Bellamy v. City of N.Y.

• Decision Date: 29 January 2019
• Docket Number: August Term, 2017,No. 17-1859-cv,17-1859-cv
• Citation: 914 F.3d 727
• Parties: Kareem BELLAMY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, John J. Gillen, and Michael F. Solomeno, Defendants-Appellees, John Doe 1, John Doe 2, Supervising Officers at the NYPD 101st Precinct, Vincent NMI Pepe, and Robert Schruhl, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

914 F.3d 727

Kareem BELLAMY, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.CITY OF NEW YORK, John J. Gillen, and Michael F. Solomeno, Defendants-Appellees,John Doe 1, John Doe 2, Supervising Officers at the NYPD 101st Precinct, Vincent NMI Pepe, and Robert Schruhl, Defendants.

No. 17-1859-cv

August Term, 2017

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: April 26, 2018

Decided: January 29, 2019

Joel B. Rudin, Law Office of Joel B. Rudin, P.C., New York, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Megan E.K. Montcalm (Richard Dearing, on the brief ), for Zachary W. Carter, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.

Richard D. Willstatter, Vice Chair, Amicus Curiae Committee of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Chair, Amicus Curiae Committee of the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, White Plains, NY; Adele Bernhard, Innocence Network, New York, NY; Barry Scheck, Innocence Project, New York, NY; Ross E. Firsenbaum, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Door LLP, New York NY, for Amici Curiae National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Innocence Network, and Innocence Project.

Before: Walker and Jacobs, Circuit Judges, Shea, District Judge.^*

Judge Jacobs dissents in a separate opinion.

John M. Walker, Jr., Circuit 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, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (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-Appellees' 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.

We conclude that Bellamy has raised material issues of fact as to certain, but not all, of his claims that Detectives Solomeno and Gillen fabricated and withheld material evidence, and we therefore VACATE in part and AFFIRM in part the dismissal of Bellamy's claims against them. We further conclude that the City of New York may be held liable for the consequences of the alleged policies of the QCDA's office under the Monell doctrine, and that Bellamy has raised material issues of fact as to the underlying constitutional violations: the non-disclosure of financial benefits received by one of the state's principal witnesses and the impropriety of his prosecutor's summation. Consequently, we VACATE the dismissal of Bellamy's claims against the City.

We REMAND the cause for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

BACKGROUND

This appeal requires us to address the complex and protracted facts surrounding the events pertaining to the 1994 killing of James Abbott. While Plaintiff-Appellant Kareem Bellamy was ultimately convicted in New York state court for Abbott's murder, the uncertain circumstances of the killing, and the investigation and trial that followed, sparked a lengthy, circuitous, and at times dramatic legal fight that continued into post-conviction proceedings. That battle began with what the record shows to have been a hard-fought criminal trial with no certain outcome in sight. Ultimately, Bellamy was acquitted on the charge of intentional murder but convicted of depraved indifference murder and unlawful possession of a weapon. After Bellamy exhausted his direct appeal opportunities without success, the post-conviction litigation proceeded in two general stages. First, after a prolonged and complicated state post-conviction process, the state court vacated Bellamy's convictions in light of newly discovered evidence that another individual might have committed the Abbott murder. Second, following the state's decision not to re-try him and his release from prison, Bellamy sought civil relief in federal court alleging that his criminal trial was infected with constitutional error. The instant lawsuit concerns only the latter fight, which pertains not to how or why Bellamy was released but whether constitutional error led to his conviction in the first place.

In assessing the constitutional propriety of Bellamy's criminal trial, we are aided by (i) an extensive summary judgment record, which includes documents related to the investigation and prosecution of Bellamy; (ii) the record of Bellamy's criminal trial; (iii) the record of Bellamy's state post-conviction proceedings; and (iv) extensive deposition testimony taken in this action.¹ Although much is in contention in this case, what follows are the undisputed facts from this complicated record and other relevant facts that we identify as remaining in dispute.

I. James Abbott's Murder and the Resulting Investigation

Shortly before 10:00 a.m., on Saturday, April 9, 1994, an assailant fatally stabbed James Abbott near a phone booth during an altercation after Abbott left a C-Town Supermarket in Far Rockaway, Queens. Detectives Michael Solomeno and John Gillen of the NYPD's 101st Precinct were assigned to investigate. In canvassing the area, Detective Gillen, with other officers, entered the C-Town store with a photo of Abbott to see if anyone had witnessed anything. Detective Gillen spoke with Jay Judel, a C-Town deli clerk, who reported that Abbott, a regular customer, had been in the store alone that morning. Another officer interviewed Andrew Carter, a wheelchair-bound man living adjacent to the C-Town who said that he saw the attack while waiting at a bus stop down the street from the phone booth where the altercation took place. Carter told the officer that he saw three males he did not recognize leave the C-Town, and that when one stopped to use the payphone, the other two "started punching and kicking" him, and that "one of the males then produced a knife and started stabbing the victim numerous times about the body and head." App'x 234. Carter told the officer that the two men fled on foot.

The following week, on April 15, 1994, Detective Gillen received a phone call from a woman who identified herself as Anna Simmons. Simmons reported that she had overheard two individuals, Levon ("Ish") Martin and Rodney ("Turk") Harris, discussing the Abbott murder. Simmons said that she heard Ish and Turk bragging that they had killed Abbott following Abbott's refusal to join their gang, the Regulators. The following day, Detectives Solomeno and Gillen re-interviewed Carter, who was unable to identify Ish and Turk from a photo array. In the days that followed, Detectives Solomeno and Gillen tried to track down Simmons, but never found her.

On April 22, 1994, Linda Sanchez, a C-Town cashier who was working at the store on the morning of Abbott's murder, called the 101st Precinct.² Detectives Solomeno and Gillen then interviewed her at her home. Sanchez told the detectives that on the morning of the murder, Abbott, whom she recognized, entered the store, collected certain goods and got in a cashier's line, and that two other men then came into the store and ultimately got in line behind Abbott. After making his purchases, Abbott remained in the store to speak with the store's manager, "JJ," while the two men behind Abbott in line had left the store and started walking through the parking lot "toward the chicken store." App'x 237. Sanchez noted that before they left the parking lot, the two men stopped and looked back at the C-Town store. Sanchez herself then walked to the parking lot to collect shopping carts whereupon she saw Abbott walk out of the store...