SCOTUS Delivers Major Win For A Christian Preacher And The Constitution
(ANALYSIS) The Supreme Court announced a major decision last week in what seems like a quintessential religious freedom case: A Christian preacher charged with violating a city ordinance for sharing his faith in a public park. But outrageous as it may have been, the preacher’s arrest was not actually at the heart of this case.
After pleading no contest to violating Brandon, Mississippi’s ordinance and paying a fine, Gabriel Olivier challenged the ordinance in federal district court under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and asked for an order blocking the city from enforcing it against him in the future. Olivier brought those claims by way of 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, a federal statute that allows people to sue state actors for violations of the U.S. Constitution.
The district court dismissed Olivier’s suit on the basis of Heck v. Humphrey, a 1994 Supreme Court case holding that prisoners cannot maintain suits under Sec. 1983 that would necessarily invalidate their convictions.
Under the Heck rule, prisoners must first have those convictions overturned through the federal habeas corpus statute. The purpose of this rule is to stop prisoners from using Sec. 1983 as a means of circumventing the strict limits on habeas corpus.
The district court reasoned that if Olivier prevailed in his Sec. 1983 claim that the city’s ordinance was unconstitutional, it would necessarily imply that his conviction for violating it was also unconstitutional. And for the district court, that meant that Olivier would have to challenge the constitutionality of the statute by satisfying the rigorous requirements of a writ of habeas corpus application, not through Sec. 1983.
In other words, whether the City of Brandon had violated the Constitution by arresting him for preaching was not the issue: The question was which statute Olivier could use to challenge it.
Olivier appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which affirmed the district court’s dismissal on the basis of Heck. He then went to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear his case. Olivier argued that the real purpose of Heck was to prevent claimants from trying to directly invalidate their past convictions, not to block them from seeking protection from the future enforcement of unconstitutional laws.
RFI filed an amicus brief in support of Olivier. Our brief argued that throughout the history of American jurisprudence, individuals punished under unconstitutional laws have been permitted to challenge the future application of those laws.
Hence, we wrote, “Olivier’s challenge to the city’s ordinance places Olivier among a long line of litigants, sanctioned for practicing their faith, who seek to vindicate their constitutional rights.” We urged the Court to hold that those punished for violating an unconstitutional law are not barred from challenging its future application.
The Court delivered a decisive victory for Olivier. In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Kagan, the Court clarified that “Heck 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,” but that it does not bar suits seeking only a forward-looking remedy. The lower courts’ holding had put Oliver in the position of choosing to “flout the law and risk another prosecution, or else forgo speech he believes is constitutionally protected.”
But since the constitutionality of arresting someone for preaching in public was not the issue in this case–nor did the Court overtly express an opinion on it–the question arises: in what sense is this a victory for religious freedom?
On one level, of course, the Supreme Court ruling helps Olivier because now he can go back to the district court to challenge the constitutionality of the ordinance he was punished for violating. But on another level, the Court’s ruling in his case goes far beyond Olivier’s challenge to a city ordinance. It clears the way for those convicted under unconstitutional laws to challenge the future application of those laws.
It is in this expansion of the people’s ability to enforce the Constitution that the true victory lies.
Ismail Royer is the director of Islam and Religious Freedom for the Religious Freedom Institute in Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Lay Leaders Advisory Board of the White House Religious Liberty Commission.