SCOTUS marching us to authoritarianism goes on - They could create immunity for prosecutors

[ck4829]

After 14 years on Louisiana's death row, John Thompson had one month to live when he received a stapled letter from his lawyers with an unusual request. They asked him to prick his finger with the staple, put drops of blood on the letter, seal it and return it the same day.

"I was cranky and disillusioned that day. I was preparing to tell my family this execution date was final," he recalled. His appeals were over, and he was scheduled to die the day before his son graduated from high school. "But when they asked for blood, I thought they must have found something."

They had.

Prosecutors in the New Orleans district attorney's office had intentionally hidden a blood test that would have unraveled the criminal case against Thompson. By a stroke of luck, a young investigator scouring the crime lab files found a microfiche copy of it. Thompson's blood type did not match. That single piece of evidence led eventually to Thompson being declared innocent of murder.

After he was freed, Thompson sued the office of now-retired Dist. Atty. Harry Connick, and a New Orleans jury awarded him $14 million. But oral arguments at the Supreme Court in the fall suggest he may not see a nickel of it. The high court has taken a dim view of suing prosecutors, and in Thompson's case, the court's conservatives led by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. questioned whether the district attorney's office should be held responsible for the misdeeds of a few prosecutors.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-prosecutor-misconduct-20110110,0,4131145.story

14 years in prison and a month away from being executed. And it was all because of faulty evidence? How could someone even consider not compensating the man? And this isn't even the first or last case on this issue. Another case was quietly settled a while back (Mentioned in the article), but before it was, the court said that prosecutors need to be free from "harassment" (i.e. victims of false imprisonment suing prosecutors for deliberately withholding evidence) in order to do their duties and seemed to agree with the Iowa prosecutors that "there is no freestanding constitutional right not to be framed."

[HillbillyBob]

1. Prosecutors need to be held to the same standards of evidence

and behavior as the rest of us.
If they become a protected class they then become Persecutors...

[rfranklin]

3. If you wilfully obstructed justice that would be a felony wouldn't it?

and people do jail terms for felonies, don't they?

[FreakinDJ]

2. Nifong pretty much proved the need to hold prosecutors responsible

[Solly Mack]

4. k/r

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. No immunity for Prosecutors!

What a horrible thing to do. These people are political creatures with way too much power. This is a formula for disaster.

[appal_jack]

6. Scam-Y'all Scalito rides again!

That man should have never been allowed anywhere the Supreme Court.

k&r for an important case in progress. I hope that the voice of sanity prevails there, but with Alito & Thomas on the bench, and Roberts at the helm, I am not so optimistic about sanity these days.

-app

[hootinholler]

7. There is no freestanding constitutional right not to be framed

It is solidly standing in the foundations of our legal system. Due process and all that. The fact that a government official is not held personally liable for an act is true enough, that burden lies with the office held, as it should be. Withholding evidence is a criminal act, the authority establishing the office should compensate the victim and prosecute the perpetrator.

-Hoot

[Ikonoklast]

8. Then no prosecutor would ever lose a case from that point forward.

If I, as prosecutor, could withold exonerating evidence or testimony with impunity, my onviction rate would rapidly approach 100%.

[upi402]

9. "Justice" system, or "Just us" system

Sure would be nice to have a non corporatist government that would restore the rule of law here.

[Rex]

10. I can't decide if the SCOTUS or the GWB admin has caused more

damage to the country over the years.