Hicks v. LeBlanc

Case: 22-30184      Document: 00516883884          Page: 1     Date Filed: 09/05/2023




            United States Court of Appeals
                 for the Fifth Circuit
                                                                            United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                     Fifth Circuit


                                  ____________                                      FILED
                                                                           September 5, 2023
                                   No. 22-30184                               Lyle W. Cayce
                                  ____________                                     Clerk

   Ellis Ray Hicks,

                                                                Plaintiff—Appellee,

                                        versus

   James M. LeBlanc, Secretary, Department of Public Safety and
   Corrections, individually and in his official capacity; Terry Lawson,
   Department of Corrections employee, individually and in his official capacity;
   Tracy DiBenedetto; Sally Gryder; Angela Griffin,

                                           Defendants—Appellants.
                   ______________________________

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Louisiana
                             USDC No. 3:19-CV-108
                   ______________________________

   Before Higginbotham, Southwick, and Willett, Circuit Judges.
   Patrick E. Higginbotham, Circuit Judge:
          We are seeing with some frequency claims of “overdetention,” now a
   euphemism for prisoners illegally incarcerated beyond the terms of their
   sentence. Unfortunately, many of these cases have come to this Court in
   recent years. This is yet another from Louisiana.
          Ellis Ray Hicks brings claims under 

 and Louisiana
   state law against Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections
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                                     No. 22-30184


   (“DPSC”) supervisory officials Tracy DiBenedetto, Angela Griffin, and
   Sally Gryder in their individual capacities alleging that he was wrongfully
   detained for sixty days after the expiration of his prison sentence. The district
   court denied qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage for
   DiBenedetto and Gryder but found Griffin enjoys qualified immunity.
   DiBenedetto and Gryder timely appealed. We conclude in this interlocutory
   appeal that the district court properly denied qualified immunity and
   AFFIRM.
                                          I.
                                          A.
          In July 2016, Hicks was arrested in Louisiana for a parole violation
   stemming from a conviction in Arkansas. In January 2017, after serving 163
   days of pretrial detention, Hicks pled guilty to the parole violation and was
   sentenced to four years of hard labor with credit for time served in Arkansas.
   Hicks alleges that he should have been released on February 24, 2018.
          In February 2017, Terry Lawson, a DPSC employee, calculated
   Hicks’ sentence to end on February 28, 2018. Hicks alleges that several
   weeks later, Gryder ordered Lawson to recalculate the sentence. Lawson
   then came up with a new date of May 23, 2019, essentially removing the
   credit for time served in Arkansas. Although Gryder reviewed the sentence
   and calculation, she did not instruct Lawson to include the credit for time
   served in Arkansas.
          When Hicks questioned the new release date, Brian Flynn, Claiborne
   Parish Clerk of Court, told him he would not get credit for time served
   “without an official document from the State of Arkansas showing the credits
   that you are due.” Subsequently, Lawson privately informed Hicks that he
   was not qualified to receive credit for time served.




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          With the help of his family and friends, in June 2017 Hicks obtained a
   letter from the Arkansas Department of Corrections confirming his time
   served in Arkansas, prompting Gryder to order Lawson to recalculate the
   sentence. Lawson then came up with yet another new date, which Hicks
   alleges still did not include time in pretrial detention in Arkansas. Seeking to
   assure his time was properly being included, in July 2017 Hicks moved to
   clarify the record in the Louisiana Second Judicial District Court. Several
   weeks later, the sentencing judge again ordered that Hicks’ sentence be “four
   (4) years of hard labor with credit for all time served, including the time
   served in the State of Arkansas.” In September 2017, DiBenedetto reviewed
   a filing by Hicks under Louisiana’s Administrative Remedy Procedure
   (“ARP”) asking that his 110 days in Arkansas pretrial detention be included
   in his time calculation. A short time later, DiBenedetto informed Hicks that
   the current calculation was correct and would not be modified.
          Two months later, in November 2017, Lawson asked DiBenedetto to
   instruct him as to whether he should include the additional time in Hicks’
   time calculation. DiBenedetto informed Lawson that whether to include the
   110 days of pretrial detention in the calculation depended on whether Hicks
   was being held “under the same circumstances” or if Louisiana had a “hold”
   on him. Lacking clarity, Lawson recalculated the release date to be July 11,
   2018, and two days later sent a follow-up email to DiBenedetto, asking
   whether there was “any ruling” on including the 110 days in Hicks’ time
   calculation. DiBenedetto did not answer the question, but rather asked
   Lawson to determine whether there was a “hold” on Hicks from Louisiana
   before including the 110 days of pretrial detention in the recalculation of his
   sentence.
          In January 2018, Hicks filed another ARP concerning Lawson’s
   refusal to consider his time-served credit. Hicks then moved in Louisiana
   state court to enforce the sentencing judge’s order, which was granted on



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                                    No. 22-30184


   January 12, 2018. In a February 2018 state habeas hearing, the judge and the
   District Attorney confirmed that the sentence included time served in
   Arkansas, but also advised that the court could do nothing else to help him
   and that he needed to file suit in Baton Rouge against DPSC. During this
   time, Lawson told Hicks’ friends and family that “an awful lot of people were
   calling him” about Hicks, that “anyone who messes with me gets longer
   time,” and that “if someone keeps bothering me about their computations
   they can do more time.”
          In April 2018, Hicks’ attorney called Lawson inquiring why Hicks had
   not been released. In a recorded phone call, Lawson advised the attorney that
   “judges have no say whatsoever to us applying our time comp laws” and
   confirmed that Hicks’ sentence excluded time for which he served in
   Arkansas. Later that month, Gryder asked Lawson to call the Faulkner
   County Sheriff’s Office to determine how much time Hicks spent in pretrial
   detention in Arkansas. Lawson then called and informed Griffin that Hicks
   “had enough credit to get released.” Gryder then manually recalculated
   Hicks’ sentence, inputting dates for all time served in Arkansas. Although
   Hicks was eligible for immediate release, Gryder changed his release date
   from April 20, 2018 to April 25, 2018. Ending this saga, Hicks was released
   from prison on April 25, 2018.
                                         B.
          Later that year, alleging that he was unlawfully detained for 60 days
   after the expiration of his prison sentence, Hicks filed suit under 

, bringing claims against DPSC, James LeBlanc, individually and in his
   official capacity as the DPSC Secretary, and Lawson, individually and in his




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                                          No. 22-30184


   official capacity as a DPSC employee.1 In August 2019, DPSC, LeBlanc, and
   Lawson moved to dismiss, asserting that: (1) monetary damages were barred
   by Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity, (2) Hicks’ claims were barred
   under Heck v. Humphrey,2 and (3) LeBlanc and Lawson were entitled to
   qualified immunity. The district court: (1) dismissed the claims for monetary
   damages against LeBlanc and Lawson in their official capacities under
   sovereign immunity, (2) held that the Heck doctrine did not bar Hicks’
   claims, and (3) held that LeBlanc and Lawson were not entitled to qualified
   immunity.3 This Court reversed the decision denying LeBlanc’s qualified
   immunity but affirmed the district court’s rejection of Lawson’s qualified
   immunity assertion.4
           Following discovery, Hicks filed a Second Amended Complaint
   (“SAC”), the operative pleading here, asserting claims against Lawson and
   LeBlanc, adding DiBenedetto, Gryder, and Griffin as defendants, and
   dropping DPSC as a defendant.5 DiBenedetto, Gryder, and Griffin moved to
   dismiss, asserting that Heck v. Humphrey bars Hicks’ § 1983 claims and that
   they are entitled to the defense of qualified immunity for the individual

           _____________________
           1
             Hicks v. Dep’t of Pub. Safety & Corr., No. 19-CV-108, 

, at *2
   (M.D. La. Jan. 27, 2020). Hicks asserted Fourteenth Amendment due process and First
   Amendment free speech violations, a Monell failure to train/supervise claim, false
   imprisonment, negligence, respondeat superior, indemnification, and a violation of Hicks’
   rights under the Louisiana Constitution. 

.
           2
               

 (1994).
           3
               See generally Hicks, 

.
           4
             See generally Hicks v. LeBlanc, 

 (5th Cir. 2020) (unpublished)
   (per curiam).
           5
              Hicks sued DiBenedetto, Gryder, and Griffin in their individual capacities,
   asserting Fourteenth Amendment due process violations, a Monell failure to
   train/supervise claim (against Griffin alone), false imprisonment, negligence, and a
   violation of Hicks’ rights under the Louisiana Constitution.




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                                              No. 22-30184


   capacity claims. The district court denied qualified immunity as to
   DiBenedetto and Gryder and granted it as to Griffin.6 DiBenedetto and
   Gryder (“Appellants”) timely appealed.
                                                    II.
           Under the collateral order doctrine, we may review the denial of a
   motion to dismiss based on qualified immunity immediately.7 For purposes
   of this appeal, we accept the factual allegations in the SAC as true.8 When, as
   here, the district court denies a motion to dismiss on qualified immunity
   grounds, “we have jurisdiction only to decide whether the district court erred
   in concluding as a matter of law that officials are not entitled to [qualified
   immunity] on a given set of facts.”9 “We do not consider the correctness of
   the plaintiff’s version of the facts.”10 We review a district court’s denial of a
   motion to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds de novo.11
                                                   III.
                                                    A.
           Appellants insist they are entitled to qualified immunity because they
   neither violated Hicks’ constitutional rights nor acted unreasonably in light
   of clearly established law. We disagree.
           “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials
           _____________________
           6
                Hicks v. Dep’t of Pub. Safety & Corr., 

, 467 (M.D. La. 2022).
           7
               Kinney v. Weaver, 

 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc).
           8
                See, e.g., Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 

 (2009).
           9
            Ramirez v. Escajeda, 

 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting Rich v. Palko, 

 (5th Cir. 2019)).
           10
                Id. at 500 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
           11
             See Ashcroft, 

; Club Retro, L.L.C. v. Hilton, 

 (5th
   Cir. 2009).




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                                           No. 22-30184


   from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly
   established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person
   would have known.”12 Qualified immunity shields government officials
   performing discretionary functions from civil damages liability “as long as
   their actions could reasonably have been thought consistent with the rights
   they are alleged to have violated.”13 “Qualified immunity includes two
   inquiries. The first question is whether the officer violated a constitutional
   right. The second question is whether the ‘right at issue was “clearly
   established” at the time of the alleged misconduct.’”14 We may decide which
           _____________________
           12
                Pearson v. Callahan, 

 (2009) (quotation marks omitted).
           13
              Anderson v. Creighton, 

 (1987); see also Morgan v. Swanson, 

 (5th Cir. 2011) (“The basic steps of our qualified-immunity inquiry are well-
   known: a plaintiff seeking to defeat qualified immunity must show: (1) that the official
   violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that the right was ‘clearly established’
   at the time of the challenged conduct.” (cleaned up)).
           14
                Morrow v. Meachum, 

 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting Pearson, 

). We note that we have, at times, reformulated the test for qualified immunity by
   adding an objective-unreasonableness component. See Porter v. Epps, 

 (5th
   Cir. 2011) (“A public official is entitled to qualified immunity unless the plaintiff
   demonstrates that (1) the defendant violated the plaintiff’s constitutional rights and (2) the
   defendant’s actions were objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established law at the
   time of the violation.”). But to be clear, there is no “standalone ‘objective reasonableness’
   element to the Supreme Court’s two-pronged test for qualified immunity.” Baker v.
   Coburn, 

, 251 n.10 (5th Cir. 2023), as revised (May 19, 2023). In other words,
   to establish a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must: “(1) allege a violation of a right secured
   by the Constitution or laws of the United States and (2) demonstrate that the alleged
   deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law.” Pratt v. Harris
   County, Texas, 

 (5th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks and citation
   omitted); see also Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 

, 735 (2011) (“Qualified immunity shields
   . . . state officials from money damages unless a plaintiff pleads facts showing (1) that the
   official violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that the right was clearly
   established at the time of the challenged conduct.”); Crittindon v. LeBlanc, 

,
   185–86 (5th Cir. 2022) (noting that to determine whether the defense applies on a given set
   of facts, “[f]irst, [this court] ask[s] whether the officer’s alleged conduct has violated a
   federal right. Second, [this court] ask[s] whether the right in question was clearly
   established at the time of the alleged violation, such that the officer was on notice of the




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                                            No. 22-30184


   question of the qualified immunity analysis to address first.15
                                                  B.
           We begin with the second question, whether the right at issue was
   clearly established at the time of the alleged misconduct.16 “In determining
   what constitutes clearly established law, this [C]ourt first looks to Supreme
   Court precedent and then to our own.”17 When there is no direct controlling
   authority, “this [C]ourt may rely on decisions from other circuits to the
   extent that they constitute a robust consensus of cases of persuasive
   authority.”18 Ultimately, the touchstone is “fair warning: The law can be
   clearly established ‘despite notable factual distinctions between the
   precedents relied on and the cases then before the Court, so long as the prior
   decisions gave reasonable warning that the conduct then at issue violated
   constitutional rights.’”19 In other words, “[t]he relevant, dispositive inquiry
   in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be
   clear to a reasonable [official] that his [or her] conduct was unlawful in the
   situation he [or she] confronted.”20




           _____________________
   unlawfulness of his or her conduct”), petition for reh’g en banc denied, 

 (5th
   Cir. 2023).
           15
               Pearson, 

 (“[T]he judges of the district courts and the courts of
   appeals are in the best position to determine the order of decisionmaking that will best
   facilitate the fair and efficient disposition of each case.”).
           16
                Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 

 (1982).
           17
                Shumpert v. City of Tupelo, 

 (5th Cir. 2018).
           18
                

 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
           19
                Kinney, 

 (quoting Hope v. Pelzer, 

 (2002)).
           

 F.3d at 445.




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                                            No. 22-30184


           The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees that no state may “deprive
   any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”21 Clear
   as day, the government cannot hold an inmate without the legal authority to
   do so, for that would “deprive” a person of his “liberty . . . without due
   process of law.”22 Applying this foundational concept to carceral sentences
   and releases, it is clearly established that inmates have the right to timely
   release from prison consistent with the terms of their sentences, a holding we
   have long-held and repeatedly reaffirmed.23 Relevant here, the right to timely
   release was clearly established well before 2017.24 And, Hicks’ right to timely
   release was clearly established under these particular circumstances because
   governing law required DPSC to follow the state court’s orders requiring
   them to credit the Arkansas time.25
                                                C.
           Having established that Hicks’ right to timely release was clearly
   established, we turn to the first question of qualified immunity: whether


           _____________________
           21
                U.S. CONST. amend. XIV. § 1.
           22
                Id.
           23
              See Parker v. LeBlanc, 

 (5th Cir. 2023) (“We agree that there is
   sufficient clearly established law regarding the constitutional right to a timely release from
   prison.”); Crittindon, 

 (noting that the Fifth Circuit “has recognized the
   clearly established right to timely release from prison”); see also Porter, 

   (“Our precedent establishes that a jailer has a duty to ensure that inmates are timely
   released from prison.”); Douthit v. Jones, 

, 532 (5th Cir. 1980) (“Detention of
   a prisoner thirty days beyond the expiration of his sentence in the absence of a facially valid
   court order or warrant constitutes a deprivation of due process.”).
           24
                See Douthit, 619 F.2d at 532.
           25
               See Boddye v. La. Dep’t of Corr., 

 (La. Ct. App. 1st 2015) (“It
   is well settled that the determination of the sentence a defendant is to serve . . . is made by
   the trial judge, not the defendant’s custodian.”).




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                                            No. 22-30184


   Appellants violated Hicks’ clearly established constitutional right.26 Hicks’
   right to timely release is clearly established, not just as a general proposition
   of law, but specifically by the multiple state-court orders declaring that the
   Arkansas time was to be credited.
           Under section 1983, “supervisory officials are not liable for the actions
   of subordinates on any theory of vicarious liability.”27 Thus, a supervisory
   official may be held directly liable “only if he affirmatively participates in the
   acts that cause the constitutional deprivation.”28 A supervisor may also be
   liable for failure to supervise or train if “(1) the supervisor either failed to
   supervise or train the subordinate official; (2) a causal link exists between the
   failure to train or supervise and the violation of the plaintiff’s rights; and (3)
   the failure to train or supervise amounts to deliberate indifference.”29
           Hicks invokes both theories of § 1983 liability. He argues that
   DiBenedetto and Gryder should be liable for directly participating in the
   violation of his rights, and that Appellants should be liable for their deliberate
   indifference to Lawson’s violation of his constitutional rights. We agree.
           Hicks plausibly alleges that DiBenedetto and Gryder were direct
   participants in violating his right to timely release from prison. According to
   the complaint, DiBenedetto reviewed all of Hicks’ ARPs, knew he was not
   being credited for the Arkansas time, yet did not take any action to correct
   the error. Indeed, she personally informed Hicks that her (incorrect)
   calculation was correct and refused to modify it despite Hicks’ pointing out

           _____________________
           26
              Morrow, 

 (“The first question is whether the officer violated a
   constitutional right.”).
           27
                Thompkins v. Belt, 

 (5th Cir. 1987)).
           

 F.3d at 446.
           29
                

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                                              No. 22-30184


   that his Arkansas time was not credited. And when Lawson asked
   DiBenedetto whether he should include the Arkansas time credits,
   DiBenedetto did not instruct Lawson to include the time—even though by
   then the state court had clarified that Hicks’ Arkansas time was to be
   credited. Gryder, too, directly participated in Hicks’ overdetention by
   manually altering Hicks’ release date to extend the period of imprisonment
   despite knowing that Hicks was, at that point, already being held past the
   expiration of his sentence.
           The alleged facts also lead to a plausible inference that Appellants, as
   supervisors, were deliberately indifferent to Lawson’s violation of Hicks’
   clearly established right to timely release from prison. Deliberate
   indifference, of course, is a “stringent standard of fault, requiring proof that
   a [government] actor disregarded a known or obvious consequence of his
   action.”30 “For an official to act with deliberate indifference, the official must
   both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a
   substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the
   inference.”31
           In Crittindon, we held that a jury could find prison officials deliberately
   indifferent to the plaintiffs’ right to timely release when the officials received
   calls from the plaintiffs’ mothers about their release dates and discussed it
   among themselves but did nothing about it for 17 days.32 Under those facts,




           _____________________
           

 F.3d at 446–47.
           31
             Est. of Davis ex rel. McNully v. City of N. Richland Hills, 

 (5th
   Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted).
           32
                

.




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                                   No. 22-30184


   we held, “[a] reasonable factfinder could find that their conduct sums to
   deliberate indifference to Crittindon and Burse’s overdetention.”33
          These facts are worse than in Crittindon. According to the complaint,
   DiBenedetto and Gryder both knew—for months—that Hicks had on
   numerous occasions contested Lawson’s failure to apply the Arkansas credit,
   yet neither trained nor supervised Lawson even after it was confirmed that
   the Arkansas credit was to be applied to Hicks’ sentence. Indeed, when
   Lawson asked DiBenedetto (his supervisor) “whether he should include”
   the Arkansas time, DiBenedetto did not instruct Lawson to follow the court’s
   clarifying order—indeed it appears she did not give him any training or
   supervision on this issue for nearly a month. DiBenedetto also did nothing in
   response to one of Hicks’ (several) administrative grievances “specifically
   regarding Lawson refusing the consider [the] Arkansas time” even though,
   by then, multiple authorities had unequivocally stated that the Arkansas time
   was to be included. Worst of all, DiBenedetto knew that “DOC staff have
   discovered approximately one case of overdetention per week for the last nine
   years,” with “inmates . . . sometimes incorrectly incarcerated for periods of
   up to a year.” Yet she did nothing. As for Gryder, she too knew of Lawson’s
   lack of training and supervision as he miscalculated—over and over again—
   Hicks’ time credits. Importantly, upon learning that Hicks was entitled to
   “immediate release,” she “manually changed his release date from April 20,
   2018 to April 25, 2018, deliberately holding him for an additional five (5)
   days.” On these facts, we draw the plausible inference that DiBenedetto and
   Gryder disregarded the “known or obvious consequence” of their failure to




          _____________________
          33
               

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                                               No. 22-30184


   train and supervise Lawson.34 The district court did not err in denying
   Appellants’ qualified immunity defense.
                                                   IV.
                                                   A.
           Appellants also contend that Hicks’ claims are barred under the Heck
   doctrine, as they argue Hicks challenges both the validity and duration of his
   confinement.35 Hicks counters that Heck’s bar does not apply to his claims
   because he merely challenges his overdetention. Hicks is correct: Heck has
   no place here.
           As Hemingway once said, there is no need “to write in another way
   what has been well written.”36 Such is the case here. In Crittindon, we
   addressed allegations that “DPSC officials, in violation of the Fourteenth
   Amendment, looked away from the administrative failure they knew was
   leaving prisoners in jail who had served their sentences.”37 As in Crittindon,
   Hicks does not challenge the validity of his sentence, merely the execution of
   his release.38 He seeks to vindicate—not undermine—his sentence. As in


           _____________________
           34
                See Crittindon, 

; Parker, 

.
           35
                

 (1994).
           36
                See Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize Banquet Speech (Dec. 10, 1954).
           37
                Crittindon, 

.
           38
               

 (emphasis added). The Supreme Court has emphasized that it was
   “careful in Heck to stress the importance of the term ‘necessarily,’” such as when the
   Court “acknowledged that an inmate could bring a challenge to the lawfulness of a search
   pursuant to § 1983 in the first instance, even if the search revealed evidence used to convict
   the inmate at trial, because success on the merits would not ‘necessarily imply that the
   plaintiff’s conviction was unlawful.’” Nelson v. Campbell, 

 (2004)
   (quoting Heck, 

 n.7). “To hold otherwise,” the Court continued, “would
   have cut off potentially valid damages actions as to which a plaintiff might never obtain




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                                               No. 22-30184


   Crittindon, the Parties agree that Hicks was held in excess of his sentence.39
   And as in Crittindon, if Hicks were to succeed based on the period he was
   held beyond his original sentence, it would not invalidate the conviction or
   its attendant sentence.40 Crittindon controls this case.41 Heck is no bar here.
           The other cases upon which Appellants rely, Muhammad v. Close,42
   and Colvin v. LeBlanc,43 also miss the mark. In Muhammad, a prisoner had a
   confrontation with a prison guard, resulting in the prisoner being handcuffed
   and subjected to pretrial detention on charges of “Threatening Behavior.”44
   After six days in mandatory detention, the prisoner was acquitted of
   threatening behavior but found guilty of the lesser infraction of insolence,
   which would not have mandated pretrial detention.45 The prisoner
   subsequently filed an action under § 1983, alleging that the guard had charged
   him with threatening behavior and subjected him to mandatory pretrial
   detention in retaliation for his prior lawsuits and grievance proceedings
   against the guard.46 The Supreme Court held that Heck did not bar the § 1983
   case because the plaintiff did not challenge his insolence conviction or any
   subsequent detention, but only sought damages for the injuries sustained


           _____________________
   favorable termination–suits that could otherwise have gone forward had the plaintiff not
   been convicted.” Id.
           39
                Crittindon, 

.
           40
                

           41
                

 at 190–92, petition for reh’g en banc denied, 

 (5th Cir. 2023).
           42
                

 (2004).
           43
                

 (5th Cir. 2021).
           44
                

.
           45
                

           46
                

.




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                                          No. 22-30184


   during the six days of prehearing detention.47 Thus, the plaintiff was
   challenging only the conduct that subjected him to unnecessary pretrial
   detention, and was not deemed to be seeking a judgment at odds with his
   conviction.48 The Supreme Court concluded in Muhammad that challenges
   to disciplinary proceedings are barred by Heck only if the § 1983 action would
   be “seeking a judgment at odds with [the prisoner’s] conviction or with the
   State’s calculation of time to be served in accordance with the underlying
   sentence.”49 For that reason, Muhammad does not bar Hicks’ claims because
   “the incarceration that matters under Heck is the incarceration ordered by
   the original judgment of conviction.”50
          Colvin similarly fails to support. In Colvin, James Colvin was
   sentenced to eighty years in prison after a 1983 jury conviction in Louisiana.51
   In 1986, he escaped from the Louisiana State Penitentiary, only to be
   recaptured and sentenced to a new federal prison term.52 After being paroled
   in 2004, Colvin then robbed a bank, for which he was sentenced to a new
   term of imprisonment.53 When released in 2016, DPSC officials returned him
   to Louisiana. While in Louisiana’s custody, Colvin filed a § 1983 suit, seeking
   monetary damages for the “unconstitutional interruption” of his federal
   sentence as well as the “illegal extradition” to Louisiana and an “artificial



          _____________________
          47
               Id. at 754-55.
          48
               Id.
          49
               Id. at 754–55 (emphasis added).
          50
               Id. at 752 n.1.
          51
               Colvin, 

.
          52
               

          53
               

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                                          No. 22-30184


   extension” of his state sentence by thirty years.54 The defendants moved to
   dismiss the case, arguing that the claims were barred by Heck, because Colvin
   challenged the validity and duration of his detention.55 The district court
   agreed.56 Colvin appealed, and we affirmed, holding that Colvin’s claims
   were barred by Heck.57
          However, we did not view the claim as one of unlawful overdetention.
   To the contrary, this Court concluded that although the district court
   “characterized Colvin’s claim as only involving the miscalculation of his
   release date . . . Colvin actually challenges two independent acts: (1) the
   ‘artificial enhancement’ of his sentence, and (2) his illegal extradition.”58 We
   then held that “a § 1983 damages action predicated on the sentence
   calculation issue is barred by Heck because success on that claim would
   necessarily invalidate the duration of his incarceration.”59 Hicks is not
   challenging the number of days he was supposed to serve, but rather that he
   was detained longer than the proper sentence imposed.
                                              B.
          Appellants’ last contention is that Heck bars any § 1983 claim that is
   also cognizable in habeas at the time it accrues. In support of this argument,
   Appellants rely on Preiser v. Rodriguez,60 which predates Heck. Appellants are
   mistaken.
          _____________________
          54
               Id.
          55
               Id.
          56
               Id. at 497.
          57
               Id. at 501.
          58
               Id. at 499.
          59
               Id. at 499 (emphasis added).
          60
               

 (1973).




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                                          No. 22-30184


          In Preiser, state prisoners who had lost good-time credits as a result of
   disciplinary proceedings brought an action under § 1983 for restoration of the
   credits on the ground that the proceedings violated their due process rights.61
   The prisoners would have been entitled to immediate release from prison if
   their good-time credits had been restored.62 The Court held that the claims
   thus fell within the core of habeas corpus and therefore had to be brought
   under habeas, explaining that that the Great Writ is the “specific instrument
   to obtain release” from unlawful imprisonment when a prisoner challenges
   “the fact or duration of his confinement.”63
          In a series of cases after Preiser, the Supreme Court articulated the
   reach of its pronouncement, sorting state prisoner claims that fell within the
   “core of habeas” and were required to be brought as a habeas action and
   those which did not. In Wolff v. McDonnell, the Court reiterated that claims
   for restoration of good-time credits were in the core of habeas and therefore
   outside the scope of § 1983.64 Then the Court revisited Preiser in Heck when
   it held that a § 1983 complaint must be dismissed if judgment for the plaintiff
   would undermine the validity of his conviction or sentence.65 In Edwards v.
   Balisok, the Court next held that a state prisoner’s challenge under § 1983
   that “would necessarily imply the invalidity of the disciplinary hearing and
   the resulting [deprivation of good-time credits]” fell within habeas’s
   exclusive domain.66 And it later clarified Edwards in Muhammad, holding that

          _____________________
          61
               Id. at 476–77.
          62
               Id. at 500.
          63
               Id. at 489–500.
          64
               

, 554 (1974).
          65
               411 U.S. at 486–87.
          66
               

, 644–48 (1997).




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                                          No. 22-30184


   such challenges to disciplinary proceedings are barred by Heck only if the §
   1983 action would be “seeking a judgment at odds with [the prisoner’s]
   conviction or with the State’s calculation of time to be served.”67
           The upshot of these cases is that challenges to the validity of any
   confinement or to particulars affecting its duration fall within the “core” of
   habeas corpus and are barred under this line of precedent;68 “[b]y contrast,
   constitutional claims that merely challenge the conditions of prisoner’s
   confinement, whether the inmate seeks monetary or injunctive relief, fall
   outside of that core and may be brought pursuant to § 1983 in the first
   instance.”69 Preiser and its progeny do not implicate the claims here because
   they are specifically beyond the “core” of habeas, as Hicks’ claims challenge
   his overdetention, and by its terms do not implicate the fact or duration of his
   confinement.70
           The implications of Appellants’ arguments expose their weakness.
   Applying Heck to any case also cognizable under habeas would obviate many
   § 1983 remedies the Supreme Court continues to recognize, such as those for
           _____________________
           67
                540 U.S. at 754–55.
           68
             Hill v. McDonough, 

 (2006); see also Cook v. Tex. Dep’t. of Crim.
   Just. Transitional Plan. Dep’t., 

 (5th Cir. 1994) (“The core issue in
   determining whether a prisoner must pursue habeas corpus relief rather than a [§ 1983]
   action is to determine whether the prisoner challenges the ‘fact or duration’ of his
   confinement or merely the rules, customs, and procedures affecting ‘conditions’ of
   confinement.” (quoting Spina v. Aaron, 

 (5th Cir. 1987)).
           69
              Nelson, 

; see also Hill, 

; Wilkinson v. Dotson, 

 (2005) (“Because neither prisoner’s claim would necessarily spell speedier
   release, neither lies at ‘the core of habeas corpus.’” (quoting Preiser, 

)).
           70
              The Supreme Court has not extended Heck as far as Appellants suggest. No
   published precedent from this Court supports it. And here, the legality of the sentence and
   of detention was never at issue. Hicks was released from custody not by a writ, but by a
   phone call to the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office–habeas has no purchase in this situation.
   Habeas had no role here. Hicks was released without the aid of any writ.




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                                              No. 22-30184


   First Amendment retaliatory arrest,71 malicious prosecution,72 and Fourth
   Amendment unlawful pretrial detention,73 among others. Expanding Heck as
   Appellants ask is a request that would overturn a wealth of this Court’s
   precedent on those subjects.74
           In sum, requiring overdetained plaintiffs to rely on state habeas would,
   in practice, deprive them of a remedy under the federal Constitution.
   Consider the following: Louisiana requires prisoners to avail themselves of
   its Administrative Remedy Process, which can take up to 90 days,75 before
   asserting the required state habeas claim.76 The habeas process can take
   months, all the while the state can defeat a favorable outcome for the
   plaintiffs by releasing the prisoners during the pendency of the habeas
   proceedings, as doing so would leave the prisoner without a cognizable § 1983
   claim. In other words, under Appellants’ conception of Heck, the state can
   continue to detain prisoners for months past the expiration of their duly
   imposed sentences without consequence under the federal Constitution.
   This effectively utilizes the filing of state habeas proceedings as a cover for
   Louisiana’s systemic failures. That, quite simply, is not the law. The district
   court did not err in concluding that Hicks’ claims were not barred by Heck.


           _____________________
           71
             See Nieves v. Bartlett, 

, 1723 (2019); see also Lozman v. City of Riviera
   Beach, Fla., 

 (2018).
           72
                See McDonough v. Smith, 

, 2156 (2019).
           73
                See Manuel v. City of Joliet, Ill., 

 (2017).
           74
             See, e.g., Terwilliger v. Reyna, 

, 277 (5th Cir. 2021) (considering a
   § 1983 suit for unlawful arrests without probable cause following the shootout at Twin
   Peaks restaurant in Waco).
           75
                LA. ADMIN CODE TIT. 22, § 325(J)(1)(c) (2017).
           76
             “No prisoner suit shall assert a claim under state law until such administrative
   remedies as are available are exhausted.” LA. STAT. ANN. § 15:1184.




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Case: 22-30184          Document: 00516883884               Page: 20     Date Filed: 09/05/2023




                                             No. 22-30184


                                                   V.
           “There isn’t always an explanation for everything.”77 Indeed, as our
   Court remains plagued by claims arising from inexplicable and illegal
   overdetention in Louisiana prisons, explanations scarcely arise, let alone
   satisfy scrutiny upon our review.78 The problem is endemic in Louisiana,
   where the process for calculating release dates is so flawed (to put it kindly)
   that roughly one in four inmates released will have been locked up past their
   release dates—for a collective total of 3,000-plus years.79
           Appellants are not entitled to qualified immunity and these claims are
   not barred by the Heck doctrine.
           We AFFIRM.80




           _____________________
           77
                Ernest Hemingway, A FAREWELL TO ARMS 81 (1929).
           78
                See Crittindon, 

.
           79
               Mariah Timms, Louisiana Prisons Hold Inmates Past Their Release Dates, Justice
   Department Finds, WALL ST. J. (Jan. 25, 2023); Kanishka Singh, U.S. finds Louisiana
   deliberately kept inmates past release date, REUTERS (Jan. 25, 2023); Lea Skene & Jacqueline
   DeRoberts, State corrections overdetention woes, known since 2012, cost state millions, lawyer
   alleges, THE ADVOCATE (Feb. 6, 2020).
           80
              Although the order appealed from is the denial of qualified immunity to just
   DiBenedetto and Gryder, all defendants filed a notice of appeal. Because these other
   defendants have not appealed a final judgment or an order appealable under the collateral
   doctrine, we DISMISS the appeal of defendants James M. LeBlanc, Terry Lawson, and
   Angela Griffin for lack of appellate jurisdiction. 

. We decline to exercise
   pendent appellate jurisdiction over their appeal because the issues they raise are not
   inextricably intertwined with the denial of qualified immunity. See Gros v. City of Grand
   Prairie, 

, 436–37 (5th Cir. 2000).




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