Just Noticing: Observations of a blogger
Posted by Michelle Moquin on April 10th, 2011
I’m still stuck on the John Thompson case, my topic from the past two days. Not only because I find it so disgusting that the Supreme Court would make such a decision, but then as I kept reading about this case, I discovered more that I wanted to share. Hence my today’s topic of…Just Noticing: Observations of a blogger:
“Just noticing…”
- …there are no deterrents to these prosecutors who withhold evidence. “If they get caught withholding evidence, nothing happens to them.” (Nick Trenticosta, who worked on Thompson’s case as director of the Louisiana Capital Defense Project) (Corrected 4/10, 10:48 AM)
- …Fully a quarter of the men sentenced to death during Connick’s tenure (District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. retired in 2003, from a 28-year reign of Orleans Parish) have had their convictions overturned—each time because of evidence that cast doubt on their guilt, but was hidden from the defense by prosecutors.
- …that attorney Connick claims that the Thompson case was an isolated one, stating that, “We follow the rules. We have an ongoing and continuing obligation to turn over exculpatory evidence and we do.” However the truth is “Harry Connick used to give awards to prosecutors for successfully convicting people.” Connick, Trenticosta said, created a culture where convictions were won “at any cost.”
Readers: Here’s a write from “Mother Jones” back in October of 2010 before the Supreme Court decision. This is where I “just noticed” the points stated above.
14 Years on Death Row. $14 Million in Damages?
The model electric chair sitting on the desk of the New Orleans prosecutor Jim Williams seemed like a classic piece of Southern Gothic. But for John Thompson, it was all too real. “Seated” in the electric chair were photographs of five African American men that the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office had proudly sent to death row. Thompson’s picture was dead center. The meaning was pretty clear, he recalls: “They were trying to kill me.”
Thompson spent 14 years on death row-until, with his appeals exhausted and execution just weeks away, his lawyers discovered evidence that they say the prosecution had deliberately hidden. Based on the new evidence, he was granted a retrial and exonerated. So was another of the men in the pictures. Of the remaining three, one was granted a new trial, while two others had their sentences commuted to life in prison.
To many criminal justice advocates, the prosecutor’s morbid desk ornament has become an emblem of the 28-year reign of Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick Sr., the father of the singer and a Louisiana icon-and crooner-in his own right. (Kennedy assassination buffs also know Connick as the man who attempted to suppress the files from his predecessor Jim Garrison’s investigation, immortalized in Oliver Stone’s JFK). Fully a quarter of the men sentenced to death during Connick’s tenure (he retired in 2003) have had their convictions overturned-each time because of evidence that cast doubt on their guilt, but was hidden from the defense by prosecutors.
Now, the Supreme Court is about to weigh in on what the DA’s office owes to Thompson for his 14 years on death row. On Wednesday, two days into the Court’s new session, Thompson will be in Washington, watching oral arguments in Connick v. Thompson. Representatives of the New Orleans D.A.’s office will argue that the court should overturn the unprecedented damages awarded to him by a New Orleans jury: $1 million for each year he spent on death row.
Thompson’s story-complete with deathbed revelations and last-minute stays of execution-is compelling enough that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck at one time had plans to make it into a feature film, in which they would play his lawyers. (The project is currently in limbo.) There’s also a new book out on Thompson’s experience, called Killing Time. But the implications of Connick v. Thompson reach far beyond John Thompson’s life and even beyond New Orleans. The justices’ decision in the case will determine how far a district attorney’s office can be held responsible for the conduct of prosecutors.
John Thompson, who goes by JT, is now 48. The steady, intense gaze behind his wire-rimmed glasses matches his calm, measured speech, but flashes of anger break through from time to time. He was a 22-year-old father of two when he was convicted of murdering a white New Orleans hotel executive. Because three weeks prior he had been convicted of attempted armed robbery-a crime in which he also claimed innocence-JT was advised not to testify on his own behalf at his murder trial. The jury found him guilty and sentenced him to death, based in part on the “aggravating factor” of his armed robbery conviction.
In 1985, JT arrived on death row at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola and set about the business of trying to survive. He was helped by his faith and by his friendship with the members of the Angola 3-three former Black Panthers who had been placed in solitary confinement. “I was like babysitted by them. They took me on like a big son or something,” he told us. “Who I am now was molded by them.”
Like many condemned inmates, Thompson wrote many letters to attorneys and received mostly rejections-about a hundred, he says. Then help came through the Capital Defense Project at Loyola University in New Orleans. In 1998, lawyers from the project began working on his case, together with two pro bono attorneys, Michael Banks and Gordon Cooney, from Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, a venerable old Philadelphia firm that has become a huge international powerhouse in corporate law.
Thompson’s lawyers stuck with his case through 11 years of appeals and seven execution dates. But in 1999, the Supreme Court rejected their appeal, and they had to tell their client that the process had been exhausted. An eighth execution date was set for the following month.
“We had to get back into court,” said Nick Trenticosta, who worked on JT’s case as director of the Louisiana Capital Defense Project (now renamed the Center for Equal Justice). “So we got an investigator and she was able to spend days at the police department going through all kinds of old records.” Finally, the researcher found an explosive set of documents: The state had analyzed blood found on a pair of pants worn by one of the victims of the armed robbery, blood believed to be the perpetrator’s. The blood type was B. Thompson’s was O.
But the story got even more complicated: Upon learning of the attorneys’ discovery, another former New Orleans prosecutor, Mike Riehlmann, came forward with an astounding tale: Five years earlier, he said, his colleague Gerry Deegan, who was a junior assistant DA on the Thompson case, had told him that he’d hidden the test results and taken the pants from the evidence room. Riehlmann signed an affidavit, and JT’s convictions began to unravel.
The attorneys moved for a stay of execution; eventually the Louisiana Supreme Court vacated the robbery conviction, and a state district court changed his death sentence to life in prison because the aggravating factor was no longer present. Four years later, his murder conviction-which had been based entirely on testimony from witnesses who got cash or plea bargains for their testimony-was overturned as well. At his retrial in 2003, the jury took 35 minutes to find him not guilty. After 18 years, JT was a free man.
“They all try to portray it as rogue prosecutor; a fluke. But Harry Connick used to give awards to prosecutors for successfully convicting people.”
At the time, district attorney Connick told the Associated Press that the Thompson case was an isolated one. “We follow the rules,” Connick said. “We have an ongoing and continuing obligation to turn over exculpatory evidence and we do.” Not so, says Trenticosta. “They all try to portray it as rogue prosecutor; a fluke,” he says, but “Harry Connick used to give awards to prosecutors for successfully convicting people.” Connick, Trenticosta said, created a culture where convictions were won “at any cost.”
Findings by the Innocence Project of New Orleans back up that assessment. In a 2008 report, the Project reviewed the record of Connick’s 28-year-tenure, and found that the practice of suppressing evidence was so prevalent that it could be called “a legacy in New Orleans”:
According to available records, favorable evidence was withheld from 9 of the 36 (25%) men sentenced to death in Orleans Parish from 1973-2002. Four of those men were eventually exonerated… In other words, one in every four men sent to death row by the New Orleans District Attorney’s office from 1973-2002 was convicted after evidence that could have cast doubt on their guilt was withheld from them at trial. Four men, about 11%, were completely innocent.
One of those innocent men was 16-year-old Shareef Cousin, sent to death row for murder in 1995. He stayed there until the prosecutor in the case was shown to have both encouraged witnesses to lie on the stand and withheld a videotape that proved Cousin was playing basketball at the time of the murder.
Dan Bright was sentenced for murder in 1996. Attorneys later discovered a statement from the FBI, suppressed by prosecutors at the time of Bright’s trial, indicating that a confidential informant had identified another man as the killer. “These guys were perpetrating a fraud on the public,” the forewoman of Bright’s jury told New Orleans City Business, “and let me sentence an innocent man to death.”
Yet there have been few, if any, consequences for prosecutors. In 2005, a prosecutor in the Cousin case was found guilty of withholding evidence; the Louisiana State Supreme Court gave him a three month suspension, then suspended that sentence. Jim Williams, the prosecutor with the electric chair on his desk, is now in private practice. Thompson’s prosecutor, Gerry Deegan, died of cancer. Mike Riehlmann, who sat on the deathbed confession, was briefly suspended by the Louisiana Supreme Court for doing so; he is now a defense attorney. Harry Connick Sr. is comfortably retired.
What angers Thompson, he said after his exoneration, is that “nobody in the prosecutor’s office ever faces charges, nobody has to pay. A slap on the wrist for ‘malfeasance’ and then they’re back at work doing the same old thing.” Nick Trenticosta agrees. “As it stands, there are no deterrents to these prosecutors,” he says. “If they get caught withholding evidence so what? Nothing happens to them.”
So with the help of his lawyers, Thompson has sought to exact retribution through a different route. In 2005, he sued Connick, Williams, current district attorney Leon Cannizzaro, and the office of the DA. The state refused to settle the case, so it went to a jury, which awarded JT a record $14 million in damages. The state of Louisiana quickly appealed the verdict, which it claims will bankrupt the DA’s office. State and federal appeals courts ruled in Thompson’s favor, up to the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, at which point the state appealed again. Last spring, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear Connick v. Thompson in its fall session.
According to the brief filed by Thompson’s lawyers, the Court will have to decide whether “the district attorney was deliberately indifferent to the need to train, monitor, or supervise his prosecutors” about what’s known as the Brady rule-their obligation to hand over evidence favorable to the defense. But Connick v. Thompson could determine what kind of recourse defendants have when their Brady rights are violated. Individual prosecutors already enjoy immunity from lawsuits in most instances; if it overturns Thompson’s award, the Court might effectively give immunity to DA offices as well.
It’s not surprising, then, that Connick v. Thompson has brought in a slew of amicus briefs in support of Thompson’s position from civil libertarians. “If Connick wins on the ground that the DA’s office is not responsible when its prosecutors withhold evidence, then it will be impossible to recover damages” in such cases, says Katie Schwartzmann, legal director of the ACLU of Louisiana, which has filed an amicus brief.
In Louisiana, exonerated prisoners are released with nothing more than $10 and a bus ticket. To change that, Thompson has founded Resurrection After Exoneration.
Because the Court is only considering the Thompson case, and not the full record of the Orleans Parish DA’s office, it may also find that there is insufficient proof of negligence. “If Connick wins on the ground that one incident is not enough to establish the office’s liability-although we think there was more of a record than that in this case-then future litigation will be difficult but not impossible,” says Schwartzmann.
So while the stakes in this case are high for John Thompson, they are higher still for the next person to be tried and convicted by a prosecutor who is hiding evidence. A ruling in Connick’s favor could deny that person any recourse.
Thompson is already thinking about that next innocent man.
When he was freed from prison, he said, he was more fortunate than most. “I had a wife, I had a house, I had a job” as an assistant at the Center for Equal Justice, working with clients on death row. “I had a solid foundation…Most guys did not have that. Guys were coming home struggling.” In Louisiana, exonerated prisoners are released with nothing more than $10 and a bus ticket. To change that, Thompson has founded Resurrection After Exoneration, a group that tries to provide support for the wrongfully convicted.
At first, RAE focused on providing job skills. Then, JT told us, “I decided to have living quarters-a residential area where they live for 6 months to get readjusted to society. Downstairs we have computers, workshops. We try to bring in as much education as we can.” Thompson also wants RAE to represent the “voice of innocence”-to be a place where the exonerated “can tell their stories. It’s amazing how powerful these stories are.”
Should he ever get his $14 million, he says, he will use part of it to fund the organization.
*********
Notice that the author thought that Supreme Court Justice would do the right thing.
What did you “just notice”? Blog me.
PEACE OUT.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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April 10th, 2011 at 10:09 am
14.Al Says:
April 10th, 2011 at 9:03 am
Robert:
You really are a stupid bigot. Any one who reads this blog knows I am disabled and poor. I went to the worst schools and I grew up in the worst part of the city in which I live. I have been arrested more times than I can count, mainly for being white in a black neighborhood. I have spent a good deal of my life incarcerated, and have never committed a crime that had a victim. I try to eat. I receive food stamps, SSI, and Medicaid now. I cannot walk around the block. Maybe I can stand long enough to take a quick shower, or a piss.
It has been at least 20 years since I could afford a car to get a ticket in. I have been mugged by Blacks and Latinos and Caucasians. I have had police pistols shove so far down my throat they broke most of my teeth out. All for being white in a black area (where I happened to live). I know more about racial discrimination than you will ever learn in your stupid cry baby ass life.
I know why you hate the white man, and are so fucking angry, to make 60 million a year you must have had to suck a lot of white cock and kissed a lot of ass. I have more OTW friends than you could ever dream of knowing, cause a pussy like you sure can’t have many friends.
Have you ever been homeless or slept under a bridge? I was homeless for 5 years straight. Every civil service job here is held by an OTW. From bus drivers to social workers and they won’t do shit to help me because I am white. Talk about discrimination. It took me nearly ten years to win my disability case. OTW’s get it first try.
So Fuck You ,you racist bastard. Just because you have not helped out your own people, don’t lay your guilt trip on me. You don’t know me, but even my black friends want to kick your ass, you are truly a piece of shit cry baby if there ever was one.
You think I don’t know about discrimination. Again, FUCK YOU. You are a bigot no matter what you think. You stupid fucking asshole.
Al
April 10th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
Charlie I think so too. I don’t visit the blog as much anymore. It’s a lot of griping complaining and finger pointing. I notice entries people make, with few words mind you, getting taken out of context and expanded upon misleadingly to push someones agenda. We have all suffered injustices. Some much MUCH worse than others. And OTWs much more so that Ws. But no matter how OTWs have been cruelly treated by history it doesn’t justify personally attacking those that are W here. Its reverse rascism. I prefer to focus on working together to change the world for all of us. I see very little positive change resulting from the comments here. It’s mostly negative and self serving. Where’s the communication for bridging the gap? I just see division. I want to do good with my deeds and thoughts and I want to be motivated by others working towards that goal as well. This blog has been a bit of a disappointment to me in that regard.
April 10th, 2011 at 2:25 pm
I do enjoy the History stories and I liked Paulas recent contribution on Lincoln and Black Presidents.
I Love learning New Things.
April 11th, 2011 at 1:20 am
Al: There is almost nothing worst than a whining white boy pretending he is not aware that the system is set up to give him an advantage over the rest of America’s citizens.
So it really doesn’t matter how you present your argument, everyone knows that America’s Affirmative Action Beneficiary is the american white male.
I wonder if you are taking your meds because if you have been reading this blog you would know that an OTW doesn’t have to be guilty of anything to get the death penalty. And the US supreme won’t do a damn thing to stop the railroading.
But if you can focus that drug dulled brain for a moment you may remember how the recent supreme court Justice almost didn’t make it because she voted to not allow a few white male fireman to get promotions.
That’s your argument in a nutshell. You are bitching about small inconveniences because as a white boy you are used to the system bending over backwards to give you your rights.
Those white males got 24/7 media coverage for almost a month. Talk shows, interviews, nothing was spared to make sure the world knew that these white boys had been deprived of a promotion they deserved by an OTW.
Yet, Mr. Thompson had been deprived of 18 years of his freedom and possibly his life, not to mention existing the entire time on death row, and he didn’t even get an honorable mention from the media.
I know that you and many of your race are tired of hearing our complaints. But we have to live it every day of our lives. Thank you Michelle for allowing us to vent or some of us might do what the white boy dose when things doesn’t go his way – get a gun and start killing innocent people.
No, that is not our way, we just occasionally complain on a blog. Forgive me for hurting your feelings by calling you a derogatory name, like “white boy.” Would you prefer that I followed your race’s example and started lynching, blowing up your churches, convicting, you of crimes you didn’t convict, executing you for crimes that you didn’t commit, hiding from the historical records any accomplishment that would give your race pride in contributing to this country of OURS(yours and mine).
I could go on endlessly listing the wrongs your race has done and continues to do to the OTW every day. But you would just whine about your condition that was probably caused by your own drug abuse.
It would be pathetic if it weren’t for the fact that you are serious. As serious as those white firemen and the news media about making sure that the world knows that a white boy has suffered an indignity at the hands of an OTW.
As for the gun being shoved down your throat by the police, that is a tad better than being shot in the back while handcuffed. or murdered while sitting in your vehicle unarmed, etc, etc.
The point is while you are complaining about cops that your race gives all that power to so they can murder OTWs without cause for concern. We are being murdered by those same cops. One of the repercussions from giving bigots with high school diplomas so much power is they occasionally turn on the those that gave them the power.
You said, “I know more about racial discrimination than you will ever learn in your stupid cry baby ass life.” That is the attitude I am talking about. Your inability to put your experience in perspective. The white boy complaining about being discriminated against. It is almost ludicrous.
The last time I checked you were 99 of the 100 US senators, the majority of the House, Everyone of the major corporate heads, bank heads, HMO heads, hedge fund heads, nuclear power plants, etc, etc,. But somehow some OTW has snuck in and taken over something so he/she can discriminate against you. And you are mad as hell, film at eleven.
You are very right about one thing. I do kiss a lot of white ass at work. They design the job requirements for the OTW so that if they must give him an opportunity to make the kind of money they do, he will have to kiss white ass to do it. Yes, you know your race very, very well.
But this black man is laughing all the way to the bank.
Al, most black families live only a paycheck from being homeless. Unlike you they almost NEVER get an opportunity to make it. You got yours because you are white, yet you whine because you squandered it.
White boy, most OTWs NEVER get an opportunity to earn a decent living for themselves and their families. It is sell drugs or starve.
Yes, I qualify as and inconvenience to most whites and even an asshole to some because I remind them that they are AMERICA’S AFFIRMATIVE ACTION BENEFICIARIES and they can not stand being reminded of that.
Whites just do not want to be reminded of their bigotry, and racism, and most of all their indifference to the suffering they cause OTWs every day of our lives. They want us to just shut the f**k up and take it.
If not liking the individuals who do this to my people makes me a bigot, then I guess I am a bigot. But if being evil to another because the color of his/her skin is different form mine is the definition, then the title still rest comfortably on the head of your race.
Robert
April 11th, 2011 at 7:14 am
Robert:
You are very stupid, and you can have the last word because you are too stupid to understand and I will not waste anymore time trying to explain it to you. Your own quote says it all.
“If not liking the individuals who do this to my people makes me a bigot, then I guess I am a bigot”
There is nothing wrong with that statement in itself, Except that you hate everybody of that race that has hurt your people. That is what racism is, hating everyone of a race for the crimes of some. I have done nothing to hurt you or your race, but you hate all whites. And insult them all. Is this some new type of original sin or something? Be born white and robert will have you guilty of all kinds of crimes against humanity on the day you were born.
And why are you calling me a drug addict? Because I grew up in a mostly black and poor area. Not all blacks are drug addicts robert. And I have never used drugs other than marijuana and whatever my many doctors prescribe to me. Although they are available all up and down the street I lived on. Upstairs, next door, and right across the street.
Robert hating every single member of a race for the crimes of some is what defines racism. That makes you a racist by your own admission. I do not define myself by the color of my skin.
You keep saying to me, my race, did this, and my race did that, my race is the human race. Do you hate us all? I doesn’t matter to you who hurt your race, if they are white they are guilty. It was not me. Yet you put me at fault. That is what racism is knucklehead. And that makes you a racist.
Me, I like black people, as all my friends are OTW’s, I do have one white friend. But to call me a white boy is pure racism, and I don’t even mind, I have been called much worse. I merely pointed out to you that that is a racial slur in case you didn‘t know, but you know it is.
Oh, and affirmative action was put in place to help the black people get caught up for past injustices. It seems to have worked very well for you, I am very happy for you. But you are nothing but a cry baby still.
Almost forgot, I am not a senator or a fireman and FUCK YOU ASSHOLE.
AL