But there were also jabs at Mr. Brown for convictions that were overturned for prosecutorial misconduct, including one in which a man won $3.5 million for his 12 years in prison for a 1992 attempted-murder conviction. A federal court overturned the conviction, finding that the prosecution had presented false testimony from its key witness.

The lawsuit leading to the payment charged that about 80 Queens convictions over a 15-year period ending in 2003 had been overturned because of prosecutorial wrongdoing. Mr. Brown replied that “over two-thirds of the cases cited” were prosecuted before he became district attorney, and that all the cases listed “represent less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the hundreds of thousands” prosecuted during that period. He said “many” of the dismissed convictions were followed by convictions in retrials or by guilty pleas.