[465]*465BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., C.J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which BOGGS, DAUGHTREY, MOORE, COLE, and CLAY, JJ., joined. GILMAN, J. (pp. 472-479), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which BATCHELDER, GIBBONS, and ROGERS, JJ., joined.
OPINION
BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Chief Circuit Judge.
Rogerico Johnson and William Dwight Dotson appeal the dismissal of their individual 42 U.S.C. § 1988 claims against the Ohio Adult Parole Authority. The claims asserted improprieties in the respective plaintiffs’ parole proceedings. These claims were dismissed as not cognizable under section 1983, according to the rule of Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994). The district courts ruled that these claims were cognizable only under a petition for habeas corpus because they necessarily implied the invalidity of the prisoners’ confinement. For the following reasons, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and find that certain prisoner claims are cognizable under section 1983.
In April of 1999, Rogerico Johnson, who was incarcerated in the state of Ohio, had an initial parole hearing. According to the Ohio Code, the parole hearing must be conducted by the Parole Board or by at least one member of the Parole Board and one Parole Board Hearing Officer. In Johnson’s case, the hearing was conducted by one Parole Board member alone. At the hearing, that member of the Parole Board did not allow Johnson to speak on his own behalf, although the Code requires that she consider his oral or written statements. She did not ask Johnson any questions; Johnson was not allowed to ask any questions. The Parole Board member based her decision to deny parole on two alleged convictions for which Johnson was never even charged, in violation of the Code’s permissible considerations.
Johnson claims that his due process rights were violated by this parole hearing. He filed a section 1983 claim challenging the parole hearing, not the denial of parole. He sought declaratory and injunc-tive relief. The district court dismissed Johnson’s suit for failure to state a claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e), finding that Heck precluded his claim. Johnson alleges that this challenge is cognizable under section 1983 and that the district court erred in dismissing his complaint.
William Dwight Dotson was convicted in Ohio in 1981 of aggravated murder. Under the regulations in place at the time, he was not eligible for parole for fifteen years. If he were denied parole at that point, the Parole Board would be required to give him another hearing within five years. Dotson was denied parole initially, and the Parole Board set his next hearing for ten years later, with a halfway point evaluation in five years. This plan complied with the regulations in effect when Dotson was sentenced.
Before that five years lapsed, however, the Ohio regulations changed, and the new parole rules said that a prisoner convicted of aggravated murder was not eligible for parole for more than thirty-two years. Dotson attended his halfway review, scheduled under the regulations in place at the time of his initial incarceration. At that review, however, the Parole Board decided the new rules applied retroactively, and the Parole Board announced that Dotson would not be eligible for parole until 2007. They nevertheless kept the 2005 date scheduled for Dotson’s next hearing. The Parole Board made a determination about Dotson’s parole eligibility, [466]*466not about his parole suitability, as was required by the old regulations.
Dotson filed suit under section 1988, alleging violations within the parole hearing procedures. The district court dismissed Dotson’s claim, stating it was not cognizable under section 1983.
When a district court dismisses a case or claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e), this court reviews such dismissal de novo. McGore v. Wrigglesworth, 114 F.3d 601, 604 (6th Cir.1997). The grant of a motion for summary judgment is also reviewed de novo, and this court applies the same standard the district court applied. See Perry v. McGinnis, 209 F.3d 597, 600 (6th Cir.2000).
Federal habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2254 is the exclusive avenue for challenging the fact or duration of a prisoner’s confinement, but civil rights actions pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 are available to challenge the conditions of that confinement, according to the Supreme Court. See Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973). The cases before this en banc court today involve the intersection of these two provisions. It is our task to determine under what circumstances a prisoner may use a section 1983 action, rather than a habeas corpus petition, to challenge the procedures used in his parole hearing.
Five somewhat confusing Supreme Court cases govern the issue here, and our sister circuits have struggled with application of their holdings. We have struggled as well, as evidenced by the conflicting opinions, mostly unpublished, of this court thus far. We now seek to clarify the conflict.
The oldest of the relevant Supreme Court cases is Preiser. 411 U.S. 475, 93 S.Ct. 1827, 36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973). In this case, prisoners challenged a policy of deprivation of good-time credits after disciplinary hearings. Id. at 476-82, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The prisoners sought injunctive relief in the form of immediate restoration of the credits, which in every case would automatically result in the prisoners’ immediate release from confinement. Id. at 477, 93 S.Ct. 1827. Because this action challenged the duration of their confinement, the Supreme Court held that “a state prisoner challenging his underlying conviction and sentence on federal constitutional grounds in a federal court is limited to habeas corpus.” Id. at 489, 93 S.Ct. 1827.
As explained above, however, Preiser left open the possibility that a section 1983 claim might still lie. The Supreme Court said, “[I]f a state prisoner is seeking damages, he is attacking something other than the fact or length of his confinement, and he is seeking something other than immediate or more speedy release — the traditional purpose of habeas corpus.” Id. at 494, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The Court went on to say, “Accordingly, ... a damages action by a state prisoner could be brought under the Civil Rights Act in federal court without any requirement of prior exhaustion of state remedies.” Id. (emphasis added).
After imagining a prisoner’s claim that might be cognizable under section 1983 in Preiser, the Supreme Court decided in Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 554-55, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), that a section 1983 claim for damages based on a challenge to the procedures employed by the state in imposing sanctions on a prisoner, including the loss of good-time credits for flagrant or serious misconduct, was in fact cognizable. The suit was a class action, and it issued a general challenge to the procedures employed by the state. The Court said, “[I]t was proper for the [courts] to determine the validity of the procedures for revoking good-time credits [467]*467and to fashion appropriate remedies for any constitutional violations ascertained, short of ordering the actual restoration of good time already cancelled.” The Court recognized the section 1983 claim.
After a long period of silence on the matter, the Court decided Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994). In Heck, a prisoner claimed that the defendants, state prosecutors and investigators, had engaged in an unlawful investigation of him that led to his unlawful arrest and prosecution. He sought compensatory and punitive damages but not release from custody or other injunctive relief. Nevertheless, because the Court found that Heck was actually testing the reliability and legality of his confinement, his claim was not cognizable under section 1983. Id. at 481-82, 114 S.Ct. 2364.
The Court sought to further clarify the question, however. Citing the Preiser quote above, that seeking damages is not challenging one’s confinement, the Supreme Court said, “That statement may not be true, however, when establishing the basis for the damages claim necessarily demonstrates the invalidity of the conviction.” Id. at 481, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The Supreme Court went on to limit the use of section 1983 for prisoner claims, stating at 486-87, that
in order 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, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that 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, 28 U.S.C. § 2254. A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under § 1983.
The Court, however, then said, “[I]f the district court determines that the plaintiffs action, even if successful, will not demonstrate the invalidity of any outstanding criminal judgment against the plaintiff, the action should be allowed to proceed, in the absence of some other bar to the suit.” Id. at 487, 93 S.Ct. 1827. The cognizable claim, then, cannot be the kind of challenge that fits squarely within the core of habeas corpus, a challenge to the fact or duration of confinement. The question becomes what the Supreme Court intends by “necessarily demonstrates,” as to the validity of a conviction or sentence. Id. at 481, 93 S.Ct. 1827.
The Supreme Court further explored that question in Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 117 S.Ct. 1584, 137 L.Ed.2d 906 (1997). In that case, a state prisoner claimed to challenge only the procedures used in his disciplinary proceeding, believing that he had carved out the sort of claim cognizable under section 1983, Preiser, and Heck. The procedures at issue, however, regarded the loss of good-time credits. In seeking and successfully attaining restoration of good-time credits, a prisoner’s sentence was necessarily and automatically shorter. The Supreme Court held that the prisoner’s narrow interpretation of a cognizable claim was not narrow enough; the nature of a challenge to procedures may still imply the invalidity of the conviction or sentence. Id. at 645, 117 S.Ct. 1584. As a result, a claim attacking only procedure, not result, may still fail to be cognizable under section 1983 unless the prisoner can show that the conviction or sentence has been previously invalidated, where, as in Edwards, the challenge [468]*468can be said to “necessarily” imply the invalidity of the continued confinement.
Finally and most recently, in Spencer v. Kemna, 523 U.S. 1, 118 S.Ct. 978, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998), the Supreme Court reiterated that some kind of prisoner claim is cognizable under section 1983. The Court wrote, “If, for example, petitioner were to seek damages ‘for using the wrong procedures, not for reaching the wrong result,’ and if that procedural defect did not ‘necessarily imply the invalidity of the revocation, then Heck would have no application [at] all.” Id. at 17, 118 S.Ct. 978 (internal citations omitted).
The Supreme Court seems thus to have dictated how these claims can proceed, but the cases from the lower courts are anything but clear, and the rulings from the various circuits are not entirely consistent. As explained more fully below, the District of Columbia Circuit has found that a challenge to parole proceedings is cognizable under section 1983, as has the Fifth. The Seventh Circuit recognizes that some prisoner claims are cognizable under section 1983 rather than habeas, but it is not clear where challenges to parole proceedings lie. The Tenth, the Ninth, and the Eighth Circuits have conflicting precedent.
In Anyanwutaku v. Moore, 151 F.3d 1053 (D.C.Cir.1998), the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that an inmate’s constitutional challenge alleging miscalculation of a parole eligibility date could be brought as a section 1983 action. The court indicated that because parole decisions in the District of Columbia were discretionary, there was no guarantee the inmate would have been released any earlier. Likewise, in Carson v. Johnson, 112 F.3d 818, 820 (5th Cir.1997), the court said, “Generally, section 1983 suits are the proper vehicle to attack unconstitutional conditions of confinement and prison procedures,” whereas a habeas petition is the proper vehicle for seeking release from incarceration.
The Seventh Circuit recently summarized its standard in Moran v. Sondalle, 218 F.3d 647, 650-51 (7th Cir.2000) (internal citations omitted), in this way:
State prisoners who want to challenge their convictions, their sentences, or administrative orders revoking good-time credits or equivalent sentence-shortening devices, must seek habeas corpus, because they contest the fact or duration of custody. State prisoners who want to raise a constitutional challenge to any other decision, such as transfer to a new prison, administrative segregation, exclusion from prison programs, or suspension of privileges, must instead employ § 1983 or another statute authorizing damages or injunctions — when the decision may be challenged at all....
The question remains, however, whether a parole hearing is an “equivalent sentence-shortening device” or “any other decision” in the Seventh Circuit.
The Tenth Circuit cases are in conflict. Early Tenth Circuit cases seem to say that habeas is appropriate for claims arising from parole procedures. See Crow v. Penny, 102 F.3d 1086 (10th Cir.1996). This case, however, predated Spencer v. Kemna. 523 U.S. 1, 118 S.Ct. 978, 140 L.Ed.2d 43 (1998). More recently, the Tenth Circuit has said, albeit in an unpublished opinion, “[S]ection 1983 actions are typically the proper vehicle for attacking unconstitutional conditions of confinement and parole procedures.” Woodruff v. Everett, 43 Fed.Appx. 244, 245 (10th Cir.2002).
The Ninth Circuit rule distinguishes among different parole procedures. That court, in Butterfield v. Bail, 120 F.3d 1023, 1024 (9th Cir.1997), said, “We have no difficulty in concluding that a challenge to [469]*469the procedures used in the denial of parole necessarily implicates the validity of the denial of parole and, therefore, the prisoner’s continuing confinement.” As support, in Footnote 1, the court cited Crow v. Penry, 102 F.3d at 1087, and McGrow v. Texas Board of Pardons & Paroles, 47 F.3d 158,161 (5th Cir.1995). Id. The court contrasted the facts in Neal v. Shimoda, 131 F.3d 818 (9th Cir.1997), to the facts in Butterfield. In Neal, prisoners brought a section 1983 action to challenge their characterization as sex offenders for purposes of a state registration program. The Ninth Circuit noted that success on the merits for the claimants would not call into question the validity of their confinement; it would merely remove them from the sex offender list and registration program requirements. Id. at 823-24. As a result, the prisoners’ claims were properly brought under section 1983. Id.
Finally, the Eighth Circuit has characterized the state of the law in this way: “Claims challenging the conditions of confinement or the method by which a sentence is being carried out may be asserted through a § 1983 cause of action. However, a state prisoner challenging the fact or duration of a sentence of imprisonment and seeking immediate or speedier release has a federal remedy through habeas corpus and cannot bring a claim under § 1983.” Williams v. Hopkins, 130 F.3d 333, 335-36 (8th Cir.1997).
As to where this Court ultimately stands on these issues, we first look to Ward v. Engler, 8 Fed.Appx. 289 (6th Cir. 2001) (unpublished opinion).1 In ruling that the plaintiffs actually objected to the outcomes of their parole hearings, not the procedures of those hearings, we said, “Essentially, plaintiffs claims are not cognizable under § 1983 because plaintiff cannot show that the decision to deny plaintiff consideration for parole was invalidated, and a ruling in plaintiffs favor in this case would necessarily implicate the continued validity of his imprisonment.” We further have said,
One reason which [the prisoner] gave for why his parole was improperly denied was some of the convictions used to deny his parole were invalid. As a ruling on the parole board’s decision denying [him] parole would thus question the validity of these challenged convictions, Heck directs that the complaint be dismissed. Further, as [the prisoner] is contesting his actual confinement, his sole remedy is a writ of habeas corpus, not a civil rights action.
Chandler v. Michigan Parole Bd., No. 99-1119, 2000 WL 875771, *1 (6th Cir. Jun.20, 2000) (unpublished opinion). These decisions would deny Johnson and Dotson the relief they seek.
On the other side, this court has also recognized certain prisoner parole claims under section 1983. “When a prisoner is not claiming immediate entitlement to parole, but rather is challenging parole procedures, he may bring his action under § 1983.” Coffey v. Tennessee, 8 Fed.Appx. 503, 505 (6th Cir.2001) (unpublished opinion); see also Fraser v. Tenn. Bd. of Paroles, No. 00-5166, 2000 WL 1800634, *1 (6th Cir. Nov.30, 2000) (unpublished opinion). In Seagroves v. Tennessee Board of Probation & Parole, 39 Fed.Appx. 271, 272-73 (6th Cir.2002) (internal citations omitted) (unpublished opinion), we said,
The district court should not have dismissed Seagroves’s complaint under [470]*470Preiser because he is challenging the procedures used to determine his parole eligibility rather than the decision itself. Preiser and Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994), do not bar all § 1983 challenges to parole procedures.... Although a prisoner cannot sue under § 1983 for immediate or speedier release, a prisoner can bring a § 1983 challenge to state parole procedures because the success of such a lawsuit would only increase the prisoner’s chances of discretionary parole.... He seeks, not immediate or speedier release, but a new hearing utilizing what he considers the proper statutes and procedures.
As is clear, the cases from this court are in conflict. As a result, we are forced to closely evaluate Johnson’s and Dotson’s claims with regard to all the precedent.
The dissent would draw a distinction between procedural challenges to parole eligibility hearings, as described in Dotson’s case, at which the parole board determines a date at which a prisoner will be eligible for a parole determination hearing, and parole determination hearings themselves. The Ninth Circuit has endorsed this distinction. Compare Neal, 131 F.3d at 824 (“The only benefit that a victory in this case would provide [the plaintiffs] ... is a ticket to get in the door of the parole board, thus only making them eligible for parole consideration according to the terms of their sentences”) (emphasis added), with Butterfield, 120 F.3d at 1024 (finding action alleging violation of due process rights where parole board considered false information directly and necessarily implicates the validity of the denial of parole and, therefore, prisoner’s continuing confinement). While it is not clear from the record that Dotson was supposed to receive a parole eligibility hearing as opposed to a parole determination or suitability hearing, we agree with the dissent that procedural challenges to parole eligibility hearings will rarely, if ever, “necessarily imply” the invalidity of a prisoner’s conviction or continued confinement. See Neal, 131 F.3d at 824 (observing that prisoner’s challenges to parole eligibility determinations, if successful, would not “necessarily shorten their prison sentences by a single day”). We differ with the dissent, however, as to Johnson, because we believe that there also may exist procedural challenges to parole determination or suitability hearings that will likewise not “necessarily imply” the invalidity of a prisoner’s conviction or continued confinement.2
Although Dotson challenges a parole eligibility determination and Johnson a parole release determination, the success of either challenge would result in a new hearing that would follow the appropriate procedures under Ohio law. Under Ohio law, parole is discretionary. See Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 2967.03 (2002); Ohio Admin. Code §§ 5120: 1-1-07(B), (C). As the Supreme Court of Ohio said, in State ex rel. Blake v. Shoemaker, 4 Ohio St.3d 42, 446 N.E.2d 169,170 (1983), the Ohio parole statute “is a grant of discretion; it does not create any presumption that parole will be issued and does not create an ex[471]*471pectancy of parole.... ” Therefore, the impact the new hearings would have on Dotson and Johnson’s parole or release is indeterminate. Because the ultimate impact of these new hearings on the validity of Dotson or Johnson’s continued confinement is unclear, we cannot say that a successful section 1983 action that simply results in a new discretionary parole hearing “necessarily implies” the invalidity of either plaintiffs conviction or sentence.
A successful challenge will only “necessarily imply” the invalidity of a prisoner’s conviction or sentence if it will inevitably or automatically result in earlier release. A challenge to the loss of good-time credits is an example of such a challenge. Edwards, 520 U.S. at 647, 117 S.Ct. 1584. This determination will depend upon the facts of the particular case. However, where the ultimate parole determination is discretionary and based on a host of factors, as it is in Ohio, it will be difficult to predict any highly likely or inevitable consequence of the parole determination hearing. Here, neither of the inmates’ release is necessarily at issue, nor do these challenges call into question the duration or fact of either prisoner’s confinement. In Anyammtaku, 151 F.3d at 1055-1056, the D.C. Circuit said,
Although Anyanwutaku would have been eligible for parole at an earlier date had he prevailed on his claims in the district court, because D.C. parole decisions are entirely discretionary ... there is no guarantee that he would have been released any earlier. Interpreting Preiser, a majority of our sister circuits have held that challenges to state parole procedures whose success would not necessarily result in immediate or speedier release need not be brought in habeas corpus, even though the prisoners filed their suits for the very purpose of increasing their chances of parole.
Dotson and. Johnson merely request an opportunity for a fair and untainted parole hearing.
Dotson’s challenge to the procedures used to determine the date upon which he will be considered for parole, if successful, would not “necessarily imply” the invalidity of his continued confinement. Rather, success on this challenge would simply provide Dotson with a discretionary parole hearing at which the Parole Board would determine whether parole was appropriate in his case.
Similarly, the consequence of a successful procedural challenge by Johnson will be a new discretionary parole hearing. Like Dotson, Johnson simply seeks a ticket to get back in the door of the parole board. It is unclear what the ultimate result of Johnson’s new parole hearing would be. Johnson claims that the Parole Board violated due process when it failed to follow Ohio law governing parole determinations by, among other things, having an insufficient number of Parole Board members at Johnson’s hearing and not giving Johnson an opportunity to speak. Thus, should Johnson succeed on this claim, he would simply receive a new hearing at which the Parole Board would follow properly the procedures as set forth under Ohio law. Not every procedural defect necessarily has an impact on the ultimate outcome of a procedurally defective hearing. The remedying of many procedural defects will not cause any different outcome at all, much less “necessarily imply” that the prisoner should be released immediately or sooner than he would have been released absent the challenge. In any event, under Ohio law, the broad discretion afforded to the Parole Board leaves us with little ability to predict what will “necessarily” occur as a result of Johnson’s new parole hearing.
[472]*472Further, as the District of Columbia Circuit pointed out, citing Greenholtz v. Inmates of the Nebraska Penal and Correctional Complex, 442 U.S. 1, 99 S.Ct. 2100, 60 L.Ed.2d 668 (1979), “Even the Supreme Court reached the merits of a section 1983 claim by state prisoners alleging due process violations in the consideration of their suitability for parole without first addressing whether Preiser required the claim to be brought in habeas.” Anyamvutaku, 151 F.3d at 1056. We see no reason to require that Johnson and Dotson’s claims be lodged as a general challenge in a class action suit, rather than a particularized challenge to procedures as applied, especially where neither prisoner’s challenge will necessarily result in his earlier release.
Thus, where a prisoner does not claim immediate entitlement to parole or seek a shorter sentence but instead lodges a challenge to the procedures used during the parole process as generally improper or improper as applied in his case, and that challenge will at best result in a new discretionary hearing the outcome of which cannot be predicted, we hold such a challenge cognizable under section 1983.3
In conclusion, an incarcerated person obviously seeks to be released from confinement. A prisoner cares not a whit as to how that happens, but this court must care. We do not read into a legal claim what we know on a human level is realistically there: a prisoner who objects to his confinement may nevertheless raise a section 1983 claim, a legal claim, if his due process rights have been violated and the challenge does not necessarily implicate the invalidity of his continued confinement. Johnson and Dotson are not requesting that the parole board make a different decision, although we understand that they wish it would; they are merely requiring that the parole board comply with the law in making that decision.
We hold that procedural challenges to parole eligibility and parole suitability determinations such as those made by Dotson and Johnson do not “necessarily imply” the invalidity of the prisoner’s conviction or sentence and, therefore, may appropriately be brought as civil rights actions, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, rather than pursuant to an application for habeas corpus. To the extent that our prior opinions are in conflict with our reasoning expressed today, they are overruled. For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE the district court as to Johnson and Dotson.