Does a plaintiff suing police for falsifying evidence against him in a criminal case need to show that he was officially exonerated in that case? The answer to that question, like too many other important questions affecting people’s ability to be compensated for wrongful convictions, is: No one really knows.

Two kinds of police misconduct are common in wrongful conviction cases: First, hiding evidence favorable to the defense, or Brady material; second, fabricating evidence, which can mean coercing a suspect or witness into making a false statement or inventing a statement that a witness never made.