Mary Tatum v. Steven Moody

A jury found Los Angeles Police Department (“LAPD”) detectives Steven Moody and Robert Pulido liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating Michael Walker’s constitutional rights by (1) acting with deliberate indifference to, or reckless disregard for, Walker’s rights or for the truth, in (2) withholding or concealing evidence that (3) strongly indicated Walker’s innocence of the crimes for which he was held, and was reasonably likely to have resulted in dis missal of the charges against him if revealed. Indeed, dismissal of the charges is exactly what happened when Walker’s defense counsel finally obtained the exculpatory material, after Walker had endured pretrial incarceration for over two years.

Walker, now deceased, was incarcerated pending trial on charges arising from a series of demand-note robberies of small retail businesses in Los Angeles. Detectives Moody and Pulido were responsible for investigating the crimes. They knew, before Walker was bound over for trial, that additional demand-note robberies, perpetrated with the same distinctive modus operandi as those for which Walker was being held, had occurred in the same part of Los Angeles after Walker was in…