Today was a big day for Rob Reuland, local Park Slope writer and former prosecutor. A federal appeals court has ruled in favor of Reuland who was demoted after he said his borough was the best place for a prosecutor to work because "we’ve got more dead bodies per square inch than anybody else."

He made the statement to New York Magazine in 2001 while he was promoting his crime novel "Hollowpoint." He was demoted and then fired four months later.

In 2004, he won a $30,000 jury award in a lawsuit against the Brooklyn district attorney, Charles Hynes, over his demotion.

Lawyers for the city had appealed the jury award, saying that Reuland’s statement does not deserve First Amendment protection because Reuland had made the statement to increase the sales of his book.

In a decision released yesterday, the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the jury’s award, ruling 2-1 that "Reuland’s statement is a matter of public concern," regardless of any motivations he might have had. The decision affirms a ruling in 2004 by a federal judge in Brooklyn.