Law360 (May 22, 2026, 7:25 PM EDT) -- The Fourth Circuit has ruled in a published opinion that two brothers who were wrongfully convicted of murder two decades ago can move forward with claims that detectives with the Baltimore Police Department coerced a key witness into falsely asserting their role in the crime.

The three-judge panel found on Thursday that a line of questioning from a prosecutor involved in Kenneth McPherson and Eric Simmons' now overturned convictions will allow the brothers to use the now-deceased star witness' testimony in a federal civil trial against the police detectives.

"A Maryland court determined that Kenneth McPherson and Eric Simmons were actually innocent of crimes for which the state incarcerated them for over two decades," Circuit Judge Albert Diaz said in the opinion. "Now, a jury should decide whether the detectives who investigated them fabricated evidence that led to their incarceration."

A state grand jury indicted McPherson and Simmons for their alleged connection to the 1994 shooting death of Anthony Wooden in Baltimore. Detectives with the Baltimore Police Department investigated the shooting and initially spoke with witnesses and produced a record of handwritten notes of interviews, the opinion said.

One of the witnesses said that, shortly before the shooting, they saw a group of men in the area, including McPherson, Simmons and a third brother, Marcus King. Police began looking for the men and, several days after the shooting, they located King and brought him to the homicide office in handcuffs, according to the opinion.

King, who was a minor at the time, was allowed to have his mother in the room, and detectives Robert Patton and Frank Barlow began questioning him about the murder. The opinion said that while the first portion of the interview was not recorded, King denied involvement and also denied that either McPherson or Simmons was involved in the shooting.

Yet Patton began banging on the desk and yelling at King, saying the interview would not end until King told investigators "the truth about what happened," according to the opinion. King would begin to cry during the interview and later change his story, telling police that he, McPherson and Simmons were participants in the murder.

King later recanted that testimony, but Maryland prosecutor Sharon Holback still chose to use the minor as a key witness for proving the state's case against McPherson and Simmons. The opinion said Holback expected King to "stick with the version of events supporting the state's case," yet King continued to recant his earlier testimony.

King told the jury that Patton and Barlow forced him to lie and admit that he and his brothers were involved. The opinion said "chaos ensued" following this, leading to the filing of a mistrial motion.

However, the jury ultimately convicted McPherson and Simmons of murder and conspiracy to commit murder even over King's testimony, and the two were sentenced to life in prison without parole. Twenty years later, the pair contacted the Conviction Integrity Unit in the Baltimore City State's Attorney's Office and requested that their convictions be reviewed, and the office investigated the case.

The unit ultimately filed a writ of actual innocence, and in May 2019, the brothers were released from prison, according to the unit's website.

McPherson and Simmons filed a civil lawsuit in federal court in March 2020 against the two detectives and the Baltimore Police Department, alleging they fabricated King's testimony and withheld evidence. The pair further claimed that prosecutors illegally suppressed two of the handwritten pages of notes from the initial investigation, the opinion said.

The detectives filed a summary judgment motion, which was rejected, and a federal judge said the court would only focus on "alleged misconduct" by the detectives. The court also ruled that King's trial testimony could not be used as evidence, Thursday's opinion notes.

Yet the panel in Thursday's opinion found that because Holback sought to "rehabilitate" King's testimony during trial — and because Holback's motive, to protect the investigation, was the same as the officers' — the testimony could be used in the civil trial, the opinion said.

The panel did not agree, however, that the two pages of handwritten notes were wrongfully suppressed, finding the related claims were correctly dismissed. The federal district court must now allow King's testimony and determine whether the detectives fabricated evidence by coercing him to admit to the murder.

An attorney representing McPherson and Simmons and a spokesperson for the City of Baltimore Law Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Circuit Judges Albert Diaz, James Andrew Wynn and Nicole Berner sat on the panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

McPherson and Simmons are represented by Gayle Horn, Jon Loevy, Renee Spence and Roshna Bala Keen of Loevy & Loevy.

The government is represented by Michael Patrick Redmond, Ebony M. Thompson, Matthew O. Bradford and Kara K. Lynch of the City of Baltimore Law Department.

The case is McPherson et al. v. Patton et al., case number 24-2143, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

--Editing by Philip Shea.

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