are barred by Heck. In November 2022, U.S. Magistrate Judge Erica P. Grosjean of the Eastern District of California recommended that the request be denied.
Then-Senior District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii adopted Grosjean’s findings and recommendations in full. Following Ishii’s retirement, the case was assigned to Thurston, who concluded that the defendant’s request for reconsideration was warranted and granted the motion for judgment on the pleadings based on Heck on July 19, 2023.
Flether wrote:
“In holding King’s claim to be Heck-barred, the district court compared the facts contained in King’s complaint to those contained in one of Defendants’ incident reports, reasoning that at his plea hearing King stipulated to a factual basis for his nolo plea based on the reports….That is, the district court considered both evidence of ‘a nolo contendere plea’ and ‘statement[s] made during a proceeding on’ that plea ‘[i]n a civil case’ against ‘the defendant who made the plea.’ Such evidence falls squarely within the evidentiary bar of Rule 401(a). We hold that the district court erred in considering such evidence.”
Noting case law finding that nolo contendere pleas are unique legal constructs, he opined that “[t]his is especially true where, as here, a defendant in California state court couples a nolo plea” with a statement indicating that the accused does not admit the truth of the charges against him. Under those circumstances, he reasoned:
“Under Rule 410(a), neither the plea nor the statements should have been admitted against him in his civil case.”
Bars Admission
Rejecting the defendants’ contention that even if Rule 410 bars admission of King’s no contest plea, it does not bar admission of the resulting conviction, Fletcher said:
“In applying the Heck bar in the case before us, the district court relied on facts about King’s actions alleged in Defendants’ incident reports. It reasoned that King admitted to those facts in pleading nolo contendere to his conviction under §69. In other words, the court considered King’s conviction as evidence that he was guilty of the acts to which he pleaded no contest. Under our precedent, that is an impermissible use of a conviction arising from a nolo plea.”
He added:
“[O]ur decision is consistent with the purposes underlying both the Heck bar and Rule 410(a). The Supreme Court’s principal concern…was that ‘civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments.’…King’s §1983 suit was plainly not an attempt to engage in any such collateral attack. Indeed, at the time of filing, King had no conviction to challenge. The record also reflects that once he was criminally charged under Penal Code §69, King took careful steps to resolve his criminal case in a way that would not interfere with the pending civil action.”
The judge acknowledged that yesterday’s opinion conflicts with one by the Sixth District, but concluded that “our interpretation of Rule 410(a)” is in line with the statutory purposes behind the section.
Callahan’s View
Disagreeing with the majority’s analysis, Callahan wrote:
“Remarkably, the majority does not dispute that if King prevails on his claim for damages, it would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction. Instead, because King’s conviction is the result of a nolo contendere plea, the majority contrives to interpret Federal Rule of Evidence 410(a) as precluding the court from even considering the state court conviction and the state court records that establish the factual basis for the conviction. In doing so, the majority undervalues the Heck bar and, by giving Rule 410(a) an incorrect and unprecedented interpretation, eviscerates the Heck bar. Accordingly, I dissent.”
Saying that “[w]e have…specifically rejected, albeit in unpublished decisions, the majority’s assertion,” she argued:
“The majority fundamentally misunderstands the Heck inquiry when it asserts that the state court records are being used to show that King ‘committed the charged crime.’…That is wrong. The state records are used to show that King was convicted, not the propriety of the conviction. Defendants have no need to prove that King actually committed the crime. King had ample opportunity in his state criminal proceeding to challenge the sufficiency of the factual evidence against him but by entering a nolo plea he chose not to do so. Now that his state conviction is final, Heck precludes him from seeking civil damages that would imply the invalidity of his state court conviction….”
She added: “[T]he scope and impact of the majority opinion should not be underestimated. Very few criminal cases actually go to trial, most are resolved at the pleading stage, and many of those are the result of nolo contendere pleas…[T]he majority’s approach paves the way for criminal defendants to plead nolo contendere to criminal charges and then sue the officers for their actions in apprehending them.
“The majority’s opinion is wrong and should be overturned, if not by our court sitting en banc then by the Supreme Court. I respectfully dissent.”
The case is King v. Villegas, 23-1713.
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