Jerry Lee King, an incarcerated person proceeding pro se, filed a § 1983 excessive force claim against prison officers after a physical altercation at Kern Valley State Prison. The state then brought criminal charges against King relating to the same incident. King eventually pleaded no contest to one count of resisting a peace officer. The state brought a motion for judgment on the pleadings in the civil case, arguing that the plaintiff’s § 1983 case was barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), because success in the civil case would necessarily undermine the plaintiff’s criminal conviction arising out of the same incident. The district court dismissed the civil action on that basis. Horvitz & Levy, supervising law students through the Pepperdine Ninth Circuit Appellate Advocacy Clinic, was appointed by the Ninth Circuit to handle King’s appeal pro bono.
The Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded in a published opinion with a divided panel. The majority held that the district court improperly considered King’s no contest plea because Federal Rule of Evidence 410(a) bars consideration of such pleas as evidence of an underlying criminal conviction for Heck purposes. Given the special nature of no-contest pleas and the history of Rule 410, the Court determined that the district court erred in considering King’s plea when applying the Heck bar.
King v. Villegas 
