The opinion
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 26a0373n.06
No. 25-6004
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED
FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT Sep 14, 2026
KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk
)
KENNETH WADKINS,
)
Plaintiff-Appellant, )
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED
)
v. STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR
)
THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF
)
KRISTYN KLINGSHIRN, KENTUCKY
)
Defendant-Appellee. )
OPINION
)
Before: STRANCH, BUSH, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.
JANE B. STRANCH, Circuit Judge. After a grand jury chose not to indict him for a
2021 homicide, Kenneth Wadkins sued Kristyn Klingshirn, the lead detective who filed the
criminal complaint against him, for malicious prosecution. The district court granted summary
judgment to Klingshirn on the basis that there was probable cause for the arrest and prosecution
of Wadkins, without reaching other issues that were disputed between the parties. Because we
conclude that Klingshirn is entitled to qualified immunity, even if probable cause was lacking, we
AFFIRM.
I. BACKGROUND
On the evening of January 21, 2021, officers were dispatched in response to reports of
gunfire and a man being shot in Fayette County, Kentucky. Officers arrived and found Wesley
Brown lying outside of a private residence at 578 Breckenridge with a gunshot wound to his lower
right back. He was transported to a local hospital and taken into surgery. Brown advised the
officers that he had been shot from behind while walking down the street and did not know who
No. 25-6004, Wadkins v. Klingshirn
shot him. Witnesses at the scene reported seeing people running behind a nearby residence and a
dark-colored vehicle fleeing the scene as officers arrived. Officers collected several pieces of
evidence from the scene, including four .45 caliber spent automatic shell casings lying on the
sidewalk, a black cell phone that was found in between Brown’s legs, a digital scale found next to
Brown, and a bag containing suspected narcotics found in a nearby backyard; they also collected
$3,155 in cash from Brown’s person after he was transported to the hospital. Brown died at the
hospital nearly two weeks later, on February 4.
Klingshirn and her team investigated Brown’s killing for nine months before she filed the
criminal complaint against Wadkins on October 21, 2021. We recount the events of this
investigation in detail, as its unfolding is crucial to the probable cause issue in Wadkins’s malicious
prosecution suit.
A. The Beginning
In the first few weeks of the investigation, the officers received several tips. On January
28, they received a call from Brown’s sister1 regarding Wadkins. She explained that the two men
had been in conflict because Brown had survived a previous shooting in 2007 or 2008,2 and,
although no one was ever arrested for that shooting, Brown believed Wadkins was the culprit. She
also advised that Wadkins went by the name “Ghost.” On January 30, a Crime Stoppers tip advised
that a Jamal “Sippi” Robinson was present at the scene when Brown was shot. On February 1,
Klingshirn was contacted by Charlesetta Barnes, who was in a relationship with Roy Johnson, who
1
Different documents in the record refer to Brown’s sister as either Lashonda or Vicenda (or
Viceanda), including different versions of case file notes that attribute the January 28 call to both
names. Based on our review of these documents, we find it more plausible that Brown had one
sister, not two.
2
Alternatively, Klingshirn places this shooting in 2010.
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lived at 580 Breckenridge, next door to where Brown was found. Barnes advised that Johnson’s
residence was used for gambling, that someone named Ghost was present on the night of the
shooting, and that Brown may have been present either to rob someone or was set up to be the
victim of a robbery. According to a memorandum filed by Klingshirn on February 1, the
information from Barnes “coincide[d] with information received from Ms. Lashonda Brown as
well as other anonymous tips stating Buford Lyvers may have set Mr. Brown up by getting to the
residence at 580 Breckenridge where Kenneth ‘Winston’ Walker shot him.” R. 32-6, Memo to
Case File, PageID 180. The memorandum does not provide any more information about these
anonymous tips or what specific information Klingshirn received from Ms. Brown.
On February 6, two days after Brown’s death, a 911 operator relayed to Klingshirn a tip
from an anonymous caller advising that “Wesley” was killed by someone named Ghost. Then on
February 11, another officer received an anonymous tip that someone named Winston was
responsible for Brown’s murder, and that Winston had a brother named Taji Wadkins.
On February 23, Klingshirn received a call from a woman who identified herself as a family
member of Lyvers and advised that Lyvers admitted to her that he was present at the shooting and
believed that Wadkins was responsible. The family member was unable to provide any more
information about the shooting, but she stated that “something didn’t feel right” and that she would
call back if she heard anything else. Later that day, the same family member called back and
identified herself as Stacey Lyvers. Ms. Lyvers reported during this second call that she had
spoken with Brown’s niece, Aspen Barry, who relayed that, on the Monday after the shooting, a
man approached her in front of a local market and stated, “I shot your Uncle.” Ms. Lyvers then
relayed that she suspected the man who approached Barry was AJ King, so she showed Barry a
photo of King, and Barry confirmed it was him. According to Klingshirn’s notes, Ms. Lyvers was
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unable to account for the apparent inconsistencies between this information and what she relayed
during the earlier call.
The autopsy of Brown was completed on March 9. The autopsy report concluded that
Brown died of a “[p]enetrating gunshot wound of the torso, indeterminate range, and complications
thereof,” and it described the entrance trajectory of the bullet as “right to left and back to front.”
R. 32-4, Final Diagnosis, PageID 177.
Also in the period of February through June 2021, Klingshirn filed a series of search
warrants against Verizon and Google. The information returned by Verizon and Google indicated
that devices registered to Lyvers and Wadkins were in the area on the night of the shooting.
B. The Lashonda Brown Interview
On May 5, Klingshirn conducted a lengthy interview with Brown’s sister, who clearly
identified herself as Lashonda Brown. Lashonda relayed that she had been investigating the case
herself but was unable to connect with Klingshirn for so long out of fear for her own safety (on
this occasion, she set up the meeting with Klingshirn using her mother’s phone). On the call,
Lashonda shared several pieces of information regarding the shooting. She first explained that her
brother had been involved with a man named Arsenio Jackson, who was involved in another
murder and was paying another person to cover it up; Lashonda said this murder was also in
Lexington but did not know when it took place. Lashonda believed that Jackson and his associates
arranged for Brown to be killed because “they thought my brother was gonna snitch on him,” or
that Lashonda would do so, and “it was basically a statement kill to say if you don’t shut up, if you
don’t keep your mouth shut, we will kill you.”
Lashonda said she was afraid to contact Klingshirn because she believed Jackson and his
associates had been tracking and spying on her long before Brown was killed. She claimed they
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installed cameras in her home to spy on her and take photos that could be used against her; they
bugged her phone and used it to listen to her conversations and track her location (she had not
turned it on in months because of this); they had people follow her as she went about her daily life,
which she knew because she regularly noticed cars sitting in “awkward” places for long periods
of time; they posted photos of her and her home on social media, which she understood as implicit
threats; and they followed her to Las Vegas on her most recent birthday. Lashonda was initially
targeted, she explained, because her child’s late father used to be involved in bank robberies
(though he was never convicted), and she reported him once before around 2015 or 2016.
Lashonda emphasized that if Jackson and his associates heard her saying anything on her phone
that they were tracking, “they will come for me, literally . . . . I’ve been followed and tracked for
almost seven years straight.”
Lashonda mentioned that she had heard the shooter was Buford Lyvers’s nephew, Marlin
Griffin, Jr., but she believed that Jackson and his associates were in fact using Griffin as a patsy.
She cautioned Klingshirn to “be careful of who you think might be the shooter, because I think
that sometimes they use that as a ruse to get you off of who really is the shooter.” Lashonda
relayed similar advice to Klingshirn throughout the interview, including warning her that some of
the anonymous tips the police may have received were not reliable because they were made by
women who were working for Jackson.
Lashonda described an incident—the same one Klingshirn heard about from Stacey
Lyvers—where two men approached her daughter, Aspen Barry, and confessed to the murder.
According to Lashonda, they pulled up to Barry in a car, brandished a gun, and said, “we shot your
uncle and we want your mother’s head.” Lashonda said the men in the car were AJ King, who had
recently “beat” a murder charge, and an unnamed man from Michigan who she believed was the
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brother of Brown’s shooter. She also relayed that someone from Michigan had recently moved in
next door to her; she believed he was part of Jackson’s tracking efforts.
In addition, Lashonda relayed a story of a visit she paid to her brother while he was in the
hospital. Brown was on a ventilator and unable to speak, so, suspecting Lyvers, she asked Brown
to blink if Lyvers was responsible; Brown blinked, but Lashonda did not interpret this response to
mean Lyvers actually shot the bullet that struck Brown. She believed the actual shooter rigged his
gun to silence the shot that killed her brother, even though Lyvers also fired his gun that night. As
she explained in this exchange with Klingshirn,
Lashonda: I believe somebody else was there. I believe that they used—it’s not a
silencer, but they wrap the gun with a bottle, and so you can’t hear the
shot . . . The shots that Buford Lyvers ended up shooting that night were
just . . . it made it look like he was the shooter but he really wasn’t.
Someone was waiting for my brother. My brother was shot in the right flank
of his back. And that means my brother didn’t see who shot him. Now,
when he blinked I think he was trying to tell me Buford had something to
do with it.
Klingshirn: But not the actual shooter?
LaShonda: Yes, ma’am. He couldn’t talk to me because he had the breathing
apparatus in his mouth, so he couldn’t actually say you know, ‘Shonda,
Buford was there, he knows.’ But that’s my . . . my gut feeling.”
R. 35-8, Lashonda Brown Interview, 19:54–21:00. Lashonda believed that the real shooter was
the brother of the man from Michigan who approached her daughter.
C. The Final Months: A Few More Tips and the Buford Lyvers Interview
On August 24, 2021, Officer Dustin Crane arrested Angela Lyons for an unrelated crime.
During her arrest, Lyons stated that she wanted to give some information about Wesley Brown’s
murder and relayed the following: her boyfriend, Clarence Engles, regularly rented his vehicle to
a man named Ghost, who Lyons described as a Black male with a bald head; Ghost used the vehicle
to drive around and commit crimes, and he regularly hangs out around Breckenridge Street, where
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he gambles in a driveway. After the arrest, Crane searched for “Ghost” in a police database and
got a match for a Dontaevius Bowie, who had recently been released from prison after serving a
sentence for manslaughter.
On September 2, police received an anonymous tip through Crime Stoppers advising that
Brown was set up to be killed by “Ghost.” The tip further advised that there were still bullet holes
in the walls of 580 Breckenridge—but that the holes had been plastered and painted over by Ghost
and his associates.
On October 6, an officer at Probation and Parole reached out to Detective Jeremy Adkins,
who assisted Klingshirn on the case, stating that Buford Lyvers, upon arriving for his routine
check-in, began crying and asked to speak with detectives about a homicide. Adkins went to speak
with Lyvers, who, accompanied by a mentor, relayed the following story: On the night of January
21, Lyvers and Wadkins—who Lyvers had known since childhood and identified as “Ghost”—
were at 580 Breckenridge to gamble. Lyvers had a semiautomatic handgun tucked into his
waistband, and Wadkins was sitting next to him. Lyvers had just won a hand of poker and was
shuffling the cards to deal the next hand when he received a text message from Brown asking to
be let in through the front door. Lyvers replied that the door was unlocked. When Brown opened
the door and entered the residence, Wadkins reached into Lyvers’s waistband, grabbed his gun,
and shot Brown, who fell backwards and out of view. Lyvers and others fled “[a]s the shots were
ringing out,” and he did not see where Wadkins went. When Adkins asked what happened to the
gun, Lyvers advised that Wadkins “kept it.”
On October 21, officers executed a search warrant at 580 Breckenridge and found three
bullet holes that appeared to have been plastered over in the living room. They found another
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bullet hole on the inside of the front door and scraped it to reveal a copper bullet. Later that day,
Klingshirn filed the criminal complaint, which read,
The Affiant, Kristyn M Klingshirn, states that on 1/21/2021 at 19:00 in FAYETTE
County, Kentucky, the above named defendant unlawfully: Committed the offense
of Murder, KRS 507.020, On January 21, 2021 at 1900, the listed offender was at
580 Breckenridge when, with the intent to cause death to another person, caused
the death of the victim, Wesley Brown when he shot him. During the course of the
investigation the offender was identified by a cooperating witness who was present
when the shooting occurred. The cooperating witness provided details of the
incident which can be corroborated by evidence located at the scene. I also received
multiple crime stoppers tips advising “Ghost” shot Mr. Brown and identifying
“Ghost” as Kenneth Wadkins. A separate witness also identified Kenneth Wadkins
as “Ghost”. The tips further advise 580 Breckenridge is used for gambling and Mr.
Brown was set up. Utilizing Police resources, location data from a [sic.] electronic
device also puts Kenneth Wadkins at the scene.
R. 32-17, Crim. Complaint, PageID 201. Klingshirn then applied for an arrest warrant, which was
signed on October 25. Wadkins was ultimately arrested on April 8, 2022.
On January 13, 2022, a few months before Wadkins’s arrest, Brown’s sister requested to
speak with police again.3 Ms. Brown still believed that Arsenio Jackson arranged her brother’s
killing and that Buford Lyvers was involved, and she again relayed the story of Brown blinking
while on his deathbed in response to her question about Lyvers; she had since become convinced,
though, that Lyvers was the one who shot Brown, and Jackson had paid him to do it. Ms. Brown
then relayed the following theory: Brown was lured to 580 Breckenridge by a man known as “Do
Wrong,” who had contacted Brown to buy drugs. When Brown arrived at the residence, he learned
Do Wrong did not have enough money to pay. Roy Johnson, Lyvers, Wadkins, and possibly others
were present. Lyvers and Wadkins began arguing and Lyvers dropped his handgun. When Brown
started to walk out of the residence, he was shot in the back by Lyvers. When the on-duty detective
3
The notes to this interview identify the sister as “Viceanda.”
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inquired why Ms. Brown believed it was Lyvers who shot the gun, she responded that it “just
didn’t make sense” that Wadkins would have done it.
Wadkins was arrested on April 8, 2022. He spent around two months in pretrial detention
before a grand jury chose not to indict him, at which point he was released and the charges against
him dropped. He maintains his innocence.
D. Wadkins’s Malicious Prosecution Suit
Wadkins filed a Section 1983 complaint against Klingshirn in the Eastern District of
Kentucky, alleging malicious prosecution in violation of his Fourth Amendment Rights.
Klingshirn moved for summary judgment following discovery, and the district court granted her
motion, dismissing Wadkins’s claim. Wadkins timely appealed.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
Summary judgment is appropriate only when “the movant shows that there is no genuine
dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R.
Civ. P. 56(a). A fact is material when it “might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing
law,” and a dispute is genuine “if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict
for the nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). At the
summary judgment stage, courts must view the record evidence in the light most favorable to the
nonmoving party and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party. See
Chapman v. UAW Local 1005, 670 F.3d 677, 680 (6th Cir. 2012) (en banc). A district court’s
summary judgment decision is reviewed de novo. McKay v. Federspiel, 823 F.3d 862, 866 (6th
Cir. 2016).
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III. ANALYSIS
There are four elements to a malicious prosecution claim under the Fourth Amendment:
(1) that a “criminal prosecution was initiated against the plaintiff and that the defendant made,
influenced, or participated in the decision to prosecute”; (2) “that there was a lack of probable
cause for the criminal prosecution”; (3) that “the plaintiff suffered a deprivation of liberty” as a
result of the criminal proceeding; and (4) “that the proceeding terminated in the plaintiff’s favor.”
Cotton v. Hughes, 176 F.4th 886, 901–02 (6th Cir. 2026) (citation modified). Here, Klingshirn
contended that she was entitled to summary judgment because no reasonable jury could find in
Wadkins’s favor on the first two elements and that, even if her actions did violate his Fourth
Amendment rights, she was entitled to qualified immunity. The district court reached only the
probable cause issue, concluding that the arrest and prosecution of Wadkins were supported by
probable cause based on the following facts: that Lashonda Brown indicated Wadkins went by
“Ghost”; that Lashonda supplied a possible motive in the form of her brother’s belief that Wadkins
had shot him previously; that other anonymous tips named “Ghost”; Lyvers’s eyewitness account,
including his identification of Wadkins as “Ghost”; and the geolocation data placing one of
Wadkins’s devices (either a phone or iPad) in the area on the night of the shooting.
A. Probable Cause
“Generally, probable cause exists when the police have ‘reasonably trustworthy
information . . . sufficient to warrant a prudent man in believing that the petitioner had committed
or was committing an offense.’” Gardenhire v. Schubert, 205 F.3d 303, 315 (6th Cir. 2000)
(quoting Beck v. Ohio, 379 U.S. 89, 91 (1964)). An officer’s determination of probable cause
should be “based upon the totality of the circumstances and must consider both the inculpatory
and exculpatory evidence,” Jones v. Clark County, 959 F.3d 748, 757 (6th Cir. 2020) (citation
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modified), abrogated on other grounds by Thompson v. Clark, 596 U.S. 36 (2022); she may not
“look only at the evidence of guilt while ignoring all exculpatory evidence,” Ouza v. City of
Dearborn Heights, 969 F.3d 265, 279 (6th Cir. 2020). Typically, “once probable cause is
established,” an officer may arrest a suspect; she “is under no duty to investigate further or to look
for additional evidence which may exculpate the accused” before affecting the arrest. Jones, 959
F.3d at 757 (citation modified). In the malicious prosecution context, though, an officer can be
liable if probable cause was lacking either for the arrest or for the “continued detention” of the
plaintiff after arrest. Id. at 759. We have also recognized a rebuttable presumption that probable
cause was satisfied in malicious prosecution cases where the plaintiff was indicted by a grand jury.
See Lester v. Roberts, 986 F.3d 599, 608 (6th Cir. 2021).
Here, there is no presumption of probable cause because a grand jury chose not to indict
Wadkins, see id., and the record contains several pieces of testamentary and documentary evidence
that could cause a prudent person to doubt that he killed Brown. See Gardenhire, 205 F.3d at 315.
Klingshirn was required to consider the totality of the circumstances presented by this evidence,
including any exculpatory evidence, when making her probable cause determination. See Jones,
959 F.3d at 757. The inculpatory evidence against Wadkins included the geolocation data that
placed a device associated with him in the area of 580 Breckenridge; but this evidence suggests
that he may have been present at a residence where multiple men were reportedly playing poker
and does not conclusively show that he committed a crime. The rest of the evidence against
Wadkins consisted of various statements from witnesses and anonymous tipsters; there was no
DNA or other physical evidence at the scene to implicate him, and no murder weapon was found.
The investigation also revealed significant exculpatory evidence, including several alternate
suspects. There was Buford Lyvers, at whose name Brown allegedly blinked while on his deathbed
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and who was named by numerous witnesses and tipsters; Dontaevius Bowie, who was listed in a
police database as going by “Ghost” and had recently completed a manslaughter sentence; and AJ
King, possibly accompanied by an unidentified man from Michigan, who allegedly approached
Brown’s niece and took credit for his killing.
The witness statements of Brown’s sister and Lyvers merit special consideration. The
district court relied particularly on the sister’s story regarding another shooting that Brown
survived over a decade earlier, and for which he allegedly held Wadkins responsible, as a possible
motive. But that evidence goes only so far. First, the record contains no corroborating evidence
regarding this prior shooting. Second, there is nothing in the record to explain why this previous
shooting, even assuming Wadkins was responsible, would supply a motive for Wadkins to shoot
Brown again a decade later. Third, relying on Lashonda’s account of this previous shooting to
establish probable cause would require one to disregard many of her other (contradictory)
statements—including her statements from the May 5 interview that instead implicated Lyvers and
Arsenio Jackson of being involved in a plot to murder Brown and cover it up, and AJ King and the
man from Michigan (or his brother) of carrying out the shooting; as well as her later statement, in
January 2022, expressing her belief that it was Lyvers who fired the shot that killed Brown. Just
as an officer may not “look only at the evidence of guilt while ignoring all exculpatory evidence,”
Ouza, 969 F.3d at 279, she cannot look only at the inculpatory details of a witness’s statement
while overlooking the exculpatory ones. Finally, an officer’s probable cause determination should
be grounded in “reasonably trustworthy information.” Gardenhire, 205 F.3d at 315 (citation
modified). Lashonda’s statements included many serious and sometimes elaborate allegations, not
only about Brown’s killing, but about herself having been tracked and followed closely for many
years by Jackson and his associates, who would kill her if they ever found out she talked. On this
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record, a prudent officer would likely have hesitated to rely on Lashonda’s inconsistent statements
to find there was probable cause to arrest Wadkins.
There are also objective reasons to doubt the trustworthiness of Lyvers, who was credited
in the criminal complaint as “a cooperating witness who was present when the shooting occurred”
and “provided details of the incident which can be corroborated by evidence located at the scene.”
R. 32-17, PageID 201. We have instructed that “an eyewitness identification will constitute
sufficient probable cause unless, at the time of the arrest, there is an apparent reason for the officer
to believe that the eyewitness was lying, did not accurately describe what he had seen, or was in
some fashion mistaken regarding his recollection of the confrontation.” Ouza, 969 F.3d at 282
(quoting Ahlers v. Schebil, 188 F.3d 365, 370 (6th Cir. 1999)) (citation modified). In this case,
there were several reasons for a prudent officer to suspect Lyvers might be lying in his October 6
interview. He requested to speak with a detective in a case in which he was a suspect, after months
of self-interested silence. By relaying the story that he did, Lyvers asserted his innocence of the
killing while admitting he was present when it was committed—and even that it was committed
using his gun. Not only did these circumstances surrounding Lyvers’s interview suggest his
information might not be trustworthy, but key details of the story he relayed conflicted with other
evidence. According to Lyvers, Wadkins leaned over during a poker game and—at the opportune
moment, apparently without warning—grabbed Lyvers’s gun that was secured in his waistband to
shoot Brown. Both the circumstances of this interview and some of its content might give “a
prudent” officer reason to question whether Lyvers provided “reasonably trustworthy
information.” Gardenhire, 205 F.3d at 315 (citation modified).
In addition, Lyvers’s account—in which Wadkins shot Brown face-to-face from inside the
residence when Brown walked through the doorway—was inconsistent with other evidence
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regarding where and how the shot was fired. Namely, Brown gave a statement to police on the
night of the shooting that he was shot from behind while walking on the sidewalk, which was
consistent with the shell casings police found on the sidewalk at the scene, and the autopsy report
later confirmed that the bullet entered Brown’s body through his back. This context might have
also prompted a prudent officer to question whether the bullet holes in the walls and door of 580
Breckenridge were in fact related to this crime; with no murder weapon, there was no direct
evidence to tie the copper bullet that police recovered from the door on October 21 to Brown’s
killing, let alone to Wadkins personally. On this record, it appears close whether Klingshirn had
probable cause. But we need not answer that question because we can resolve this case on qualified
immunity grounds alone.
B. Qualified Immunity
The district court did not reach the issues of whether Klingshirn “made, influenced, or
participated in the decision to prosecute,” Cotton, 176 F.4th at 901 (citation modified), or whether
she was entitled to qualified immunity. But we may “affirm a decision of the district court on any
grounds supported by the record, even if different from those relied on by the district court.” Garza
v. Lansing Sch. Dist., 972 F.3d 853, 877 (6th Cir. 2020) (quoting Brown v. Tidwell, 169 F.3d 330,
332 (6th Cir. 1999) (per curiam)).
At summary judgment, a government official is entitled to qualified immunity “when,
viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the challenged conduct did not violate
clearly established constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.”
Gillman v. City of Troy, 126 F.4th 1152, 1158 (6th Cir. 2025) (citation modified). The Supreme
Court has emphasized that courts should take care “not to define clearly established law at a high
level of generality.” Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 12 (2015) (per curiam) (citation modified).
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Still, we have instructed that “[t]he operative inquiry is not whether a previous court faced perfectly
analogous facts—it is ‘whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his conduct was
unlawful in the situation he confronted.’” Cahoo v. SAS Analytics Inc., 912 F.3d 887, 904 (6th
Cir. 2019) (quoting Baynes v. Cleland, 799 F.3d 600, 610 (6th Cir. 2015)). Or as the Supreme
Court put it recently, “[a] right is clearly established when it is sufficiently clear that every
reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right.” Zorn v.
Linton, 146 S. Ct. 926, 930 (2026) (per curiam) (citation modified).
On this record, it is not “sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have
understood” there was no probable cause to arrest and prosecute Wadkins. Id. Regarding the
probable cause issue, Wadkins relies on the principle that “[a]n eyewitness identification will
constitute sufficient probable cause unless, at the time of the arrest, there is an apparent reason for
the officer to believe that the eyewitness was lying, did not accurately describe what he had seen,
or was in some fashion mistaken regarding his recollection of the confrontation.” Ahlers, 188 F.3d
at 370 (citation modified). For the reasons we explained in the previous section, it was reasonably
apparent that Lyvers had reasons to lie, and his testimony was in tension with other evidence
including the autopsy report and Brown’s statements on the night of the shooting. Here, however,
Wadkins has not shown that the standard we announced in Ahlers made it obvious that Klingshirn
lacked probable cause because he has not addressed how a reasonable officer in her position should
have understood the Lyvers interview in the context of this particular investigation, which included
other evidence pointing in multiple directions, such as Lashonda Brown’s statements. While much
of that other evidence was problematic, we are not convinced that “every reasonable official”
would have concluded that Klingshirn lacked probable cause under clearly established law. Zorn,
146 S. Ct. at 930; see Williams v. City of Canton, 168 F.4th 933, 942 (6th Cir. 2026). Wadkins’s
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failure to overcome qualified immunity on this element is a sufficient basis to affirm the district
court’s judgment, regardless of whether she “made, influenced, or participated in the decision to
prosecute,” Cotton, 176 F.4th at 901 (citation modified), by making deliberately false or reckless
statements in the criminal complaint.
Thus, we hold Klingshirn was entitled to qualified immunity.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM.
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