Thompson v. Connick

• Decision Date: 19 December 2008
• Docket Number: No. 07-30443.,07-30443.
• Citation: 553 F.3d 836
• Parties: John THOMPSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Harry F. CONNICK, in his official capacity as District Attorney; Eric Dubelier, in his official capacity as Assistant District Attorney; James Williams, in his official capacity as Assistant District Attorney; Eddie Jordan, in his official capacity as District Attorney; Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

553 F.3d 836

John THOMPSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Harry F. CONNICK, in his official capacity as District Attorney; Eric Dubelier, in his official capacity as Assistant District Attorney; James

Williams, in his official capacity as Assistant District Attorney; Eddie Jordan, in his official capacity as District Attorney; Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 07-30443.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

December 19, 2008.

Michael L. Banks, John Gordon Cooney, Jr., Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Philadelphia, PA, Robert Glass, Glass & Reed, New Orelans, LA, for Thompson.

William D. Aaron, Jr., Richard A. Goins, Goins Aaron, PLC, Mark C. Carver, Busch & Myers, LLP, New Orleans, LA, for Defendants-Appellants.

Ralph R. Alexis, III, Porteous, Hainkel & Johnson, New Orleans, LA, Ellis Pete Adams, Jr., LA Dist. Attys. Ass'n, Baton Rouge, LA, for Amicus Curiae.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana.

Before KING, STEWART and PRADO, Circuit Judges.

PRADO, Circuit Judge:

In Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), the Supreme Court held that due process requires the prosecution in a criminal case to turn over evidence that is favorable to the accused when the evidence is material to guilt or punishment. The Supreme Court later expanded the Brady rule to require the disclosure of evidence that is relevant to the credibility of key government witnesses. See Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 154, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972). In the criminal proceedings that prompted this lawsuit, it is undisputed that Brady evidence was not turned over to the defense. As a result, Plaintiff-Appellee John Thompson ("Thompson") was convicted of an attempted armed robbery of which he was actually innocent. Attorneys in the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office ("the DA's Office") then used the attempted armed robbery conviction to help secure a conviction and death sentence for Thompson in an unrelated murder case. Eighteen years later—and one month before his scheduled execution— Thompson's investigators uncovered the exculpatory evidence that indisputably cleared Thompson of the armed robbery charge. Thompson was then retried for the murder and found not guilty.

Thompson now seeks damages for the eighteen years he spent in prison, fourteen of which were in solitary confinement on death row. After a jury trial lasting several days, the jury determined that the DA's Office was deliberately indifferent to the need to train, monitor, and supervise its attorneys on Brady principles. The jury awarded Thompson $14 million in damages, and the district court added approximately $1 million in attorneys' fees. Defendants challenge that result on multiple grounds. Finding no reversible error for the majority of Defendants' arguments, we AFFIRM in large part. Because the district court erroneously included non-liable defendants in the judgment, we REVERSE in part and REMAND with instructions to remove those defendants from the judgment.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

On December 6, 1984, Raymond T. Liuzza Jr. ("Liuzza") was robbed, shot, and killed outside of his home in New Orleans. Because Liuzza was the son of a prominent executive, the murder received a lot of attention in the community. Approximately three weeks later, on December 28, 1984, siblings Jay, Marie, and Michael LaGarde were the victims of an armed robbery while in their car in New Orleans. Jay LaGarde fought off the perpetrator, and, in the scuffle, some of the perpetrator's blood ended up on the cuff of Jay's pants. As part of the police investigation, crime scene technicians took a swatch of the pants with the perpetrator's blood on it.

On January 17, 1985, Thompson and Kevin Freeman ("Freeman") were arrested and charged with the Liuzza murder. As a result, Thompson's picture was published in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The LaGardes' father showed his children the picture, and they believed that Thompson was the individual who had attempted to rob them. They contacted the DA's Office and identified Thompson as the armed robber.

The LaGardes' armed robbery case was then screened by assistant district attorney Bruce Whittaker ("Whittaker") as part of the case handling process that then-District Attorney Harry F. Connick ("Connick") instituted. Screening was designed to identify the cases in which charges should be brought and those in which no further action should be taken. The screening process would begin when the New Orleans police department made an arrest. The police department would then send a police report to the DA's Office where it was reviewed by an assistant district attorney (the screener) who determined whether a case could be made against the alleged perpetrator. The screener then filled out a Screening Action Form indicating whether charges should be brought and, if appropriate, making suggestions about the way the case should be handled.

With respect to the armed robbery of the LaGardes, Whittaker approved the case for prosecution and, after noting that a crime scene technician had taken a swatch of Jay LaGarde's pants with blood on it, wrote on the Screening Action Form that the government "[m]ay wish to do blood test." Whittaker also indicated that the case should be handled by Eric Dubelier ("Dubelier") as a special prosecutor. Whittaker explained at trial that the case was sent to Dubelier because it involved the same defendant (Thompson) as the Liuzza murder case, which Dubelier was already handling.

In a strategic move, the district attorneys successfully petitioned the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court to switch the order of the trials so that Thompson would be tried for the armed robbery first. The idea was that a guilty verdict in the armed robbery case would make Thompson unwilling to take the stand in the murder trial (due to the fact that a conviction from the attempted armed robbery trial could be entered into evidence against him, as impeachment, if he testified) and increase the likelihood of the death penalty.

On March 11, 1985, James Williams ("Williams") handled a hearing on behalf of the DA's Office regarding a motion to suppress in the LaGarde armed robbery case.¹ At the conclusion of the hearing, Williams, noting the reference to a blood test on the Screening Action Form, stated in open court that "it's the state's intention to file a motion to take a blood sample from the defendant, and we will file that motion— have a criminalist here on the 27th." There is no indication that the DA's Office ever sent anyone to test Thompson's blood.

Approximately one week before the armed robbery trial, the bloody swatch from Jay LaGarde's pants was sent to be tested, although the record does not reveal who ordered the test. Two days before the armed robbery trial, Whittaker received a crime lab report that stated that the armed robbery perpetrator's blood type was type B. Whittaker stated that he placed the report on Williams's desk, but Williams claims that he never saw the report. Regardless, the report was never turned over to Thompson.² Several days before the armed robbery trial, Dubelier asked Williams to act as lead prosecutor in the case. Therefore, the armed robbery case was tried by Williams and assistant district attorney Gerry Deegan ("Deegan") on April 11 and 12, 1985.

On the first day of trial, Deegan checked all of the armed robbery evidence out of the police property room, including the bloody swatch from Jay LaGarde's pants. Deegan then checked the evidence into the court property room, but never checked in the pants swatch.³ Williams never mentioned the blood evidence at trial and relied primarily on eyewitness testimony. The jury found Thompson guilty of attempted armed robbery, and he was sentenced to forty-nine and one-half years in prison.

Dubelier and Williams then tried Thompson for the Liuzza murder from May 6 to 8, 1985. At the trial, Freeman (the other individual who had been charged with the murder) testified that Thompson shot Liuzza. Roger Perkins ("Perkins"), an acquaintance of Thompson's, testified that Thompson made incriminating statements about the Liuzza murder and that he had sold Thompson's gun for him. There was also testimony by police officer David Carter and eyewitness Paul Schliffka ("Schliffka"). Schliffka described the perpetrator's hair as "short" and as an "afro." Carter testified that, when he first questioned Schliffka, Schliffka described the perpetrator's hair as "black and short, afro style."

Due to his attempted armed robbery conviction, Thompson chose not to testify on his own behalf. Had he testified, the district attorney likely would have entered his attempted armed robbery conviction into evidence against him for purposes of impeachment.⁴ The jury convicted Thompson of first-degree murder. During the sentencing phase, Marie LaGarde testified about Thompson's attempt to rob her family and her brother's actions in fighting him off. Dubelier emphasized this testimony in his closing argument, asserting that there easily could have been three more murders and that a death sentence was necessary to punish Thompson because he was already set to spend forty-nine and one-half years in prison for the attempted armed robbery. The jury sentenced Thompson to death.

In the fourteen years after his murder conviction, Thompson exhausted all of his appeals. His execution was set for May 20, 1999, and his attorneys informed him that there were no more options for appeal. Then, in late April 1999, one of Thompson's investigators came across a microfiche copy of the crime lab report containing the blood type of the armed robbery perpetrator. Thompson was tested and found to be blood type O, making it impossible for him to have been the armed robber. Thompson's attorneys presented this information to the DA's Office, which then moved for a stay of execution. In the...