Wrongfully convicted men can still sue Detroit officers

Marvin Cotton and Anthony Legion spent nearly twenty years in prison before their murder convictions and sentences were vacated in 2020, and the federal Sixth Circuit said that did not wipe out their path back to court. The panel rejected Detroit police officers’ collateral-estoppel arguments and let Cotton and Legion keep pressing Brady, malicious prosecution and fabrication claims against Donald Hughes and Walter Bates.

For the men, the ruling matters because it keeps alive the chance to test whether police hid evidence and helped prop up false testimony. Vacating a conviction may clear away the criminal judgment, but the court said it does not automatically erase the factual disputes at the center of a later civil-rights case.

An overturned conviction is not an erase button

The officers had tried to use the old murder cases as a shield, arguing that earlier convictions and preliminary-examination rulings should bar the lawsuit now. The court would not go that far. It said those earlier rulings could not be used at this stage to shut down claims that later evidence pointed to fabricated testimony and withheld material evidence.

That is the heart of a Brady claim, which is built around the government’s duty to disclose favorable evidence that could matter to the defense. Cotton and Legion also are pursuing malicious prosecution and fabrication claims, arguing that the criminal case against them was driven by evidence the police should not have relied on, or should have turned over.

What stays in the lawsuit

The Sixth Circuit did not embrace every argument either side raised. It affirmed some rulings and dismissed others for lack of interlocutory jurisdiction, meaning not every issue was ready for immediate appellate review. But the core civil-rights claims survived, and that is the part that will shape the rest of the case in the Eastern District of Michigan.

For people pursuing wrongful-conviction suits, the message is simple: a vacated conviction can open the courthouse door, but it does not close it behind police. The question of whether officers crossed the line remains very much alive.