14 STANDARD OF REVIEW A district court’s grant of a motion to dismiss is reviewed de novo Sonoma Cnty. Ass'n of Retired Emps. v. Sonoma County , 708 F.3d 1109, 1115 (9th Cir. 2013). So too is a district court’s grant of qualified immunity, Conner v. Heiman , 672 F.3d 1126, 1130 (9th Cir. 2012), as well as its conclusion that an action is barred under the Heck doctrine, Beets v. County of Los Angeles , 669 F.3d 1038, 1041 (9th Cir. 2012). D enial of leave to file an amended or supplemental pleading is reviewed for abuse of discretion. Design Data Corp. v. Unigate Enters., Inc. , 847 F.3d 1169, 1172 (9th Cir. 2017) (amended ); Keith v. Volpe , 858 F.2d 467, 473 (9th Cir. 1988) (supplemental). ARGUMENT I. T HE D ISTRICT C OURT ’ S D ISMISSAL AND W ITHOUT L EAVE TO A MEND W AS E RROR AND AN A BUSE OF D ISCRETION A. The Heck Bar Was Applied to a Nonexistent Conviction Claims under § 1983 must be dismissed if they would “necessarily require the plaintiff to prove the unlawfulness of his conviction.” Heck v. Humphrey , 512 U.S. 477, 486 (1994). But “[w]here there is no 'conviction or sentence' that may be undermined by a grant of relief to the plaintiffs, the Heck doctrine has no application.” Martin v. City of Boise , 920 F.3d 584, 613 (9th Cir. 2019). In this case however, the district court applied Heck to Count VIII (Ord. at 21:2- 15 7) 16 even though this charge had been dismissed—a fact Appellant made clear both in the FAC (FAC ¶¶ 139, 144) 17 and in his response to the dismissal motion. (Resp. at 27:3-4). 18 “The absence of a criminal judgment here renders the Heck bar inapplicable,” Roberts v. City of Fairbanks , 947 F.3d 1191, 1198 (9th Cir. 2020), and the district court erred in dismissing Count VIII on this basis, Duarte v. City of Stockton , 60 F.4th 566, 573 (9th Cir. 2023) (reversing district court’s Heck dismissal where there was no conviction). B. The Court Failed to Make a Legally-Sufficient Determination Whether Qualified Immunity Applies The entirety of the district court’s qualified immunity “analysis” is but a single sentence: “Defendant Forsman is entitled to qualified immunity on the constitutional claims against him.” (Ord. at 7). No attempt was made to “determine, based on the complaint itself, that qualified immunity applies.” O'Brien v. Welty , 818 F.3d 920, 936 (9th Cir. 2016) (dismissal inappropriate 16 “By ‘the charge that was dismissed,’ Plaintiff appears to mean the stalking charge that was subsequently reduced to attempted stalking pursuant to Plaintiff’s plea agreement ... Plaintiff must first obtain a favorable termination of his attempted stalking conviction before he may bring his § 1983 and § 1985 claims against Forsman and Rabin in Counts VIII−X, and XII.” 17 “[T]he stalking charge related to Rabin’s February 11, 2021 report was dismissed pursuant to a plea agreement...” 18 “[N]one of Plaintiff’s allegations pertain to this conviction, they pertain to the charge that was dismissed...” 16 without this determination), or whether Appellant’s factual allegations, taken as true, “support the claim that the officials' conduct violated clearly established constitutional rights,” Keates v. Koile , 883 F.3d 1228, 1235 (9th Cir. 2018). (FAC at 10). 19 But this determination is crucial because if a complaint “contains even one allegation of a harmful act that would constitute a violation of a clearly established constitutional right, then plaintiffs are entitled to go forward with their claims.” Id. So, does the FAC contain such an allegation? 20 Indeed, it does: 19 The court failed moreover to cite even one single authority to support its grant of qualified immunity. 20 While I concede my failure to allege that “without the dishonestly included or omitted information[] the magistrate would not have issued the warrant,” Hervey v. Estes , 65 F.3d 784, 789 (9th Cir. 1995), dismissal without leave to amend was still improper and leave should have been granted regardless given that the deficiency was curable through “allegation of other facts consistent with the challenged pleading...” Montz v. Pilgrim Films & Television, Inc. , 649 F.3d 975, 984 n.3 (9th Cir. 2011). Nevertheless, my oversight does not rescue the court’s defective qualified immunity determination. 17 Regardless, even if it did not, the court’s entirely bereft determination of this issue was still wholly insufficient to “clearly show” that Appellant “would be unable to overcome qualified immunity.” Chavez v. Robinson , 817 F.3d 1162, 1169 (9th Cir. 2016). C. The Court Unquestionably Should Have Granted Appellant Leave to File his Proposed Pleading Courts have broad discretion to grant leave to amend a complaint. Nguyen v. Endologix, Inc. , 962 F.3d 405, 420 (9th Cir. 2020). Nevertheless, “[a] motion to amend under Rule 15(a)(2) generally shall be denied only upon showing of bad faith, undue delay, futility, or undue prejudice to the opposing party." Chudacoff v. Univ. Med. Ctr. of S. Nev. , 649 F.3d 1143, 1152 (9th Cir. 2011) (the crucial factor in granting or denying leave to amend is prejudice to the opposing party). In all other cases, “Rule 15's policy of favoring amendments to pleadings should be applied with ‘extreme liberality,’” United States v. Webb , 655 F.2d 977, 979 (9th Cir. 1981) (citation omitted), and “ even more liberally to pro se litigants,” Eldridge v. Block , 832 F.2d 1132, 1135 (9th Cir. 1987), who must be afforded “ an opportunity to amend the complaint to overcome deficiencies unless it is clear that they cannot be overcome by amendment,” id. at 1135-36 (citing Armstrong v. Rushing , 352 F.2d 836, 837 (9th Cir. 1965). To this end, courts should “provide a pro se litigant with notice of the deficiencies in his or her 18 complaint" to ensure that the litigant uses the opportunity to amend effectively. Noll v. Carlson , 809 F.2d 1446, 1448 (9th Cir. 1987). And while a statement of deficiencies “need not provide great detail or require district courts to act as legal advisors to pro se plaintiffs, district courts must at least draft a few sentences explaining the deficiencies.” Eldridge, 832 F.2d at 1136 (citing Noll , 809 F.2d at 1448-49 (pro se litigant entitled to procedural protections, including right to amend complaint unless futile). Reversal is warranted where a court has denied leave to amend but failed to provide “some statement of reasons or findings of fact showing bad faith or prejudice,” United States v. Webb , 655 F.2d 977, 980 (9th Cir. 1981), and “[a]n outright refusal to grant leave to amend without a justifying reason is ... an abuse of discretion,” Leadsinger, Inc. v. BMG Music Publ'g , 512 F.3d 522, 532 (9th Cir. 2008) (citation omitted). Similarly, Rule 15(d) “is intended to give district courts broad discretion in allowing supplemental pleadings,” Keith v. Volpe , 858 F.2d 467, 473 (9th Cir. 1988) (citation omitted), in order “to promote as complete an adjudication of the dispute between the parties as possible by allowing the addition of claims which arise after the initial pleadings are filed,” William Inglis & Sons Baking Co. v. ITT Continental Baking Co., Inc. , 668 F.2d 1014, 1057 (9th Cir. 1982). New claims, new parties, and events occurring after the original action are 19 all properly permitted under Rule 15(d) because this is “well within the basic aim of the rules to make pleadings a means to achieve an orderly and fair administration of justice.” Griffin v. Cnty. Sch. Bd. , 377 U.S. 218, 227 (1964). Thus, absent one of the factors favoring denial of leave to amend under Rule 15(a)(2), see Chudacoff, 649 F.3d at 1152, it is an abuse of discretion for a district court to refuse to grant leave to supplement a complaint. See Foman v. Davis, 371 U.S. 178, 182 (1962); Moore v. Kayport Package Express, Inc., 885 F.2d 531, 538 (9th Cir. 1989). Nevertheless, the district court—without considering any of the arguments raised by Appellant in support of leave to file his proposed amended and supplemental complaint and without any discussion of the Rule 15 factors for determining whether such leave should be granted—denied leave as moot “[b]ecause the Court must abstain from or dismiss all of Plaintiff’s claims[.]” (Ord. at 23). But not only does this denial fail on its face given the court’s plainly erroneous application of the Heck bar to a charge that Appellant twice made crystal clear was dismissed, it also fails given that Appellant’s proposed pleading included two brand new causes of action: (1) a RICO claim (PP at X ); 21 21 The RICO claims were directed against both state actor and private person defendants (PP at X). 20 and (2) a claim for racketeering under Arizona law (PP at X). 22 These new causes of action were not even acknowledged by the court, let alone addressed under the Rule 15 standards discussed above. Furthermore, the court sidestepped entirely Appellant’s contention that this Circuit’s extrinsic fraud exception to Rooker-Feldman applies to his criminal convictions. In fact, neither “extrinsic” nor “fraud” appear anywhere in the dismissal order. Likewise, the court gave exactly zero consideration to Appellant’s four pages of argument presenting additional reasons why Rooker- Feldman was inapplicable, and wherein he argued: because (1) this Circuit’s reads Rooker-Feldman not as a jurisdictional bar, but rather an application of res judicata ; and (2) res judicata is an affirmative defense liable to waiver ; and (3) plea agreements are contractual in nature and therefore subject to contract interpretation standar ds; therefore (4) the State of Arizona—according to the terms of the plea agreement and as interpreted under Arizona’s ordinary rules of contract interpretation—had waived its opposition to Appellant’s collateral attack on the convictions obtained through the state’s extrinsic fraud. Finally, Appellant’s proposed pleading presented numerous questions of first impression which moreover asserted entirely novel theories of liability, 22 These claims were directed against the same defendants as the RICO claims. 21 including: (1) whether Congress expressly abrogated common law immunity under § 1983; (2) whether this Circuit’s extrinsic fraud exception to Rooker- Feldman applies to criminal conviction s; (3) whether Rooker-Feldman , recognized by this Court as an application of res judicata rather than a jurisdictional bar, can be waived; and (4) whether Younger -abstention applies to post-conviction proceedings where the conviction is void as the product of extrinsic fraud due to the state’s deliberate concealment of material required to be disclosed under a state criminal procedure rule which is stricter and significantly more comprehensive than Brady Standing alone, the presence of these issues strongly disfavored the court’s disposition of this case. See Elec. Constr. & Maint. Co., Inc. v. Maeda Pac. Corp ., 764 F.2d 619, 623 (9th Cir. 1985) (“Court[s] should be especially reluctant to dismiss on the basis of the pleadings when the asserted theory of liability is novel or extreme, since it is important that new legal theories be explored and assayed in the light of actual facts.” (quoting 5 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1357 (3d ed. 1969)) (internal quotation marks omitted). When considered in light of Rule 15’s “extreme liberality” policy— especially given Appellant’s pro se statues—the court’s decision goes from dubious to untenable.