Wade Eaton, BridgeTower Media Newswires
"Just Mercy," a film currently showing throughout the nation, describes the efforts of a young Harvard law graduate, Bryan Stevenson, who traveled south to represent death row inmates. Stevenson established the federally funded Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama.
The film follows the case of Walter McMillian, an African-American sentenced to death in Monroe County, Alabama for the 1986 murder of a young white woman. McMillian had spent a year on death row prior to his trial and five more years after his conviction.
In 1993, Stevenson obtained his release by proving that the local sheriff had suborned perjury and suppressed substantial exculpatory evidence. The film ends with a celebration of Stevenson's efforts.
The film does not address the fact that Stevenson later filed a §1983 civil rights action in federal court against the county, the sheriff and other law enforcement officials, individually and in their official capacities. The claims against Monroe County were dismissed by the District Court on the grounds that a local sheriff was a "policymaker" of the state and not the county. Under Monell v. Department of Social Services of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 58 (1978), no claim could be brought against the sheriff as a state official. Stevenson appealed the Eleventh Circuit's affirmance to the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote for the 5-4 majority, citing various provisions of the Alabama Constitution in support of their holding that an Alabama county sheriff was a state official. In 1879 the Constitution had been amended to include local sheriff as a state executive officer. In 1901, the Constitution was again amended to provide for the impeachment of county sheriffs who permitted mobs to remove black inmates from the county jail and lynch them.
Based on its interpretation of the Alabama Constitution, the court ruled that Monroe County was not liable. The court did hold that there was no universal rule, that the question of official capacity must be determined by the particular state's governmental structure. McMillian v. Monroe County, 520 U.S. 781 (1997). (One can listen to Stevenson's argument before the Supreme Court at https://www.oyez.org/ cases/1996/96-542.)
On remand to the District Court, McMillian survived various motions to dismiss and was granted summary judgment. McMillian v. Johnson, 878 F.Supp. 1473 (1995). The case was settled in 1999.
Stevenson continues his work and is also a professor at NYU law school.
Fast forward 20 years to a matter with stark similarities to McMillian. Before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals was Bellamy v. City of New York, 914 F.3 727 (2019). Kareem Bellamy was convicted of second-degree murder and had spent 14 years of a 25-life sentence. A noted criminal defense attorney, Joel B. Rudin, obtained the reversal of Bellamy's conviction. He demonstrated that New York Police Department investigators fabricated inculpatory evidence, failed to disclose exculpatory or impeaching evidence and that the prosecutor made prejudicial improper remarks during his summation.
Rudin thereafter filed a §1983 civil rights action against New York City, Queens County district attorney and members of his staff. The Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision citing McMillian, determined that a district attorney was a state official in determining whether to indict an individual, but was a city official with regard to matters pertaining to the actual prosecution of the case. Accordingly, the City of New York was liable under Monell.
No request for en banc or Supreme Court review was sought. Attorney Rudin is currently preparing for trial on damages.
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Wade Eaton served as an assistant attorney general and is a former partner at Chamberlain D'Amanda in Rochester.
Published: Thu, Feb 13, 2020
