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News » Washington Politics The Oval: Tracking the Obama Presidency USA TODAY On Politics Supreme Court Census
During oral arguments, several of the justices questioned Thompson's lawyer about exactly what former
district attorney Harry Connick Sr. — father of singer Harry Connick Jr. — should have done to prevent the
violations.
Justice Samuel Alito asked Thompson's attorney, Gordon Cooney, what training he would provide if he
were in charge of the district attorney's office. Chief Justice John Roberts asked whether officials also
should be required to train prosecutors about the constitutional rules that limit their closing arguments
during criminal trials or how to comply with other rules.
"Our course is expanding," Justice Anthony Kennedy quipped, adding that if prosecutors violated
Thompson's rights intentionally, no training would have stopped them.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, herself a former prosecutor in New York, asked whether an hour of annual
training would be enough. "Could you please state in simple terms to me what they failed to train these
prosecutors to do?" she said.
Cooney struggled to answer. He said that at a minimum, prosecutors should be taught that they must tell
defendants about the existence of physical evidence that could conclusively prove their innocence. He said
prosecutors in the New Orleans office "all knew what not to produce. What they didn't know was what to
produce."
The court has ruled before that individual prosecutors cannot be sued for courtroom violations like those in
Thompson's trial. It left open the possibility that prosecutors' offices could be sued for violations caused by
official policies or a lack of training.
The Supreme Court held almost 50 years ago in a case called Brady v. Maryland that prosecutors must tell
defendants about evidence that points toward their innocence. The attorney representing the district
attorney's office, Kyle Duncan, said it is "impossible to determine beforehand exactly why a Brady violation
will occur, and what specific training measures would prevent it from occurring."
Thompson was charged with the 1984 killing of a New Orleans hotel executive and an armed carjacking
outside the Louisiana Superdome. Juries convicted him of both crimes, and he was sentenced to be
executed for the murder.
But a month before Thompson was scheduled to be executed in 1999, an investigator working for his
lawyers found a copy of a crime lab report about blood evidence that police had found at the scene of the
carjacking. The blood type was B; Thompson was type O. Prosecutors in New Orleans had known about
the report before his trial and hid it from Thompson and his attorneys.
As a result, a court threw out the carjacking charge. Thompson was retried for the murder in 2003, and
was acquitted.
The abuses that helped put him in prison are similar to violations USA TODAY uncovered in an
investigation of misconduct by federal prosecutors. The newspaper documented 201 cases since 1997 in
which federal judges found that prosecutors had violated laws or ethics rules.
Among the violations USA TODAY identified, failing to turn over evidence favorable to defendants was the
most common.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2010-10-06-prosecutors_N.htm Page 1 of 3
Court questions $14 million judgment in unjust prosecution - USATODAY.com 10/7/10 2:44 AM
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Prosecutors' conduct can tip the scales (USATODAY.com in News)
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You show me a high-crime, high drug use, high unemployed, high broken family, high welfare
population, and I'll show you a longtime, entrenched Democrat governance.... New Orleans,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2010-10-06-prosecutors_N.htm Page 2 of 3
Court questions $14 million judgment in unjust prosecution - USATODAY.com 10/7/10 2:44 AM
The jury at the time found him guilty beyond reasonable time, as they should have...
Remember that New Orleans is the 'chocolate city', and it is near impossible to get any black
man convicted of a violent crime....
That is why New Orleans has been one of the murder capitols of the nation for decades.
yep, same as the quacks like a duck argument. works for me...
UsaToday LIES when they say that Thompson DIDN'T COMMIT THE MURDER; There is
ZERO EVIDENCE saying he didn't....
The jury at the time convicted him, beyond reasonable doubt, based on the evidence,
It is hardly surprising that a jury 20 years later could not convict beyond all doubt, hardly
unusual since the key witnesses had died, evidence had been lost, 20 years had passed,.
and suspicious 'new' witnesses showed up....
Now a man who almost surely commited the crime is trying to shakedown the judicial system
which he has evaded.
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http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/2010-10-06-prosecutors_N.htm Page 3 of 3