Law360 (September 10, 2026, 5:49 PM EDT) -- The Sixth Circuit has ruled that qualified immunity applied to four Detroit police officers sued by a man who had spent 22 years in prison before his convictions for sexual assault and breaking and entering were thrown out, finding probable cause supported his prosecution even though dog-tracking evidence in the case was eventually discredited.

A three-judge panel entered an opinion Wednesday affirming summary judgment for former Detroit police officers L.T. Hurley, Roslyn Beard, Willie Smith and Joseph Burton in Kevin Lackey's civil rights lawsuit alleging they fabricated evidence, maliciously prosecuted him and withheld exculpatory evidence. 

In 1993, a Michigan state court jury convicted Lackey of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old girl, who was identified in court documents as S.S. Prosecutors alleged he had entered the child's Detroit home through a bedroom window.

Decades later, after Lackey had served 22 years in prison, the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office agreed that his convictions should be vacated because of what it called "profound defects" in dog-tracking evidence used in the case. The state declined to retry him. 

Lackey subsequently sued the investigating officers in federal court under Section 1983, alleging violations of his Fourth and 14th Amendment rights. U.S. District Judge Denise Page Hood granted qualified immunity to Hurley, Beard, Smith and Burton. Lackey later settled his remaining claims against the estate of K-9 Officer William Penn, clearing the way for his appeal. 

The appeals panel said Wednesday that Lackey could not establish that the four officers' alleged misconduct violated his constitutional rights. 

The investigation began July 5, 1992, after S.S. reported that a man had carried her from the bedroom she shared with her sisters to the back porch and sexually assaulted her, according to the panel's opinion. 

Officers reported that S.S. described the attacker as a slim young Black man with facial hair who wore yellow pants and black gym shoes. S.S.'s mother also told police that her daughter had described the attacker as Black, although S.S. later testified at Lackey's trial that she had never told anyone the attacker's race, the panel said. 

Penn and his police dog, Midas, began tracking from crushed vegetation in S.S.'s backyard, according to the opinion. The dog led Penn to Lackey, who was standing on the porch of his home directly behind S.S.'s residence. 

Lackey, then 18, was a slim Black man with facial hair and was wearing black gym shoes and pants with large yellow patches, the panel said. 

Lackey said in his civil suit that officers fabricated S.S.'s identification of the attacker as Black after police had already identified him as a suspect. 

The judges determined that claim could not support a 14th Amendment evidence-fabrication claim because the jury independently heard from S.S.'s mother that her daughter had described the assailant as Black.

"Lackey thus cannot show that there is a reasonable likelihood that the allegedly fabricated evidence impacted the jury's decision to convict him," U.S. Circuit Judge Andre B. Mathis wrote for the panel. 

The panel also noted that Lackey's theory that S.S.'s father was the actual perpetrator undermined the significance of the disputed racial description because her father also was Black. 

Lackey separately accused Smith of fabricating a report that S.S. described a "blue steel handgun." However, Smith did not testify at trial about such a weapon. Lackey was not charged with a gun crime, and evidence of a firearm was unnecessary to establish the crimes for which he was convicted, the appeals court said.

The panel also rejected Lackey's Fourth Amendment evidence-fabrication and malicious prosecution claims, concluding that there was probable cause to prosecute him even without the evidence that he alleged was fabricated.

The court pointed to Lackey's proximity to the victim's home, his similarity in physical description provided by S.S., her mother's statement about the assailant's race and the fact that Penn's dog tracked from the victim's backyard to Lackey.

"True, the evidence against Lackey was not ironclad," Judge Mathis wrote. "But, 'reasonable doubt is not the question.'"

Instead, the question was whether officers had probable cause to believe Lackey had committed the sexual assault, the panel said, adding, "There was." 

The judges similarly found probable cause for the breaking and entering charge. S.S.'s mother reported that a bedroom window she had closed the previous night had been opened and its screen torn away. Police also found muddy footprints outside the window and mud on the fence beneath it, according to the opinion.

Lackey argued police failed to account for evidence that would have undermined that theory, including that a guard dog in the backyard apparently did not bark, S.S.'s sisters did not wake up and there were no muddy footprints inside the house. 

The appeals court concluded that police are not obligated to keep investigating for potentially exculpatory information once probable cause exists. 

"It would be impractical to require officers to [catalog] every piece of nonexistent evidence," Judge Mathis wrote in the opinion.

Lackey's malicious prosecution claim fails because probable cause supported the criminal charge, the panel said. 

The court separately rejected Lackey's claim under the U.S. Supreme Court's 1963 landmark ruling in Brady v. Maryland that officers withheld evidence favorable to his defense. 

Lackey argued police failed to disclose facts casting doubt on the prosecution's theory of how the assailant entered the house, including the bedroom window's height, the lack of muddy footprints inside and the fact that his shoes were not muddy when he was arrested. 

But police had provided photographs of the home, bedroom window and Lackey's shoes, while reports contained information about the backyard dog and S.S.'s sleeping sisters, the panel said. 

"So the officers armed Lackey with the information he says he needed; it was his job to characterize it, not theirs," the panel's opinion read. "Neither the due process clause nor Brady requires police officers to build a defendant's defense."

The parties did not immediately respond to request for comment Thursday. 

U.S. Circuit Judges Stephanie Dawkins Davis, Andre B. Mathis and Kevin G. Ritz sat on the panel for the Sixth Circuit.

Lackey is represented by Beth A. Wittmann and Mark Granzotto of Granzotto & Wittmann PC and Wolf Mueller of Mueller Law Firm.

The officers are represented by Christopher J. Raiti of Nathan & Kamionski LLP.

The case is Lackey v. Hurley et al., case number 25-1410, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

--Editing by Covey Son.

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