DETROIT (LN) — The Sixth Circuit affirmed a $10 million jury verdict against Detroit Detective Moises Jimenez on Wednesday, rejecting his argument that a state court’s vacatur of Alexandre Ansari’s murder conviction was procedurally defective and therefore insufficient to clear the Heck bar for Ansari’s federal civil rights lawsuit.
Ansari, who was convicted in 2015 of first-degree murder and assault with intent to commit murder in the 2012 shooting death of Ileana Cuevas, sued Jimenez under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 after the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) concluded Ansari was not guilty.
The CIU’s 2018 investigation concluded that Jose Sandoval, the ex-boyfriend of survivor Rosalind Barley, likely orchestrated the killings. A prosecutor’s memo cited in the opinion noted that Jimenez “has now admitted to deliberately failing to investigate Jose Sandoval because Sandoval is tied to a powerful Mexican drug cartel” and feared for his family’s safety.
Following the CIU review, the Wayne County Prosecutor and Ansari filed a stipulated order in state court to dismiss the charges. A circuit judge entered an order vacating Ansari’s convictions and sentences, stating the parties agreed that “newly discovered evidence, as well as the Wayne County Prosecutor’s own investigation, warrants relief.”
Ansari was released from prison on March 15, 2019. He subsequently filed the federal suit alleging Jimenez violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights by withholding material exculpatory evidence in violation of Brady v. Maryland.
Jimenez argued on appeal that Ansari’s claim was barred by Heck v. Humphrey, which prevents § 1983 plaintiffs from seeking damages if success would imply the invalidity of an outstanding conviction. Jimenez contended the state court’s vacatur was not procedurally proper under Michigan law and thus did not constitute a valid invalidation.
The Sixth Circuit rejected this argument, writing that Heck gives federal courts “no license to disregard the state court’s final judgment on the ground that the state court failed to follow its own procedures.”
“Applying the Heck bar to preclude Ansari’s § 1983 claim would be inconsistent with the reasons for the doctrine,” the court wrote. “The Heck bar exists in part ‘to avoid conflicting resolutions of state criminal cases and federal civil rights proceedings.’”
The court distinguished the case from Bolick v. Pennsylvania, where a third circuit court held a claim barred because a state appellate court had declared the trial court’s vacatur order a “legal nullity.” Here, no state appellate court had invalidated the circuit court’s order.
Jimenez also argued he was entitled to qualified immunity, claiming it was not clearly established that police officers had independent Brady duties in 2012. The court rejected this, noting that Sixth Circuit precedent in Moldowan v. City of Warren had deemed such duties clearly established since 1990.
Jimenez further argued that no case had clearly established that the specific “Sandoval information” he withheld—described by his counsel as “uncorroborated rumors and anonymous tips”—triggered a Brady duty. The court ruled this argument was forfeited because Jimenez failed to raise it in his Rule 50(a) motion for judgment as a matter of law.
The panel also affirmed the district court’s denial of Jimenez’s motion for a new trial, rejecting his challenges to evidentiary rulings and jury instructions. The court found the district court did not abuse its discretion in excluding a 911-page prosecutor’s file and limiting the admission of an internal memo to a single paragraph to avoid unfair prejudice.
Jimenez is represented by Mary Massaron of Plunkett Cooney. Ansari is represented by Beth A. Wittmann of Granzotto & Wittmann.
The panel included Judges Alice Batchelder, Gilbert S. Giles, and Jane B. Stranch.