Death row deliverance: prosecutorial misconduct.

• Author: Sullum, Jacob
• Position: Citings - Case study

JOHN THOMPSON spent 18 years in a Louisiana prison, 14 of them in a windowless, six-by-nine-foot death row cell. He was a few weeks away from death by lethal injection when his life was saved by a bloody scrap of cloth.

Although four prosecutors in the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office knew about this evidence, Thompson didn't learn of it until 14 years after his death sentence, when an investigator hired by his pro bono lawyers discovered a crucial crime lab report. Because they enjoy absolute immunity from liability for their trial-related work, these prosecutors cannot be forced to compensate Thompson for the egregious misconduct that led to his 18-year ordeal, and in March the U.S. Supreme Court said their office cannot be held responsible either.

In 1985 Thompson, then 22,was arrested for the murder of a hotel executive who was robbed and shot outside his New Orleans home. After Thompson's picture appeared in a local newspaper, three people who were victims of an armed robbery a few weeks after the murder thought they recognized their assailant. Unbeknownst to Thompson or his attorney, the robber was cut while scuffling with one of his victims, leaving blood on the man's pants. The blood was type B; Thompson's blood type is O. He never got a chance to present this exculpatory evidence because his prosecutors never turned it over, even though he had a due process right to see it...