Judge Too Quick to Deny Immunity in Unjust Conviction Case

Wednesday, August 26, 2026

Page 3

Ninth Circuit:

Judge Too Quick to Deny Immunity in Unjust Conviction Case

In Matter Filed by Two Men Who Were Declared Innocent After 17 Years in Prison, Opinion Says Jurist Wrongly Blended Malicious Prosecution Claims Against Each Officer Together in Declining Summary Judgment to All

By a MetNews Staff Writer

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held yesterday that qualified immunity was improperly denied to three Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department deputies accused of falsifying evidence against two men who were charged as teenagers relating to a 2004 shooting and served 17 years in prison before they were declared factually innocent, saying that a District Court judge failed to analyze allegations against each defendant on an individualized basis.

In yesterday’s memorandum decision, Circuit Judge Morgan Christen and Senior Circuit Judges Michael Daly Hawkins and N. Randy Smith declared that one officer was due summary judgment because “[t]here was no evidence which would support a finding” that the allegedly false information he included in a report was the cause of either man’s convictions. As to the other two defendants, they opined:

“[T]he district court did not separately assess the materiality of the evidence each Defendant allegedly deliberately fabricated, or whether the allegedly fabricated evidence proximately caused each Plaintiff’s injuries….Rather, it blended Defendant-and-claim-specific evidence together and analyzed causation as a whole. Without the district court’s detailed review…., our ability to meaningfully review the merits of Defendants’ appeal is curtailed.”

They reversed and vacated in part, remanding the case with directions to the court to better articulate the factual and legal basis for each of the plaintiffs’ claims against the officers and saying that the court “retains jurisdiction” over any “subsequent appeal of the district court’s decision regarding Defendants’ motion for summary judgment on qualified immunity.”

Factual Innocence

The question arose after Juan Rayford and Dupree Glass were declared factually innocent in 2023 after they were convicted of attempted murder and other crimes in late 2004 relating to a shooting at a Lancaster home.

They filed a complaint in March 2024, asserting causes of action under 42 U.S.C. §1983 based on allegations that Deputies Steven Gross, Gregory Maxwell, and Christopher Keeling took actions to “frame” the two high school students, who were 18 and 17 years old at the time, rather than pursuing the gang member who later confessed to firing the shots.

Rayford and Glass alleged that Maxwell, on the night of the incident, falsely reported that six eyewitnesses said that they observed two men shooting at home and wrongly identified Glass as a part of the “Pueblo Bishops” gang. They claimed that Keeling indicated in an investigative summary that the plaintiffs were later identified as the shooters, and that Gross lied by indicating that both men had in the past claimed gang affiliation.

At trial, two witnesses testified that they saw Glass shoot directly at the house, but that Rayford fired his weapon into the air. Bullets grazed two victims, but no-one was seriously injured.

On June 16, 2020, Div. Seven of this district’s Court of Appeal granted petitions for writs of habeas corpus, vacating the two men’s attempted-murder convictions based on recent California Supreme Court jurisprudence limiting “kill-zone” theories and remanding to the trial court to decide how to proceed on the remaining charges.

2021 Confession

In October 2020, they were sentenced to time-served on the surviving counts and released. They then sought a declaration of factual innocence after a man named Chad McZeal confessed to the Lancaster shooting in 2021; Los Angeles Superior Court Judge H. Clay Jacke granted the request in April 2023.

After the deputies filed motions for summary judgment, District Court Judge Sunshine S. Sykes of the Central District of California granted the request only as to a state-law negligence cause of action and a municipal liability claim against the county. She wrote:

“[A] reasonable jury could find that the deputies’ conduct violated Plaintiffs’ [clearly established] constitutional rights not to be prosecuted on the basis of false evidence. Thus, because Deputy Gross, Deputy Maxwell, and Deputy Keeling’s entitlement to qualified immunity depends on the resolution of disputed issues of fact, summary judgment based on qualified immunity is not appropriate.”

Each of the three officers appealed.

Hawkins, Smith, and Christen noted that a party asserting a claim of deliberate fabrication under §1983 must establish that the defendants intentionally falsified evidence and that action caused the plaintiffs to be deprived of liberty in violation of the Constitution. Taking issue with Sykes’ causation analysis they wrote:

“We reverse the district court’s denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity to Deputy Maxwell on both Plaintiffs’ fabrication of evidence claims. There is no evidence which would support a finding that the mention of the gang ‘Pueblo Bishops’ in his investigative report was the cause in fact of either Glass’s or Rayford’s convictions. Maxwell’s investigative report was not admitted at the preliminary hearing or trial nor was the ‘Pueblo Bishops’ gang affiliation incorporated into the prosecutor’s theory of the case, and Maxwell did not testify.”

As to the other two deputies, they wrote:

“[T]he district court found a genuine dispute of material fact that Deputy Gross falsely documented in field identification cards that Rayford and Glass were affiliated with specific gangs. The district court also found a genuine dispute of material fact about whether Deputy Keeling falsely documented in investigatory materials that Rayford and Glass were affiliated with specific gangs, as well as eyewitness reports to the shooting.”

The judges acknowledged that prosecutors had at least partially relied on a theory that gang tensions were involved in the shooting but remarked:

“We remand to the district court with direction to articulate: (1) the factual and legal basis for each Plaintiff’s fabrication-of-evidence claim against Defendants Gross and Keeling, taking care to distinguish between claims premised on fabrication of eyewitness testimony and fabrication of gang-affiliation evidence; and (2) whether the evidence supports each element of each claim if the disputed facts are viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving parties.”

Malicious-Prosecution Claims

Addressing the plaintiffs’ theory of malicious prosecution, they said that Glass’ claim was foreclosed by the fact that witnesses testified that they observed him firing shots at the house. They continued:

“[N]o witness testified…that Rayford shot at the house, or at any person. Accordingly, there is no testimony…to provide probable cause independent from the allegedly fabricated evidence….But as with Plaintiffs’ fabrication-of-evidence claims, the district court must do a detailed review of Rayford’s specific allegations against each Defendant and consider whether the record evidence raises material disputes of fact going to the elements of this cause of action.”

As to the plaintiffs’ so-called Brady claims, based on an alleged concealment of exculpatory evidence, they reasoned:

“The district court interpreted the Brady claim as the suppression of the fact that evidence was fabricated. In doing so, the district court relied on an unpublished [2005 Ninth Circuit] decision…that has not since been followed. The district court’s formulation of Plaintiffs’ Brady claim is not supported by clearly established law.”

The panel added:

“Our review of the district court’s order was significantly hindered by ubiquitous assertions of fact within the briefs that are unsupported by citations to the record. As we remand for the district court to conduct a more fulsome analysis, the court’s order should include record cites identifying the factual theories the parties rely upon to support their claims and defenses.”

The cases are Rayford v. Keeling, 26-2279, Rayford v. Gross, 26-2280, and Rayford v. Maxwell, 26-2283.