Lee Evans v. City of Newark

PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

Nos. 23-1723 and 23-1724

__________

LEE EVANS

v.

NEWARK CITY; FORMER MAYOR, COREY A.

BOOKER; OFFICER JOE HADLEY; DETECTIVE

RASHID SABUR; DETECTIVE KEITH SHEPPARD; SGT.

DARNELL HENRY; DETECTIVE JOSEPH HADLEY;

OFFICER ANGEL RAMOS; NEWARK POLICE OFFICER

JOHN DOE (1-10) FORMER, NEWARK POLICE

DIRECTOR GARRY MCCARTHY; ESSEX COUNTY

PROSECUTORS OFFICE; ROBERT D. LAURINO, former

acting Essex County Prosecutor; ASSISTANT

PROSECUTOR PETER GUARINO; ASSISTANT

PROSECUTOR CHERYL M. CUCINELLO; DETECTIVE

CHRISTOPHER SMITH; LIEUTENANT LOU CARREGA;

AGENT JACK EUTSEY; DETECTIVE MICHAEL M.

RECKENWALD; INVESTIGATOR EDWARD JONES;

INVESTIGATOR PATRICK DEFRANCISCI; DETECTIVE

SGT. WILLIAM TIETJEN; NEW JERSEY STATE

TROOPER (1-10)

Lou Carrega,

Appellant in No. 23-1723

William Tietjen,

Appellant in No. 23-1724

__________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of New Jersey

(D.C. No. 2:14-cv-00120)

District Judge: Honorable Kevin McNulty

__________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)

May 24, 2024

Before: RESTREPO, FREEMAN and McKEE, Circuit

Judges

(Filed: September 12, 2025)

Jennifer A. Bonjean

BONJEAN LAW GROUP

233 Broadway

Suite 707

New York, NY 10279

Counsel for Appellee

James A. Kassis

SCHENCK PRICE SMITH & KING

220 Park Avenue

P.O. Box 991

Florham Park, NJ 07932

2

Elizabeth Micheletti

Jae K. Shim

OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEW JERSEY

25 Market Street

Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex

Trenton, NJ 08611

Andrew D. Spevack, Esq.

OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEW JERSEY

Department of Law & Public Safety

Claims Section

Richard J. Hughes Justice Complex

Trenton, NJ 08625

Michael Vomacka

OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEW JERSEY

5th Floor

124 Halsey Street

5th Floor

Newark, NJ 07102

Counsel for Appellant in No. 23-1723

Patrick J. Misale

Michael Vomacka

OFFICE OF ATTORNEY GENERAL OF NEW JERSEY

5th Floor

124 Halsey Street

5th Floor

Newark, NJ 07102

Counsel for Appellant in No. 23-1724

3

___________

OPINION OF THE COURT

___________

RESTREPO, Circuit Judge.

In 1978, five teenage boys from Newark, New Jersey

disappeared. The case remained unsolved for 30 years. Then,

in 2008 police charged Appellee Lee Evans with their murders.

The case against Evans relied on the allegedly coerced

confession of one man, who was coached by Appellants to

implicate Evans. A jury acquitted Evans of all charges, and he

later brought claims for malicious prosecution. Detectives Lou

Carrega and William Tietjen (collectively “Appellants”) now

argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity. 1

But the doctrine of qualified immunity does not shield

a malicious prosecution claim where evidence is allegedly

manufactured. It is always unconstitutional for the police to

coerce confessions and manufacture evidence to prosecute a

criminal suspect. We will therefore affirm the District Court’s

order denying summary judgment to Appellants.

1

An additional Defendant in the underlying action, Detective

Joseph Hadley, has made several filings in this appeal, but is

not a proper party to this appeal, so our resolution of this appeal

does not affect the decision of the District Court as it applies to

him.

4

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND 2

The events that led to this appeal began over 45 years

ago, when five male teenagers 3 disappeared in Newark on

August 20, 1978. The remains of the teens were never found.

Their presumed deaths and the resulting lack of closure

afforded to their families is a tragedy.

A. INITIAL INVESTIGATION & COLD-CASE

INVESTIGATION

Following the teens’ disappearance, detectives from the

Newark Police Department (“NPD”) began a missing persons

investigation. Detectives interviewed family members and

other individuals from the community, including Appellee Lee

Evans and his second cousin, Philander Hampton – a key

player in this story.

That investigation produced a report, containing witness

accounts and the initial interviews of Evans and Hampton.

Evans allegedly reported that the teens did construction work

with him on the day of their disappearance, although Hampton

2

The facts are limited to those that are relevant and material to

this appeal. “In interlocutory appeals from denials of summary

judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, we must accept

the District Court’s set of facts as given.” Walker v. Horn, 286

F.3d 705, 707 (3d Cir. 2002). Therefore, we have drawn these

facts from the opinion of the District Court. See Evans v. City

of Newark, Civ. No. 14-00120, 2023 WL 2535283 (D.N.J.

Mar. 16, 2023).

3

The names of the five young men, all aged 16 and 17 and now

presumed dead, were Randy Johnson, Ernest Taylor, Melvin

Pittman, Alvin Turner, and Michael McDowell.

5

provided conflicting information. Evans has since denied the

details of this interview. Despite hundreds of interviews, the

investigation remained stagnant, and investigators were unable

to even determine if a homicide had occurred.

For the following two decades, the murders remained a

mystery. In 1998, however, the NPD assigned detectives from

its Homicide Cold Case Unit to investigate. In February 1999,

the cold-case investigators interviewed Hampton for a second

time. According to their report, Hampton again denied

knowledge of or involvement with the disappearance, and

stated “If I confess to this shit, my life is over.” 4 At his

deposition in the civil case underlying this appeal, taken in

2022, Hampton stated that he neither recalled giving this

interview, nor making that statement.

The cold-case investigators also re-interviewed Evans.

According to that report, investigators told Evans that they

were aware that the missing boys had stolen marijuana from

him prior to their disappearance. The report states that Evans

responded to this information by claiming that the “situation

was bigger than him” and “he was only a middleman.” 5 Evans

has since denied making those statements.

B. APPELLANTS’ INVESTIGATION AND THE

ALLEGEDLY COERCED CONFESSION

After nearly 29 years of little to no progress on the case,

the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office (“ECPO”) opened its

own independent investigation in 2007, which was led by

Detective Carrega. In May 2008, Detective Tietjen of the New

4

App. 14.

5

Id.

6

Jersey State Police (“NJSP”) joined Carrega’s team. 6 Early in

this investigation, Carrega and his team re-interviewed many

of the same people that had previously been interviewed in

both the initial investigation and the 1998 cold-case

investigation. Based on the existing investigative record,

Detectives Carrega and Tietjen viewed Evans as a suspect in

the disappearance.

In November 2008, an opportunity to re-interview

Hampton materialized when, according to the Appellants’

account, Detective Carrega learned that Hampton was in

custody at the Essex County Jail on a traffic warrant and had

him transported to the ECPO. The events that followed are

hotly disputed and sit at the center of both this appeal and the

civil action from which it stems.

According to the Appellants, Hampton initially

reiterated his prior statements that he had no knowledge of the

circumstances surrounding the teens’ disappearance. When

prompted, he agreed to submit to a polygraph test, which the

investigators subsequently informed him he had failed. Upon

being confronted with the purported polygraph failure,

Appellants claim Hampton cracked, responding “OK, I guess

it had to come out someday, I’ll tell you what happened but

you know it was [Evans] right?” 7 Hampton then allegedly

agreed to give a recorded statement.

Appellants then transported Hampton from the ECPO to

the NJSP barracks in Newark. According to the Appellants’

version of events, while Hampton was en route to the NJSP

barracks, he asked Detective Carrega if he wanted “to see

6

Several other people worked on this investigation, but their

identities are not relevant to the qualified immunity analysis at

issue in this appeal.

7

App. 17.

7

where the kids were killed[,]” 8 and subsequently directed

Detective Carrega to the alleged crime scene on Camden

Street. Appellants claim Hampton explained that, prior to the

boys’ disappearance, he had lived on the third floor of a three-

story house that had formerly stood at the location, and that the

missing boys had been killed there.

According to Appellants, Hampton was subsequently

taken to the NJSP barracks, where he provided a video-

recorded statement in which he identified Evans as the killer

and confessed to helping him. In his statement, Hampton

explained that he and Evans, along with another family

member, rounded up the teens in Evans’s pickup truck and

brought them to the house. Evans then forced them into a

closet and nailed the door shut, before dousing the house in

gasoline and setting it on fire with a single match. Hampton

and Evans left through the back of the house, and Evans drove

Hampton home as the house burned down.

Evans provides a flatly contradictory account of

Hampton’s November 2008 interview, alleging in his civil

complaint that Carrega and Tietjen coerced Hampton into

parroting a false confession that the detectives themselves had

fabricated. The truth, according to Hampton’s affidavit, is that

Detective Carrega refused to accept Hampton’s repeated

denials of any knowledge or involvement. To prove his

honesty, Hampton agreed to take a polygraph test, but was

informed that he had failed. At this point, Detective Carrega

became aggressive, telling Hampton that if he did not implicate

Evans, he would be charged himself. After extended

questioning and under substantial pressure from the

Appellants, Hampton agreed to repeat their story—that the

8

Id.

8

boys had died in a fire set by Evans—but made clear to the

detectives that it was a lie.

During the transport to the NJSP barracks to record the

statement, Detective Carrega coached Hampton on the story he

was to repeat on camera, explaining exactly which questions

he would be asked, and how he was to answer them. Detective

Carrega, not Hampton, navigated to the Camden Street address

and explained how that location fit into the concocted

narrative. Hampton eventually recorded the allegedly coerced

confession at the NJSP barracks, framing Evans for the

murders.

C. CRIMINAL PROCEEDINGS AGAINST

HAMPTON AND EVANS

With Hampton’s statement secured, Appellants

attended a March 2010 meeting with prosecutors to discuss

criminal charges. Prosecutors ultimately made the decision to

file charges against Hampton and Evans, with both Appellants

contributing to that decision. Detective Carrega signed an

affidavit of probable cause in support of arrest warrants for

Hampton and Evans. Both men were arrested.

Hampton reached a plea agreement, which required him

to plead guilty to five counts of felony murder and to testify

against Evans at trial, in exchange for a favorable sentence.

Prior to entering his plea, Hampton moved to suppress his

confession on the grounds that it was taken in violation of

Miranda v. Arizona, 9 but that motion was denied. Hampton

nevertheless reiterated the same facts contained in the

controverted recorded statement in support of his guilty plea.

In October 2011, Evans was tried for the murder of the

five missing teens. Hampton served as the State’s star witness,

9

384 U.S. 436 (1966).

9

testifying for two days and telling the same story from the

allegedly coerced confession. Despite Hampton’s testimony,

Evans was acquitted on all counts by the jury on November 23,

2011.

D. EVANS’S CIVIL LAWSUIT AND

HAMPTON’S RECANTATION

Two years later, on November 21, 2013, Evans filed the

civil lawsuit from which this appeal originates. Several claims

survived motions to dismiss, including the claims of malicious

prosecution against the Appellants that are at issue here.

On June 6, 2017, Hampton recanted his accusations

against Evans, attesting in a notarized statement that his

November 2008 recorded statement was fabricated and

coerced, and identifying both of the Appellants as participants

in the fraud. Later, on October 27, 2020, Hampton signed a

sworn affidavit, which detailed the allegedly coerced

confession from November 2008 that now forms the basis of

Evans’s claims against the Appellants.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Appellants filed motions for summary judgment

seeking dismissal of all claims against them in August 2022.

As to the malicious prosecution claims, Detectives Carrega and

Tietjen argued that they should be granted summary judgment

because they were entitled to qualified immunity.

The District Court entered an opinion and order

granting in part, and denying in part, Appellants’ motions. As

relevant here, the Court held that Appellants are not entitled to

qualified immunity on the malicious prosecution claims.

Appellants filed a timely interlocutory appeal, challenging the

qualified immunity ruling.

10

III. JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 over the

denial of summary judgment on the basis of qualified

immunity pursuant to the collateral order doctrine, but only “to

the extent that it turns on an issue of law.” 10 Although we lack

jurisdiction to review factual disputes, 11 such as the veracity of

Hampton’s allegedly coerced confession, we review all

questions of law de novo, 12 including the presence or absence

of probable cause. 13

We view all facts and inferences in the light most

favorable to Evans and will reverse the District Court’s denial

of summary judgment only if “there is no genuine dispute as to

10

Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985); see also Mack

v. Yost, 968 F.3d 311, 318 (3d Cir. 2020) (quoting Mitchell,

472 U.S. at 530).

11

See Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 319–20 (1995) (holding

a defendant asserting qualified immunity may not appeal a

summary judgment determination as to the existence of

disputed factual issues).

12

See Pinkney v. Meadville, Pa., 95 F.4th 743, 747 (3d Cir.

2024) (citing Starnes v. Butler Cnty. Ct. of Common Pleas,

50th Jud. Dist., 971 F.3d 416, 424 (3d Cir. 2020)).

13

See Wright v. City of Phila., 409 F.3d 595, 599 (3d Cir.

2005), abrogated on other grounds by Chiaverini v. City of

Napoleon, 602 U.S. 556 (2024) (concluding that, in an

interlocutory appeal from a qualified immunity ruling, we have

jurisdiction over “the purely legal question of whether the facts

alleged, even in the light most favorable to [the plaintiff], were

legally sufficient to establish probable cause”).

11

any material fact [and] the [Appellants are] entitled to

judgment as a matter of law.” 14

IV. DISCUSSION

Qualified immunity shields government officials,

including law enforcement, from liability unless their conduct

violates a clearly established right. 15 When assessing qualified

immunity, our inquiry is two-fold: “(1) whether the plaintiff

sufficiently alleged a right had been violated, and (2) whether

that right was clearly established when it was allegedly

violated to the extent ‘that it would have been clear to a

reasonable person that his [or her] conduct was unlawful.’” 16

The “clearly established” test ensures that government officials

are not liable unless they had reasonable notice that their

conduct would be considered unlawful. 17 At issue here is

14

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); cf. Kreschollek v. S. Stevedoring Co.,

223 F.3d 202, 204 (3d Cir. 2000); Boyle v. Cnty. of Allegheny,

139 F.3d 386, 393 (3d Cir. 1998).

15

See Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982); see also

Peroza-Benitez v. Smith, 994 F.3d 157, 165 (3d Cir. 2021).

16

Clark v. Coupe, 55 F.4th 167, 178 (3d Cir. 2022) (quoting

Williams v. Sec’y Pa. Dep’t of Corrs., 848 F.3d 549, 557 (3d

Cir. 2017)).

17

See e.g., Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 205 (2001) (“The

concern of the immunity inquiry is to acknowledge that

reasonable mistakes can be made as to the legal constraints on

particular police conduct. It is sometimes difficult for an

officer to determine how the relevant legal doctrine . . . will

apply to the factual situation the officer confronts . . . If the

officer’s mistake as to what the law requires is reasonable . . .

the officer is entitled to the immunity defense.”); Davis v.

12

Evans’s constitutional right to be free from arrest and

prosecution without probable cause, where probable cause was

created by manufactured evidence.

A. A REASONABLE JURY COULD FIND APPELLANTS

LACKED PROBABLE CAUSE TO ARREST EVANS –

VIOLATING HIS CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS

Appellants arrested and prosecuted Evans based on

Hampton’s allegedly coerced confession. The District Court

denied summary judgment after determining that “a reasonable

jury could find that [Appellants] made a reckless, material

omission that led to the initiation of criminal proceedings

against Evans without probable cause, and that the element of

malice [wa]s met.” 18 We agree and therefore affirm the

District Court’s determination that a jury could find Appellants

violated Evans’s constitutional rights.

Despite our clear precedent, 19 we feel obligated to

reiterate our duty to dissect a potentially tainted affidavit of

probable cause. “[W]hen, as here, a judge issues an arrest

warrant, we defer to it unless the officer misrepresented

Scherer, 468 U.S. 183, 195 (1984) (“The qualified immunity

doctrine recognizes that officials can act without fear of

harassing litigation only if they reasonably can anticipate when

their conduct may give rise to liability for damages . . .”);

Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818 (“If the law at that time was not clearly

established, an official could not reasonably be expected to

anticipate subsequent legal developments, nor could he fairly

be said to ‘know’ that the law forbade conduct not previously

identified as unlawful.”).

18

App. 44.

19

Pinkney, 95 F.4th at 748.

13

material information to get the warrant.” 20 In this case, a

reasonable jury could find that Appellants made a reckless and

material omission when they failed to disclose that Hampton’s

confession was coerced. We must determine if a reasonable

jury could find that omission was (1) made “knowingly and

deliberately, or with a reckless disregard for the truth” and (2)

“material, or necessary, to the finding of probable cause[.]” 21

The affidavit drafted by Detective Carrega contained

the following paragraph with respect to Hampton’s confession:

On November 13, 2008, Philander Hampton was

interviewed by Lt. Louis Carrega, ECPO, Det.

Joseph Hadley, NPD and Det. Trooper William

Tietjen, NJSP. Hampton stated to officers that

he resided on the third floor of 256 Camden

Street aforesaid and that he moved out on

Saturday, August 19, 1978. Hampton stated that

he participated in the murder of the five missing

boys and that he was assisting his cousin Lee

Evans, who he knew wanted to kill the boys.

Philander Hampton stated that he held two of the

boys at gun point at 256 Camden Street while

Lee Evans rounded up the other three boys.

Hampton stated that the five boys were then put

in a closet, the closet was nailed shut and the

room was doused with gasoline. Lee Evans lit

the house on fire. Hampton further stated that he

20

Id. (citing Andrews v. Scuilli, 853 F.3d 690, 697–98 (3d Cir.

2017)).

21

Sherwood v. Mulvihill, 113 F.3d 396, 399 (3d Cir. 1997).

14

and Lee Evans ran out from the back of the

house. 22

If a jury credits Hampton’s recantation, it follows that the

affidavit omitted two important facts: (1) Hampton repeatedly

denied any knowledge or involvement in the murders; and (2)

Hampton made it clear that Appellants’ fabricated story was a

lie. Without question, these omissions are “the kind of thing

[a] judge would wish to know.” 23 Not only did Appellant

Carrega omit these facts from the affidavit, but both

Appellants, who were present during the alleged confession

and Hampton’s repeated denials, failed to disclose these facts

at the charging meeting held with prosecutors. 24 Appellants

were “not free to disregard plainly exculpatory evidence.” 25 So

a reasonable jury could find not only that these omissions were

made with reckless disregard for the truth, but “also . . . that

the [Appellants] acted with malice.” 26

22

App. 41.

23

Wilson v. Russo, 212 F.3d 781, 788 (3d Cir. 2000) (quoting

United States v. Jacobs, 986 F.2d 1231, 1235 (8th Cir. 1993)).

24

App. 1811 (At his deposition for the underlying civil lawsuit,

prosecutor Laurino testified:

Q: At the time the charges were sought and through the

trial of Lee Evans, were you aware of any allegations

that the statement of Philander Hampton was coerced?

A: No. I [was] unaware of any coercion regarding Mr.

Hampton’s statement.)

25

Dempsey v. Bucknell Univ., 834 F.3d 457, 469 (3d Cir. 2016)

(internal citations omitted).

26

App. 43.

15

To determine if these omissions were material, we

“insert the facts recklessly omitted” 27 into the suspect affidavit

and reconsider if the revised affidavit would be sufficient “to

warrant a reasonable person to believe” 28 that Hampton and

Evans committed the murders. The inclusion of an

involuntary, coerced confession is material. Not only would a

reasonable person have doubts, but the charging prosecutors in

this case later admitted that without Hampton’s confession,

probable cause did not exist. 29 Thus, because a reasonable

jury could find that these omissions tainted the probable cause

finding, we affirm the District Court’s determination that the

evidence in the record fails to clearly establish probable cause

for Evans’s arrest and prosecution. 30

B. NO REASONABLE OFFICER WOULD HAVE

ARRESTED AND PROSECUTED EVANS

Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Evans,

Appellants violated Evans’s constitutional right by arresting

and prosecuting him without probable cause. Existing caselaw

clearly establishes and recognizes that right. 31 But Appellants

27

Wilson, 212 F.3d at 789.

28

Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

29

See, e.g., App. 1818 (“Without the statement, there surely

would not have been probable cause to arrest. Can we agree on

that? [] Yes. I agree with that.”).

30

See App. 43–44.

31

See, e.g., Andrews, 853 F.3d at 705 (quoting Orsatti v. N. J.

State Police, 71 F.3d 480, 483 (3d Cir. 1995) (“There is no

question that the right . . . to be free from arrest except on

probable cause [is] clearly established.”)); Kelly v. Borough of

Carlisle, 622 F.3d 248, 256 (3d Cir. 2010) (citing Berg v. Cnty.

16

argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity so long as

there was probable cause, without Hampton’s confession, to

arrest and prosecute Evans. They ignore their blatant

omissions and describe the allegedly coerced confession as “a

red herring for purposes of the qualified immunity analysis.” 32

Appellants argue in substance that as long as probable

cause exists for an arrest, they must be afforded qualified

immunity for their conduct during any subsequent prosecution.

However, merely stating that principle establishes its

absurdity. Taken to its logical conclusion, this implies that

police have a license to use whatever means they choose to

prosecute any criminal suspect they have probable cause to

arrest, including coercing confessions and manufacturing

evidence, in order to secure a conviction.

That is not correct. “We emphatically reject the notion

that due process of law permits the police to frame suspects”

or “cook[] up its own evidence.” 33 It should be painfully

obvious that such conduct is blatantly unconstitutional whether

or not the initial arrest of the suspect was consistent with the

guarantees of the Fourth Amendment. Procedural due process

“protects defendants during an entire criminal proceeding

through and after trial,” and that includes a protection from the

use of fabricated evidence. 34 We held in Halsey, “if a

defendant has been convicted at a trial at which the prosecution

has used fabricated evidence, the defendant has a stand-alone

claim under section 1983 based on the Fourteenth Amendment

of Allegheny, 219 F.3d 261, 272 (3d Cir. 2000)) (“[I]t [is]

clearly established that an arrest could be made only on the

basis of probable cause.”).

32

Appellants’ Br. 19–20.

33

Halsey v. Pfeiffer, 750 F.3d 273, 293 (3d Cir. 2014).

34

Id. at 291.

17

if there is a reasonable likelihood that, without the use of that

evidence, the defendant would not have been convicted.” 35

Here, fortunately, we are not confronted with potentially

fabricated evidence resulting in conviction and incarceration.

Evans was acquitted. He was nevertheless subjected to a

criminal prosecution and forced to stand trial based upon

evidence that a reasonable jury could find was cooked up by

law enforcement. 36 Although that acquittal certainly may be

relevant to assessing damages, we cannot conclude that it

would absolve these Appellants from liability for their

allegedly unconstitutional conduct. 37 Indeed, we previously

35

Id. at 294.

36

See id. at 289 (“When falsified evidence is used as a basis

to initiate the prosecution of a defendant, or is used to convict

him, the defendant has been injured regardless of whether the

totality of the evidence, excluding the fabricated evidence,

would have given the state actor a probable cause defense in a

malicious prosecution action that a defendant later brought

against him.”).

37

The plaintiff in Halsey was convicted and served a prison

term based (at least in part) on fabricated evidence. In denying

a claim of qualified immunity, we stated that “we [did not]

decide whether a defendant acquitted at a trial where fabricated

evidence has been used against him has an actionable section

1983 claim. We note[d], however, that if fabricated evidence

is used as a basis for a criminal charge that would not have

been filed without its use the defendant certainly has suffered

an injury.” Id. at 294 n.19. We were careful to clarify that we

“[were] not suggesting that there is nothing wrong with the

fabricating of evidence if it does not affect the final verdict.”

Id. at 295 n.20.

18

have made clear that such conduct can be actionable even when

trial results in an acquittal. 38

The fact that the allegedly coerced confession was used

leading up to and at trial distinguishes Evans’s case from other

malicious prosecution cases that we have resolved on probable

cause alone. For example, we held that the plaintiff in

Zimmerman v. Corbett had no claim for malicious prosecution

because undisputed evidence established probable cause. 39

But the government dropped the charges against Zimmerman

before any trial, 40 so his claim primarily implicated the Fourth

Amendment’s guarantee against unlawful pretrial seizure.

Moreover, there was nothing in Zimmerman to suggest that any

alleged manufacturing of evidence infected the proceeding

beyond the initial filing of charges. Here, by contrast, Evans’s

allegations implicate his due process rights at trial. 41 This

bears on Evans’s § 1983 claim for malicious prosecution

because, as we repeatedly have noted, Fourth and Fourteenth

Amendment injuries are intertwined where the alleged

misconduct “infected the entirety of the criminal proceeding,

from securing the indictment through trial.” 42

38

Black v. Montgomery Cnty., 835 F.3d 358, 372 (3d Cir.

2016).

39

873 F.3d 414, 418–19 (3d Cir. 2017).

40

Id. at 417.

41

See Halsey, 750 F.3d at 291 (“The initial seizure is governed

by the Fourth Amendment, but at some point after arrest, and

certainly by the time of trial, constitutional analysis shifts to

the Due Process Clause.” (quoting Pierce v. Gilchrist, 359 F.3d

1279, 1285–86 (10th Cir. 2004))).

42

Black, 835 F.3d at 369 n.11; see also Halsey, 750 F.3d at

291.

19

We also reject Appellants’ theory that they should be

granted qualified immunity because they acted on a

“reasonabl[e] but mistaken[] conclu[sion] that [probable cause

was present].” 43 That principle is inapplicable here.

Fabricating evidence to manufacture probable cause, as alleged

here, eviscerates the possibility of a reasonable mistake. “[N]o

reasonable officer would have covered up a lack of probable

cause by [fabricating evidence].” 44

C.

In addition to the malicious prosecution claim at issue

here, Evans’s operative complaint included a § 1983 claim

based on “Fabrication of Inculpatory Evidence.” In 2016, the

District Court held that aspects of Evans’s § 1983 claim were

untimely, explaining Evans’s injuries would have been

“apparent by the time grand jury proceedings were completed,”

and that only malicious prosecution depended on the outcome

of the criminal proceeding. 45 This analysis referred to “abuse

of process . . . [and] related theories,” but did not specifically

address fabrication of evidence. 46 To the extent Evans asserts

injury for the use of the fabricated evidence in his trial, it makes

little sense for that injury to have accrued prior to the

commencement of trial. In addition, Hampton’s declaration

stating that the confession had been fabricated did not

materialize until 2017 — a year after the District Court’s

timeliness ruling, and four years after Evans filed his initial

43

Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641 (1987).

44

Pinkney, 95 F.4th at 750.

45

Evans v. City of Newark, No. 14-00120, 2016 WL 2742862,

at *4–6 (D.N.J. May 10, 2016).

46

Id. at *4.

20

Complaint asserting fabrication of evidence. Hampton’s

recantation was not before the District Court when it ruled on

timeliness, but it may impact when Evans was on notice of the

allegedly coerced nature of the confession. On remand, the

District Court should address whether Evans still has a timely

§ 1983 claim for fabrication of evidence.

V. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the order of

the District Court denying summary judgment to Detectives

Carrega and Tietjen on the claim for malicious prosecution, but

remand for reconsideration of the § 1983 claim for fabrication

of evidence. The doctrine of qualified immunity does not

properly shield malicious prosecution claims where evidence

is manufactured against a person.

21