us.
On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Jim Crow <cornmash008@yahoo.com> wrote:
--- On Wed, 4/20/11, Terrylyn McCain <drterrylyn@yahoo.com> wrote:
From: Terrylyn McCain <drterrylyn@yahoo.com>
Subject: Fw: Fwd: Supreme Court rules prosecutors can lie and fabricate evidence
To: "EJ" <cornmash008@yahoo.com>
Date: Wednesday, April 20, 2011, 2:48 AM
This is very interesting the DA got off in a Civil Rights 1983 when a man was on death row for eighteen years when he held back bllod sample which could have got him off.
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Sent: Tue, April 19, 2011 10:54:06 AM
Subject: Fwd: Supreme Court rules prosecutors can lie and fabricate evidence
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Subject: Fw: Supreme Court rules prosecutors can lie and fabricate evidence
Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 11:45 PMSubject: FW: Supreme Court rules
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Fwd: Supreme Court rules prosecutors can lie and fabricate
evidence
Supreme Court rules prosecutors can lie and fabricate evidence
==============================================================
*
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COMMENT: The Supreme Court's decision in Connick v. Thompson virtually
gives license to prosecutors to lie, fabricate or withhold evidence,
since they apparently can't be held accountable for knowingly or
intentionally sending an innocent man to prison and even death row.
Washington Post
Posted April 10, 2011
WASHINGTON – An ideologically divided Supreme Court on Tuesday stripped
a $14 million award from a wrongfully convicted man who had spent 14
years on death row and successfully sued New Orleans prosecutors for
misconduct.
[...]
[A dissenting Ginsburg] said the actions of prosecutors under the control
of Connick, who left office in 2003 and is the father of the famous
singer of the same name, "dishonored" the obligation to turn over
evidence favorable to the accused established in Brady v. Maryland,
nearly 50 years ago.
[...]
There is no dispute that one of Connick's prosecutors did not turn over
a blood test that would have shown Thompson innocent of one of the
charges against him. But Thomas said that a single incident is not enough
to prove liability for the district attorney's office and that Thompson
did not show a pattern of similar violations.
[...]
Thompson was convicted of armed robbery in 1985, before he stood trial
for the murder of Raymond Liuzza, the son of a prominent New Orleans
hotel owner. Prosecutors used the armed robbery conviction as a way to
coerce Thompson not to take the stand in his own defense, and, after
conviction, to secure the death penalty. A pair of lawyers at a large
Philadelphia law firm took up his case to spare him death; at one point,
Thompson came within weeks of execution.
But in 1999, an investigator discovered that a blood test conducted in
the armed robbery case showed that Thompson was not the perpetrator.
Prosecutors acknowledged that it was withheld from Thompson's
attorneys.
Read full article
—————–
High court says exonerated inmate cannot sue prosecutors
--------------------------------------------------------
Bill Mears
CNN
April 10, 2011
Washington (CNN) — A sharply divided Supreme Court ruled against a
former death row inmate who sought damages from the state after
prosecutors hid crucial blood tests that would have earlier proven his
innocence. The 5-4 decision Tuesday involved John Thompson, who came
within weeks of execution and had spent 18 years behind bars before being
set free after the new forensic evidence came to light.
At issue was whether a district attorney's office should be held
liable, under a "failure to train" standard, when one of its
prosecutors unconstitutionally withholds exculpatory evidence from a
criminal defendant.
Then-New Orleans area District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. claimed his
office should not be held fully responsible after one of his staff
attorneys violated long-standing, accepted procedures on handling
evidence in criminal trials.
Thompson's lawyers said the DA's office as a whole should be held
liable for the poor training of prosecutors working under Connick.
Read full article
ROGUE PROSECUTORS GET LICENSE TO LIE AND CHEAT
----------------------------------------------
Connick v. Thompson: U.S. Supreme Court Allows Prosecutors to Hide
Evidence Favorable to the Accused without Consequence
Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair
JohnTFloyd.com
Posted April 10, 2011
[...]
What the Supreme Court Held
Essentially, the Court ruled that a district attorney's office cannot
held liable under § 1983 for a failure to train its prosecutors based on
a single Brady violation (prosecutorial misconduct). The Court adhered by
a standard it set in 1977 in Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social
Services which requires an individual suing a local government
municipality prove that his/her injury was caused by an action taken
pursuant to an "official municipality policy" and requires a showing
that decisions by the government's lawmakers (such as a city council or
a district attorney's office), as well as acts by its "policymaking
officials," are wrongful practices so "persistent and widespread as
to practically have the force of law."
[...]
Thompson did not try to prove a pattern of similar Brady violations by
the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office, although he did point to
four reversals of convictions for Brady violations by the Louisiana
courts emanating out of Connick's office during the ten years prior to
his trial. The Supreme Court casually dismissed these four reversals,
saying they were dissimilar to Thompson's situation and, therefore,
could not have put Connick on notice that there was a need for Brady
training among his assistants.
We're not making this stuff up. That's what Justice Clarence Thomas
said, and he was joined by Justices Roberts, Scalia, Alito, and Kennedy.
But let's look at the facts. Thompson was put to trial in 1985. During
the 23-year period from the pronouncement of the Brady rule in 1963 by
the Supreme Court and Thompson's trial, Brady was cited, followed or
distinguished in 40 cases decided by the high court, in 222 cases by the
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and in 179 cases by the Louisiana Supreme
Court and the state's courts of appeals. That's a total 441 cases in
which Brady was explained, discussed, or just mentioned by those various
federal and state courts before Thompson was put to trial.
Just how much notice did District Attorney Harry Connick need that his
assistants needed "training" in this area of law; namely, that
district attorneys could not lie and cheat by fabricating evidence,
concealing favorable evidence from the defense, and encouraging or at the
least sanctioning perjured testimony in order to secure criminal
convictions. This was evidenced by a 1995 U.S. Supreme Court in Kyles v.
Whitley, a precedent ruling in an Orleans Parish capital murder
conviction that sent Curtis Lee Kyles to Louisiana's death row where he
joined Thompson. Kyles, like Thompson, was innocent and the New Orleans
police built its case around him through a well-known informant. Prior to
Kyles trial, his defense attorney filed a Brady motion seeking discovery
of all exculpatory evidence, and despite having in its possession at
least 7 pieces of critical evidence that tended to exonerate Kyles, one
of Connick's assistants told a bald faced lie to the court, saying we
have "no exculpatory evidence of any nature."
Even though the Kyles decision was handed down 10 years after Thompson
was convicted, it was at the very least prima facie evidence that
deliberate, methodical, and unethical Brady violations had been a fixture
in Harry Connick's office since his election as Orleans Parish District
Attorney in 1973. The repeated reversals of criminal convictions over a
20-year period for Brady violations—ten years before and 10 years after
Thompson's conviction—was more than ample evidence that Connick was
not only aware of this pattern of systemic prosecutorial misconduct in
his office but that he ignored, condoned, or perhaps even encouraged, the
"convict at any costs" mentality associated with Brady violation
convictions. What does seem obvious is that there was no serious
training, or strict policies in place, demanding that that Brady be
followed or that exculpatory evidence be turned over to the defense.
[...]
Our Conclusions
We endorse everything Justice Ginsburg said about the John Thompson
travesty. We believe Justice Thomas, and his conservative brethren, have
given rogue prosecutors a virtual free pass to lie and cheat, even when
they knowingly send innocent people to prison. These five justices have
given constitutional blessing to the deplorable, shameful, and
ever-increasing taint of prosecutorial misconduct in our legal system,
and that is a judicial disgrace. The law, and its constitutional
foundation, can be twisted and manipulated to achieve any objective, too
often political ones. And that is precisely what we believe occurred in
the Thompson case—a decision by pro-prosecution justices designed to
cover and insulate prosecutorial misconduct.
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