(8) After failing to turn over the blood tests, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office prosecutors secured the armed robbery conviction. (11) The jury awarded $14 million because the district attorney's office was "deliberately indifferent to the need to train, monitor, and supervise [its] prosecutors to comply with the constitutional requirements concerning production of evidence favorable to an accused." Held: A district attorney’s office may not be held liable under §1983 for failure to train its prosecutors based on a single Brady violation. 0000006059 00000 n Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. ___ (2011), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court considered whether a prosecutor's office can be held liable for a single Brady violation by one of its members on the theory that the office provided inadequate training.. (41) In state courts, plea agreements account for over 94% of felony convictions (42) and this rate is even higher in federal courts. 3733 36 0000024984 00000 n That's it. "[10] Andrew Cohen called the majority's argument a "warped rationale. To install click the Add extension button. of Social Servs., 436 U. S. 658, 691. 0000004843 00000 n Thompson does not contend that he proved a pattern of similar Brady violations, and four reversals by Louisiana courts for dissimilar Brady violations in the 10 years before the robbery trial could not have put the district attorney's office on notice of the need for specific training. Thompson sued Connick and several of his assistant district attorneys for suppression of evidence and won a verdict of $14 million. 0000005762 00000 n (7), In the criminal cases underlying Thompson's [section] 1983 suit, the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office in Louisiana tried Thompson separately for armed robbery and murder and secured convictions at both trials. GINSBURG'S CONNICK V. THOMPSON DISSENT AND THE TRAINING IMPERATIVE Timothy Fry I. Specifically, in Part II, this Comment discusses how prosecutorial discretion can lead to cases of misconduct, which complex procedural doctrines like the Brady doctrine have been unable to eliminate. FREE EXCERPT. (43) These agreements also often come early in an investigation when a prosecutor can dictate terms to a defendant before the defendant's attorney has had time to investigate the case. She noted that the lead prosecutor's alma mater did not require criminal procedure, passing the Louisiana bar exam did not require knowledge of Brady, and the state did not require continuing legal education at the time. 0000030389 00000 n 0000015316 00000 n In both trials, the prosecutor's office failed to turn over to the defense material evidence that cast doubt on Thompson's guilt--blood tests that indicated he had not committed the armed robbery and eyewitness testimony suggesting he was not the murderer. (16) Specifically, the attorneys in the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office graduated from law school, passed the Louisiana bar exam, and possibly attended continuing legal education training; they alone were responsible for their actions. Jury verdict affirmed in part, reversed in part, A district attorneys office cannot be held responsible for failing to properly train its employees when the plaintiff can only prove a single violation of, Thomas, joined by Roberts, Scalia, Kennedy, Alito, Ginsburg, joined by Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan. Prosecutorial training wheels: Ginsburg's Connick v. Thompson dissent and the training imperative. 0000007846 00000 n Healy continued, "[t]he conservative majority preferred to affirm an obvious wrong rather than face the appalling vista of a brutal and corrupt justice system. Attorneys are trained in the law and equipped with the tools to interpret and apply legal principles, understand constitutional limits, and exercise legal judgment. Nina Totenberg wrote that "a bitterly divided U.S. Supreme Court all but closed the door" to prosecutors being held liable for damages when prosecutors violate the law to deprive a person of a fair trial. The Fifth Circuit affirmed by an equally divided court. (52) In 1976, the Supreme Court extended this common law rule of immunity to [section] 1983 civil rights claims. Congratulations on this excellent venture… what a great idea! Based solely on the identification by the three victims, Thompson was found guilty of attempted armed robbery and sentenced to 50 years in prison. CONNICK v. THOMPSON ( No. Monell v. New York City Dept. (13) Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, read the facts to say that only a single prosecutor withheld the evidence and Thompson's case was unique. 0000007369 00000 n (17). They receive training before entering the profession, must usually satisfy continuing education requirements, often train on the job with more experienced attorneys, and must satisfy licensing standards and ongoing ethical obligations. (61) Qualified immunity will protect a prosecutor unless he or she knowingly violates clear constitutional standards. (44) No one reviews prosecutors' discretionary decisions to offer or not to offer such plea agreements. The evidence in this case presents overwhelming support for the conclusion that the Orleans Parish Office slighted its responsibility' to the profession and to the State's system of justice by providing no on-the-job Brady training. "[9] Kieran Healy called the tone of the majority opinion "spiteful", and the decision a "Lord Denning Moment" for the court. HARRY F. CONNICK, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, et al., PETITIONERS v. JOHN THOMPSON. Their disregard for the facts of Thompson's thrashed life and near-death emerges as a moral flat line...only by willfully ignoring that entire trial record can [Scalia] and Thomas reduce the entire constitutional question to a single misdeed by a single bad actor. The only claim that went to trial alleged a failure to train prosecutors on their Brady doctrine obligations. (28) Legal philosophers have typically not provided a more particular definition (29) because "like the hole in a doughnut," discretion exists in between restrictions and "is therefore a relative concept." After nearly two decades of wrongfully being imprisoned, Thompson was found not guilty in the retrial. In Canton, the Court theorized that if a city armed its police force and deployed them into the public to capture fleeing felons without training the officers in the constitutional limitation on the use of deadly force, the failure to train could reflect the city's deliberate indifference to the highly predictable consequence, namely, violations of constitutional rights. ", "(c) Thompson mistakenly relies on the “single-incident” liability hypothesized in Canton, contending that the Brady violation in his case was the “obvious” consequence of failing to provide specific Brady training and that this “obviousness” showing can substitute for the pattern of violations ordinarily necessary to establish municipal culpability. Since absolute or qualified immunity will be extended to most actions of a prosecutor, one concern is that immunity leads to an increase... Prosecutorial training wheels: Ginsburg's Connick v. Thompson dissent and the training imperative. It will enhance any encyclopedic page you visit with the magic of the WIKI 2 technology. Thompson was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death. "[1], The New York Times opined that "Justice Ginsburg's dissent is the more persuasive...",[5] and the Los Angeles Times wrote that "[t]he court got this one wrong. 0000010098 00000 n US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Prosecutors not only are equipped but are ethically bound to know what Brady entails and to perform legal research when they are uncertain. 0000038044 00000 n "[8] Radley Balko noted that "...[t]here's something pretty unsavory about a judicial philosophy that cites a ruling that we now know sent an innocent man back to prison as an authority to deny compensation to another innocent man who was nearly executed because the government hid the evidence that would have and eventually did exonerate him. (58) These official duties include: (1) advising the police; (59) (2) interacting with the media; (60) and (3) testifying as a complaining witness. "[11] Wendy Kaminer wrote that "...what's striking about this case, aside from the majority's apparent indifference to practical realities and the actual sufferings of an innocent man wrongfully sentenced to die, is its indifference to the facts of the case outlined by Justice Ginsburg's dissent. (35), Resource limitations make some discretion inevitable, but the modern criminal justice system guarantees wide-ranging discretion. [2], The Supreme Court overturned the $14 million award by a lower court in a 5–4 decision split along ideological lines. The New York Times opined that "Justice Ginsburg's dissent is the more persuasive...", and the Los Angeles Times wrote that "[t]he court got this one wrong." The district court held that, to prove deliberate indifference, Thompson did not need to show a pattern of similar Brady violations when he could demonstrate that the need for training was obvious. (15), Justice Thomas went on to discuss how prosecutors' offices are protected more broadly from [section] 1983 suits because they employ trained attorneys. Individual prosecutors have received "professional training and [have] ethical obligations" to inform themselves of the Brady doctrine. <<91C6E11D70A7B2110A00803981FBFE7F>]/Prev 873783>> In Part III, this Comment reveals the weaknesses of current training regimes, which other proposals have not addressed. GINSBURG’S . [1], In 1984, John Thompson, a 22-year-old African American father of two, was charged along with another man for killing a prominent New Orleans businessman. The source code for the WIKI 2 extension is being checked by specialists of the Mozilla Foundation, Google, and Apple.

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