Saturday, April 9, 2011

John Thompson, the plaintiff in Connick v Thompson, writes about his case in the New York Times

Here is a link to a short article by John Thompson, the plaintiff in Connick v. Thompson, published today in the New York Times. The article starts like this "I spent 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I’ve been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date. Those prosecutors were never punished." Towards the end, Thompson adds "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." These are all valid questions, although it should be clarified that the prosecutor who withheld the evidence died and the one to whom he confessed but did not disclose was disciplined. Harry Connick, Sr., the original defendant, in charge of the prosecutors' office, retired I believe. To my knowledge, though, no one else has been disciplined.

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