Before King, Willett, and Douglas, Circuit Judges. Don R. Willett, Circuit Judge: Since she was nine years old, Erma Wilson has dreamed of becoming a registered nurse. That dream ended 22 years ago when a Midland County jury convicted her of cocaine possession. Wilson doggedly maintained her innocence (and does to this day)—insisting that the cocaine found on the ground was not hers—and she rejected multiple plea deals, a rare choice in today’s plea-bargain age.[1] Erma Wilson placed her faith in the justice system, trusting she would get due process and a fair trial. Wilson’s faith was misplaced. In Wilson’s trial—and in hundreds of others in Midland County spanning decades—bedrock judicial norms were dishonored. Unbeknownst to Wilson, a Midland County assistant district attorney, Ralph Petty, had been moonlighting, acting as both accuser and adjudicator. For nearly 20 years, the multitasking Petty had worn two hats: (1) by day, a prosecutor in the public courtrooms of Midland County judges; and (2) by night, a law clerk in the private chambers of Midland County judges. Disturbingly, Petty was working both sides of the bench, seeking favorable rulings while also writing them. As a first-time offender, Wilson was sentenced to eight years of community supervision. But the felony conviction derailed her lifelong dream of becoming a nurse. Fast forward 20 years: Petty’s dodgy side hustle belatedly came to light, and Wilson filed this federal civil rights suit over her decades-old conviction, claiming that Petty’s dual role denied her due process. Wilson does not allege that Petty was a frontline prosecutor in her case. But she does allege that he advised fellow prosecutors regarding her case while also advising the judge presiding over it and surreptitiously drafting important rulings adverse to Wilson.[2] Lady Justice wears a blindfold because justice is supposed to be meted out evenhandedly. She holds scales because evidence is supposed to be weighed impartially. These ancient symbols of fairness and clear-sightedness—the very moral force underlying a just legal system—are mocked if one side can rig the game by calling its own balls and strikes. Petty’s conflict of interest was undeniable, and it flattened Wilson’s constitutional guarantee of a fair trial. More broadly, this disturbing case also underscores that the American legal system regularly leaves constitutional wrongs unrighted. Many worthy § 1983 claims go unfiled, and those that are filed must navigate a thicket of immunity doctrines that shield government wrongdoing, thus turning valid claims into vanquished ones.[3] And here, there is a threshold hurdle that Wilson must overcome before she even reaches the formidable immunity gauntlet: the “favorable termination” rule from Heck v. Humphrey[4] (plus our own post-Heck precedent). Under the Supreme Court’s Heck decision, a convicted party cannot seek § 1983 damages for unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment without first showing that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on appeal or otherwise declared invalid, such as by federal habeas relief.[5] The wrinkle here is that Petty’s conflicted dual-hat arrangement came to light only after Wilson had served her whole sentence, making federal habeas a non-option.[6] Heck aims to avoid a collision between § 1983 and federal habeas, but Wilson (and the amici supporting her) argue that Heck is inapplicable where federal habeas is unavailable. Other circuits have agreed, holding that favorable termination should only be required when a § 1983 plaintiff is eligible for federal habeas relief. This is a solid argument—but a foreclosed one in this circuit. Under our precedent’s expansive reading of Heck, noncustodial plaintiffs must meet the favorable-termination requirement, too—even if it’s practically impossible for them to do so. Put simply, our rule of orderliness bars relief for the disorderliness that Wilson suffered. This result is unseemly. Absent § 1983, noncustodial individuals on the receiving end of violative conduct, however egregious, will have no federal forum to vindicate their federal constitutional rights. But as a three-judge panel bound by controlling circuit precedent, our hands are tied. Only the en banc court, or the United States Supreme Court, can deliver a different result that better aligns with Congress’ broad textual command in § 1983.[7] Until then, this panel must AFFIRM. I The facts are easy to lay out—though hard to take in. A In 2001, a jury in Midland County, Texas, convicted Erma Wilson of cocaine possession. Police officers said they found crack cocaine on the ground near where Wilson had been standing with friends. She told the officers it wasn’t hers. The officers then said they would release her if she told them who it belonged to. She said she didn’t know. They arrested her for possession. Wilson rejected multiple plea deals, went to trial, was convicted, and received an eight-year suspended sentence. Wilson appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in denying her motion to suppress and that the evidence was legally and factually insufficient to support her conviction. The court of appeals affirmed across the board, and Wilson appealed no further, nor did she seek state or federal habeas relief. While Wilson’s case was tried and appealed, Weldon “Ralph” Petty Jr. was working both as a Midland County prosecutor and as a law clerk for the Midland County district judges. He was first hired as a law clerk in March 2000. The next year, in early 2001, Petty was hired as an assistant district attorney by Albert Schorre, the district attorney at the time. But Petty didn’t leave his law-clerk post. Rather, his employment contract with the District Attorney’s Office specified that Petty “shall be permitted to continue the performance of legal services for the District Judges of Midland County, Texas and perform such work for the said District Judges as they shall desire and be paid for the same as ordered by the District Judges.” As an assistant district attorney, Petty worked on cases at all stages of prosecution. The same was true of his work on the other side of the bench. For instance, Petty was responsible for opposing habeas corpus petitions as an assistant district attorney and for working on habeas corpus rulings as a law clerk. Petty worked in these two conflicting roles from 2001–2014, and again in 2017 and 2018. Over his career, Petty is alleged to have been both the lead prosecutor and the law clerk on more than 300 cases. He retired in 2019. In August 2019, the Midland County District Attorney, Laura Nodolf, discovered that Petty had been dually employed by her office and the district judges for nearly two decades. She sent letters to defendants found to be affected, acknowledging the blatant conflict of interest, adding, “This is a potential violation of the rules of ethics for attorneys.” The Supreme Court of Texas certainly thought so. In April 2021, the Court concluded that Petty had engaged in professional misconduct, and upon Petty’s motion for acceptance of resignation in lieu of disciplinary action, it cancelled Petty’s law license and barred him from the practice of law in Texas. The story received national attention in 2021 when a death row prisoner named Clinton Lee Young successfully obtained habeas relief on the grounds that Petty had worked directly on both sides of his case.[8] Wilson did not receive a letter notifying her that she had been affected by Petty’s conflict of interest. She says she learned of Petty’s role in her case when news media began to cover Young’s habeas petition. This was more than 20 years after she was convicted and long after she finished serving her suspended sentence. B Wilson brought 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims against Midland County, Petty, and Schorre, alleging that Petty’s improper moonlighting deprived her of due process. She also sought declaratory relief and compensatory and punitive damages. Defendants moved to dismiss, arguing that Wilson’s claims are barred because she failed to meet Heck‘s favorable-termination requirement for § 1983 plaintiffs. The magistrate judge recommended dismissal under Heck. The district court agreed, overruling Wilson’s objections, adopting the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, and entering final judgment dismissing Wilson’s claims. This appeal followed. II We review Rule 12(b)(6) dismissals de novo, applying the same standard as the district court.[9] “To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’”[10] Midland County vehemently denies that Petty worked on Wilson’s case at any stage—pretrial, trial, or appeal. But at the preliminary, motion-to-dismiss stage, “this framework is one-sided,” meaning we must accept as true all well-pleaded facts in Wilson’s complaint, which allege a structurally defective system that violated her constitutional right to a criminal proceeding free of actual or perceived bias.[11] III This case revisits what Heck termed “the intersection”[12] of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (the federal habeas corpus statute), “the two most fertile sources of federal-court prisoner litigation.”[13] Both statutes “provide access to a federal forum for claims of unconstitutional treatment at the hands of state officials, but they differ in their scope and operation.”[14] Thirty years ago, in Heck, the Supreme Court addressed the statutes’ interplay when a § 1983 plaintiff sues “to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid.”[15] A Heck famously—and unanimously—established the favorable-termination rule: a state inmate’s § 1983 suit is “not cognizable” unless the inmate first shows a “favorable termination” to his criminal conviction or confinement. The Court defined “favorable termination” to mean “the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.”[16] The Court disallowed Heck’s § 1983 claim alleging that police knowingly destroyed evidence because a successful civil action would functionally and necessarily impugn the legality of his murder conviction.[17] The bottom-line result in Heck was 9–0, but the Court splintered 5–4 over the rule’s reach and rigidity. And over the decades, a deep circuit split has emerged over footnote 10[18]—specifically, over dicta in footnote 10.[19] The question is simply stated: does Heck‘s favorable-termination rule apply only to those currently in custody (like Roy Heck) or also to those not in custody (like Erma Wilson)? The dicta in footnote 10 suggests the latter.[20] Justice Souter’s concurrence[21] takes the opposite view, urging that favorable termination should not be required of noncustodial plaintiffs who fall “outside the intersection of § 1983 and the habeas statute”—those who “discover (through no fault of their own) a constitutional violation after full expiration of their sentences.”[22] As these individuals cannot invoke federal habeas since they are not currently “in custody,” they should be able to sue under § 1983, “the only statutory mechanism” available to them.[23] The alternative—the blanket denial of any federal forum to those whose federal rights have been violated—”would be an untoward result.”[24] The four concurring Justices focused on jurisdictional collisions, fretting that requiring favorable termination in all § 1983 cases, even for noncustodial plaintiffs well outside the intersection of § 1983 and habeas, would thwart valid claims. Four years later in Spencer v. Kemna, Justices again commented on whether to hold noncustodial § 1983 plaintiffs to the favorable-termination requirement.[25] The Court did not answer the question directly. But Justice Souter again penned a four-Justice concurrence offering a “better view”— the same stance he had taken in Heck. He reiterated that the “general” § 1983 should be read in light of the “specific” § 2254, which by its terms applies only to those “in custody.”[26] He thought it “important to read the Court’s Heck opinion as subjecting only inmates seeking § 1983 damages for unconstitutional conviction or confinement” to the favorable-termination rule “lest the plain breadth of § 1983 be unjustifiably limited at the expense of persons not ‘in custody.’”[27] The “better view” of Heck, he again explained, “is that a former prisoner, no longer ‘in custody,’ may bring a § 1983 action establishing the unconstitutionality of a conviction or confinement without being bound to satisfy a favorable-termination requirement that it would be impossible as a matter of law for him to satisfy.”[28] Justice Souter emphasized that barring § 1983 claims from noncustodial plaintiffs would create a “patent anomaly.”[29] Interestingly, Justice Ginsburg, who had joined Justice Scalia’s majority in Heck, sided with Justice Souter in Spencer, plus concurred separately to disavow her earlier position. Citing Justice Frankfurter’s maxim that “[w]isdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late,”[30] Justice Ginsburg agreed that “[i]ndividuals without recourse to the habeas statute because they are not ‘in custody’ . . . fit within § 1983′s ‘broad reach.’”[31] And Justice Stevens agreed in a dissent.[32] Thus, counting noses, a majority of the Spencer Court arguably adopted Justice Souter’s view: no Heck bar for § 1983 plaintiffs not in custody and thus ineligible for federal habeas relief. Those five Justices, though, were not part of a single, cohesive majority opinion. Since Spencer did not require the Court to directly confront the core issue of whether Heck operates when habeas does not, the issue remains unsettled. And the lower-court fallout has been predictable: an entrenched circuit split as courts try to divine the Court’s true majority position. B We entered the Heck debate in 2000. In Randell v. Johnson, we tackled head-on whether favorable termination applies to § 1983 plaintiffs not in custody.[33] Our answer was absolute. We understood Heck to have created a “universal favorable termination requirement.”[34] That is, we read Heck to have held—”unequivocally“[35]—”that unless an authorized tribunal or executive body has overturned or otherwise invalidated the plaintiff’s conviction, his claim ‘is not cognizable under [section] 1983.’”[36] Thus, when a § 1983 plaintiff “has not satisfied the favorable termination requirement of Heck, he is barred from any recovery and fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted,” even if he is no longer in custody and thus unable to file a federal habeas petition.[37] Randell acknowledged that three other circuits (at the time), based on the concurring and dissenting opinions in Spencer, had reached the opposite conclusion and relaxed Heck‘s favorable-termination requirement for § 1983 plaintiffs with “no procedural vehicle to challenge their conviction.”[38] We declined to follow suit, remarking that Randell had not shown the lack of any procedural vehicle; rather, “he speaks only of inability to obtain habeas relief.”[39] We also observed that we have been admonished to follow “directly applicable precedent, even if that precedent appears weakened by pronouncements in [the Supreme Court's] subsequent decisions.”[40] To be sure, the policy rationales underlying Heck are considerably less salient when applied to non-Heck-typical plaintiffs (like Wilson) with no access to federal habeas. But Randell says what it says. More, it says what it says emphatically. Randell may have been a three-page per curiam opinion decided without the benefit of oral argument (perhaps because Randell was pro se), but that makes it no less binding. Accordingly, we must dutifully follow Randell even if we believe it wrongly assessed Heck‘s breadth. Four years after Randell, the Supreme Court glancingly mentioned Heck‘s favorable-termination requirement in Muhammad v. Close.[41] Again, footnoted dicta play a starring role: “Members of the Court have expressed the view that unavailability of habeas for other reasons may also dispense with the Heck requirement. This case is no occasion to settle the issue.”[42] Bottom line: the Supreme Court has yet to squarely answer whether the Heck bar applies to noncustodial § 1983 plaintiffs. Wilson seizes on Muhammad‘s “no occasion to settle the issue” language, saying it implicitly but necessarily overrules Randell, which had referred to Heck‘s treatment of the issue as not merely decided but “unequivocally” so. According to Wilson, Randell‘s mode of analysis has been abrogated and Randell no longer qualifies as binding precedent, thus we are free to consider the issue anew. We acknowledge, as we must, that Muhammad is in tension with our Randell decision. The former indicates that Heck‘s statement in footnote 10 that favorable termination applies to noncustodial plaintiffs is mere dicta; the latter described Heck‘s establishment of a “universal” rule (which sweeps in noncustodial plaintiffs) as an “unequivocal[]” holding. While we are unconvinced by Randell‘s reasoning (which twice uses “unequivocally” in describing Heck‘s holding), we are also unconvinced that the Supreme Court has unequivocally superseded Randell, as opposed to leaving the issue unsettled. Indeed, in 2012, eight years after Muhammad, we reaffirmed Randell‘s core holding: “The fact that Morris is no longer a prisoner ‘in custody’ for his offense and thus may not seek habeas relief does not excuse him from the ‘favorable termination’ rule of Heck . . . .”[43] Our rule of orderliness means “a panel of the court cannot overturn a prior panel decision ‘absent an intervening change in the law, such as by a statutory amendment, or the Supreme Court or by our en banc court.’”[44] Our “precedent is implicitly overruled if a subsequent Supreme Court opinion establishes a rule of law inconsistent with that precedent.”[45] “[T]his may naturally occur” when “an intervening Supreme Court decision fundamentally change[s] the focus of the relevant analysis”[46] or when “the Supreme Court disavows the mode of analysis on which our precedent relied.”[47] A “mere hint of how the [Supreme] Court might rule in the future, however, will not suffice; the intervening change must be unequivocal.”[48] Randell understood Heck to “unequivocally” impose a favorable-termination requirement for § 1983 plaintiffs with no stated exceptions.[49] Wilson would say Randell misunderstood Heck. Nonetheless, Randell required the noncustodial plaintiff to prove favorable termination because Heck set out a “universal” rule that the Supreme Court had not relaxed for those not in custody.[50] If a precedent is directly applicable, we must dutifully follow it, even if we believe its reasoning is not watertight. True, Randell acknowledged the debate roiling among Members of the Supreme Court and that three other circuits (at that time) had scrapped favorable termination for noncustodial plaintiffs based on Spencer‘s concurring and dissenting opinions.[51] We noted in Randell that the circuits that had eased the Heck rule to let § 1983 suits proceed did so because they “have concluded that the Supreme Court—if presented with the question— would relax Heck[].”[52]This framing shows that in Randell we understood the Supreme Court to not yet have addressed the question post-Spencer.[53] We elected to follow what we viewed as controlling precedent—what Randell called Heck‘s “universal favorable termination requirement”—which we considered no less applicable to plaintiffs unable to seek habeas relief.[54] Randell‘s mode of analysis was to recognize that: (1) Heck “unequivocally” established a “universal” favorable-termination rule for § 1983 plaintiffs; and (2) although there had been debate about whether favorable termination should be relaxed for noncustodial plaintiffs, the Supreme Court had not yet done so.[55] And nothing in Muhammad abrogates Randell. Muhammad acknowledges the debate in Heck and Spencer[56] and specifies that the Supreme Court has not yet squarely addressed the question, stating, “This case is no occasion to settle the issue.”[57] While we doubt the universality of Heck‘s favorable-termination requirement,[58] neither Spencer nor Muhammad upended the post-Heck legal landscape. The Heck rule as to federal habeas-ineligible plaintiffs may well have been weakened by various footnoted pronouncements. But as a middle-management circuit court, we must heed the Supreme Court’s admonition of leaving to the Court “the prerogative of overruling its own decisions.”[59] Muhammad did not explicitly overrule Randell, nor did it implicitly overrule Randell by disavowing its mode of analysis. Under the rule of orderliness, our precedents are only overruled when the intervening change in the law is “unequivocal.”[60] We cannot say that has happened here. Thus, even if we had zero doubt that Randell was wrongly decided in 2000, it remains no less binding in 2023. C Since our Randell decision in 2000, the preexisting post-Heck, post-Spencer circuit split has only deepened. The current line-up is 6–5 in favor of those circuits holding that Heck does not bar a § 1983 claim when the plaintiff is not in custody, since there is no collision at the § 1983/habeas intersection. Relaxing Heck for noncustodial plaintiffs (6): Second,[61] Fourth,[62] Sixth,[63] Ninth,[64] Tenth,[65] Eleventh.[66] Applying Heck to noncustodial plaintiffs (5): First,[67] Third,[68] Fifth,[69] Seventh,[70] Eighth.[71] We forthrightly recognize—again—that our view is the minority one. Most circuits have held that noncustodial plaintiffs need not comply with Heck‘s favorable-termination requirement. Indeed, given how the word “prisoner” pervades the Heck opinion—starting with the opening sentence, “This case presents the question whether a state prisoner . . . .”[72]—it seems sensible to read Heck as having to do with, well, prisoners. With the single exception of footnote 10, every statement in Heck about waiting for a prisoner’s vindication centers on a prisoner then in custody. The paramount concern motivating Heck, that a prisoner could use § 1983 to circumvent § 2254′s habeas requirements (like exhaustion of state remedies), is simply not implicated when the plaintiff is not incarcerated. There is no risk of a collision between § 1983 and § 2254 if the latter never enters the Heck intersection. And to be sure, Justice Scalia’s observation in footnote 10 that favorable termination should apply broadly to cases involving former state prisoners—”of which no real-life example comes to mind“[73]—has proven improvident. Real-life examples abound of non-prisoners with facially meritorious constitutional claims denied their day in court, including Erma Wilson. Even so, there has been no intervening change in the law, meaning we as a three-judge panel are bound by circuit precedent and cannot change course. Accordingly, because Wilson has failed to satisfy Heck‘s favorable-termination requirement, her § 1983 suit cannot proceed. IV When the current Chief Justice of the United States appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2005, he famously invoked baseball, assuring the nation, “I will remember that it’s my job to call balls and strikes and not to pitch or bat.”[74] By this time, the criminal justice playing field in Midland County was already lopsided, with one side secretly acting as pitcher, batter, and umpire all at once. Rabid sports fans howl nonstop about blown calls and revel in accusing officials of losing their team the game—or even rigging it. We expect fair play in sports. So too in courts. We want all of life’s arbiters to enforce the rules impartially. And in litigation, America’s other national pastime, judges (unlike umpires who simply shout, “You’re out!”) are expected to painstakingly explain why something is inside or outside the legal strike zone. Today’s result is difficult to explain. What allegedly happened here (and in hundreds of other criminal cases in Midland County) is utterly bonkers: the presiding judge employed a member of the prosecution team as a right-hand adviser. The Supreme Court put it plainly generations ago: “A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process.”[75] We have been equally clear: “[F]undamental to the judiciary is the public’s confidence in the impartiality of our judges and the proceedings over which they preside.”[76] Taking Wilson’s well-pleaded allegations as true—as we must at the 12(b)(6) stage—she has suffered the fallout of a criminal justice system that offended the gravest notions of fundamental fairness. She seeks accountability for unconstitutional wrongdoing that upended her life. However, our 2000 decision in Randell not to relax Heck‘s favorable-termination requirement for noncustodial plaintiffs has not been overruled—at least not yet. Accordingly, as Wilson has not shown favorable termination, her § 1983 suit cannot proceed. Only the en banc court (or the Supreme Court given the entrenched circuit split) can decide whether Randell‘s expansive reading of Heck subverts § 1983′s broad textual command. We AFFIRM.
