"The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently rendered a very important decision allowing the assertion of §1983 claims against the City of New York based on a district attorney’s office policies and practices. In Bellamy v. City of New York, 914 F.3d 747 (2d Cir. 2019), the Second Circuit held that the Queens County District Attorney is a City policymaker with respect to the training, supervision, and discipline of Assistance District Attorneys. The decision paves the way for the plaintiff’s §1983 wrongful conviction Monell claims to proceed against the City... 

Kareem Bellamy’s §1983 action arose from his wrongful convictions in New York Supreme Court, Queens County for second-degree murder and criminal possession of a weapon. He was incarcerated for 14 years until the state court vacated his conviction based on newly discovered evidence that another individual may have committed the murder.

In his §1983 complaint Bellamy alleged that: (1) Detectives Solomeno and Gillen fabricated evidence of Bellamy’s guilt and withheld exculpatory impeachment evidence, namely, the full scope of relocation benefits provided to a prosecution witness who was in a witness protection program; and (2) Assistant District Attorney (ADA) David Guy of the Queens County District Attorney’s Office (QCDA) engaged in serious misconduct that violated Bellamy’s due process right to a fair trial when he told the jury near the end of his summation, “I know who committed the murder” (meaning Bellamy); 'Where is there proof defendant had no motive to kill somebody?’; and that Bellamy was 'not going to get away with it, not this time,' which permitted the jury to infer 'that Bellamy had committed other uncharged crimes at other times (murder, no less, the crime for which Bellamy was on trial) and that the government had evidence of those crimes to which the jury was not privy.' Bellamy, 914 F.3d at 763 (citations omitted). During his summation Guy also called Bellamy 'a liar.' 

The Monell claims against the City alleged that (1) the QCDA had a 'policy of purposefully shielding from prosecutors (and thereby the defense) the full scope of relocation benefits given to witnesses in its witness protection program'; 914 F.3d at 733; and (2) the QCDA’s office was deliberately indifferent to its systemic failures to train and discipline its ADA’s with respect to improper summations." by Martin A. Schwartz, New York Law Journal. Bellamy v. City of New York, No. 17-1859 (2d Cir. 2019).

Kareem Bellamy (convicted in 1995, exonerated in 2011) was 1 of 25 wrongful convictions by the Queens DA, that were subsequently overturned and the persons exonerated for crimes they did not commit.