S Civil-Rights Lawsuit
Sixth Circuit leaves most of wrongful-conviction suit alive
The court said it cannot review the officers’ Heck v. Humphrey defense yet. It also kept factual disputes over affidavits in the district court, allowing Marvin Cotton and Anthony Legion’s case to move forward.
The Sixth Circuit said Detroit officers cannot use this appeal to end Marvin Cotton and Anthony Legion’s civil-rights lawsuit over their vacated murder convictions. The panel dismissed part of the appeal, affirmed the rest, and left most of the case for the district court.
- Several officer defenses are off-limits in this appeal stage.
- The court said the Heck v. Humphrey issue must wait.
- Nard and Frazier affidavit disputes stay with the district court.
- The lawsuit over Cotton and Legion’s vacated convictions keeps moving forward.
- Detroit officers cannot use this stage of the appeal to throw out the civil-rights suit brought by Marvin Cotton and Anthony Legion, two men who spent nearly 20 years in prison before their murder convictions were vacated in 2020
Detroit officers cannot use this stage of the appeal to throw out the civil-rights suit brought by Marvin Cotton and Anthony Legion, two men who spent nearly 20 years in prison before their murder convictions were vacated in 2020. On May 22, 2026, the federal Sixth Circuit said it lacked interlocutory jurisdiction over several issues the officers raised from the Eastern District of Michigan, including their Heck v. Humphrey argument, the rule that bars some civil claims if success would imply an invalid conviction. The court dismissed that part of the appeal and affirmed the rest.
What the panel would not hear
The judges said the officers’ Heck claim is not reviewable now, either under the collateral-order doctrine or under pendent appellate jurisdiction. Those are narrow exceptions to the normal rule that appeals wait until a case ends, and the panel said this one did not fit either path.
The court also kept the Nard and Frazier affidavit disputes out of the appeal. Those fights stay with the district judge for now, along with the other issues that are still being worked through in the lawsuit.
What stays in the district court
The officers also tried to reopen Brady issues, but they had already conceded below that Brady obligations were clearly established. And when they added more arguments in their reply brief, the court treated those points as forfeited.
For Cotton and Legion, the ruling means the case keeps moving instead of getting split into pieces on appeal. Their lawsuit is about police conduct after their convictions were vacated, not a fresh look at the murder prosecution itself, and the Sixth Circuit’s decision limits one familiar way defendants can slow that kind of case down.