Federal Appeals Court Overturns Tennessee Death Penalty as a Result of Prosecutorial Misconduct

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit over­turned the con­vic­tion and death sen­tence of Tennessee death-row pris­on­er Andrew Lee Thomas, Jr. on February 24, rul­ing that Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich had uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly with­held evi­dence that a key pros­e­cu­tion wit­ness had been paid for her coop­er­a­tion in the case and then elicit­ed per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny from the wit­ness lying about the pay­ment. Weirich is cur­rent­ly fac­ing eth­i­cal charges from the Tennessee Board of Professional Responsibility aris­ing out of mis­con­duct in anoth­er mur­der tri­al, State v. Noura Jackson, in which the Tennessee Supreme Court found that Weirich had failed to dis­close excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence to the defense and had improp­er­ly com­ment­ed on the defen­dan­t’s deci­sion not to testify. 

According to the court’s rul­ing in Thomas’s case, his for­mer girl­friend, Angela Jackson, had pro­vid­ed ​“the only reli­able tes­ti­mo­ny plac­ing Thomas at the scene of the shoot­ing.” During tri­al, Weirich asked Jackson: ​“Have you col­lect­ed one red cent for this?” Jackson replied, ​“No, ma’am. I have not.” In fact, Jackson had been paid $750 by the FBI on behalf of the joint state and fed­er­al Safe Streets Task Force. Calling Weirich’s fail­ure to dis­close the pay­ment ​“egre­gious,” the court said the ​“pros­e­cu­tor had a duty to dis­close this pay­ment rather than allow the wit­ness to com­mit per­jury by deny­ing its existence.” 

Shelby County, where Thomas was tried, is among the 2% of U.S. coun­ties that account for a major­i­ty of all death sen­tences imposed in the United States. Its coun­ty pros­e­cu­tors have been dogged by charges of mis­con­duct. In 2014, Weirich defend­ed the con­duct of Tom Henderson, a vet­er­an homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor in her office who had been cen­sured by the Tennessee Supreme Court for mis­con­duct in the cap­i­tal tri­al of Michael Rimmer after a judge had found that Henderson had made ​“bla­tant­ly false, inap­pro­pri­ate and eth­i­cal­ly ques­tion­able” state­ments to the Court and defense coun­sel about the exis­tence of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence, ​“pur­pose­ful­ly mis­led coun­sel with regard to the evi­dence,” and with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence he was con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required to disclose.