SCOTUS Screws an Innocent Man

You’re about to learn about an innocent man who served 14 years on death row and almost died, because prosecutors hid evidence that cleared him.  When it came to light, he was retried and acquitted.  He sued the prosecutors office, and won a substantial settlement, as he richly deserved for his settlement.  In a 5-4 decision, the Republican extremists on SCOTUS took it away from him.  The opinion was written by Teabagger extraordinaire, Clarence Thomas.

John Thompson served 18 years in prison, 14 of them on death row, for a murder and an armed robbery he did not commit. The prosecution’s case had been a house of cards: Thompson did not match the eyewitness description originally given of the murderer (although the most crucial witness against him did), and a blood test taken from the scene proved that he did not commit the robbery. If the blood evidence should have exonerated him before either case went to trial, why did he come so close to being executed?

It happened, quite simply, because prosecutors withheld the critical blood evidence. Since the Supreme Court’s 1963 decision in Brady v. Maryland, suppressing evidence favorable to the defendant has been recognized as a violation of the Constitution — since then, failures to turn over exculpatory evidence have been known as "Brady violations." Because of a series of lucky breaks, Thompson and his attorneys happened to find out about the illegal suppression of evidence, and after more than two decades of legal wrangling and a disgraceful attempt to retry him that resulted in an acquittal after only 35 minutes of jury deliberation, he was finally free. For obvious reasons, following his vindication, Thompson sued the New Orleans district attorney’s office for violating his civil rights. A jury awarded him $14 million. Of course, no ending to Thompson’s story could be happy, but he at least received substantial compensation for the gross violation of his rights.

But the injustice didn’t end there. Earlier this week, a bare majority of the Supreme Court threw out the jury award. Speaking through Justice Clarence Thomas, the Court’s five Republican appointees held that New Orleans District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. was not legally liable for the criminal actions of the prosecutors under his supervision. According to Thomas, Thompson did not "prove a pattern of similar violations" that would make the D.A.’s office responsible for illegally suppressing exculpatory evidence.

As Justice Ruth-Bater Ginsburg’s closely argued dissent pointed out, there was an obvious long-running pattern of misbehavior. The violations of Thompson’s rights, she writes, "were not singular and they were not aberrational": They resulted from prosecutorial misconduct over a nearly 20-year period. If this doesn’t constitute a pattern for which the D.A. can be responsible, it’s unclear what would, particularly given how hard it is to uncover evidence of Brady violations. The jury also had other reasons for finding that Connick was "deliberately indifferent" to whether the prosecutors in his office followed Brady. Connick and other senior prosecutors were unable even to correctly articulate what the Brady decision requires of prosecutors, nor did prosecutors in the office receive training explaining them. Despite all this, the conservative wing of the Court elected to compound the injustices inflicted on Thompson by throwing out the jury verdict.

Viewed in the context of the Court’s other jurisprudence on the responsibilities of prosecuting attorneys, Thomas’ opinion looks even worse. Let’s accept for the sake of argument the majority’s position that the injustice done to Thompson was just the product of five bad apples and that Connick should not be held liable for them. Can’t you go after the individual lawyers who withheld the evidence? No. There is a doctrine that gives prosecutors absolute immunity for their actions as prosecutors (although they can still be subject to liability for their actions as administrators or investigators, which is why Connick was not entirely immune). So by also making it exceptionally difficult to hold district attorneys accountable for the illegal acts of their employees, the Court has created a classic catch-22 in which nobody can be held responsible for rights violations… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Common Dreams>

How blatantly dishonest and shameful!  Prosecutorial misconduct is common nationwide, because prosecuting crime is often the bottom run of the ladder to a political career.  There is no advancement without an exceptional conviction rate, creating a conflict of interest in which career mitigates against any desire to be just.  Frankly, I think that intentionally withholding exculpatory evidence to knowingly convict an innocent man should be a criminal offence with the penalty to serve the time that the innocent person would have served.

I oppose the death penalty on moral grounds, but even if it could be morally justified, there is too much corruption and abuse to trust our judicial system not to kill innocent people.

Until Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas have been replaced with honest Justices, the can be no justice here.  A Republican in the White House before this is accomplished would prevent the restoration of justice.