Jabbar Collins was incarcerated by state authorities for more than 16 years. On June 9, 2010, Judge Irizarry of this Court issued a writ of habeas corpus ordering the dismissal of the indictment and his immediate release.
Collins now seeks damages stemming from the wrongful deprivation of his liberty. Proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and New York law, he sues two members of the New York City Police Department (“NYPD”), nine members of the Kings County District Attorney’s Office (“KCDA”), and the City of New York (“the City”).
The KCDA defendants and the City move to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). The KCDA defendants argue that they are entitled to absolute immunity and that certain claims are not viable under the governing law. The City argues that Collins has not alleged a plausible case for municipal liability under either federal or state law. For the following reasons, the motion is granted in part and denied in part.
I
The facts are drawn from Collins’s complaint. The Court must accept them as true and draw all inferences in Collins’s favor. See Mills v. Polar Molecular Corp.,
A. Pre-Indictment Events
Shortly before noon on February 6, 1994, Abraham Pollack of Williamsburg wаs shot and killed during a robbery. Witnesses described the perpetrator as a young black man suffering a stab wound inflicted by a bystander who had come to Pollack’s aid.
Police received an anonymous phone call blaming Collins for the crime. Notwithstanding alibis from his mother and.girlfriend, police sought Collins for questioning. He voluntarily appeared at the 90th Precinct on February 18, 1994, whereupon he was immediately handcuffed and arrested by police officers Vincent Gerecitano and José R. Hernandez.
These two officers found no evidence of a knife wound on Collins’s body. Moreover, Collins was presented to four eyewitnesses in lineups; none recognized him. After several hours of detention, Gerecitano and Hernandez released Collins.
A few days later, Edwin Oliva was booked- in the precinct on an unrelated charge of attempted robbery. After several hours of interrogation, Gerecitano and Hernandez “coerced [Oliva] into signing a writtеn statement” that, among other things, falsely accused Collins of planning to rob Pollack at gunpoint. Compl. ¶ 60. The officers offered Oliva, a heroin addict going through withdrawal, methadone treatment and possible leniency on his own charges. Oliva eventually pleaded guilty to a relatively minor charge and, after a few months’ incarceration, was placed in a work-release program.
Gerecitano and Hernandez used Oliva’s false statement to initiate a criminal complaint. In the complaint, Hernandez falsely stated that he had been , “informed by a witness that [Collins] had robbed Pollack at gunpoint and shot him to death.” Compl. ¶ 71. Hernandez further stated that a second witness “had identified [Collins] as the assailant.” Id. In fact,' this second witness, Paul Avery, had told police “he did not recognize [Collins] when he viewed [Collins] at a lineup.” Compl. ¶ 73. Based on the complaint, Collins was picked up, arraigned on charges of murder, attempted murder and robbery, and dеnied bail.
Two witnesses testified before the grand jury. Angel Santos testified that he had
B. Post-Indictment/Pre-Trial Events
The case against Collins quickly began to unravel. First, Oliva told defendant Michael F. Vecchione — the assistant district attorney assigned to the case — as well as two KCDA investigators, defendants Brian Maher and Stephen Bondor, that his prior statement had, been coerced, and that he had no knowledge of Collins’s involvement in the robbery or shooting. Vecchione obtained a court order to take Oliva into custody for questioning .by falsely stating that Oliva had asked to cooperate. Oliva mаde no such request and continued to insist that his prior statement had been coerced. Vecchione then enlisted Gerecitano, who had by then retired from the force, to help pressure Oliva into standing by his prior statement. The two threatened to prosecute Oliva for perjury and get his work release revoked “unless he adopted the false ‘sworn’ statement contained in GERECITANO’s report.” Compl. ¶ 102. They made good on then-threat after Oliva refused to cooperate. Vecchione then obtained an order transferring Oliva from state prison to KCDA custody. When Oliva refused to consent to the transfer — upon which the transfer order was expressly conditioned — Maher and Bondor “took custody of Oliva anyway and brought him involuntarily, to. VECCHIONE’S Mffice.” Compl. ¶ m.
When Oliva arrived in Vecchione’s office, he was threatened with prosecution, imprisonment, and bodily harm unless he agreed to stand by his prior statement accusing Collins of the robbery and shooting. Olivа at last complied. Vecchione had Oliva released one week later.
With respect to Santos, the ostensible 911 caller, Vecchione issued an illegal “office” subpoena requiring Santos to appear for questioning. When, like Oliva, Santos refused to appear, Maher and Bondor “found Santos and forcibly transported him to VECCHIONE’S office.” Compl. ¶ 124. ' Vecchione told Santos that if he did not cooperate, Vecchione would “hit Santos over the head with a coffee table, immediately send him to jail, keep him in prison for a" long time, and prosecute him for perjury.” Compl. ¶ 127. Vecchione then detained Santos under a material witness warrant he obtained under false pretenses. Santos was held- in the Bronx House of Detention for a week, after which he was somehow released into KCDA custody without a court order. Santos ultimately agreed to stand by his false testimony. To cover his tracks, Vecchione manufactured false evidence that Santos had been unwilling to testify because of threats he received from Collins and his family. Santos later told authorities that the only threats he had received were from Vecchione.
Finally, Vecchione took steps to return Diaz — the other' alleged witness to the perpetrator’s flight — from Puerto Rico to New York. He falsely represented to a New York judge that Diaz was unlikely to return to New York voluntarily because he had been threatened. He further promised to allow Diaz to return to Puerto Rico once his testimony had been secured. Vecchione thereby obtained an order authorizing Diaz to be involuntarily returned to the state..
Vecchione also promised to “take care” of the probation violation that had caused Diaz to leave New York in the first place. Compl. ¶ 188. To do this, he told Diaz’s
C. The Trial
Oliva, Santos and Diaz testified at Collins’s trial. As alleged in the complaint, Vecchione did not disclose that Oliva had recanted the written statement inculpating Collins, and that the testimony of all three witnesses had been coerced. On March 13, 1995, Collins was convicted of murder, attempted murder, robbery, assault and criminal possession of a weapon; he was sentenced principally to 33-1/3 years to life in prison. The Second Department affirmed, see People v. Collins,
D. FOIL Requests
Beginning shortly after he was convicted, Collins made several requests under New York’s Freedom of Information Law (“FOIL”), N.Y. Pub. Off. Law §§ 84-90. In 1995, he sought from KCDA “all statements made by Oliva, Santos, and Diaz, agreements with or promises to those witnesses, any letters the D.A.’s office wrote to the Probation Department rеgarding Diaz, information regarding Angel Santos’ drug abuse, all witness subpoenas, all material witness applications and orders, and other materials” related to his ease. Compl. ¶ 244. Defendants Anthony D’Angelo and Melanie Marmer, acting as KCDA FOIL officers, denied Collins’s request on the ground that no such documents were in the office’s possession.
In 1996, Collins made another request seeking “all cooperation agreements with, and promises of leniency to, Oliva, Santos, and Diaz.” Id. ¶ 259. Defendants Virginia C. Modest and Sholom Twersky, also acting as FOIL officers, again represented that KCDA did not possess any such records.
In 2002, Collins made a third request, this time seeking “all subpoenas, and court and material witness orders, along with their supporting affidavits, to secure the attendance of any out of state or incarcerated witness.” Id. ¶271 (internal quotation marks omitted). Defendant Morgan J. Dennehy repeated the office’s mantra.
Finally, in 2005, Collins requested “the subpoena Vecchione obtained to have Diaz returned from Puerto Rico, the supporting affidavit, records regarding Diaz’s failure to comply with the terms of his probation, and all letters between the D.A.’s Office and the Department of Probation.” Id. ¶ 277 (internal quotation marks and footnote omitted). Dennehy and defendant Jodi Mandel represented that no records could be located “after an exhaustive search.” Id. ¶¶ 278, 280.
Collins alleges that each of. the FOIL responses he received were prepared with Vecchione’s knowledge and at his direction.
E.State Collateral Proceedings
In March 2006, Collins, represented by his counsel in this action, moved to vacate his conviction and sentence.
Collins filed his federal habeas petition in 2008. KCDA submitted Vecchione’s state-court affirmation in opposition. Judge Irizarry allowed Collins to proceed with discovery and scheduled an evidentiary hearing.
In the course of discovery, KCDA produced numerous documents — including the applications Vecchione had made to secure the presence of Oliva, Santos and Diaz— the existence of which it had denied for the previous 15 years. In addition, the office conceded that Oliva had recanted his inculpatory testimony, and that Vecchione had violated Brady v. Maryland,
At the hеaring, Santos revealed the circumstances leading to his trial testimony. He acknowledged that the voice on the 911 call was not his, but that Vecchione had coerced him into claiming that he was the caller through illegal confinement and threats of further prosecution and physical violence.
Santos’s revelations proved to be the last straw. KCDA consented to an order vacating Collins’s conviction and dismissing the charges against him with prejudice. Although it stipulated that the failure to disclose Oliva’s recantation 'violated Brady, and that Santos’s testimony placing Collins at the crime scene was no longer credible, it denied that anyone had intentionally violated Collins’s rights, and “stood behind” Gerecitano, Hernandez and Vecchione, as well as those who had represented the office on appeal and in post-conviction proceedings.
In oral findings accompanying her order granting habeas relief, Judge Irizarry lambasted KCDA, calling the office’s conduct — and, in particular its сontinued denials of wrongdoing — “shameful” and “a tragedy.” Compl. ¶ 358. Shortly thereafter, District Attorney Charles Hynes announced to the news media that Vecchione would not face disciplinary action and that there would be no investigation into his office’s conduct. Hynes called Vecchione a “very principled lawyer” who “was not guilty of any misconduct.” Id. ¶ 360.
II
Collins’s complaint contains nine claims. Taken out of order, they fall into four categories:
First, Collins makes two claims that individuals acting under color of state law deprived him of his federal constitutional rights, in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Second, he makes two claims that the City is liable for those violations under Monell v. Department of Social Services,
In- his Sixth 'Cause of Action, Collins alleges that Gerecitano and Hernandez violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable seizures, as well as his Fourteenth Amendment right to a fair trial.
In his Seventh Cause of Action, Collins alleges that KCDA employees violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights. His claim is twofold: First, he alleges that Vecchione, in concert with Maher and Bondor, deprived him of his right to a fair trail by coercing Oliva, Santos and Diaz into giving false testimony, presenting that testimony at trial, and failing to disclose the circumstances of their testimony during trial and in opposition to Collins’s attempt at collateral relief. Second, he alleges that Twersky, D’Angelo, Marmer, Dennehy, Modest and Mandel (“the FOIL Defendants”) violated his constitutional rights by withholding the same exculpatory evidence-in response to his FOIL requests.
1. Vecchione, Maher and Bondor
Vecchione, -Maher and Bondor do not dispute that the intentional creation and presentation of false testimony violates the criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial. See Napue v. Illinois,
“[A]bsolute immunity protects a prosecutor from ... liability for virtually all acts, regardless of motivation, associated with his function as an advocate.” Dory v. Ryan,
In Warney, the Second Circuit stressed the importance of context to the functional approach. See
The Second Circuit recently elaborated further on the functional approach in Giraldo v. Kessler,
The Second Circuit reversed. It observed that “questioning an important witness may accurately be described as investigative,” id. at 167, but that “not every interview, interrogation, or other act by a prosecutor with the potential of revealing new information is an investigative act” not entitled to absolute ■ immunity. Id. at 166. It concluded that the “relevant question ... is whether a reasonable prosecutor would view the acts challenged by the complaint as reasonably within the functions of a prosecutor.” Id. Investigative acts.aimed at “gathering and piecing together ... evidence for indications of criminal activities and determination of the perpetrators” are not entitled to absolute immunity, the circuit court said, while “investigative acts reasonably related to decisions whether or not to begin or to carry on a particular criminal prosecution, or to defend a conviction” are. Id. at 166.
Citing Giraldo, Collins argues that Vecchione’s actions towards Oliva, Santos and Diaz were not reasonably — or even color-ably — those of an advocate for the state. See also Doe v. Phillips,
The Second Circuit has observed that many - heinous acts are entitled to absolute immunity:
[T]he falsification of evidence and the coercion of witnesses ... have been held to be prosecutorial activities for which absolute immunity applies. Similarly, because a prosecutor is acting as an advocate in a judicial proceeding, the solicitation and subornation of perjured testimony, the withholding of evidence, or the introduction of illegally-seized evidence at trial does not create liability in damages. The rationale for this approach is sound, for these protected activities, while deplorable, involve decisions of judgment affecting the course of a prosecution.
Taylor v. Kavanagh,
Instead, what Giraldo requires is an examination of how a reasonable prosecutor would view the “generic acts” alleged to have caused the constitutional violation. Id. If the аcts were undertaken for “a court proceeding in which the prosecutor acts as an advocate,” Wamey,
On that inquiry, the only plausible reading of the complaint is that Vecchione took all of the actions he is alleged to have taken to ensure his success at trial. His conduct is, therefore, indistinguishable from that set forth in Taylor: deplorable (if true), but nonetheless “intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Imbler,
In sum, the Court must reluctantly conclude that Vecchione is entitled to absolute immunity for his pre-trial and trial conduct. Maher and Bondor are entitled “to the same degree of immunity ... for their activities while assisting with the investigation and prosecution of the case.” Hill,
Collins points to Vecchione’s post-trial conduct—namely, his denial of any wrongdoing in the affirmation submitted in opposition to Collins’s state and federal collateral attacks—as an alternative basis for denying him absolute immunity. In Wamey, the Second Circuit addressed the “vex[ing]” question of prosecutorial immunity in the post-conviction context. The
Collins argues that Wamey is confined by its facts to prosecutors who are personally representing the state in collateral proceedings. The Court need not decide how broadly Wamey should be read because Vecchione’s status as a testifying witness in the collateral proceedings also clothes him with absolute immunity under Briscoe v. LaHue,
2. FOIL Defendants
A violation of New York’s FOIL does not, standing alone, support a § 1983 claim. See P.C. v. McLaughlin,
The FOIL defendants respond that the duty to disclose exculpatory evidence under Brady ends at the conclusion of the criminal trial. Since they first became involved after that point, they argue that Collins has failed to allege a violation of his federal rights.
In support of their argument, the FOIL defendants cite Ricciuti v. New York City Transit Authority,
Indeed, it appears that the Second Circuit has not addressed when the duty to disclose preexisting exculpatory evidence under Brady ends. The Seventh Circuit has held, however, that “[f]or evidence known to the state at the time of the trial, the duty to disclose extends throughout the legal proceedings that may аffect either guilt or punishment, including post-conviction proceedings.” Steidl v. Fermon,
Thus, Brady itself refutes the FOIL defendants’ claim that the duty it imposes ends with the trial. District Attorney’s Office v. Osborne,
The FOIL defendants argue that even if Collins has stated a § 1983 claim against them, they are entitled to absolute immunity. As noted, a prosecutor is entitled to immunity for actions “associated with his function as an advocate.” Dory,
As noted, however, there can be no § 1983 claim for the alleged FOIL violations unless they also violated the defendants’ obligations under Brady.
The Supreme Court agreed that the plaintiff was “attacking] the office’s administrative procedures,” id., and assumed arguendo that “Giglio imposes certain obligations as to training, supervision, or information-system management.” Id. It nevertheless held that “prosecutors involved in such supervision or training or information-system management enjoy absolute immunity from the kind of legal claims at issue here.” Id. It reasoned as follows:
[Goldstein’s] claims focus upon a certain kind of administrative obligation — a kind that itself is directly connected with the conduct of a trial. Here, unlike with other claims related to administrative decisions, an individual prosecutor’s error in the plaintiffs specific criminal trial constitutes an essential element of the plaintiffs claim. The administrative obligations at issue here are thus unlike administrative duties concerning, for example, workplace hiring, payroll administration, the maintenance of physical facilities, and the like. Moreover,' the types of activities on which Goldstein’s claims focus necessarily require legal knowledge and the exercise of related discretion, e.g., in determining what information should be included in the training or the supervision or the information-system management. And in that sense also Goldstein’s claims are unlike claims of, say, unlawful discrimination in hiring employees. Given these features of the case before us, we believe absolute immunity must follow.
Id.
The Second Circuit followed Goldstein in Warney: “The Supreme Court recently taught us that a prosecutor enjoys absolute immunity even when doing an administrative act if the act is done in the performance of an advocacy function.”
What the Supreme Court and Second Circuit have implied, the Seventh Circuit has recently made explicit: “Brady and Giglio duties are functionally prosecutorial — they are intimately related to the judicial phase of the criminal process.” Fields v. Wharrie,
The Court finds that reasoning persuasive here. The FOIL defendants’ duty to respond to requests might correctly be called “administrative” in some general sense, but Collins seeks to elevate that duty — as he must for a § 1983
B. Monell Claims Against the City (Eighth and Ninth Causes of Action)
Section 1983 does not make municipalities vicariously liable for the constitutional violations of their employees. See Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics Intelligence & Coordination Unit,
A municipality’s “policy of inaction in light of notice that its program will cause constitutional violations is the functional equivalent of a decision by the city itself to violate the Constitution.” Connick v. Thompson, — U.S.-, 131 5.Ct. 1350, 1360,
A claim of deliberate indifference — and, hence, municipal liability — is often characterized as a “failure to train” claim. See City of Canton v. Harris,
Collins contends that the City is liable under Monell in two distinct ways. First, he argues that Hynes, as head of the KCDA, ratified Vecchione’s illicit tactics.
1. Hynes
With respect to Hynes, Collins' focuses on a ratification theory. He alleges that Hynes took no disciplinary action against Vecchione — and, indeed, continued to praise him — even after Judge Irizarry granted habeas relief. While the City does not dispute that Hynes is a municipal policymaker for matters concerning the KCDA, it argues that after-the-fact events shed no light on the existence of a prior policy of acquiescence. The Second Circuit has never addressed that argument, but several circuits have expressly held that a policymaker's rеsponse to constitutional violations can support an inference that the violation conformed to a preexisting policy.
In the seminal case of Grandstaff v. City of Borger,
Following this incompetent and catastrophic performance [by police officers], there were no reprimands, no discharges, and no admissions of error.... If prior policy had been violated, we would expect to see a different reaction. If what the officers did and failed to do ... was not acceptable to the police chief, changes would have been made.... This reaction to so gross an abuse of the use of deadly weapons says more about the existing disposition of the City’s policymaker than would a dozen incidents where individual officers employed excessive force.
Id. The First and Ninth Circuit have followed Grandstajfs logic. See Bordanaro v. McLeod,
The Court is likewise persuaded. Subsequent events may, as the City argues, reflect only Hynes’s support for a subordinate accused of wrongdoing. But the lack of any corrective action might also reflect a tacit policy on Hynes’s part to condone whatever his subordinates deemed necessary to secure a conviction. Collins is, for now, entitled to the latter inference. See Amnesty Am.,
In any event, Collins’s theory does not hinge solely on Hynes’s response to an isolated incident. He further alleges that despite scores of cases involving Brady violations and other prosecutorial misconduct, Hynes has never disciplined an assistant for such misconduct, even after the violations were confirmed by court decisions. The City claims that the prior instances of misconduct were not precisely the same as those alleged by Collins. Those differences might lead a jury to agree that there was no underlying policy connecting each incident. But the Court’s role at this stage is to determine whether Collins has alleged facts that support a plausible theory. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
2. NYPD
With respect to the NYPD, Collins advances a failure to train claim under City of Canton. He alleges that at the time of his arrest, the department “provided no training concerning proper interrogation methods with cooperating witnesses and officers’ Brady obligations.” Compl. ¶ 429. He also cites a list of court decisions and settlements that should have put the department on notice that officers were failing to disclose Brady material and engaging in other misconduct. Id., Ex. G & H. In particular, he cites Zahrey v. City of New York,
Like this case, Walker dealt with allegations that the NYPD failed to adequately train its officers “not to commit perjury or aid in the prosecution of the innocent.”
Walker’s argument misses a crucial step. It is not enough to show that a situation will arise and that taking the wrong course in that situation will result in injuries to citizens.... City of Canton [v. Harris,489 U.S. 378 ,109 S.Ct. 1197 ,103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989),] also requires a likelihood that the failure to train or supervise will result in the officer making the wrong decision. Where the proper response — to follow one’s oath, not to commit the crime of perjury, and to avoid prosecuting the innocent — is obvious to all without training or supervision, then the failure to train or supervise is generally not so likely to produce a wrong decision as to support an inference of deliberate indifference by city policymakers to the need to train or supervise.
Id. at 299-300 (internal quotation marks omitted). Jt held, however, that a failure to train would amount to deliberate indifference if policymakers continued to assume that their employеes would exercise common sense “where there is a history of conduct rendering this assumption untenable.” Id. at 300. Although the plaintiff had not “expressly alleged a history of police perjury,” the circuit court reinstated his complaint because it did “not appear beyond doubt that Walker cannot prove this set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).
Since Collins’s complaint is governed by Iqbal, it is subject to a higher standard than the Second Circuit applied in Walker. He must allege, not only a viable theory, but facts that render the theory plausible. In that regard, allegations of Brady violations are unhelpful. Better training as to what Brady requires might increase officer awareness of what information must be
Further, the Court agrees with the City that the litany of other police-misconduct cases are insufficient to make a plausible case for Monell liability. The cases either involve Brady violations, post-date Collins’s conviction, or involve something less (settlements without admissions of liability and unproven allegations) than evidence of misconduct.
Zahrey, by contrast, involves actual evidence of analogous misconduct during the relevant time frame. But the wrongdoing in Zahrey occurred, as noted, in the Internal Affairs Bureau. Without more, the Court would be hard-pressed to conclude that two incidents in two completely separate units within the NYPD were sufficient to plausibly establish the City’s deliberate indifference.
The Mollen Report, however, establishes — at least for present purposes — that the misconduct underlying this case and Zahrey was sufficiently widespread to support an inference of deliberate indifference. An entire section of the Report is devoted to “Perjury and Falsifying Documents,” which is described as “a serious problem facing the Department.” Mollen Report at 36.
Of course, the Report’s findings are not conclusive. But they at least make it plausible that the type of misconduct that led to Collins’s arrest and prosecution was endemic within the NYPD. A jury could reasonably infer from that circumstance, if proven, that the department’s policymakers were aware of a serious risk of constitutional violations, and that the failure to take any action in responsе to the problem — whether through training or otherwise — was the result of deliberate indifference.
C. State-Law Claims Against the Individual Defendants (First, Second and Fourth Causes of Action)
Prosecutors’ immunity under state law is identical to their immunity under § 1983: “District Attorneys are immune from civil liability for activities ‘intimately associated with the judicial phase of the criminal process,’ meaning ‘initiating a prosecution and in presenting the State’s case.’ ” Johnson v. Kings County District Attorney’s Office,
Hernandez and Gerecitano have not invoked immunity. Nor do they argue that Collins has failed to state claims for malicious prosecution, intentional infliction of emotional distress and, with respect to Hernandez, fraud.
1. Vicarious Liability
Unlike § 1983, New York law makes a municipality vicariously liable for the torts of its employees. Because its liability is vicаrious, however, a municipality is not liable if the employee directly responsible for the tort is entitled to absolute immunity. See, e.g., Calderon v. County of Westchester,
In addition, New York public policy “bars claims sounding in intentional infliction of emotional distress against a governmental entity.” Lauer v. City of New York,
2. Negligence
In addition to vicarious liability, however, Collins alleges that the City is liable for its own negligence in the hiring, training and supervision of those responsible for his wrongful conviction and imprisonment. The City cites Newton v. City of New York,
Because the case is before the Court on a pre-answer motion to dismiss, it is not yet established whether the City will take the position that the various individual defendants were acting within or outside the scope of their employment. Cf. Rossetti v. Board of Educ.,
Ill
To summarize:
On Collins’s federal claims, the motion to dismiss the § 1983 claim is granted as to all individual defendants except Hernandez and Gerecitano. The motion to dismiss the Monell claims agаinst the City is denied, as to both the theory that Hynes was deliberately indifferent to Vecchione’s conduct, and the theory that the NYPD’s lack of training amounted to deliberate indifference to the actions of Gerecitano and Hernandez.
On Collins’s state-law claims, the motion to dismiss is granted as to all individual defendants except Hernandez and Gerecitano. It is further granted as to the intentional infliction of emotional distress claim against the City, but denied as to the negligent hiring, training and supervision claim against the City.
SO ORDERED.
. Collins has voluntarily withdrawn state-law claims for negligent misrepresentation and abuse of process.
. Because Gerecitano and Hernandez are municipal officials, both aspects of Collins's claim against them arise under the Fourteenth Amendment. See Wolf v. Colorado,
. Nor does a violation of FOIL give rise to a private right of action for damages under state law. See Burtis v. New York City Police Dep’t,
. While the duty imposed by Brady is often described as extending to "the government” as a whole, see, e.g., Youngblood v. West Va., 547 U.S. 867, 869,
. It is true, of course, that police officers are under a constitutional obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence. See Arizona v. Young-blood,
. Hynes himself is not named as a defendant and would, in any event, be entitled to the same absolute immunity that protects Vecchione.
. The full text of the report is available at http://www.parc.info/clien1_files/Special% 20Reports/4% 20-% 20Mollen% 20Commis-sion% 20-% 20NYPD.pdf (last visited Feb. 14, 2013).