one for ten: john thompson legal review

Work completed by Allen & Overy LLP in collaboration with Amicus. Any position on the Amicus or One For Ten website

for or against the death penalty does not reflect the views of either Allen & Overy LLP or any individual partner of Allen &

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Case Review

JOHN THOMPSON

The Murder

On 6 December 1984, Raymond T. Liuzza Jr. was the subject of a brutal attack outside of his

home in New Orleans. He was robbed and shot five times. The police were called to the scene

of the attack and arrived while Liuzza was still alive. David Carter, a police officer at the

scene, questioned Liuzza, who informed the officer that his attacker was a black male. No

blood, fabric or hair samples were collected from the crime scene. It was noted that Liuzza's

gold signet ring had been stolen. Later that night, Liuzza died in hospital.

Liuzza was the son of a prominent New Orleans hotel executive so his murder received a lot of

media attention. The Liuzza family wanted immediate justice for their son’s death and offered

a $15,000 reward for any information that would help the police with their enquiries. Given

the social positioning of the Liuzza family, the police were under a lot of pressure to solve the

murder quickly.

The Armed Robbery

On 28 December 1984 three siblings: Jay, Marie and Michael LaGarde were the victims of an

attempted armed robbery while they were in their car in New Orleans. Jay LaGarde fought

with their attacker and, in the struggle, blood from the perpetrator fell onto Jay's trousers.

The police investigated the attack on the LaGarde siblings and, as part of their investigation,

crime scene technicians took a swatch from Jay's trousers with the perpetrator’s blood on it.

The Arrest Of John Thompson

On 17 January 1985, John Thompson and Kevin Freeman were arrested and charged in

connection with the murder of Liuzza. Thompson later recalled:

"I remember the police coming to my grandmother's house, we all knew it was the cops

because of how hard they banged on the door before kicking it in. My grandmother and

my mom were there, along with my little brother and sister, my two sons – John Jr., 4,

and Dedric, 6 - my girlfriend and me. The officers had guns drawn and were yelling. I

guess they thought they were coming for a murderer. All the children were scared and

crying. I was 22."1

When Thompson arrived at the police station, the arresting officers played him an audio

recording of Freeman stating that Thompson had murdered Liuzza.

Investigations By The Police And District Attorney's Office

During the investigation of Liuzza's murder, the police pursued information that Junior Lee

Harris had purchased the murder weapon and gold signet ring from Thompson through

Perkins. He still had the ring, but had sold the weapon on to Jessie Harrison, from whom the

police later recovered the gun.

1 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10thompson.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0



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As a result of the arrests, photographs of Thompson and Freeman were published in the local

newspaper, the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Shortly after the paper published their

photographs, the police received a phone call from Stewart LaGarde, the father of Jay, Marie

and Michael LaGarde, who stated that he had shown his children the picture of Thompson in

the paper and they believed that Thompson was the man who had attempted to rob them.

The police informed the District Attorney's (DA) office that Thompson had been positively

identified as the man responsible for the armed robbery.

The DA's office screened the murder and armed robbery cases to determine the strength of the

evidence and make a decision as to whether to prosecute. Bruce Whittaker was the Assistant

DA who was handling Thompson’s cases. On the screening form for the armed robbery case,

Whittaker wrote that the state "[m]ay wish to do blood test"2 in relation to the swatch taken

from Jay LaGarde's trousers.

The DA's office made a strategic move when they petitioned the Orleans Parish Criminal

District Court to switch the order of the trials so that Thompson would be tried for the armed

robbery before the murder charge despite the murder taking place before the robbery. This

was an attempt by the DA's office to keep Thompson from testifying at his murder trial (as a

guilty verdict in the armed robbery trial could be entered into evidence against him as

impeachment if he testified) and the conviction for armed robbery would give the DA's office

an aggravating factor to enable them to seek the death penalty in the murder case. Their

petition was successful.

Crucial Evidence Is Hidden By The Prosecution

On 11 March 1985, a hearing was held in relation to the armed robbery case. James Williams

handled the hearing on behalf of the DA's office. During the hearing, Williams noted the

reference to the blood test in the screening form and stated in court "It's the state's intention

to file a motion to take a blood sample from the defendant, and we will file that motion… have

a criminalist here on the 27th"3. Despite this noted intention, there is no evidence that the

DA's office ever sent anyone to test Thompson's blood. On 9 April 1985, Whittaker received a

crime lab report stating that the blood type of the perpetrator was type B. This report was not

disclosed to Thompson’s defence team.

Thompson's trial for attempted armed robbery was heard on 11 and 12 April 1985. On the

first day of trial, Gerry Deegan, who tried the case for the DA along with Williams, was

responsible for the transfer of evidence from the police property room to the court property

room. He checked out all of the evidence relating to the armed robbery, including the bloodied

swatch. He then checked in all evidence, but for the bloodied swatch.

Williams did not mention the blood evidence at trial and relied primarily on eyewitness

testimony. In open court, Jay, Marie and Michael LaGarde identified Thompson as the

perpetrator of the armed robbery against them.

The jury found Thompson guilty of attempted armed robbery and he was sentenced to 49½

years in prison without the possibility of parole. This was Thompson’s first conviction of a

serious offence.

2 Thompson v Connick, 553 F.3d 836 (2008) 3 Thompson v Connick, 553 F.3d 836 (2008)



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The Murder Trial

Thompson was tried for the Liuzza murder on 7 and 8 May 1985 before the Criminal District

Court for the Parish of Orleans. Williams and another Assistant DA, Eric Dubelier, acted for the

prosecution.

In exchange for a plea bargain4, Freeman testified that he had seen Thompson pull the trigger.

Perkins testified to the effect that Thompson had told him that he (Thompson) had accidently

shot Liuzza and that Thompson also gave him (Perkins) the murder weapon to sell. Paul

Schliffka testified as an eyewitness that the murderer's hair was "short", describing it as an

"afro" and police officer David Carter testified that Schliffka told him the perpetrator's hair was

short, black and "afro style" (Thompson had "afro style" hair; Freeman had a close-cut style).

In addition, Kenneth Carr testified that he had overheard Thompson in a New Orleans bar

expressing concern about the reward offered by the Liuzza family for information leading to

the arrest of the person responsible for killing their son.

Thompson was advised by his counsel not to testify because, if he did, the attempted armed

robbery conviction would have been used to impeach his credibility with the jury and to show a

propensity for violence.

On 8 May 1985, Thompson was convicted of first degree murder.

During the sentencing phase, the jury heard testimony from one of the LaGarde siblings and

was told by an expert sociologist, hired by Thompson's attorney, that Thompson's world was

"defined as a world in which basically you would define it as criminal"5.

After two hours of deliberations, the jury returned unable to reach a unanimous verdict.

Subsequent questioning of the jury in open court led to the identification of a single juror,

Leola Chaney, who was unable to agree with her peers. The jury agreed to deliberate further

and later returned a decision to sentence Thompson to death. The death sentence was

imposed by the trial court on 25 June 1985.

The Direct Appeal

On 30 November 1987, Thompson appealed his conviction and death sentence to the Supreme

Court of Louisiana. In his appeal, Thompson argued that the Criminal District Court erred in

denying his motion for a change of venue and also erred in failing to impose a life sentence

when the jury was initially unable to unanimously agree during the sentencing phase.

The Supreme Court judges were not sympathetic to Thompson’s appeal and upheld the trial

court’s initial decision. In handing down their verdict, the Supreme Court concluded that the

judge did not err in his decision to deny Thompson’s motion for a change of venue since a

review of the potential jurors’ responses on voir dire (the jury selection process) did not reveal

any prejudice which could have resulted in the denial of a fair and impartial trial. The

Supreme Court judges also disagreed that the trial judge had erred in failing to impose a

sentence of life imprisonment when the jury was initially unable to agree on a

recommendation. The Supreme Court also held that the Criminal District Court judge had not

exerted pressure on the hold-out juror and the jurors were unanimous in their decision to

4 Plea bargaining usually involves the defendant pleading guilty to a lesser charge, or to only one of several charges.

It may also involve a guilty plea as charged, with the prosecution recommending leniency in sentencing. Many plea

bargains are subject to the approval of the court, but some may not be e.g., prosecutors may be able to drop charges

without court approval in exchange for a "guilty" plea to a lesser offence. 5 Thompson v Cain 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2219



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deliberate further. As a result, Thompson was moved to death row at Louisiana State

Penitentiary, which is known colloquially as "Angola".

On 7 January 1988, Thompson applied for a rehearing before the Supreme Court of Louisiana.

This application was denied. However, justices Calogero and Dennis commented that while

they concurred with the majority decision, they would, otherwise, have granted the rehearing

for the limited purpose of remanding the case to the Criminal District Court for an evidentiary

hearing on two issues. Firstly, that there should be a hearing on the Batson6 issue, namely

whether the state had exercised its peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory fashion.

Secondly, that there should be a hearing to determine whether the hold-out juror, Chaney,

had been subjected to pressure to change her vote against the death penalty in open court.

Thompson subsequently petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ of

certiorari, which was denied. Interestingly, justices Brennan and Marshall dissented and in

their dissenting judgments referred to the case of Gregg v Georgia (428 U.S. 153 (1976))

which states that the death penalty is, in all circumstances, cruel and unusual punishment

prohibited by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the US Constitution. An application to

the US Supreme Court for a rehearing was also denied.

On 14 February 1989, Thompson filed an application for post-conviction relief with the trial

court. This was denied as the review of the state’s prosecution file in camera did not suggest

that material evidence, which would have been favourable to Thompson, had been withheld

from Thompson’s attorneys. Thompson filed an application for writ of certiorari in the

Louisiana Supreme Court regarding the trial court’s decision to deny his petition for post-

conviction relief and also filed a number of supplemental petitions for writ of certiorari in the

Louisiana Supreme Court.

The Louisiana Supreme Court granted the petition in part for the purpose of conducting an

evidentiary hearing on the claim that the state prosecution knew, or should have known, that

Perkins lied at the trial about any potential benefit he hoped to derive from a reward that was

offered by the murder victim’s family. Furthermore, it was argued that the state had done

nothing to correct the witness’s testimony to disavow any motive or bias. Thompson was

unsuccessful in appealing for a reconsideration of the order which denied the rest of his claim.

A Dying Assistant Prosecutor Confesses To Hiding Evidence

In 1994, Deegan confessed to Michael Riehlmann, a former Assistant DA, that he had

intentionally withheld the blood evidence. The confession was made shortly after Deegan

learned that he had only months to live having been diagnosed with cancer. Riehlmann only

reported Deegan’s confession in 1999.

An Evidentiary Hearing

On 23 June 1995, the trial court held the evidentiary hearing as ordered by the Supreme Court

of Louisiana. The hearing was presided over by the same judge, Patrick Q. Quinlan, who had

sat on Thompson's original trial. The court agreed to enlarge the scope of evidence for

consideration to include the question of whether Kenneth Carr had lied about his knowledge of

the reward offer at trial.

Frank Maselli, a friend of the Liuzza family, acted as the administrator of the reward fund. He

testified at the hearing that he gave a statement to the press regarding the reward and that its

existence was broadcast on mainstream media. He also stated that no distributions were

6 Batson v. Kentucky 476 U.S. 79 (1986)



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made from the fund until after the trial. Maselli and Perkins both testified that no promise of

payment was made to Perkins prior to the trial.

At the time of the hearing, Carr was incarcerated and was, therefore, unable to testify. He

provided Thompson's attorneys with a sworn affidavit in which he stated that he was told by

police detectives that if he testified he could claim the entire $15,000 reward offered by the

Liuzza family. The affidavit was discredited by the court on the basis that both Maselli and

Detective Curole, the police detective who Maselli alleged told him about the reward, denied in

open court that Carr was promised a reward prior to trial. There was no evidence presented to

support the claim that Perkins received a reward from "Crime Stoppers".

The court reviewed the original trial transcripts which revealed that the defence counsel had

raised the issue of the reward money during the trial, but had not pursued questioning the

witnesses about it despite having the opportunity to do so.

The Trial Court Sets The First Execution Date

On 19 September 1995, the trial court delivered its opinion on the evidentiary hearing and

indicated that they were unconvinced that Perkins and/or Carr had lied at trial about their

knowledge or expectations in relation to the reward money. The court also determined that

there was overwhelming evidence of Thompson’s guilt and the testimony of Perkins and Carr

had been corroborated by other sources during the trial, which meant that had the defence

pursued this line of questioning at trial there was no reasonable probability that the outcome

would have been different (i.e., there was no reasonable degree of probability that Thompson

would have been found not guilty). The court, therefore, denied Thompson's application for

post-conviction relief and, subsequently, set an execution date of 1 November 1995.

Thompson's attorneys appealed to the Louisiana Supreme Court for a review of the trial court's

decisions. As a result, the Louisiana Supreme Court ordered that the execution date be

recalled and that the trial court refrain from setting a new date until such time that their

decision had been reviewed. The Louisiana Supreme Court provided Thompson's attorneys

with a month to prepare and file any supplementary material for the Supreme Court.

On 25 April 1996, the Supreme Court of Louisiana denied, without reason, the supplemental

application which Thompson's attorneys had submitted and refused to reconsider their denial,

again without reason, on 31 May 1996.

On 17 June 1996, the trial court set a further execution date of 28 July 1996. This date was

stayed (i.e., halted) by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and

Thompson's attorneys were provided with the opportunity to make a further application for

relief.

The Habeas Corpus Appeals Process

Thompson’s attorneys submitted an application for a writ of habeas corpus based on a number

of claims, including:

(1) That the prosecutors had withheld critical evidence that could have been used to impeach

the key witnesses presented by the state at the original trial;

(2) That Chaney, being the hold-out juror, had been coerced into changing her convictions in

the sentencing phase; and

(3) That the manipulation of trial dates, allowing Thompson to be tried for the unrelated

armed robbery first, deprived Thompson of a fair murder trial.



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According to the US Supreme Court decision in Brady v Maryland (373 U.S. 83 (1963)), it is a

violation of due process to suppress evidence which is material to the guilt/punishment of a

defendant, regardless of the prosecutor's intentions. Thompson's attorneys specifically

identified seven items which had not been made available to them before or during the trial,

which they argued were exculpatory. They also claimed that had they been presented to the

jury, it was reasonably probable that Thompson would not have been found guilty of Liuzza’s

murder. The US District Court noted that the trial court had reviewed these documents in

1992 and did not find that any evidence favourable to Thompson had been suppressed during

his original trial.

Further, the US District Court did not consider the inquiry into the split of the jury during the

sentencing phase, and the subsequent instruction to continue deliberations for a reasonable

period to be coercive. Unfortunately, the evidence relating to this issue was based largely on

the trial transcripts, which did not provide a description of how Chaney was clearly identified as

the only juror opposed to delivering a death sentence. The transcript did reflect, however,

that on return with the ultimate verdict, Chaney clearly and audibly answered "yes" when the

jury was polled about the death sentence they had chosen to impose.

Article 61 of the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure, provides the DA’s office with broad

powers to determine how and when it can prosecute relevant suspects. The US District Court

held, therefore, that it was within the DA's discretion to try Thompson for the attempted armed

robbery first and, as such, the decision to reverse the trial dates for the two charges was not

an abuse of due process in the murder trial.

The US District Court handed down their opinion on 24 February 1997, denying the application

and refusing an evidentiary hearing. They held that:

(1) The totality of evidence did not support Thompson's claims that the jury's decision may

have been different had they seen the withheld evidence; and

(2) There was nothing in the record to indicate the trial had been rendered fundamentally

unfair.

After Thompson filed a Notice of Appeal on 16 May 1997, an appeal was heard by the US Court

of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on the basis that Thompson argued there had been a violation

of his constitutional rights under Brady v Maryland.

On 27 October 1998, the Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the US District Court

before it and held that there was no Brady violation in the original trial.

This particular appeal centred on the issue relating to payment of a reward offered by the

Liuzza family for information leading to the capture of the murderer. Thompson found that the

state possessed no fewer than nine specific items of evidence regarding the reward which were

favourable to his defence. The items hidden by the state included a police report which

revealed that Carr had requested the reward from Crime Stoppers. The withheld evidence also

revealed that Perkins had met with the Liuzza family in person. As a result, the defence could

have been able to impeach the testimony of state witnesses, Perkins and Carr, had such

information not been withheld.

The Court of Appeals dismissed Thompson’s claims on the basis that the existence of the

arrangement with the Liuzza family was never established as fact; none of the materials

relating to Perkins were in and of themselves exculpatory; and, therefore, the materials were

not proper impeachment evidence regarding Perkins.



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It was the view of the Court of Appeals that the error came from defence counsel’s lack of

rigour on cross-examination rather than the fact that Perkins’ or Carr’s testimonies were

actually false. Thompson later proved that Perkins had indeed made arrangements with the

Liuzza family to receive a reward in exchange for his testimony at trial, giving him the motive

to testify falsely.

Thompson’s attorneys further argued that the Criminal District Court had acted improperly by

asking questions regarding the numerical division of the jury during the penalty phase, which

led to the open identification of Chaney as the lone hold-out juror. Chaney's post-trial affidavit

on this subject further emphasised her emotional reaction and her distress at feeling pressured

to change her verdict. According to Thompson’s attorneys, the Criminal District Court showed

a flagrant disregard of its responsibility to insulate jurors from coercion which rendered the

sentence fundamentally unfair.

The Court of Appeals maintained that no-one improperly influenced Chaney’s verdict given that

the jury unanimously decided to continue its deliberation.

Finally, Thompson contended that his trial court attorneys were ineffective at the guilt phase of

the trial, in particular by failing to introduce important eye witness testimony about the

gunman who fled the scene as well as testimony regarding Thompson’s own physical

appearance on the night in question. Thompson maintained he had long hair on the night of

the murder and noted the eyewitness’ testimony at trial (referred to above) that the person he

saw fleeing the murder scene had short hair. Furthermore, several police reports containing

eyewitness descriptions of the murderer which did not match Thompson’s description were not

disclosed to the defence. The Court of Appeals found that there was no attorney error.

In the fourteen years following his murder conviction, Thompson had exhausted all of his

appeals. On 20 May 1999 – the day before his son would graduate from high school -

Thompson was scheduled to die by lethal injection.

Thompson's appeal attorneys, Michael Banks and J. Gordon Cooney, told him that nothing

short of a miracle could save him now. Within weeks of the execution date, incredibly, that

miracle came.

The Hidden Evidence Is Discovered

Banks and Cooney had hired a private investigator, Elisa Abolafia, to sift through the evidence

one last time. Acknowledging that the DA's office would not allow her access to Thompson's

case file, she went to the New Orleans Police evidence vault and requested to look through

their archives. She discovered that evidence from the LaGarde attempted robbery case had

been checked out by a junior Assistant DA in April 1985, but, strangely, had never been

checked back in.

The forensic laboratory allowed Abolafia into their microfiche library and, after searching

through thousands of pieces of microfiche, she found a blood test that Dubelier had stated in

writing did not exist. This indicated that the gunman's blood in the attempted robbery, which

was on the trousers of the victim who struggled with him, was blood type B. Both the victim,

Jay LaGarde, and John Thompson had blood type O, making it impossible for Thompson to

have been the perpetrator. This evidence conclusively proved that Thompson was not

responsible for the armed robbery that the state had used as an aggravating circumstance to

support the imposition of the death penalty for the murder charge.



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Banks and Cooney presented this information to the DA’s office. The DA’s office moved for a

stay of execution on the basis of potential prosecutorial misconduct. In the ensuing

investigation, Deegan’s confession to Riehlmann was uncovered. As a result, Riehlmann faced

disciplinary proceedings for withholding the information. He received a brief suspension for his

inaction.

On 29 June 1999, 14 years after the prosecution first obtained the hidden evidence, the armed

robbery conviction was quashed and Thompson was removed from death row.

When the hidden evidence first surfaced, prosecutor John Jerry Glas urged Harry Connick, the

DA at the time, to convene a grand jury to investigate. The same prosecutors had been

involved in both the armed robbery and the murder cases. Connick called off the investigation

and dismissed the grand jury when it became apparent just how many people had been

involved in the cover up, although the reason he gave publically was that the statute of

limitations had run out. Shortly thereafter, Glas resigned.

Appeal Following The Discovery Of Hidden Evidence

On 26 October 2000 the trial court heard Thompson’s application for ‘post-conviction relief’

(i.e. remedy from the court to address the injustice Thompson had suffered). Thompson

argued that the state’s appalling handling of his case had led to his wrongful conviction for

armed robbery, which had denied him the right to give evidence at the murder trial and to

submit a defence to the charge against him. After reviewing the new evidence, on 26 October

2000, Judge Patrick Quinlan overturned Thompson’s death sentence on the basis that the

armed-robbery conviction had been used against him during the murder trial. Thompson was

re-sentenced to life without parole.

On 17 July 2002, Thompson appealed to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal. The

court ruled that the conviction for armed-robbery had effectively denied Thompson his right to

testify at his murder trial. This, coupled with the fact that the prosecutors had intentionally

hidden blood evidence from Thompson's attorneys, led the court to overturn Thompson's

conviction for murder and order that he be retried. The state appealed this decision to the

Supreme Court of Louisiana, but their appeal was denied.

On 9 May 2003, Thompson was retried for the Liuzza murder. During the retrial, new

testimony was heard. Freeman,–the prosecution’s key witness in the original trial, had been

killed since the first trial. Previously unheard testimony from Freeman was finally presented to

the court through transcripts. In addition, Sheri Hartman Kelly (who lived near the murder

scene in 1984) gave eye witness testimony for the first time. Kelly told the jury that she had

seen the man who killed Liuzza from the balcony of her apartment and she was adamant that

the murderer was not Thompson. Kelly had fled New Orleans a month after Liuzza’s murder

out of fear for her life but gave evidence at the retrial after being tracked down by

investigators hired by Thompson’s appeal attorneys.

Nearly 20 years after his arrest for murder, Thompson was finally able to give evidence in open

court and profess his innocence. He told the court that he had purchased the murder weapon

and gold signet ring from Freeman before selling them on to Perkins.

In total, Thompson's lawyers were able to use ten pieces of new evidence that prosecutors had

failed to disclose to the defence team in the first trial. Thompson's lawyers and the

prosecution alike faced a murder case "plagued by old age". This was a 20-year-old case with

20-year-old facts and, like Freeman, a number of witnesses had died. However, the jury in the

retrial returned a ‘not guilty’ verdict within just 35 minutes.



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Thompson's life was saved, but had it not been for his death sentence, he would not have been

entitled to legal representation to fight his appeals. He might never have been freed and

might still be in prison to this day for a crime that he had not committed.

"I was lucky" Thompson says, "But there are more than 4,000 people serving life without

parole in Louisiana, almost none of whom have lawyers… Someone needs to look at those

cases to see how many others might be innocent"7.

Exoneration And Release

In May 2003, after spending 18 years in prison, 14 years of which were on death row, for a

crime that he did not commit, Thompson was released. He was wearing the same clothes that

he had been arrested in and given ten dollars plus a bus ticket.

Thompson had never used a mobile phone or an ATM. He had spent 14 years on death row in

conditions that international tribunals have agreed is tantamount to torture – isolated and

suffering from 'the anguish and mounting tension of living in the ever-present shadow of

death'. Until 2005, the state of Louisiana, whose officials had deliberately manipulated the

evidence that put Thompson on death row, was under no obligation to help people like him.

Thompson decided to dedicate his freedom to helping others who have been wrongly

imprisoned, highlighting flaws in the criminal justice system and working to make the state

officials accountable for railroading innocent men into prison and onto death row. He set up an

organisation called Resurrection After Exoneration (RAE) and he sued the Orleans Parish DA’s

office on the basis that the violation in his case (the above-referenced Brady violation) was

caused by the DA’s office's deliberate indifference to an obvious need to train prosecutors not

to hide evidence that could help the defence.

Civil Suit Against The New Orleans District Attorney's Office

In relation to his civil action against the DA’s office, Thompson argued that the DA’s office had

been indifferent to its obligations to train its staff. It was shown that Connick did not

understand the law himself and told the jury that he had once been indicted for withholding a

crime lab report. His staff received no training on their obligations under Brady. The jury that

heard Thompson's civil case awarded him $14 million in damages, $1 million for every year he

was held on death row, to be paid by the DA's office.

On appeal by the DA's office, the Federal Court of Appeals upheld the award. However, in

March 2011, the US Supreme Court overturned the damages awarded to Thompson, holding

that the DA’s office could not be held liable for a failure to train its prosecutors on the basis of

a single Brady violation. The decision acknowledged that there had been four other overturned

convictions but stated that this was insufficient to establish a pattern of misconduct. This was

on the basis that the withheld evidence in the four convictions was of different types.

Had the prosecutors been in another line of work Thompson might have been able to sue the

individuals responsible but a Supreme Court decision in 1854 means that the prosecutors who

tried to kill him do not have personal liability for their actions.

Justice Ginsberg wrote an impassioned opinion disagreeing with this conclusion on behalf of

four of the nine Supreme Court justices. She made it clear that she and the other justices had

found that these instances of prosecutorial misconduct were typical of the culture of the

relevant DA’s office.

7 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10thompson.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0



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Sadly, it seems that this is a culture that persists. Almost ten years after Thompson's

exoneration, a man who had been convicted of murder and sentenced to death in Orleans

Parish had his death sentence overturned and was given a new trial because his lawyers found

that the prosecutors had deliberately hidden evidence which cast doubt on the credibility of the

prosecution witnesses. Following the decision in Thompson's case, commentators across the

US, and around the world, have asked how prosecutors can be held accountable for deliberate

misconduct and negligent mistakes. If prosecutors cannot be personally liable and the

prosecutor's office cannot be held liable, what is there to encourage prosecutors to do the right

thing? Kirk Bloodsworth, who spent two years on Maryland’s death row, remarked on the

Thompson decision: "It’s sad for America that we allow court officers to inflict the most

harmful of all errors upon us with glib and cavalier intent to only win. Justice in that event

always loses."8

Resurrection After Exoneration

In 2007, Thompson became an Echoing Green Foundation Fellow. The Foundation awarded

him $60,000 to assist in the development of RAE. Today, the organisation offers a variety of

services to people who have been wrongly convicted and formerly incarcerated people,

including computer classes, high school diploma tutoring, job training in RAE's screen-printing

business, transitional housing and subsidised primary medical health care. These services are

particularly important for those held on death row because they are often treated as 'dead

men walking' and – unlike other prisoners – are held with little access to education or training.

One of the Foundation's directors said of Thompson that "he walked away from being in prison

for almost two decades with such an unbelievable attitude of wanting to give back and be of

service".9

8 http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Holding_Prosecutors_Accountable.php 9 http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/free_after_18_years_on_death_r.html



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Sources

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2011-03-29/politics/35207094_1_chief-prosecutor-thompson-

death-row

http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2012/September/Killing-Time-Resurrecting-Death-Rows-

Exonerated/

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/documents/PR-DPIC108.pdf

http://www.deathpenaltyworldwide.org/death-row-phenomenon.cfm

http://www.echoinggreen.org/fellows/john-thompson

http://harvardcrcl.org/2011/04/02/clarence-thomas-to-wrongfully-convicted-louisiana-death-row-

inmate-you-get-nothing/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/locke-bowman/a-supreme-miscalculation-_b_844991.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/my-life-after-death-row-by-man-cleared-of-

murder-1802606.html

http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/Holding_Prosecutors_Accountable.php

http://www.jdsupra.com/documents/219a419b-9a34-4da9-8659-df8842a8d368.pdf

http://liberty504.tripod.com/

http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/free_after_18_years_on_death_r.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10thompson.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

http://www.r-a-e.org/programs/services

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/04/new_orleans_district_attorney_leo

n_cannizzaro_is_being_questioned_for_his_ethics_in_pursuing_convictions_.html

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/09-571.pdf

http://thelensnola.org/2012/08/02/moseley-on-exoneree-compensation/

http://www.truthinjustice.org/John-Thompson.htm

http://www.yalelawjournal.org/the-yale-law-journal-pocket-part/supreme-court/the-myth-of-

prosecutorial-accountability-after-connick-v.-thompson:-why-existing-professional-responsibility-measures-cannot-protect-against-prosecutorial-misconduct/

Slate Magazine, “Innocent on Death Row” by John Hollway dated 5 October 2010

Louisiana v Thompson 516 So. 2d 349 (1987)

Thompson v Cain 1997 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2219

Thompson v Cain 161 F.3d 802 (1998)

Thompson v Cain 1999 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 329

Louisiana v Thompson 825 So. 2d 552 (2002)

Thompson v Connick 2005 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36499

Thompson v Connick, 553 F.3d 836 (2008)

Work completed by Allen & Overy LLP in collaboration with Amicus. Any position on the Amicus or One for Ten website


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Chronology

JOHN THOMPSON

6 December 1984 Raymond T. Liuzza Jr. is robbed and shot five times outside his New

Orleans home. He dies in hospital. The Liuzza family subsequently offer a

reward of $15,000 for information regarding the murder.

28 December 1984 Jay, Marie and Michael LaGarde are victims of an attempted armed

robbery. Crime scene technicians take a swatch of Jay's clothing with the

perpetrator's blood on it.

December 1984 New Orleans police interview Junior Lee Harris, who is in possession of the

murder weapon and Liuzza's gold ring. He claims that he bought the

items from Richard Perkins.

17 January 1985 John Thompson and Kevin Freeman are arrested and charged with

Liuzza's murder. Pictures of Thompson and Freeman are published in the

Times-Picayune newspaper. The LaGardes positively identify Thompson

from the photo in the newspaper as the man who committed the

attempted armed robbery. The District Attorneys’ (DA) office arranges for

the timing of the armed robbery trial and the murder trial to be reversed.

11 March 1985 In a hearing relating to the armed robbery case, the prosecution notes:

"It's the state's intention to file a motion to take a blood sample from the

defendant, and we will file that motion … have a criminalist here on the

27th."

Pre murder trial

1985

Thompson writes a letter to "Big Daddy Red" requesting assistance in

preventing Perkins from testifying.

9 April 1985 Bruce Whittaker, of the DA's office, receives a crime lab report stating that

the armed robbery perpetrator's blood type was type B.

11 -12 April 1985 The armed robbery case is prosecuted by James Williams and Gerry

Deegan. Deegan checks all of the evidence apart from the bloodied

swatch of Jay LaGarde’s clothing into the court property room. Thompson

is found guilty and sentenced to forty nine and a half years in prison.

7-8 May 1985 Thompson is tried and convicted of the Liuzza murder by Eric Dublier and

Williams. During sentencing, the jury is unable to reach a unanimous

verdict. After identifying the stand-alone juror, Leola Chaney, the jury

deliberate further and decide to sentence Thompson to death.

30 November 1987 Thompson appeals the verdict and sentence to the Supreme Court of

Louisiana. The appeal is denied.

1 December 1987 Thompson is moved to death row at Louisiana State Penitentiary.

7 January 1988 Thompson makes an application for a rehearing to the Supreme Court of

Louisiana. The application is denied.

3 October 1988 Appeal to the Supreme Court of the US is denied.



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28 November 1988 Application to the US Supreme Court for rehearing is denied, exhausting

Thompson’s direct appeal.

14 February 1989 Thompson files an application for post-conviction relief with the trial court.

10 November 1992 Trial court denies the application stating that they were satisfied that "no

material evidence favourable to the petitioner was withheld."

12 December 1992,

17 December 1992,

2 September 1993,

16 December 1993

Thompson files an application for writ of certiorari in the Louisiana

Supreme Court regarding the trial court's decision to deny his petition for

post-conviction relief. Three supplemental petitions for writ of certiorari

are filed in the Louisiana Supreme Court over the following year.

1994 Deegan confesses to a friend that he intentionally withheld the blood

evidence.

23 September 1994 The Louisiana Supreme Court issues an order granting Thompson's

petition in part. The case is remanded to the District Court for an

evidentiary hearing in relation to the testimony of Perkins and a reward

($15,000) offered by the victim's family.

4 November 1994 Supreme Court of Louisiana denies Thompson's appeal for reconsideration

of the previous Order of 23 September 1994 denying part of his claim.

23 June 1995 An evidentiary hearing is held in the trial court including whether Kenneth

Carr, who had been a witness for the prosecution in the original trial, also

lied about his knowledge of a potential reward from the victim’s family.

19 September 1995 The trial court finds that the issue of reward money was made known to

the defence, mentioned at trial. Application for post-conviction relief is

denied. Date of execution set for 1 November 1995.

17 October 1995 The Supreme Court of Louisiana orders the trial court to refrain from

resetting the execution date until the denial of the post-conviction

application is reviewed.

25 April 1996 Louisiana Supreme Court denies the supplement to the application for writ

of certiorari.

31 May 1996 Reconsideration of denial is also denied.

17 June 1996 A warrant of execution is signed by the trial court setting the date of

execution for 28 July 1996.

16 July 1996 District Court stays warrant for execution pending further Orders.

24 February 1997 Petition for Habeas Corpus to the US District Court for the Eastern District

of Louisiana is denied. Stay of execution lifted.

19 March 1997 Stay of execution for the 25 April 1997 execution date is granted pending

motion for reconsideration.

17 April 1997 US District Court denies Thompson's request for reconsideration of the

court's decision on 24 February 1997.



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16 May 1997 Thompson files a Notice of Appeal. The US District Court grants him a

certificate of "appealability".

27 October 1998 US Court of Appeals affirms the judgment of the US District Court

concluding that there was no Brady (i.e. the due process requirement of

disclosure of exculpatory evidence to defence counsel) violation and that

Chaney was not forced or coerced into continuing deliberations.

December 1998 An execution date is set for 26 January 1999. Thompson petitions to the

effect that there is a stay in place until time for him to file a writ of

certiorari lapses on 1 March 1999.

6 January 1999 A motion filed by the state to vacate the stay Order entered on 19 March

1997 is denied. Stay of execution extended to allow time for Thompson to

file a petition for writ of certiorari.

16 April 1999 Execution date set for 20 May 1999.

29 April 1999 Thompson's lawyers, Michael Banks and J. Gordon Cooney, meet with

Assistant DAs and are provided with documents relating to the blood

evidence from the attempted armed robbery case.

Late April 1999 A private investigator discovers a microfiche copy of the DA’s crime

laboratory report containing the blood type of the armed robbery

perpetrator. The perpetrator's blood is not a match against Thompson.

2 May 1999 The trial court stays the 20 May 1999 execution based on a joint petition

from Thompson and the DA.

1999 Deegan's confession regarding withholding blood evidence is disclosed.

1999 Thompson discovers additional evidence that had been withheld by the

prosecution including inconsistent statements made by Paul Schliffka, who

had been an eyewitness to the crime and provided testimony for the

prosecution in the original trial. It is also revealed that Perkins received a

monetary award from the Liuzza family for identifying the murderer.

29 June 1999 The court overturns the attempted armed robbery conviction based on the

exculpatory blood tests.

22 December 1999 Thompson files an application for post-conviction relief based on the use

of the wrongful armed robbery conviction in the murder trial.

26 October 2000 The trial court convenes a hearing in relation to Thompson's application

for post -conviction relief.

26 May 2001 The trial court reverses Thompson's death sentence but does not award

him a re-trial.

17 July 2002 Thompson appeals to the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal. The

case is remanded for a new trial.

15 November 2002 An appeal from the state to the Supreme Court of Louisiana regarding the

Court of Appeal's decision is denied.



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9 May 2003 Thompson is retried for the Liuzza murder. The jury returns a verdict of

not guilty within 35 minutes. Thompson is released from prison.

16 July 2003 Thompson files a civil suit against the Orleans Parish DA’s office, Connick,

Williams, Dubelier and Eddie Jordan (the DA in 2003) for malicious

prosecution and intentional or reckless infliction of emotional distress,

wrongful suppression of exculpatory evidence and conspiracy.

15 November 2005 The defendants file a motion for summary judgment. The motion is

denied in part (malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional

distress) and granted in part.

16 November 2005 Motion by Thompson to exclude expert report of Edward Morse and to

preclude his testimony at trial is granted as to testimony concerning guilt

or innocence and denied in remainder.

10 October 2006 Motion to dismiss filed by the defendants is denied.

2007 Thompson receives a two year fellowship from the Echoing Green

Foundation to support the building of Resurrection After Exoneration.

5-9 February 2007 The jury decides that the harm inflicted on Thompson was not caused by

an official policy, but by a deliberately indifferent failure to establish

policies and procedures. They award Thompson £14 million in damages.

23 April 2007 Defendant's appeal to the US District Court is denied.

16 June 2007 US District Court awards Thompson attorney fees in the amount of

$1,031,841.79, expert fees in the amount of $90,916.61 and costs in the

amount of $43,419.05.

19 December 2008 US Court of Appeal reverse in part relating to the naming of non-liable

parties in the judgment.

11 March 2009 US Court of Appeal grants rehearing on appeal by Thompson of the 19

December 2008 decision.

10 August 2009 US Court of Appeal affirms the decision of the US District Court.

22 March 2010 US Supreme Court agree to hear appeal by the defendants from the US

Court of Appeal.

28 September 2010 US Supreme Court motion for former federal civil rights officials and

prosecutors to participate in oral arguments is denied.

6 October 2010 Oral arguments are heard in the US Supreme Court.

29 March 2011 The US Supreme Court reverses the decision of the US District Court,

stating that the DA's Office was absolutely immune from being sued.

Thompson was not awarded anything for spending 18 years in prison, 14

of which were on death row.

Work completed by Allen & Overy LLP in collaboration with Amicus. Any position on the Amicus or One for

Ten website for or against the death penalty does not reflect the views of either Allen & Overy LLP or any

individual partner of Allen & Overy LLP.

Case Summary

JOHN THOMPSON

On the evening of 6 December 1984, Raymond T Liuzza was shot five times outside of his home

in New Orleans. The perpetrator took Liuzza's gold signet ring before fleeing the scene. There

were a number of eyewitnesses to the event. A couple of weeks later, three siblings were the

victims of an attempted armed robbery. The eldest, Jay LaGarde, struggled with the perpetrator,

and some of the perpetrator's blood stained his trousers.

During their investigation, the police found the murder weapon and gold signet ring, which were

linked back to John Thompson. The police also received tips through both Crime Stoppers and

the Luizza family, following their public offer of a $15,000 reward, which lead them to consider

Thompson as the main suspect in the murder case. Thompson was subsequently arrested and

his photo was released to the media. After seeing his photograph in the local newspaper, the

LaGardes identified Thompson as the perpetrator in the attempted armed robbery. Thompson

was charged separately with both the murder and the attempted armed robbery.

The District Attorney (DA) successfully managed to reschedule the trial dates of each case so

that Thompson would be tried for the armed robbery first. This would allow the prosecutors to

use this conviction to impeach Thompson if he testified during the murder trial, and as an

aggravating factor in order to obtain a death sentence should he be found guilty of the murder.

Thompson was convicted of both the attempted armed robbery, for which he received 49 ½

years, and the murder, for which he received a death sentence.

In 1999, 14 years after his conviction, an investigator uncovered evidence which revealed that

the DA’s office had tested the blood of Jay LaGarde's trousers prior to the attempted robbery trial

and learned that the blood type was Type B. This matched neither Jay LaGarde nor Thompson.

The DA’s office had deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence regarding the crime which had, in

a large part, secured Thompson's death sentence.

The US Supreme Court declared, in the case of Brady v Maryland (1963), that it is a violation of

due process to suppress evidence which is material to the guilt and/or punishment of a

defendant. Thompson's attorneys found ten separate pieces of evidence (that could have been

used to prevent this injustice) which the DA’s office had withheld from Thompson's defence.

It took a further four years for Thompson to be granted a re-trial. His attorneys were able to use

evidence which had not previously been made available to them, including testimony from

various eye-witnesses stating that Thompson was not responsible for the murder and

inconsistent police statements which discredited the state's eyewitnesses. Thompson’s attorneys

successfully secured a "not guilty" verdict after only 35 minutes of jury deliberation.

Thompson was released after 18 years in prison, 14 of which had been spent on death row, for

crimes he had not committed. After his release, Thompson filed a civil suit against the DA’s

office and the jury awarded him $14million. However, the US Supreme Court later overturned

the award. While they acknowledged the misdoings of the prosecutors, they held that the office

could not be held responsible for the misdeeds of an individual employee. Thompson was

awarded no compensation for the years he spent in prison as an innocent man.

Thompson went on to set up a charitable organisation called Resurrection After Exoneration, to

help exonerees like himself adjust to life outside of prison and to assist in appeals against

prosecutorial misconduct.

one for ten: john thompson legal review

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