UNITED STATES CO URT OF APPEALS TENTH CIRCUIT

FRANK DONALD WILLIAMS; DANIEL LARRY; DANIEL LABATO; JOSEPH STONE; STEPHANIE SLATER, Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v. WEBER COUNTY; CRAIG L. DEARDEN; JAN M. ZOGMAISTER; KERRY W. GIBSON; KEN BISHOFF, in their official capacities, Defendants-Appellees. No. 13-4104 (D.C. No. 1:11-CV-00021-CW) (D. Utah)

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

Before PHILLIPS , McKAY , and ANDERSON , Circuit Judges.
Frank Donald Williams, Daniel Larry, Dani el Labato, Joseph St one, and Stephanie Slater appeal the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Weber County,

* After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not mate rially assist the de termination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This orde r and judgment is not binding precedent except under the doctrines of la w of the case, claim preclusion, and issue preclusion. It may be cited, however, for its persuasi ve value consistent with Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and 10th Circuit Rule 32.1. FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### April 15, 2014
Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court- 2 - Utah, and the Weber County Commissioners, on their consolidated civil rights 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaints. Exercising jurisdicti on under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm. Plaintiffs were charged with crimes in Weber County. Weber County has entered into fixed-price contracts with local attorneys to represent indigent criminal defendants. All Plaintiffs requested, and were appointed, defense counsel to represent them in their criminal proceedings. All Plaintiffs pleaded guilty, and then all sued Defendants, alleging Defendants had deprived them of their Sixt h Amendment right to counsel. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants provided inadequate fund ing for, and failed to train, supervise, and monitor, the defense counsel who had been appo inted to represent them . Plaintiffs seek damages for the alleged constituti onal violations. The district court concluded that these claims were barred by Heck v. Humphrey , 512 U.S. 477, 486–87 (1 994), which held that a state prisoner may not recover damages unde r § 1983 if a favorable judgment would necessarily imply the invalidity of his conviction unless the conviction has been invalidated. Accordingly, th e district court granted summary judgment for Defendants. 1 “We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, using the same standards applied by the district court.” Baca v. Sklar , 398 F.3d 1210, 1216 (10th Cir. 2005). Summary judgment shall be granted wh en “the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). On appeal, Plaintiffs primarily argue that the

1 Plaintiffs also asserted a claim under Utah ’s state constitution arising out of the same allegations, but they do not challenge the di strict court’s grant of summary judgment on that claim.- 3 - indigent-defense program in We ber County fails to meet cons titutional standards. In the last few pages of their brief, they argue that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to Defendants under Heck . We need reach only the Heck issue to affirm the district court’s judgment. Because Plaintiffs ’ claims necessarily implicate the validity of their convictions, and because they all seek damages fo r their counsels’ alleged ineffectiveness, the district court correctly granted summary judgment to Defendants. Under Heck , [I]n order to recover damages for a llegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence i nvalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence ha s been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or ca lled into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus . . . . A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under § 1983. Thus, wh en a state prisoner seeks damages in a § 1983 suit, the district court must consider whether a judgment in favor of the plaintiff would necessarily impl y the invalidity of his conviction or sentence; if it would, th e complaint must be dismissed unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the convicti on or sentence has already been invalidated. Heck , 512 U.S. at 486–87 (emphasis in orig inal) (footnote omitte d) (citation omitted). It is undisputed that none of the Plain tiffs’ convictions or sentences has been invalidated. But Plaintiffs argue nonetheless that Heck does not bar their claims, citing many cases in which Heck has been held not to bar § 1983 claims because the claims did not necessarily implicate the va lidity of the plaintiffs’ convictions. Plaintiffs argue their § 1983 complaints allege only that their rights were violated as a result of improper procedures , not that their underlying convicti ons or sentences are improper.- 4 - We are not persuaded. It is true that Heck ’s favorable-termination bar is inapplicable when a prisoner’ s § 1983 suit “threatens no c onsequence for his conviction or the duration of his sentence.” Muhammad v. Close , 540 U.S. 749, 751 (2004). And although the Supreme Court has held that there are circumstances in which a § 1983 action challenging only allege dly unconstitutional pr ocedures might not be barred by Heck , it made clear that is true only if the ch allenged procedures do not necessarily imply the invalidity of the plaintiff’s conviction. See Edwards v. Balisok , 520 U.S. 641, 645–46 (1997). Here, if Plaintiffs prevailed on their § 1 983 claims, that woul d necessarily imply the invalidity of their guilty pleas. Each Plai ntiff alleged that duri ng his or her criminal case, he or she had spoken with his or her a ttorney only one or tw o times and for only a few minutes each time. Each Plaintiff allege d that his or her atto rney never provided a copy of the criminal charges or any discover y material, never informed him or her of any defenses, and never performed any true investigation about the case. Each Plaintiff alleged that his or her defense counsel told Plaintiff—w ithout conducting any investigation—that he or she had no defense. And each Plai ntiff alleged that he or she was given no opportunity to prepare a defense, or to ask questions ab out the nature of the criminal case or the ramification of the charge s. All alleged that he or she was coerced by defense counsel into admitting th e charges against him or her. See App. at 16 (Williams’s complaint); Complaint ¶¶ 31–37, Lobato v. Weber Cnty. , No. 1:11-cv-00030- CW (D. Utah 2011), ECF No . 3; Complaint ¶¶ 31–37, Stone v. Weber Cnty. , No. 1:11-cv-- 5 - 00033-CW (D. Utah 2011), ECF No. 3; Complaint ¶¶ 31–37, Larry v. Weber Cnty. , No. 1:11-cv-00034-CW (D. Utah 2011 ), ECF No. 3; Complaint ¶¶ 31–37, Slater v. Weber Cnty. , No. 1:11-cv-00037-CW (D . Utah 2011), ECF No. 3. These allegations, if proven, would necessa rily imply that Plaintiffs received constitutionally ineffective assistance of co unsel, potentially rendering their guilty pleas invalid. See Hinton v. Alabama , 134 S. Ct. 1081, 1088 (2014) (holding that “counsel has a duty to make reasonable investigations or to make a reasonable decision that makes particular investigations unnecessary”); Hill v. Lockhart , 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985) (describing scenarios in connec tion with plea bargaining in whic h an attorney’s failure to investigate, discover potentially exculpatory ev idence, or advise clie nt of defenses could constitute ineffective a ssistance of counsel); Williams v. Jones , 571 F.3d 1086, 1091 (10th Cir. 2009) (holding that attorney’s co ercion of client’s decision regarding a plea offer was constitutionally deficien t and established prejudice); see also Satterwhite v.
Texas , 486 U.S. 249, 256 (1988) (“Some constitutiona l violations . . . by their very nature cast so much doubt on the fairne ss of the trial process that, as a matter of law, they can never be considered harmless. Sixth Ame ndment violations that pervade the entire proceeding fall within this category.”); United States v. Cronic , 466 U.S. 648, 659 (1984) (“[I]f counsel entirely fails to subject the pr osecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing, then there has been a denial of Si xth Amendment rights that makes the adversary process itself presumptively unreliable.”).- 6 - Plaintiffs cite Powers v. Hamilton County Pu blic Defender Commission , 501 F.3d 592, 603 (6th Cir. 2007), a Sixth Ci rcuit decision which held that an ineffective-assistance-of-co unsel claim wa s not barred by Heck because there was no way for the plaintiff to obtain habeas review of hi s incarceration. But no bar to habeas relief has been alleged here. Plain tiffs also argue that applying Heck ’s bar to their cases “runs completely counter” to many cases challengi ng indigent-defense funding around the country. See Reply Br. 3. But none of the cases they cite was brought under § 1983: One involved the right to coun sel in foster-children depriva tion proceedings, and the rest involved state-law claims. Plaintiffs also filed supplemental authority directing us to a recent unpublished order from the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington granting injunctive relief in a § 1983 action, based on its ruling that the municipal defendants had implemented a system of public defense that systematically deprives criminal defendants of the assistance of coun sel by deliberately providing inadequate fu nding and monitoring. Wilbur v. City of Mount Vernon , No. C11-1100RSL, 2013 WL 6275 319, at *8–9 (W.D. Wash. D ec. 4, 2013). In addition to lacking precedential value, the Wilbur ruling is easily distinguishable. At the time the Wilbur plaintiffs filed their class-action compla int, they had been charged with crimes and appointed public defenders, but had not be en convicted, and, more significantly, the Wilbur plaintiffs sought declaratory an d injunctive relief, not damages. See id . at *1,
*8-10. Heck serves to bar only actions “to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional convicti on or imprisonment.” Heck , 512 U.S. at 486 (emphasis added).- 7 - In sum, because Plaintiffs seek damage s for § 1983 claims that necessarily implicate the validity of their convictions, and their convictions have not been reversed or declared invalid, the district court properl y granted summary judgment to Defendants. We affirm the district court’s judgment.

Entered for the Court
Gregory A. Phillips Circuit Judge