Before: Walker and Jacobs, C.JJ, Shea, D.J.*
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. No. 12cv01025 -Ann M. Donnelly, Judge. Kareem Bellamy filed this action in the Eastern District of New York under New York state law and 42 U.S.C. §1983 following the vacatur of his state convictions for murder in the second degree under N.Y. Penal Law §125.25(2) and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree under N.Y. Penal Law §265.01(2), for which he served more than 14 years of a 25 years-to-life sentence. Bellamy sued investigating Detectives Michael Solomeno and John Gillen of the New York Police Department (and certain John Does) as well as the City of New York (at times, the “City”), alleging that each are responsible for constitutional infirmities that infected Bellamy’s criminal trial, caused his wrongful conviction, and resulted in damages. The district court granted the Defendants’ motion for summary judgment. As relevant on appeal, Bellamy alleged that Detectives Solomeno and Gillen fabricated inculpatory evidence and failed to disclose material exculpatory or impeaching evidence depriving Bellamy of his rights to due process and a fair trial. Bellamy alleged that the City is responsible, pursuant to Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), for violations of Bellamy’s due process rights caused by certain policies of the office of the Queens County District Attorney (“QCDA”), the office that prosecuted Bellamy. Principally, Bellamy alleged that (i) the QCDA’s office failed to disclose to the defense substantial benefits received by a key state witness due to an office policy of purposefully shielding from prosecutors (and thereby the defense) the full scope of relocation benefits given to witnesses in its witness protection program; and (ii) his prosecutor made prejudicial improper remarks during his summation, which was ultimately a result of the QCDA’s office’s customary indifference to its prosecutors’ summation misconduct.The district court (Donnelly, J.) granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed each of Bellamy’s claims. As relevant here, the district court rejected the claims against Detectives Solomeno and Gillen on the ground that Bellamy raised no material issue of fact as to whether either detective fabricated or withheld material evidence. The district court rejected the claims against the City, concluding that the City could not as a matter of law be liable under Monell for the alleged policies of the QCDA’s office, and that, in any event, Bellamy did not raise a material issue of fact as to either of the constitutional violations underlying his Monell claims.The questions for our determination are whether Bellamy has produced sufficient evidence to raise material issues of fact that must be tried to a jury and whether the district court erred in dismissing the Monell claims as a matter of law. If not, summary judgment was proper; if so, then summary judgment should not have been granted.
