A former Death Row inmate has won $14 million in damages after persuading a jury that New Orleans prosecutors showed “deliberate indifference” to his rights by failing to have a policy for dealing with exculpatory evidence.

John Thompson

John Thompson, 44, was sentenced to death in 1985 for the murder of a hotel executive during a robbery. He was within weeks of being executed in 1999 when his attorneys learned that a former assistant prosecutor had confessed to having withheld evidence from the defense.

The “deliberate indifference” standard is an extremely high one for plaintiffs to meet in law enforcement misconduct cases, requiring a showing of “a lesser form of intent.” But a federal jury last week found former Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick and three other prosecutors liable for their indifference to Thompson's due-process rights.

Under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), a prosecutor must disclose to the accused any evidence that is material to either guilt or punishment.

The jury did not conclude that Connick had a policy of hiding Brady evidence but that his failure to establish any policy when the need for one was obvious amounted to a violation of Thompson's rights. Assistant prosecutors testified they received no training on how to handle Brady evidence.

“I don’t know that I remember any formal trainings ... I think it was mainly on-the-job training,” one witness said in a deposition.

U.S. District Judge Carl J. Barbier had refused to summarily dismiss the case in November 2005, saying in his order that

A reasonable jury could find that the need for training in this situation is so obvious that the failure to offer it could properly be characterized as “deliberate indifference,” which caused plaintiff’s injury.

At Thompson's murder trial, prosecutors used his unrelated armed robbery conviction to argue for the death penalty. But assistant DA Gerry Deegan disclosed on his deathbed that he had withheld blood identification evidence which would have exonerated Thompson of the robbery.

“[I]t was the State’s intentional hiding of exculpatory evidence in the armed robbery case that led to his improper conviction in that case and his subsequent decision not to testify in the [murder] case because of the improper conviction,” a Louisiana appeals court ruled in reversing the murder conviction and death sentence in 2002.

Thompson was acquitted of murder by a second jury in 2003 and released from prison. The civil-rights award, which was against the defendants in their official capacities, exceeds the annual budget of the DA's office.

"[It] will seriously affect our ability to execute our present functions and serve our city," said current District Attorney Eddie Jordan, who plans to appeal.

By Matthew Heller
2/13/07