JOHN THOMPSON: CRUCIAL FORENSIC EVIDENCE HIDDEN BY PROSECUTORS; CAMPAIGN TO BE LAUNCHED OCTOBER 27. 2011, TO MAKE AMERICAN PEOPLE AWARE OF NEED FOR GREATER PROSECUTORIAL ACCOUNTABILITY; INNOCENCE PROJECT;

"Prosecutors wield an enormous amount of power, yet there are no reliable systems in place to keep this power in check. Few offices have internal systems that ensure prosecutorial accountability. While state bar associations are charged with disciplining unethical conduct, recent research has shown that prosecutors are rarely disciplined, even in the most egregious cases of intentional misconduct that have caused a wrongful conviction."

THE INNOCENCE PROJECT;

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A press release released earlier today provides the following background:

What: John Thompson; the Innocence Project; the Veritas Initiative, the Northern California Innocence Project’s prosecutorial accountability program; and the Innocence Project of New Orleans will announce a campaign to spark a national conversation on prosecutorial accountability in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Connick v. Thompson, which gave prosecutors nearly complete immunity for the intentional misconduct that nearly caused Thompson to be executed. Days before his scheduled execution, a private investigator uncovered evidence that was never turned over to his attorneys proving Thompson’s innocence.

Who: John Thompson, whose $14 million civil award for prosecutorial misconduct was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, Founder and Director of Resurrection After Exoneration and Voices of Innocence; (Prosecutors had failed to reveal to his lawyers a report showing that blood at a crime scene was not his. HL);
Barry Scheck, Co-Director of the Innocence Project and Professor at Cardozo Law School;

Kathleen Ridolfi, professor at Santa Clara University School of Law and Director of the Northern California Innocence Project and the Veritas Initiative;

Angela Davis, professor of law at American University's Washington College of Law and author of Arbitrary Justice: The Power of the American Prosecutor;

Honorable Andrew Sonner, Judge for Maryland’s Court of Special Appeals and former Montgomery County State’s Attorney from 1971-1996.

When: Thursday, October 27, 2011

12 PM EDT

Where: National Press Club

Zenger Room

529 14^th Street, NW

Washington, DC;

Why: On March 29, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court in Connick v. Thompson ruled that New Orleans native John Thompson was barred from receiving the $14 million a civil jury awarded him for the prosecutorial misconduct that caused him to serve 18 years (14 on death row) for a murder and robbery that he didn’t commit. The decision took away one of the few remaining avenues for holding prosecutors accountable for their misconduct.

Prosecutors wield an enormous amount of power, yet there are no reliable systems in place to keep this power in check. Few offices have internal systems that ensure prosecutorial accountability. While state bar associations are charged with disciplining unethical conduct, recent research has shown that prosecutors are rarely disciplined, even in the most egregious cases of intentional misconduct that have caused a wrongful conviction. (See the Veritas Initiative’s reports: Preventable Error: A Report on Prosecutorial Misconduct in California 1997-2009 and Preventable Error: First Annual Report 2010).

Over the next year, John Thompson will be traveling around the country to hold town hall meetings with legal policy experts to spark a national conversation about prosecutorial accountability and the need for systems both internal and external to help prevent misconduct.

The press release can be found at:

https://mail.google.com/mail/?account_id=hlevy15%40gmail.com#inbox/1333bd36c066cbd7