John Thompson, Founder and Executive Director of Resurrection After Exoneration, spent 18 years in prison, 14 of them on Angola's death row, for a crime he did not commit. In 2005, with the help of his lawyers, Thompson sought to achieve justice by suing Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick Sr., New Orleans prosecutor Jim Williams, current District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro Jr., and the office of the District Attorney. The state refused to settle the case, which went to a jury. After Thompson proved at trial that prosecutors caused his wrongful conviction by deliberately hiding evidence that would have exonerated himâ€"evidence his own investigators finally discovered when he was just weeks from being executedâ€"the jury awarded him $14 million in damages. The state of Louisiana quickly appealed the verdict, which it claimed would bankrupt the DA's office. State and federal appeals courts ruled in Thompson's favor, up to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which han! ded down a split decision. john thompson poster webThe US Supreme Court agreed to hear Connick v. Thompson in its fall 2010 session. The Supreme Court, in a sharply divided ruling, held that the the Parish Attorney's office could not be held liable for failure to train or supervise the prosecutors who unconstitutionally withheld the exculpatory evidence, an incident the Court characterized as 'isolated'â€"which ended the case, as the individual prosecutors themselves have absolute immunity from suit ...
0 comments: