Ricks v. Spivey

Appellate Case: 24-1348 Document: 11-1 Date Filed: 02/19/2025 Page: 1

FILED United States Court of Appeals UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS Tenth Circuit

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT February 19, 2025 _______________________________________

Christopher M. Wolpert

Clerk of Court JOHN ALLEN RICKS,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

No. 24-1348 v. (D.C. No. 1:24-CV-01850-LTB-RTG)

(D. Colo.) MATTHEW R. SPIVEY; ERICA ENGLERT; HOLLY SNEAD; JARED POLIS,

Defendants - Appellees.

_______________________________________

ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

_______________________________________ Before BACHARACH, McHUGH, and FEDERICO, Circuit Judges.

_______________________________________ Prisoners can generally file two kinds of actions related to their imprisonment: a habeas action and a civil rights action. The two actions bear different functions. Habeas actions are designed to challenge a conviction or sentence; civil rights actions are designed to obtain *

Oral argument would not help us decide the appeal, so we have decided the appeal based on the record and Mr. Ricks’s written material. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2)(C); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G).

Our order and judgment does not constitute binding precedent except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. But the order and judgment may be cited for its persuasive value if otherwise appropriate. See Fed. R. App. P. 32.1(a); 10th Cir. R. 32.1(A).

Appellate Case: 24-1348 Document: 11-1 Date Filed: 02/19/2025 Page: 2 monetary, declaratory, or injunctive relief for past violations. Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 494, 499 (1973). But when relief in a civil rights action would necessarily imply the invalidation of a conviction, the prisoner must generally obtain habeas relief (or some other remedy invalidating the conviction) before obtaining relief in a civil rights action. See Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 486–87 (1994).

This requirement hamstrung Mr. John Allen Ricks when he sued for constitutional violations surrounding his conviction. In his civil rights action, Mr. Ricks alleged that the state district court had lacked jurisdiction, that his criminal attorney had been ineffective, and that the Uniform Commercial Code had been illegal. The district court dismissed the action, reasoning that

 these claims would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction and  Mr. Ricks has not obtained invalidation of his conviction through a writ of habeas corpus or some other remedy like expungement.

Mr. Ricks appealed, but he didn’t say how the district court had erred.

He instead submitted annotations of a Supreme Court opinion, Heck v. Humphrey. These annotations include suggestions that

 the opinion doesn’t apply to challenges involving a state court’s statutory jurisdiction and  a state court had failed to rule on some of his claims. Appellate Case: 24-1348 Document: 11-1 Date Filed: 02/19/2025 Page: 3 Even if we were to credit these suggestions, however, Mr. Ricks hasn’t said how the district court erred. We thus affirm the dismissal. 1

Entered for the Court Robert E. Bacharach Circuit Judge