Should folk who are falsely incarcerated be compensated when they are found to be innocent?

[bpwallace49]

Follow up question for those who think that some kind of compensation would be in order for someone who has been wrongfully imprisoned for many years... what if that person also had young children that then had to grow up without that parent in their life... would that child be entitled to any kind of compensation?

 

It depends if those kids are in juvy or not . . .

 

I would think it get covered under the parents restitution . . .

[wiegie]

I'm not sure if the defendants should be compensated, or if so, how much. But I'd be 100% supportive of letting the (wrongfully) imprisoned person sue the DA's office for civil malpractice. If a couple law suits like that actually won, and I'd bet DAs offices all across the country would take a little more time to make sure the person they're trying to convict is actually guilty before spending taxpayer money trying to send an innocent person to prison.

Alas the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Constitution doesn't agree with you. (I really thought the story below would get posted here a few weeks ago, but I don't think it did.)

 

CONNICK V. THOMPSON AND PROSECUTORIAL IMPUNITY

Published 1, April 10, 2011 Constitutional Law , Criminal law , Supreme Court , Torts375 Comments

Submitted by Mike Appleton, Guest Blogger

 

John Thompson spent 18 years in prison, 14 of them on death row, following convictions for attempted armed robbery and murder in separate incidents. A scant month before the scheduled execution, an investigator hired by Thompson’s lawyers made a startling discovery in the crime lab archives: a lab report which completely exonerated Thompson on the attempted robbery charge.The report contained results of a test conducted on blood left by the robber on the clothing of one of the victims. The robber had type B blood. Thompson’s is type O.

 

In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), the Supreme Court held that a prosecutor has a duty to disclose exculpatory evidence to the accused. The prosecutor in Thompson’s attempted robbery case deliberately withheld the test results from defense counsel. At his subsequent trial on the murder charge, Thompson understandably declined to testify so that the attempted robbery conviction could not be used for impeachment purposes.

 

In due course both convictions were overturned. A second trial on the murder charge produced a defense verdict after only 35 minutes of jury deliberation. Thompson thereupon sued Harry Connick, the New Orleans district attorney, under several theories, including a violation of Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871. The jury awarded Thompson $1,000,000.00 for each year spent on death row, a total of $14,000,000.00. The verdict was affirmed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

 

Thompson will never see a dime of his award. In a 5-4 decision announced on March 29th, the Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit. Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas found the evidence of prosecutorial misconduct was insufficient to support a conclusion that the district attorney had been “deliberately indifferent” to his duty to insure that prosecutors in his office adhered to the requirements of the Brady rule.

 

Justice Thomas reaches his conclusion by framing the issue in a manner which admits of no alternative result. The sole question for the court, he says, is whether Section 1983 liability may be based upon “a single Brady violation.” Of course it can’t. The reason is that a district attorney cannot be held liable for the actions of his subordinates under the theory of respondeat superior. Instead, it was necessary for Thompson to establish a pattern of such violations in Connick’s office sufficient to permit a conclusion that Connick was deliberately indifferent to the need to adequately train his staff on the Brady requirements.

 

But Justice Thomas ignores substantial evidence in the record that Connick’s office was a virtual cesspool of prosecutorial misconduct. Indeed, at least four prosecutors were aware of the withheld evidence in Thompson’s armed robbery trial. The responsible prosecutor had actually confessed to a colleague that he had withheld the lab report. Connick had had a number of prior convictions reversed for Brady violations. Connick himself openly admitted to never having cracked a law book subsequent to becoming district attorney in 1974.

 

Justice Thomas finds this record unpersuasive because, as he notes, none of the previous Brady violations “involved failure to disclose blood evidence, a crime lab report, or physical or scientific evidence of any kind.” Accordingly, he concludes, Connick could not have been on notice of the need to train his staff concerning the specific violation in Thompson’s case. Besides, he continues, prosecutors are trained attorneys who can be expected to know and understand their obligations. I don’t know how many potential violations exist in the Brady universe, but presumably Justice Thomas would require that Connick’s prosecutors commit all of them before “deliberate indifference” might be inferred.

 

The decision in this case is not so much about law as it is about a public policy position intended to impose the most formidable barriers possible to pursuing a Section 1983 claim against a state agency. I prefer to call it the doctrine of prosecutorial impunity.

[bpwallace49]

Look, sh!t happens and I feel horrible for the person who's life was interrupted and torn apart in such a manner. But the only manner to keep our legal system working is on the same basis that it is right now. Trial, evidence, jury, judge... There is no way to get it perfect 100% of the time.

 

Are you just pissed because of all the time you spent in Turkish prisons for sodomizing sheep?

 

Just let it go man . . . . let it go.

[yo mama]

Alas the Supreme Court recently ruled that the Constitution doesn't agree with you. (I really thought the story below would get posted here a few weeks ago, but I don't think it did.)

First off, Justice Thomas is my least favorite justice. That guy can't even sexually harass someone correctly. Second, that case had nothing to do with the Constitution and everything to do with public policy. Does it surprise anyone that this policy favoring government attorneys was crafted by a former government attorney? This kind of "professional" behavior, in private practice, would not only get you sued for malpractice but likely disbarred.

[detlef]

Fine, we'll hire a limo.

[detlef]

I'm not sure if the defendants should be compensated, or if so, how much. But I'd be 100% supportive of letting the (wrongfully) imprisoned person sue the DA's office for civil malpractice. If a couple law suits like that actually won, and I'd bet DAs offices all across the country would take a little more time to make sure the person they're trying to convict is actually guilty before spending taxpayer money trying to send an innocent person to prison.

This makes a lot of sense. I was thinking about the little girl and the molestation case. Sure, sue the kid. But that seems pretty thin because she's just a little kid. Maybe the person you should be suing is the lawyer who didn't make sure she was really being molested. That hadn't explained that this is not about keeping the dude who isn't your dad from marrying mommy, but sending that dude to jail for a long time and likely getting raped himself because that's what they do with guys who mess with little girls. That, maybe the DA should be the one taking the fall here because he's the one who really stood to gain with a conviction. That's his job, to convict people. If he has incentives to do that, there should be punishment for doing so recklessly.

 

On a related note, this appears to be on the verge of happening here in Durham. The Duke Lacrosse guys are in the process of suing Duke and the City of Durham.

 

Duke seems a bit extreme because I think, given their track record, even doing what they actually did was enough for Duke to come down on them hard. Duke didn't prosecute them for rape, Duke just said "enough is enough a-holes, we're done with your crap." And, even if they didn't do anything that plenty of others have done in college on that night, they'd done enough for that to be the last straw.

 

It was Nifong and the City of Durham who rushed forward with a faulty case.

 

And these guys didn't even get convicted.

Edited April 21, 2011 by detlef

[SEC=UGA]

Are you just pissed because of all the time you spent in Turkish prisons for sodomizing sheep?

 

Just let it go man . . . . let it go.

 

You don't go to prison for that...

[Cunning Runt]

.... well, that is not the state's fault that the girl perjured herself, it is not the fault of the state that the jury took the evidence presented to them and used this to convict the man

 

 

Yes it is, because the State proceeded under the theory of "guilty before being proven innocent" rather than the other way around.

 

It was their responsibility to flush out the girl's statements before trying the guy. They didn't do that 'cause they wanted an easy conviction.

[SEC=UGA]

Yes it is, because the State proceeded under the theory of "guilty before being proven innocent" rather than the other way around.

 

It was their responsibility to flush out the girl's statements before trying the guy. They didn't do that 'cause they wanted an easy conviction.

 

So the state is supposed to work under the assumption that any complainant is a liar and they need to develop an adversarial relationship with them when they are reporting a crime? Would you be happy if you reported that you had been a victim of a crime, you point out a suspect and then when the police are interviewing you they say, "Well, since we don't want to convict a potentially innocent person we are working under the assumption that you are wrong about who you believe the assailant is. How do you know this is the assailant, you stated that he was a white male, 5' 10", 178 lbs, wearing a grey hoodie, black hair, with a goatee. The guy that you are saying did this, that we have picked up and you identified in the line up, is actually 5' 8", weighs 185, has dark brown hair and has a thin beard attached to the goatee. You picked the wrong guy out of the line-up or you were originally lying to us about the description of the person... which is it? Are you certain, because your description and the appearance of the guy we picked up just don't match up..."

 

Do you think that the DA, the police, the defense, etc... did not take the time to interview this girl in an attempt to confirm the validity of her story? They probably asked a series of questions on more than one occasion; what did he do, when, where, etc... If her statements lined up from these different interviews then they probably (or in this case, did) proceeded with the prosecution. During the trial, the defense for the guy had the opportunity to present evidence that the girl was fabricating her story, and since she was making the complaint the prosecution probably put her on the stand, the defense then has the opportunity to question the girl in front of the jury, they obviously didn't do an adequate job of this.

 

If I'm to get the argument from your side correct, what you want is certainty that someone committed a crime prior to them being prosecuted. If this were the case, that all cases were certain, then their would be no need for the legal system that we have; a legal system in which evidence is presented by the prosecution and defense to a pool of jurors who then sift through said evidence and render a verdict. You would simply have a system in which a judge would be told of the offense and would then pass sentencing for the crime.

[Cunning Runt]

So the state is supposed to work under the assumption that any complainant is a liar and they need to develop an adversarial relationship with them when they are reporting a crime? Would you be happy if you reported that you had been a victim of a crime, you point out a suspect and then when the police are interviewing you they say, "Well, since we don't want to convict a potentially innocent person we are working under the assumption that you are wrong about who you believe the assailant is. How do you know this is the assailant, you stated that he was a white male, 5' 10", 178 lbs, wearing a grey hoodie, black hair, with a goatee. The guy that you are saying did this, that we have picked up and you identified in the line up, is actually 5' 8", weighs 185, has dark brown hair and has a thin beard attached to the goatee. You picked the wrong guy out of the line-up or you were originally lying to us about the description of the person... which is it? Are you certain, because your description and the appearance of the guy we picked up just don't match up..."

 

Do you think that the DA, the police, the defense, etc... did not take the time to interview this girl in an attempt to confirm the validity of her story? They probably asked a series of questions on more than one occasion; what did he do, when, where, etc... If her statements lined up from these different interviews then they probably (or in this case, did) proceeded with the prosecution. During the trial, the defense for the guy had the opportunity to present evidence that the girl was fabricating her story, and since she was making the complaint the prosecution probably put her on the stand, the defense then has the opportunity to question the girl in front of the jury, they obviously didn't do an adequate job of this.

 

If I'm to get the argument from your side correct, what you want is certainty that someone committed a crime prior to them being prosecuted. If this were the case, that all cases were certain, then their would be no need for the legal system that we have; a legal system in which evidence is presented by the prosecution and defense to a pool of jurors who then sift through said evidence and render a verdict. You would simply have a system in which a judge would be told of the offense and would then pass sentencing for the crime.

 

Wow, really? 3 full paragraphs?

 

Did you read this part of Avernus' post: "...but the girl came clean on it after she realized how serious things were.......but it was around election time and they wanted to make an example so he did some serious time...."

 

This is pretty clear what happened here. They wanted the easy conviction and ignored the retraction.

[Furd]

That's his job, to convict people.

 

Actually, a prosecutor's job is to see that justice is done.

[SEC=UGA]

Wow, really? 3 full paragraphs?

 

Did you read this part of Avernus' post: "...but the girl came clean on it after she realized how serious things were.......but it was around election time and they wanted to make an example so he did some serious time...."

 

This is pretty clear what happened here. They wanted the easy conviction and ignored the retraction.

 

The way I read it was that she came clean later after he had been convicted.

 

Also, you have to consider another aspect of this, things such as the victim recanting their story should be submitted as evidence during the course of the trial. The Prosecution still had to overcome the girl recanting her story to get the conviction, at this point the jurors have to decide whether she recanted due to duress or influence from an outside source, they have to determine if she unwillingly recanted her story. I have a hard time believing that any jury could be persuaded to send a person to prison under a set of circumstances such as this:

 

Defense to girl on stand: "Initially you stated that the defendant had forcible sex with you, correct? Now you state that you fabricated the story because you didn't want him to marry your mom... So, did he or did he not rape you? Are you recanting your story due any threats or force being placed upon you by any individual?"

 

Girl: "I fabricated the story and no one is making me recant my allegations. I realize the levity of the allegations I made and do not want to see an innocent person go to jail. I'm sorry, but he never sexually assaulted me."

 

Doesn't matter how much politics are going on, no jurors will convict a person in such a scenario.

[detlef]

Actually, a prosecutor's job is to see that justice is done.

Of course, but is that how he keeps that job?

 

When you're running for DA, do you advertise how many people you didn't convict or prosecute? It may be the right thing to do, but your opponent is going to seize that and call you soft on crime.

 

"During Furd"s time as DA, over 20% of his cases were never even brought to trial! Shouldn't we expect better results? As DA, I promise to put bad people behind bars!"

 

Now, besides not having any idea where 20% falls on the spectrum of efficient or not, we also have no idea whether or not you were simply not rushing to judge innocent people or whether you're just bad at your job because you can't close the deal. But it sure sounds like you're not good at your job.

[Caveman_Nick]

Of course, but is that how he keeps that job?

 

When you're running for DA, do you advertise how many people you didn't convict or prosecute? It may be the right thing to do, but your opponent is going to seize that and call you soft on crime.

 

"During Furd"s time as DA, over 20% of his cases were never even brought to trial! Shouldn't we expect better results? As DA, I promise to put bad people behind bars!"

 

Now, besides not having any idea where 20% falls on the spectrum of efficient or not, we also have no idea whether or not you were simply not rushing to judge innocent people or whether you're just bad at your job because you can't close the deal. But it sure sounds like you're not good at your job.

 

This is why District Attorney should not be an electable position.