HUFFINGTON
08.04.13
THE UNTOUCHABLES
ference — even hostility — to the
Brady requirement. For example,
after being chastised by the U.S.
Supreme Court in the Kyles case
in 1995, Connick said he saw “no
need” to make any changes to
his office policy. In depositions,
Connick claimed he wasn’t even
aware of the fact that the court
had ruled against him in Kyles. He
also testified that he had stopped
reading law books and legal opinions after taking office. During
arguments in the retrial after the
court’s decision in Kyles, one of
Connick’s subordinates told jurors
that the court was wrong about
the obligation to disclose exculpatory evidence, just as it had been
wrong in Plessy v. Ferguson, the
infamous 1896 segregation decision that sanctioned “separate but
equal.” Another former Connick
assistant testified in 2007 that
the office policy when it came to
exculpatory evidence was to be
“as restrictive as possible,” and,
“when in doubt, don’t give it up.”
The trial jury ruled for Thompson, and awarded him $14 million
in damages. He also won at the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit, perhaps because the court
was aware of its ruling in Cousin’s
lawsuit, and could no longer simply
ignore what was going on in New
Orleans. But Orleans Parish appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
And in 2011, the court rejected
Thompson’s suit in a 5-4 split.
Writing for the majority, Justice
Clarence Thomas’s opinion illustrates how taking various theories
of immunity in isolation can present a distorted, context-starved
picture of what’s really happening
in America’s courtrooms, and ef-
“There was no thrill
for me unless there
was a chance for the
death penalty.”
fectively shield prosecutors from
any accountability.
Thomas noted, for example, that
because Thompson hadn’t attempted to argue a pattern of misconduct in Connick’s office, the court
couldn’t consider it. That was true,
but it was because the Fifth Circuit had rejected that argument
two years earlier, in Cousin’s case.
Thomas also wrote that because
prosecutors get specialized training in law school and are required
to complete continuing education,
a district attorney like Connick can
be safe in assuming that his subordinates are already aware of their