Crazed Rabbit
04-13-2011, 03:49
Decreed from on high, the Supreme Court of the United States. (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10thompson.htm?_r=2)
A prosecutor can manufacture evidence to convict an innocent man, hide exculpatory evidence from the defense, intimidate witnesses into pointing the finger at the defendant.
But they can never be sued by the innocent people they send to jail, nor are they ever criminally charged, nor are they ever reprimanded by the professional organizations they belong to.
Prosecutors have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits, even when they willfully and deliberately break the law to convict people.
An article from a man who spent 14 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit: (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10thompson.htm?_r=2)
I SPENT 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I’ve been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date. Those prosecutors were never punished. Last month, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to overturn a case I’d won against them and the district attorney who oversaw my case, ruling that they were not liable for the failure to turn over that evidence — which included proof that blood at the robbery scene wasn’t mine.
Because of that, prosecutors are free to do the same thing to someone else today.
More info from SCOTUSBlog: (http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/connick-v-thompson/)
On March 29, 2011 in Connick v. Thompson, the Court – by a vote of five to four, in an opinion by Justice Thomas – reversed a fourteen-million-dollar award in favor of John Thompson, who served eighteen years in prison for murder and armed robbery before his convictions were vacated. The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office conceded that prosecutors failed to turn over, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, evidence to Thompson’s defense team that would have been exculpatory, but it maintained that it could not be held liable under Section 1983 for failing to properly train its attorneys. The Court agreed, holding that the district attorney’s office cannot be held liable under Section 1983 for failure to train its prosecutors based on a single violation of Brady.
One of the cases cited by the majority in its opinion featured another innocent man sent to prison: (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-innocence-20110403,0,1867335.story)
Lawyers who represented the wrongly convicted also said they were shocked that Scalia would cite the 1988 case of Arizona vs. Larry Youngblood to bolster his opinion. More than a decade ago, after Scalia and the other justices sent Youngblood back to prison, new DNA tests revealed he was innocent.
Carol Wittels, the Tucson lawyer who fought to free Youngblood, said she found it "astounding" that the court would still cite the case as a precedent. "It was a horrible decision then, and I can't believe they are still citing it, since so many people have been cleared with DNA evidence since then," Wittels said in a telephone interview.
An overview of the whole case: (http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/31/the-disappearing-blood-stain)
John Thompson spent 18 years in a Louisiana prison, 14 of them in a windowless, six-by-nine-foot death row cell. According to a federal appeals court, "There were multiple mentally deranged prisoners near him who would yell and scream at all hours and throw human waste at the guards." Thompson, whose execution was scheduled half a dozen times, was a few weeks away from death by lethal injection when his life was saved by a bloody scrap of cloth.
Although four prosecutors in the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office were aware of this evidence, Thompson didn't learn about it until 14 years after his death sentence, when an investigator hired by his pro bono lawyers discovered a crucial crime lab report. In a case the Supreme Court agreed to hear last week, the prosecutors' boss, former D.A. Harry Connick, argues that his office should not be held responsible for the egregious misconduct that led to Thompson's 18-year ordeal. But if it isn't, no one will be, an outcome that would not only deprive Thompson of compensation but endanger every American's due process rights.
What reason do prosecutors have to follow the law when breaking it makes prosecution so much easier and carries no risk whatsoever for their wrongdoing?
CR
A prosecutor can manufacture evidence to convict an innocent man, hide exculpatory evidence from the defense, intimidate witnesses into pointing the finger at the defendant.
But they can never be sued by the innocent people they send to jail, nor are they ever criminally charged, nor are they ever reprimanded by the professional organizations they belong to.
Prosecutors have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits, even when they willfully and deliberately break the law to convict people.
An article from a man who spent 14 years on death row for a crime he didn't commit: (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10thompson.htm?_r=2)
I SPENT 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I’ve been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date. Those prosecutors were never punished. Last month, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to overturn a case I’d won against them and the district attorney who oversaw my case, ruling that they were not liable for the failure to turn over that evidence — which included proof that blood at the robbery scene wasn’t mine.
Because of that, prosecutors are free to do the same thing to someone else today.
More info from SCOTUSBlog: (http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/connick-v-thompson/)
On March 29, 2011 in Connick v. Thompson, the Court – by a vote of five to four, in an opinion by Justice Thomas – reversed a fourteen-million-dollar award in favor of John Thompson, who served eighteen years in prison for murder and armed robbery before his convictions were vacated. The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office conceded that prosecutors failed to turn over, in violation of Brady v. Maryland, evidence to Thompson’s defense team that would have been exculpatory, but it maintained that it could not be held liable under Section 1983 for failing to properly train its attorneys. The Court agreed, holding that the district attorney’s office cannot be held liable under Section 1983 for failure to train its prosecutors based on a single violation of Brady.
One of the cases cited by the majority in its opinion featured another innocent man sent to prison: (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-innocence-20110403,0,1867335.story)
Lawyers who represented the wrongly convicted also said they were shocked that Scalia would cite the 1988 case of Arizona vs. Larry Youngblood to bolster his opinion. More than a decade ago, after Scalia and the other justices sent Youngblood back to prison, new DNA tests revealed he was innocent.
Carol Wittels, the Tucson lawyer who fought to free Youngblood, said she found it "astounding" that the court would still cite the case as a precedent. "It was a horrible decision then, and I can't believe they are still citing it, since so many people have been cleared with DNA evidence since then," Wittels said in a telephone interview.
An overview of the whole case: (http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/31/the-disappearing-blood-stain)
John Thompson spent 18 years in a Louisiana prison, 14 of them in a windowless, six-by-nine-foot death row cell. According to a federal appeals court, "There were multiple mentally deranged prisoners near him who would yell and scream at all hours and throw human waste at the guards." Thompson, whose execution was scheduled half a dozen times, was a few weeks away from death by lethal injection when his life was saved by a bloody scrap of cloth.
Although four prosecutors in the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office were aware of this evidence, Thompson didn't learn about it until 14 years after his death sentence, when an investigator hired by his pro bono lawyers discovered a crucial crime lab report. In a case the Supreme Court agreed to hear last week, the prosecutors' boss, former D.A. Harry Connick, argues that his office should not be held responsible for the egregious misconduct that led to Thompson's 18-year ordeal. But if it isn't, no one will be, an outcome that would not only deprive Thompson of compensation but endanger every American's due process rights.
What reason do prosecutors have to follow the law when breaking it makes prosecution so much easier and carries no risk whatsoever for their wrongdoing?
CR