Jonathan Eugene Brunson v. Joshua H. Stein, Attorney General of North Carolina, et al.

Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s (PLRA) “three-strikes” rule, a prisoner receives one “strike” for any prior lawsuit that was “dismissed on the grounds that it is frivolous, malicious, or fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.” 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g). A prisoner who accrues three or more “strikes” cannot proceed in forma pauperis and thus must pay the full filing fee up front to initiate a case or to appeal. The courts of appeals are divided over whether a dismissal under Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), constitutes a strike under this rule. Heck holds that where claims in a suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 “would necessarily imply the invalidity” of a conviction, a litigant cannot proceed unless and until he has obtained a favorable termination of that conviction. Id. at 487. A Heck dismissal thus concerns a lawsuit’s timing, not its merits. The question presented is: Whether the Fourth Circuit erred in holding that dismissals under Heck categorically constitute strikes under the PLRA.