A recent op-ed in the New York Times by John Thompson (pic­tured, right) describes his anguish after being wrong­ly con­vict­ed, sen­tenced to death, and most recent­ly denied finan­cial com­pen­sa­tion in Louisiana. He spent 18 years in prison, includ­ing 14 on death row, because pros­e­cu­tors delib­er­ate­ly with­held evi­dence that could have led to his acquit­tal. Thompson wrote, ​“The pros­e­cu­tors involved in my two cas­es, from the office of the Orleans Parish dis­trict attor­ney, Harry Connick Sr., helped to cov­er up 10 sep­a­rate pieces of evi­dence. And most of them are still able to prac­tice law today.” He con­tin­ued, ​“I don’t care about the mon­ey. I just want to know why the pros­e­cu­tors who hid evi­dence, sent me to prison for some­thing I didn’t do and near­ly had me killed are not in jail them­selves. There were no ethics charges against them, no crim­i­nal charges, no one was fired and now, accord­ing to the Supreme Court, no one can be sued.” 

When he arrived on death row, he was put in the cell of a man who had recent­ly been exe­cut­ed. On six occa­sions, he received exe­cu­tion dates until final­ly new evi­dence was dis­cov­ered lead­ing to his exon­er­a­tion. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed a judg­ment of $14 mil­lion against the District Attorney’s Office of New Orleans for their with­hold­ing of the evi­dence. According to Thompson, Orleans Parish dis­trict attor­ney Harry Connick Sr. ini­tial­ly announced that his office would hold a grand jury inves­ti­ga­tion when the hid­den evi­dence first sur­faced, but called it off after it became clear that many peo­ple were involved.

(J. Thompson, ​“The Prosecution Rests, but I Can’t,” New York Times, April 9, 2011). See Innocence and U.S. Supreme Court.

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