Donald Olsen v. Aaron Salter

The Circuit Courts of Appeals are in conflict on the question of whether and when a police officer may be held liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for a violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). The Circuits are also in conflict on the question of whether and when a police officer may be held liable for a fair trial violation based on a criminal court’s admission of a witness’s in-court identification of the defendant, when it follows an overly suggestive pretrial witness identification procedure, in violation of Manson v. Brathwaite, 432 U.S. 98 (1977). While criminal court judges and prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity from damages for claimed violations of such fair trial rights, police officers do not. Petitioner Donald Olsen, a retired Detroit police detective, investigated a 2003 shooting and was sued in 2018 for $75 million. The district court denied qualified immunity. On interlocutory appeal, a divided Sixth Circuit panel affirmed, with three separate opinions including a full dissent and a lengthy concurrence that questioned the result and identified a conflict with this Court’s decision in Vega v. Tekoh, 597 U.S. 134 (2022). This petition presents an opportunity to resolve these important questions, which routinely spawn exceedingly costly claims: I. Is a police officer liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for the nondisclosure of material exculpatory evidence, absent a showing of bad faith, and was such a right clearly established in 2003 with respect to a police officer who was