UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

┐ GEORGE EDWARD CLARK; KEVIN HARRINGTON, │ Plaintiffs-Appellees, │ > No. 23-1730 │ v. │ │ ANTHONY ABDALLAH; KEVIN SMITH, │ Defendants-Appellants. │ ┘

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit. No. 2:21-cv-10001—Victoria A. Roberts, District Judge.

Argued: December 12, 2024

Decided and Filed: March 13, 2025

Before: BATCHELDER, MOORE, and BUSH, Circuit Judges.

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COUNSEL ARGUED: Kali M. L. Henderson, SEWARD HENDERSON, PLLC, Royal Oak, Michigan, for Appellants. Wolfgang Mueller, WOLF MUELLER LAW FIRM, Novi, Michigan, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Kali M. L. Henderson, T. Joseph Seward, Michael A. Knoblock, SEWARD HENDERSON, PLLC, Royal Oak, Michigan, for Appellants. Wolfgang Mueller, WOLF MUELLER LAW FIRM, Novi, Michigan, for Appellees.

MOORE, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which BUSH, J., concurred, and BATCHELDER, J., concurred in part. BATCHELDER, J. (pp. 32–39), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. No. 23-1730 Clark, et al. v. Abdallah, et al. Page 2

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OPINION _________________

KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge. This § 1983 case concerns alleged constitutional violations in the investigation and prosecution of George Clark and Kevin Harrington. Clark and Harrington spent nearly two decades in prison before the Wayne County Prosecution Integrity Unit determined that they did not receive a fair trial because their murder convictions were secured based on the testimony of a singular eyewitness, who claimed she had been coerced to lie by detectives. Following dismissal of the charges and Clark’s and Harrington’s releases from prison, the men sued those detectives for violating their constitutional rights.

After discovery, the district court granted in part and denied in part the detectives’ motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Specifically, the district court denied qualified immunity on the men’s claims that the detectives fabricated the statement of the eyewitness, facilitated their prosecution without probable cause, and violated the Brady rule by withholding evidence that detectives threatened and offered benefits to key witnesses. The detectives filed an interlocutory appeal on the denial of qualified immunity. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s denial of qualified immunity and REMAND for trial on the merits.

I. BACKGROUND A. Factual Background

Around 11 a.m. on September 27, 2002, a boy distributing church fliers discovered the body of man with gunshot wounds near a wooded area in Inkster, Michigan. Clark v. Abdallah, No. 21-10001, 2023 WL 4852230, at *1 (E.D. Mich. July 28, 2023). The young man flagged down a woman, Bearia Stewart, who identified the body as that of Michael Martin. Id.; see R. 138-2 (Def. Martin Incident Report) (Page ID #4062). Stewart called police, a