NEWS: July 30—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has upheld a fed­er­al dis­trict court rul­ing per­mit­ting a civ­il law­suit by North Carolina death-row exonerees Henry McCollum and Leon Brown to pro­ceed to tri­al. McCollum and Brown, two intel­lec­tu­al­ly dis­abled broth­ers who were wrong­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the rape and mur­der of a young girl, allege that police coerced false con­fes­sions from them and then failed to inves­ti­gate alter­na­tive sus­pects, and that they were pros­e­cut­ed even though their coerced state­ments were incon­sis­tent with how the mur­der was actu­al­ly com­mit­ted. The appeals court reject­ed the offi­cers’ claim that they were legal­ly immune from being sued for their actions.