Submitted by Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger
John Thompson spent 18 years in prison, 14 of them on death row, following convictions for attempted armed robbery and murder in separate incidents. A scant month before the scheduled execution, an investigator hired by Thompson’s lawyers made a startling discovery in the crime lab archives: a lab report which completely exonerated Thompson on the attempted robbery charge.The report contained results of a test conducted on blood left by the robber on the clothing of one of the victims. The robber had type B blood. Thompson’s is type O.
In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor has a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the accused. The prosecutor in Thompson’s attempted robbery case deliberately withheld the test results from defense counsel. At his subsequent trial on the murder charge, Thompson understandably declined to testify so that the attempted robbery conviction could not be used for impeachment purposes.
In due course both convictions were overturned. A second trial on the murder charge produced a defense verdict after only 35 minutes of jury deliberation. Thompson thereupon sued Harry Connick, the New Orleans district attorney, under several theories, including a violation of Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. The jury awarded Thompson $1,000,000.00 for each year spent on death row, a total of $14,000,000.00. The verdict was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Thompson will never see a dime of his award. In a 5-4 decision announced on March 29th, the Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit. Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas found the evidence of prosecutorial misconduct was insufficient to support a conclusion that the district attorney had been “deliberately indifferent” to his duty to insure that prosecutors in his office adhered to the requirements of the Brady rule.
Justice Thomas reaches his conclusion by framing the issue in a manner which admits of no alternative result. The sole question for the court, he says, is whether Section 1983 liability may be based upon “a single Brady violation.” Of course it can’t. The reason is that a district attorney cannot be held liable for the actions of his subordinates under the theory of respondeat superior. Instead, it was necessary for Thompson to establish a pattern of such violations in Connick’s office sufficient to permit a conclusion that Connick was deliberately indifferent to the need to adequately train his staff on the Brady requirements.
But Justice Thomas ignores substantial evidence in the record that Connick’s office was a virtual cesspool of prosecutorial misconduct. Indeed, at least four prosecutors were aware of the withheld evidence in Thompson’s armed robbery trial. The responsible prosecutor had actually confessed to a colleague that he had withheld the lab report. Connick had had a number of prior convictions reversed for Brady violations. Connick himself openly admitted to never having cracked a law book subsequent to becoming district attorney in 1974.
Justice Thomas finds this record unpersuasive because, as he notes, none of the previous Brady violations “involved failure to disclose blood evidence, a crime lab report, or physical or scientific evidence of any kind.” Accordingly, he concludes, Connick could not have been on notice of the need to train his staff concerning the specific violation in Thompson’s case. Besides, he continues, prosecutors are trained attorneys who can be expected to know and understand their obligations. I don’t know how many potential violations exist in the Brady universe, but presumably Justice Thomas would require that Connick’s prosecutors commit all of them before “deliberate indifference” might be inferred.
The decision in this case is not so much about law as it is about a public policy position intended to impose the most formidable barriers possible to pursuing a Section 1983 claim against a state agency. I prefer to call it the doctrine of prosecutorial impunity.
Kay,
If you think that the Federal Courts have limited apprehension power…then think again…. or ask Roman Polinski….. I think you have Subject Matter JURISDICTION confused. But then again….why don’t you google up Long Arm Jurisdiction…. and think in these terms:
“COULD A TREATY TRUMP SUPREME COURT JURISDICTIONAL DOCTRINE?”: NEGOTIATING THE TORT LONG-ARM PROVISIONS OF THE JUDGMENTS CONVENTION…..
May need to rethink your response….so leave it up to a pro se litigant to make up the rules as they go along…
I do not think that I am Pete Smith… You may but that is your problem for thinking…and not very rationally…at that…
Fine I will stick to “Kay Sieverding”. Happy?
Kay: I am telling you that sockpuppetry is not good manners and is considered fraudulent blogging by responsible users. You posted a comment under the sockpuppet name “reader.” That was obvious because I checked your trackback ID.
You would offend fewer people if you stick to one username.
O.S. If Jonathan Turley wants to fix his blog so that people can only use one I.D. then he can do that. It’s his blog. He can tell from the required email who posts. It’s interesting to me that you react differently if I post under my own name or under an anonymous name. No I am not “peter smith” nor am I “Anonymously yours”. If it will make you feel better I will stick to “kay sieverding” on this blog.
Dear “Anonymously Yours”
Actually the Federal Courts do have boundaries and lines — The Rules Enabling Act requires that all rules be published. The Administrative Procedure Act requires that all procedures involving agencies be published and states that no one can be disadvantaged by an agency that uses unpublished procedure to do so.
Three years after the Nasco v. Chambers decision the Rules of Criminal Procedure Rule 42 was amended to limit the contempt powers of federal courts. Now whether it is a fine or imprisonment, all contempt in federal courts can ONLY be pursued as criminal contempt. State courts are a different matter.
Kay, there you go again. No one said you did not have the right to choose a username that is either a pseudonym or your own name. You can blog under any name you want except a username that is already taken. However, when you create multiple accounts and try to pass yourself off as another person, there is a name for that: Sockpuppet.
A Zombie is someone who has been banned from a site and tries to come back under a different username.
Both sockpuppets and zombies are not only bad manners, they are fraudulent use of someone else’s blog. Either one is a good way to get shown the door at most blogs.
Any user can reveal as much or as little of their personal identity information as they want. It is BAD FORM to reveal such things about another user. That is an open invitation for the site administrator to ban a user. User ‘Pete Smith’ stepped over that bright line and both AY and myself explained that behavior is a No-No. If that user turns out to be you as a sockpuppet, that is even worse bad manners and a fraudulent use of the blog.
And I have aright to blawg anonymously if I chose….. You got a problem with that Bitch? You are one of the most vile and inconsiderate persons that I have run across.
Do not be joining me in the dance. Deal!
I don’t know anything about you and don’t really care to. What I found on line was enough. Just remember the reach of the Federal Court knows very few boundary’s…as you have found out…..They can even have you arrested in a Foreign Jurisdiction….
I have a First Amendment Right to “blog” under my own name if I want to — a name with no criminal history. Got a problem with that?
Kay,
I see you are creating controversy again. Why?
Well Thank you Buddha…
See there, AY? You leaned something new today. And like my grandfather always said, “The only days wasted are the days you don’t learn something new.” Congratulations.
OS,
I did not know that…if the names are highlighted in blue you can contact them or find out information that they reveal….wow…I did not know….
raff,
One of the funniest revenge stories I ever heard was related to a divorce case. Wealthy couple, husband work, wife didn’t and then the hubby falls into that old trap of sleeping with his hot young thing secretary. Somehow, the wife ended up elsewhere and the hubby got the home in the interim of the divorce proceedings. While the hubby took his lil’ honey on a trip out of town, the wife let herself in to the house.
Where she called time and temperature in Tokyo and left the phone off the hook.
Hubby had a phone bill in the thousands when he got home a week later.
I laughed and laughed when I read about that and although I’m sure it hurt the wife in court, I did have to give her an A for creativity.
Buddha,
you are dead on with your distaste for family law. I used to do a few divorces for a firm I worked for in the 1990’s and it was a pain in the ass. Very lucrative, if your client pays, but the stomach lining quotient was way too high!
You’re right about one thing, kay.
I’m not your friend. I used to be simply indifferent, but your history of threadjacking has put me squarely in the category of people who do not like you. Not even a little bit. Felt a little sorry for you and still feel a lot sorry for those around you, but even that small kernel of compassion has been worn away every time you threadjack to the point that what little compassion I might have had for you in the past is effectively non-existent.
And like most things, you’re wrong about me being a retired divorce attorney, too. I never practiced any sort of family law. The only divorce cases I’ve ever been involved in was one when clerking in law school (where my involvement was strictly limited to research) and my own divorce which I had the good sense to hire another attorney to handle.
I never had an interest in family law in general and specifically divorce cases. They bring out the absolute worst in people. People will go out of their way to get an enemy, many in a most ruthless and merciless fashion. That doesn’t hold a candle to what two people who used to love each other and feel betrayed will do to screw with each other. Hell hath no fury like love sundered.
None of this changes that you don’t know what you are talking about vis a vis the law and that you clearly need to seek help from a health care professional.
AY, let me try my hand at this.
Mr. Smith, like AY I have no idea who you are, but AY is correct. We do not reveal personal stuff about others on this blawg. That is very bad breach of Internet manners. Kay has chosen to make her public contact information available in the link from her name. That is why her name is in blue and not black. Please use that.
Kay aka reader,
No I am not Pete….This is just too unfortunate you now accuse me of being Pete….You are very much in need of assistance are you not?
“Pete Smith” AKA Anonymously Yours
What is YOUR problem? I am married. Talk about jacking threads… You are jacking them with bile.
Hey Pete Smith…..
I don’t know who you are….but we do not reveal personal information about people on this blawg….ok…let me restate that we don not reveal personal information about blawgers…. If you can take your rodeo some place else….
Kay,
Please keep your drama else where…. This is not the appropriate forum for you or your games….We do not care about your Drama…. I do not know why you think someone cares here…but you jack too many threads…. Please take it else where….Thank you.
Kay,
When did you get divorced? I did not know. I thought you and David were still together. What happened?
The Supreme Court of Wyoming ruled on 4/13/2011
Appellant, Stephen Bernard Barnes (Barnes), contends that his conviction for larceny should be reversed because the prosecuting attorney committed misconduct by questioning witnesses using a technique wherein the prosecutor repeatedly asked Barnes if the witnesses against him were lying (or other similar words) when their testimony
tended to contradict his. This tactic of the prosecutor persisted during closing argument. Barnes’ attorney did not object to the questions and did not ask for a curative instruction from the presiding judge. On the basis of that issue, we will reverse and remand for
further proceedings in the district court, consistent with this opinion. Barnes also contends that his defense attorney did not provide effective assistance of counsel.
Because we reverse on the basis noted above, we need not address his second issue.
I couldn’t tell if he was pro se or represented in this appeal.
“Although a defendant who testifies in a criminal case
may be cross-examined regarding his credibility just like any other witness, there are limits placed upon the prosecutor.”Talley [v. State, 2007 WY 37], ¶ 10, 153 P.3d at 260. A witness may not comment on the truthfulness or veracity of another witness. Huff v. State, 992 P.2d 1071, 1079 (Wyo. 1999). It is the jury’s duty to resolve factual issues, judge the credibility of the witnesses, and determine the guilt or innocence of a criminal defendant. Gayler v. State, 957 P.2d 855, 860 (Wyo. 1998). It is error and misconduct for a prosecutor to ask a witness whether he thinks other witnesses are “lying” or “mistaken.” Proffit v. State, 2008 WY 114, ¶ 15, 193 P.3d 228, 235 (Wyo. 2008), citing Beaugureau v. State, 2002 WY 160, ¶ 17, 56 P.3d 626, 635-36 (Wyo. 2002).
Schreibvogel v. State, 2010 WY 45, ¶¶ 41-43, 228 P.3d 874, 888 (Wyo. 2010)