At bottom, this is the rare case where a wrongfully convicted plaintiff has alleged that, (i) despite the New York Court of Appeals’ conclusion prior to his murder conviction that the “Chinese Wall” policy of the Queens County District Attorney’s Office (the “QCDAO”) was unconstitutional, the QCDAO nevertheless followed that policy years later in his criminal case, and a Brady violation resulting from that policy caused his wrongful conviction; and (ii) despite at least 65 decisions prior to his murder conviction in which New York state appellate courts concluded that QCDAO prosecutors had deprived criminal defendants of a fair trial by engaging in summation misconduct, the Queens County District Attorney (the “QCDA”) did not discipline or institute further training after those decisions, notwithstanding an obvious need to do so, and the trial prosecutor in his criminal case deprived him of a fair trial by engaging in similar summation misconduct.

Under controlling precedent, these well-pled allegations of the systemic, policy driven violations of Bellamy’s civil rights are sufficient to state a claim and entitle him to pursue further discovery. This Court should reverse, reaffirm its holdings in Myers v. County of Orange, 157 F.3d 66 (2d Cir. 1998), and Walker v. City of New York, 974 F.2d 293 (2d Cir. 1992), and make clear that wrongfully convicted individuals continue to have a valid cause of action against a New York municipality where they can show that their wrongful convictions resulted from such unconstitutional policies and practices by a DA or other local policymaker.