NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 21a0465n.06
Case No. 20

- 1778
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

D ESMOND R ICKS , et al., Plaintiffs

- Appellees ,

v.
D AVID P AUCH , et al., Defendants

- Appellants

. ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN

B efore : SUTTON, Chief Judge; COLE and READLER, Circuit Judges. CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge. Desmond Ricks was convicted of second

- degree murder b ased in part on a law enforcement report that matched bullets from a crime scene to a gun found in the home he shared with his mother

. More than two decades later, however, th e report

was determined to be erroneous . After his conviction was overturned , Ricks sued three officers involved in his investigation

. In addition to Michigan common law claims, Ricks asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for fabrication of evidence, malicious prosecution, and withholding of evidence. As to those latter claims , the district court denied the officers’ motion for summary judgment based upon qualified immunity. T he officers now seek interlocutory review with respect to the qualified immunity denials. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.Case No. 20

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2 I.
A. Gerry Bennett was shot to death in 1992 in the parking lot of a Detroit restaurant. The parties dispute wh at transpired that afternoon. According to Ricks, he and Bennett drove to the
restaurant together. When they arrived, Ricks stayed in the car while Bennett and a n unidentified

man ( who arrived in a separate vehicle ) entered the restaurant together. Rick s alleges that he saw Bennett and the man exit the restaurant approximately five to ten minutes later, at which point the unidentified man shot Bennett in the stomach and head. The defendant officers contend that Ricks entered the restaurant with Bennett. After the men exited the restaurant, the men argued, at which point Bennett was shot. According to t he officers , no vehicle other than Bennett’s was in the parking lot. The parties agree, however, that Ricks fled the scene after the shooting, and that he removed his jacket as he ran away . Two days after the shooting, Ricks was arrested at the home he shared with his mother

. Ricks’s mother told officers that her son was not involved in the murder. She also said that the only gun in the home, which she kept in her bed under her pillow, belonged to her. With Ricks’s mother’s permission, officers seized the handgun, a Rossi .38 Special 5

- shot revolver. Donald Stawiasz, the officer in charge of the investigation , sent the gun to a crime lab for testing. Around the same time, a medical examiner performed an autopsy on Bennett . During the autopsy, the examiner removed two bullets from Bennett’s body

— one from his brain and one from his spine. The examiner placed each bullet in to separate envelope s . He then gave them to a liaison with the Detroit Police Department, who in turn gave them to Stawiasz. Stawiasz put the bullets in a large r evidence envelope and sent them to David Pauch, a firearm and toolmark examiner in the Department’s crime lab.Case No. 20

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P auch examined both bullets recovered from Bennett’s body and the Rossi handgun. Part
of th e examination involved determining the “rifling characteristics” of each bullet, including the number of “lands” and “grooves , ” the unique markings a gun barrel make s on a bullet it fires

. Together with “twist”

— the direction (right or left) the bullet spins when fired

— lands and grooves are indicators used to classify a bullet and match it to the gun from which it was fired. Pauch’s report indicated that the Rossi handgun wa s classified as “6R,” meaning bullets fired from the gun have six lands and grooves that show rightward twist. O n the evidence bullets removed from Bennett, however, Pauch initially was able to id entify only “traces of lands and grooves”

— meaning he could not determine the number of markings

— because the bullets were “damaged.” Pauch’s report indicates he then performed a microscopic analysis of the test and evidence bullets and concluded that all f

our bullets were fired from the Rossi handgun

. After an independent comparison of the respective bullets, Pauch’s supervisor, Robert Wilson, reached the same conclusion and signed off on Pauch’s report

. Following his arraign ment , Ricks retained David Townshend, a retired Michigan State Police firearms examiner, as an expert. Stawiasz brought the evidence to Townshend’s lab.
Townshend test

- fired the Rossi handgun and microscopically examined his test bullets and the evidence bullets th at Stawiasz provided. He concluded that the evidence bullets were fired from the Rossi handgun. At the time, Townshend believed the bullets Stawiasz gave him may have been test bullets because they were in “very good condition” and “didn’t look like” they had been
removed from a victim . But when he asked Stawiasz if they were the “evidence bullets , ” Stawiasz responded affirmative ly

. Townshend , however, did not make note of this inquiry in his report. The ballistic evidence would be paramount at Ricks ’s trial. During closing arguments, the prosecutor emphasized that the case “[came] down to really one thing, one piece of the e vidence,Case No. 20

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and th at is this gun here.” The Rossi handgun, the prosecutor explained, was the gun that killed
Bennett and the gun “ found at [ Ricks’s ] h ouse . ” The jury convicted Ricks of both second

- degree murder and a felony firearm offense , and the court is sued a sentence of 32 to 62 years of imprisonment

. Ricks’s direct appeals were unsuccessful , as was his first motion in state court for relief from judgment

. B. In June 2016, Ricks filed a successive motion in state court for relief from judgment. The basis of his motion was an affidavit by Townshend that questioned the legitimacy of the evidence bullets he examined in conjunction with Rick s ’s prosecution . A year earlier, the University of Michigan Law School’s Innocence Clinic had sent Townshend digital photographs of the evidence bullets allegedly recovered from Bennett. According to Townshend, the bullets shown in the photos were “severely mutilated and extensively damaged” and were not the ones he
examined previously . The bullets, moreover, appeared to be “in such a mutilated and damaged condition” that it was “doubtful that a positive identification with a suspect firearm would be possible.” Accordingly, Townshend recommended “[a] new examination of the evidence.” The trial court ordered the Michigan State Police Crime Lab to re

- evaluate the evidence bullets. Dean Molnar, the officer assigned to perform the examination, was unable to examine the Rossi handgun or create test bullets because the Detroit Police Depar tment previously destroyed the gu n . Molnar could, however, examine the evidence bullets. But his initial analysis was inconclusive. Although Molnar was able to identify the bullets as .38 caliber and as showing a right twist, he could not classify the b ullets more definitively (that is, he could not count the lands and grooves) or say whether they were fired from the same gun due to damage to the bullets. After the Michigan State Police instructed Molnar to perform additional testing , Molnar determined thatCase No. 20

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while one bullet was still too damaged to count the lands and grooves, the other bullet had five lands and grooves with a right twist. Based on Molnar’s findings, the trial court granted Ricks’s motion. A 5R bullet , the court explained, could not have been fired from a 6R gun like the Rossi handgun, which contradicted the Department’s earlier conclusions and “undermine[d] the reliability of the firearms evidence used to convict” Ricks. The court th us vacated Ricks’s convictions and ordered a new t rial. And when t he State of Michigan declined to prosecute, the case against Ricks was dismissed.
C. A fter his release, Ricks and his two daughters sued Pauch, Wilson, and Stawiasz. Ricks also sued the City of Detroit, but the parties later stipulated to dismiss the City as a defendant. As relevant here, Count I, which invoked § 1983, alleged that the officers violated Ricks’s constitutional rights by fabricating evidence, engaging in malicious prosecuti on , and withholding evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland , 373 U.S. 83 (1963). As to his fabrication of evidence claim, Ricks alleged that the officers did so in two different ways: first, that all three officers falsified evidence during the Department’s examination to create a positive match between the evidence bullets and the Rossi handgun; and second, that Stawiasz deliberately gave Townshend test bullets rather than the real evidence bullets. During discovery , each party’s experts examined the evidence bullets. Rick s ’s first expert,
To wnshend , determined that both bullets “exhibit[ed] class rifling characteristics of 5 lands and grooves with a right twist.” He therefore concluded that the Rossi handgun, which “has class rifling characteristics of 6 lands and grooves with a right twist, ” could not have been the gun th at fired the two evidence bullets. Townshend also described the “misidentification” of the evidence bullets as “a catastrophic error” that “would never be made by a competent qualified firearms examiner, let alone two firea rm examiners.” He further opined that “an error of this magnitudeCase No. 20

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could only have been caused by incompetency of the firearms examiners, or a deliberate attempt to mislead on the part of the two Officers involved in this case.”
Rick s ’s other expert, David Balash , a former firearm and toolmark identification expert for the Michigan State Police , reached similar conclusions. Although he found the evidence bullets to be “badly damaged,” he was able to discern that each had five lands and grooves with a right twist. And because the Rossi handgun “has class rifling specifications of 6 lands and grooves with a right twist,” it “could not, and did not, fire the two evidence bullets” at issue. Balash was also highly critical of Pauch and Wilson, asserting that t he two officers only could have concluded that the evidence bullets matched the Rossi handgun if they were “totally incompetent or the wrong conclusion was intentional.” The officers’ expert, Jay Jarvis, a former firearm and toolmark identification expert with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, saw things similarly . Like Townshend and Balash, Jarvis concluded that each evidence bullet had “rifling characteristics of five lands and grooves with a right twist , ” and thus could not have been fired from a 6R gun like a Rossi handgun

. Indeed , Jarvis “would be very shocked” if two individuals who conducted complete examinations “could come to the same wrong conclusion,” suggesting to him that such a conclusion could only be “a horrible mistake” or “deliberate.” Following discovery, t he parties filed cross

- motions for summary judgment

. T he district court denied both motions as to all claims , including the officers’ request for qualified immunity. In so doing, the court concluded that questions of material fact existed as to whether Pauch and Wilson intentionally fabricated evidence and as to whether Stawiasz deliberately gave Townshend test bullets instead of the true evidence bullets.Case No. 20

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The officers subsequently moved for reconsideration, which the district court likewise denied

. Relevant t here was the court ’s acknowledge ment that it incorrectly stated in its opinion that “Stawiasz was ‘present’ when Pauch test fired bullets from the Rossi handgun on March 6, 1992.” But that mistake was “immaterial , ” the court explained, because the misstatement did not alter its conclusion that “Stawiasz had the means and opportunity to switch the bullets when he brought them to Townshend fo r testing,” and thus that Stawiasz was not entitled to qualified immunity on the fabrication of evidence claim. The officers now appeal the district court’s denial of qualified immunity as to Ricks’s constitutional claims

. II. Qualified immunity protects federal and state officials performing discretionary functions from liability for civil damages for constitutional violations

. Ashcroft v. al

- Kidd , 563 U.S. 731, 735 (2011); Harlow v. Fitzgerald , 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). To overcome a qualified immunity defense, a plaintiff must show that the official violated a constitutional right that was “clearly established at the time” of the official’s conduct. District of Columbia v. Wesby , 138 S. Ct. 577, 589 (2018) (quoting Reichle v. Howards , 566 U.S. 658, 664 (2012)). “In so doing, the plaintiff must, at a minimum, offer sufficient evidence to create a ‘genuine issue of fact,’ that is, ‘evidence on which [a] jury could reasonably find for the plaintiff.’” DiLuzio v. Village of Yorkville , 796 F.3d 60 4, 60 8

– 09 (6th Cir. 2015 ) (alteration in original) (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 252, 256 (1986)). W hen determining whether a right was clearly established, we examine whether the law was “sufficiently clear that a reasonable offi cial would [have understood] that what he [was] doing violate[d] that right.” Tlapanco v. Elges , 969 F.3d 638, 648 (6th Cir. 2020) ( internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In cases with multiple defendants, we assess qualified immunity “ in the co ntext of each individual’s specific conduct.” Hopper v. Plummer ,Case No. 20

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887 F.3d 744, 756 (6th Cir. 2018) ( internal quotation marks and citation omitted). And w e review the district court’s denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds de novo. Ouza v. City of Dearborn Heights , 969 F.3d 265, 275 (6th Cir. 2020). We have jurisdiction to review a district court’s denial of qualified immunity “to the extent
that [decision] turns on an issue of law

. ” Mitchell v. Forsyth , 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985)

. To that end , we “may decide an appeal challenging the district court’s legal determination that the defendant’s actions violated a constitutional right or that the right was clearly established.” DiLuzio , 796 F.3d at 60 9. We may also consider , “as a legal q uestion, an appeal challenging the district court’s factual determination insofar as the challenge contests that determination as ‘blatantly contradicted by the record, so that no reasonable jury could believe it. ’ ” Id. (quoting
Scott v. Harris , 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007)). But our jurisdiction is limited

— w e may not consider an appeal challenging the denial of qualified immunity “insofar as that order determines whether

or not the pretrial record sets forth a ‘genuine’ issue of fact for trial.” Johnson v. Jones , 515 U.S. 304, 319

– 20 (1995). T o the extent that “legal and factual challenges are confused or entwined,

‘ we must separate an appealed order’s reviewable determination (that a given set of facts violates clearly established law) from its unreviewable determination (that an issue of fact is “ genuine ” ). ’ ” DiLuzio , 796 F.3d at 610 (quoting Roberson v. Torres , 770 F.3d 398, 402 (6th Cir. 2014))

. A. We begin with Ricks’s fabrication of evidence claim. T hat claim is “an allegation that a defendant ‘knowingly fabricated evidence against [a plaintiff], and [that] there is a reasonable likelihood that the false evidence could have affected the judgment of the jury.’” Mills v . Barnard , 869 F.3d 473, 484 (6th Cir. 2017) (alterations in original) (quoting Stemler v. City of Florence , 126 F.3d 856, 872 (6th Cir. 1997)). The officers do not contest that it was clearly established in 1992 that fabricating evidence to create probable cause to detain a suspect would have violate d th eCase No. 20

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suspect’s Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures. See Spurlock v.
Satt erfield , 167 F.3d 995, 1005

– 07 (6th Cir. 1999) (recognizing that this right was clearly established as early as 1990). Rather, they argue that the evidence, even when viewed in a light most favorable to Ricks, does not show that the officers knowingly or intentionally fabricated evidence. See DiLuzio , 796 F.3d at 60 9 (explaining that whether a defendant’s actions amount to a constitutional violation is a legal question we may review on interlocutory appeal)

. We disagree. 1. Start with Pauch and Wilson. Although the qualified immunity analysis requires an individual ized assessment of each defendant’s conduct , Hopper , 887 F.3d at 756, we examine Pauch’s and Wilson’s actions together because neither party meaningfully distinguishes the two defendants’ conduct

. Ricks alleges that the two officers fabricated evidence by intentionally finding a positive match between the evidence bullets and the Rossi handgun. The record evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to Ricks, supports that allegation. For starters, four analyses concluded tha t the officers incorrect ly matched the evidence bullets to the Rossi handgun

. And , viewed in the light most favorable to Ricks, t he record indicates the officers’ error was so egregious that a jury could find their actions were knowing or intentional

. One of Ricks’s experts found the officers’ error s o “catastrophic” as to be incompetence at best and intentional misconduct at worst , surmising “an error of this magnitude would never be made by a competent firearms examiner, let alone two firearm examiners.” Even t he o fficers’ own expert believed that the ir conclusion was either “a horrible mistake” or “deliberate.”
Other aspects of the record support the experts’ conclusion s that Pauch and Wilson may well have intentionally fabricated evidence . For instance, t he officers fail ed to record notes of any kind during their examination, which, according to Balash, departed from the long

- existing “foundation [] of Firearms Identification” that examiners document their process for later review.Case No. 20

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Ricks was also in custody p rior to Pauch and Wilson’s examination, offering a potential motive to
link the bullets to the gun recovered from Ricks’s mother’s home. Viewing this collection of evidence in the light most favorable to Ricks and drawing all reasonable inferences in his favor, a jury could reasonably conclude that the officers knowingly fabricated the match between the evidence bullets and the Rossi handgun. And as the officers do not dispute that their report affected the jury’s judgment , Ricks has provided sufficient evidence to establish a viable constitutional violation

. See Mills , 869 F.3d at 484

. Gregory v. City of Louisville , 444 F.3d 725 (6th Cir. 2006) , is a helpful guide

. In Gregory , a forensic examiner reported that she had recovered five hairs from the scene of a rape , all of which matched Gregory’s hair

. Id. at 732. But years later, the examiner testified that she had also found (and did not disclose) two non - matching hairs. Id. That testimony, combined with DNA testing reveal ing that none of the hairs in fact came from Gregory , led to Gregory’s conviction being overturned

. Id. at 735

. During Gregory’s subsequent § 1983 suit , an expert opined that the examiner’s conclusions were “far afield of what any reasonable forensic examiner would find from the evidence.” Id. at 744. From that testimony, we concluded there was “sufficient evidence from which a jury might reasonably infer that [the examiner] fabricated her report

. ” Id. So too here , where a trio of experts agree that Pauch and Wilson’s conclusion was blatantly erroneous and perhaps even the product of intention al misconduct. Resisting this conclusion, the officers instead direct us to Caminata v. County of Wexford , 664 F. App’x 496 (6th Cir. 2016). Caminata’s arson conviction was overturned following allegations of improprieties during her prosecution, including that the fire investigator’s analysis
was flawed

. Id. at 498

– 99. The investigator, however, was entitled to q ualified immunity in Caminata’s subsequent § 1983 suit alleging fabrication of evidence because there wasCase No. 20

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“no evidence to suggest that [the investigator’s] report contained deliberate omissions,” as opposed to “huge mistakes” that “impugn[ed] the quality of [ the ] investigation

. ” Id. at 501

– 02. But Pauch and Wilson’s report , as the district court noted, “has not simply been ‘impugned,’

. . . [it] has been indisputably shown to be wrong.” And while Caminata “offered no testimony” suggesting that
the fi re investigator deliberately fabricated evidence, id. at 501 , multiple experts have indicated here that the officers may well have engaged in intentional misconduct. The rigor of Pauch and Wilson’s report further distinguishes Ricks’s case from Caminata

. While t he investigator in Caminata “spent multiple hours at the site, produced an eight

- page report of his findings,” and then performed a follow

- up investigation and wrote a supplemental report , i d. , Pauch and Wilson took no notes during their investigation and produced a single

- page repo rt. In other words, w hile the record in Caminata at best revealed an investigator ’s neglig ence , id. , a reasonable jury could draw a harsher conclusion a s to Pauch and Wilson’s actions.
The officers ’ remaining arguments are similarly unpersuasive

. For example, t hey point out that because Molnar, like Pauch and Wilson, initially could not count the number of lands and grooves on the damaged evidence bullets , impugning Pauch and Wilson’s conclusions also impugn s Molnar’s examination , w hich no one considers flawed

. But r egardless of Molnar’s findings regarding the evidence bullets , t h ree ballistics experts, including the officers’ own expert, opined that Pauch and Wilson’s shared conclusion that the evidence and test bullets matched was so erroneous as to suggest deliberate fabrication. And on a motion for summary judgment, we
cannot wholly discount these expert opinions by weighing them against Molnar’s findings,
Anderson , 477 U.S. at 255 , nor can we examine such evidentiary disputes in this setting , DiLuzio , 796 F.3d at 610.Case No. 20

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The officers also characterize the various experts as merely speculat ing that errors in Pauch and Wilson’s report could have come from intentional conduct, which , t hey say, is not enough to permit an inference of deliberate fabrication. But the officers both understate the record and ignore th e favorable light in which we must view it

. Moldowan v. City of Warren , 578 F.3d 351, 370 (6th Cir. 2009)

. As noted, both Townshend and Balash stressed it was unlikely that two trained officers would unintentionally make such grave errors

. And Jarvis, the officers ’ own expert, similarly thought the conclusion was either “ a horrible mistake ” or “deliberate.” E specially when view ed in the light most favorable to Ricks, this record could lead a reasonable jury to conclude that Pauch and Wilson deliberately fabricated evidence. See Gregory , 444 F.3d at 744 n.8

. 2. N ext up are the claims as to Stawiasz. Ricks allege s that Stawiasz fabricated evidence in two ways: one, by falsifying evidence alongside Pauch and Wilson during the Department’s initial testing of the evidence; and two, by giving Townshend test bullets r ather than the real evidence bullets for his independent examination

. In denying Stawiasz qualified immunity on Ricks’s “fabrication of evidence claim , ” however, the district court analyzed only the latter allegation. On appeal, Stawiasz argues that the district court should have analyzed each fabrication claim separately and granted qualified immunity on both claims. As an initial matter, we agree that the district court should have assessed whether Stawiasz was entitled to qualified immunity as to each fabrication of evidence claim. We did the same in Webb v. United States , 789 F.3d 647, 667

– 70 (6th Cir. 2015), which involved fabrication claims asserted against multiple defendants stemming from different ins tances

. In assessing those allegations, we considered whether summary judgment was proper as to each defendant for each alleged incident. See id

. Taking that same approach here leads us to conclude that Stawiasz is entitled to qualified immunity on the initial testing fabrication claim. Ricks did not put forthCase No. 20

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sufficient evidence to show that Stawiasz participated in Pauch and Wilson’s alleged fabricat ion
in creating their report

. A s the district court acknowledged ( and Ricks does not contest ) , Stawiasz was not present during Pauch and Wilson’s testing. With no evidence connect ing Stawiasz to Pauch and Wilson’s alleged testing fa brication, Stawiasz is entitled to qualified immunity on this claim. See Bey v. Falk , 946 F.3d 304 , 316 (6th Cir. 2019) (reversing a denial of qualified immunity where “there [was] no evidence that [the officer] personally participated in or directed” the alleged
constitutional violation ). We see no error, however, in deny ing Stawiasz qualified immunity on the claim that he fabricated evidence by giving Townshend test bullets instead of the real evidence bullets

. Stawiasz was the officer who delivered the evidence to Townshend , which, as Stawiasz concedes, created the means a nd opportunity to swap the bullets

. T here is evidence that the bullets Stawiasz provided to Townshend differed from the bullets recovered from Bennett

. Townshend testified that the bullets he examined in 1992 were in “very good condition” and did not app ear to have been removed from a victim. Pauch, meanwhile, described the evidence bullets he examined as “damaged.” So too did multiple experts who later examined the bullets. But when Townshend asked Stawiasz whether the non

- damaged bullets were the act ual evidence bullets, Stawiasz confirmed that they were

. And Stawiasz , keep in mind, was the officer who previously forwarded the damaged evidence bullets to Pauch. Viewing this evidence in the light most favorable to Ricks and drawing all reasonable inferences in his favor, a jury reasonably could find that Stawiasz knowingly or intentionally gave Townshend test bullets rather than the real evidence bullets

. And t ha t fabrication could have led Townshend to make an incorrect positive identification in line with Pauch and Wilson’s report.Case No. 20

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See Mills , 869 F.3d at 484

– 85

. Stawiasz therefore is not entitled to qualified immunity on th e bullet

- swap fabrication claim.
3. All three officers also fault the district court for “predicat[ing] its adverse ruling .

. . on reckless, not intentional, conduct,” because, according to the officers, there was no clearly established law in 1992 holding that reckless conduct was sufficient for a fabrication of evidence claim. We see no error of law in the district court ’s articulation of the fabrication of evidence standard . That standard customarily requires knowing or intentional conduct by the alleged fabricator, a standard referenced throughout the district court’s opinion

. See, e.g. , Mills , 869 F.3d
at 484

. While the court did make a handful of references to a culpability level of reckless ness , it did so in the context of describing Caminat a , which involved both fabrication of evidence and malicious prosecution claims. Caminata , 664 F. App’x at 500. Caminata , however, properly recited separate standards for each claim, recognizing that fabrication requires knowing conduct whereas malicious prosecution can be established through deliberate or reckless conduct. See id

. From there, we perhaps confused the issue by combin ing our analysis of those claims in affirm ing the award of qualified immunity , explaining that the record was “insufficient to establish knowing fabrication or deliberate or reckless falsehoods, rather than mere negligence

. ” Id. at 50 1

. But that arguable imprecision had little impact here. A t most , the officers identify a single statement from the district court’s opinion that itself may have been imprecise : that there was a question of fact as to whether the officers “‘intentionally,’ or, at least, ‘recklessly’ falsified or fabricated the conclusion in their report.” But even there, t he district court correctly acknowledged that a question of fact remained as to whether the officers acted intentionally or knowingly , which was enough to overcome the officers’ assertion of qualified immunity. Any reference to whether theCase No. 20

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officers may have acted recklessly does not warrant reversal when read in context of the court’s entire analysis

. B. Nor are the officers entitled to qualified immunity on Ricks’s malicious prosecution claim. A claim for malicious prosecution under the Fourth Amendment “encompasses wrongful investigation, prosecution, conviction, and incarceration , ” Sykes v. Anderson , 625 F.3d 294, 308 (6th Cir. 2010) ( internal quotation marks and citation omitted ) , and has four elements: (1) the defendant “made, influenced, or participated in the decision to prosecute” the plaintiff; (2) the prosecution lacked probable cause; (3) the proceeding caused the plaint iff to experience a deprivation of liberty; and (4) the proceeding was “resolved in the plaintiff’s favor , ” Jones v. Clark
C ounty , 959 F.3d 748, 756 (6th Cir. 2020) (quoting Sykes , 625 F.3d at 308

– 09 ) ; see also Sykes , 625 F.3d at 310 (explaining that the c onstitutional malicious prosecution claim is distinct from the similarly named tort and may be better described as a claim for “unreasonable prosecutorial seizure” (citation omitted) ) ; Lester v. Roberts , 986 F.3d 599, 606

– 07 (6th Cir. 2021) (criticizing th e “malicious

- prosecution label”); Tlapanco , 969 F.3d at 658

– 60 (Thapar, J., concurring) (same).
T he officers do not contest the nature of the malicious prosecution precedent as established in 1992. They instead emphasize the error in the district court’s fabrication of evidence analysis, observing that the alleged facts underly ing that claim also underlie the malicious prosecution claim

. But g iven our conclusion that no officer is entitled to qualified immunity as to all of Ricks’s
fabrication of evidence claims, and in view of the officers’ concession that their success on the
malicious prosecution claim “is tied to [ the ] resolution of the fabrication claim,” the officers are not entitled to qualified immunity on Ricks’s malicious prosecution clai m. C. Lastly, Pauch and Stawiasz argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity on Ricks’s
claim that they withheld evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland and its progeny. (Ricks didCase No. 20

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not bring this claim against Wilson.) A Brady claim has three elements: (1) “[t]he evidence at issue must be favorable to the accused, either because it is exculpatory, or because it is impeaching”; (2) “that evidence must have been suppressed by the Sta te, either willfully or inadvertently”; and (3) “prejudice must have ensued.” Strickler v. Greene , 527 U.S. 263, 281

– 82 (1999). We have previously held that the Brady obligation not to suppress evidence favorable to the accused extends to police officers and is an obligation that was clearly established no later than August 1990. Moldowan , 578 F.3d at 377, 382. The officers press two arguments on appeal

. First, they contend that Ricks’s Brady claim fails because the record does not show the officers “ i ntentionally fabricated evidence . . . and then failed to disclose it.” But a s already explained , the record when viewed in the light most favorable to Ricks supports the conclusion that Pauch fabricated evidence during his initial testing and report and that Stawiasz fabricated evidence by giving Townshend test bullets instead of the real evidence bullets. Because a jury could reasonably conclude that each officer knowingly fabricated evidence, it could also reasonably conclude that the officers were aware that the bullet evidence was exculpatory and chose not to share that information with Ricks, which plainly prejudiced him , thereby violating his clearly established constitutional right as articulated in Br ady and related

cases . Strickler , 527 U.S. at 281

– 82. Second, the officers argue that Ricks cannot bring both a fabrication of evidence claim and

a Brady claim because “no clearly established law in 1992 established separate due process claims”
for thos e wrongs “when both claims are based on the same factual predicate.” That assertion, however, misapprehends the purpose of qualified immunity. “Qualified immunity operates to ensure that before they are subjected to suit, officers are on notice that thei r conduct is unlawful.” Hope v. Pelzer , 536 U.S. 730, 739 (2002) (emphasis added) ( internal quotation marks and citationCase No. 20

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omitted). And here, reasonable officers would have known that both fabricating evidence against Ricks and withholding evidence from h im was unlawful. See Spurlock , 167 F.3d at 1005

– 07 (fabrication of evidence); Moldowan , 578 F.3d at 377, 382 (withholding evidence). Nor, for that matter, are Ricks’s claims “duplicative

. ” Hi s fabrication claim is based on allegations that the officers falsely matched the evidence bullets and the Rossi handgun and switched the bullets given to Townshend . His Brady claim , on the other hand, is based on allegations that the officers knew ( but fa iled to disclose ) that the evidence bullets did not match with the Rossi handgun. We have previously allowed parties to bring claims of this nature in the same suit

. See Mills , 869 F.3d at 485 & n.4 ( distinguishing a plaintiff’s Brady claim from his fabr ication claim); see also Jackson v. City of Cleveland , 925 F.3d 793, 815

– 17 (6th Cir. 2019) (reviewing a plaintiff’s fabrication and Brady claims without suggesting that bringing both claims was improper); Gregory , 444 F.3d at 744

– 45 (same). Accordingly, the officers ’ assertion of qualified immunity as to Ricks’s Brady claim also lacks merit

. I II

. W e affirm in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.