In a fractured en banc decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently dismissed a $2.3 million civil judgment won by a former prison inmate declared actually innocent after the city of Brownsville failed to turn over potentially exculpatory video evidence in his case.

The decision, in Alvarez v. City of Brownsville, involves the 2005 detention of George Alvarez, a 17-year-old special-education student who had been arrested by Brownsville police for public intoxication and burglary of a motor vehicle.