HUFFINGTON
08.04.13
THE UNTOUCHABLES
about reviewing police reports
and case files, could have prevented an unjust conviction.
That sort of push and pull of incentives for prosecutors can complicate efforts to improve the system. But there appear to be more
functional problems at work in
Orleans Parish, even since the Supreme Court’s Thompson decision.
Sam Dalton began his personal
campaign for prosecutor accountability nearly two years ago by
going after six prosecutors for alleged misconduct during the murder trial of Michael Anderson.
Nothing has happened since.
Anderson was convicted in
2009 of gunning down five men
in an S.U.V. in the New Orleans
neighborhood of Central City
three years earlier. He was sentenced to death. It was the first
capital case won by Cannizzaro,
who at the time was new to his
job as district attorney.
Anderson was awarded a new
trial in 2010 when a judge found
that prosecutors had failed to
turn over exculpatory evidence.
That evidence included a recorded
interview in which the state’s
main eyewitness made statements
that undermined both her story
and her credibility, and a deal the
state had cut with a jailhouse informant who