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Perspective

Sep. 15, 2011

What the Heck? 9th Circuit delivers misguided birthday present to drunk driver

A 9th Circuit ruling allows the birthday boy to have his cake, and eat it too. By Harry S. Stern of Rains Lucia Stern PC


By Harry S. Stern


A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has given an unlikely recipient a belated birthday present - a reversal of the district court's dismissal of his 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action against the officers who arrested him. The 9th Circuit ruled that the drunk driver's plea in his criminal case was not a bar to his subsequent civil action. In so doing, they not only parsed the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in Heck v. Humphre...

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