HUFFINGTON
08.04.13
AP PHOTO/LM OTERO, FILE
THE UNTOUCHABLES
atorial level unmitigated by any
prosecutorial obligation for the
sake of the truth.”
None of this was enough to
convince the Fifth Circuit to find
a pattern of unconstitutional behavior in Cousin’s case. In the end,
the Fifth Circuit opinion suggests
that the status quo in Orleans Parish and elsewhere is perfectly adequate: “Where prosecutors commit Brady violations, convictions
may be overturned. That could be
a sufficient deterrent, so that the
imposition of additional sanctions
... is unnecessary.”
John Thompson filed his lawsuit against Orleans Parish and
his prosecutors in 2005, two
years after Cousin had been denied. “We were pretty limited by
that decision,” Banks recalls. “We
could have tried again, and there
were even more examples of misconduct we could have used, but
we didn’t want to risk having the
court refer back to that decision
and dismiss us out of hand.”
Instead, Thompson’s attorneys
decided to pursue another possible opening to municipal liability.
In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court
suggested that a single incident of
a civil rights violation could be so
grievous that it could give rise to
a lawsuit on its own. As an example, the court theorized a police
shooting in a city that employed
an armed police department, but
didn’t bother to train its officers
in the use of lethal force.
Thompson’s attorneys argued
that the violation in his case, and
Connick’s failure to train his staff
in Brady requirements, was egregious enough to qualify as such
an event. But it was a narrow argument that barred Thompson
from bringing up all the violations
Connick’s office had committed in
other cases.
Thompson was still able to
present ample evidence of indif-
Dallas County
District
Attorney
Craig
Watkins
calls for a
review of the
death penalty
in Texas,
which has
performed
the nation’s
most
executions.