Prosecutors concealing evidence
Associated Press, June 1, 1999
Dying of colon cancer, a former Orleans Parish, Louisiana, prosecutor confided to
his best friend that he had concealed evidence that could have cleared a man of an armed robbery used to nail his death sentence in the unrelated killing of a hotel executive.
Meanwhile, convicted murderer John Thompson was at the Louisiana State
Penitentiary at Angola awaiting execution for shooting Ray Liuzza Jr. in
December 1984.
Gerry Deegan told his friend, Michael Riehlmann, that he had made sure a
swatch from a victim's pant leg and tennis shoe stained with the
assailant's blood never made it to trial. The carjacker's blood type was type B.
A recent test showed that Thompson, who had been convicted of the
robbery, has type O blood.
Riehlmann recalls the confession from Deegan, who died in 1994.
"He was remorseful but he felt like although what he had done was wrong,
he was serving some greater good," Riehlmann said, explaining that Deegan
believed Thompson committed the murder and should pay the ultimate
price.
"It's the way some who sit on exculpatory evidence rationalize it."
To defense attorneys there is never a rationalization for the intentional
concealment of evidence. Such an act throws a brake on the wheels of
justice, mocking a defendant's right to due process, they say.
The latest revelation of apparent misconduct has stirred longstanding
allegations that District Attorney Harry Connick's assistants have
frequently skirted the constitutional provision which requires them to
turn over any evidence that could be favorable to the accused.
The Thompson case has unfolded amid an ongoing trial in DuPage County,
Ill., where five former prosecutors and police officers are accused of
framing a man sent to death row for a young girl's murder.
"I contend these incidents are completely isolated," said John Justice,
president of the National Association of District Attorneys. "Before
DuPage, there were no cases of prosecutors being prosecuted because
there was no evidence of criminal misconduct. There's a national wave of
prosecutor bashing going on. I think it's a reaction to how people feel
about Ken Starr."
But closer to home, critics say prosecutors' efforts are too often in
the name of victory, not justice.
Take, for example, Curtis Kyles, Shareef Cousin and Isaac Knapper. Each
of their murder convictions were overturned after defense attorneys
uncovered information that prosecutors failed to turn over evidence during trials.
Cousin was yanked from death row, where at 17 he was once the youngest
killer doomed to lethal injection. Thompson, a father of two, still sits
there but his attorneys from the Loyola Death Penalty Resource Center
and a Philadelphia law firm hope to win him a new murder trial.
But for a dying man's words and the work of a private investigator hired
by attorneys Michael Banks and Gordon Cooney, Thompson would have died by
injection May 20.
"We are shocked and relieved at what our investigator found," Cooney
said.
"Shocked that it suggests some sinister behavior on the part of
prosecutors and relieved in the sense that we have long believed John did not get a fair trial."
Events that began to unfold in April, just a month before Thompson's
eighth scheduled execution date, continue to surprise many.
Two weeks after launching the first grand jury probe into possible
misconduct in his office, Connick called it off, saying the statutes of
limitations on the possible crimes by former prosecutors had run out.
The former prosecutors, however, could still face disciplinary action,
even disbarment.
And District Judge Patrick Quinlan has called for two public hearings on
the concealment of evidence in light of Connick's efforts to dismiss the
15-year-old armed robbery case against Thompson.
Connick said the Thompson case is the only example of prosecutorial
misconduct occurring during his 25-year tenure.
"I think the U.S. Supreme Court would disagree with him," said Dwight
Doskey, an indigent defender and Connick critic.
Doskey cited the 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Kyles v. Whitley,
where Kyles' conviction in the 1984 murder of Delores Dye was
overturned.
The court said that the state's failure to turn over some evidence
"undermined the confidence in the verdict."
After Kyles' fifth trial ended in a hung jury, Connick announced that he
would not seek another trial.
"With Thompson, we had documents showing that Gerry Deegan took the
blood evidence out of the police evidence room but that it was never used in trial," Connick said. "In any of the other cases, I don't know of any
intentional withholding of the evidence.
"We follow the rules. I was a defense attorney for years before I took
office. We have an ongoing and continuing obligation to turn over
exculpatory evidence and we do."
However, Connick adds that he believes the constitutional burden or its
interpretation by appellate courts is excessive and that sometimes
prosecutors are charged with divining whether evidence could in some way
be favorable to a defendant.
For Doskey, there is an easy way to close that gap: All evidence should
be made available.
"Open-file discovery would assure us they're not hiding the evidence
they have so many times before and it might expedite things when defendants who are guilty would be urged to plead guilty because of evidence," Doskey said.
Doskey's proposal would require a change in state law, although he said
many parishes already open district attorneys' files as a matter of
course.
Now under state law, defense lawyers are only privy to the information
contained in a prosecutor's case file within three years after a
defendant's conviction has been affirmed by an appellate court.
Connick's response: "Well, there's a body of people up the road called
legislators. They're the ones who would handle that."
Connick also scoffs at allegations that his office is so devoted to
prosecutions that it often forgoes due process in seeking convictions.
Last year, out of nearly 36,500 charges referred to the prosecutors by
police, his office only accepted 50 percent.
"If we were so bloodthirsty, we would accept all of our cases and park
them up in jail. We don't do that. We screen our cases. We check on
witnesses. We examine evidence," he said.
In Thompson's case, Riehlmann didn't reveal his friend's secret until
defense attorneys uncovered the lab report and began hunting for answers
to the 15-year-old mystery. After learning of their quest, Riehlmann came
forward, signing an affidavit about Deegan's confession.
Now a defense attorney who once served as a prosecutor under Connick,
Riehlmann is already planning his plea for forgiveness from the State
Bar Association for not having come forward sooner.
Defense attorneys only wish it hadn't taken a dying man's confession to
help reveal the apparent misdeeds of prosecutors.
"It's unsettling and jarring," Cooney said. "We are deeply concerned
that this is not the only thing that was concealed."
He and Banks also allege that the state was not truthful about two
witnesses in Thompson's murder trial receiving $15,000 in rewards after
his conviction.
"What else should we know?" Cooney asked.
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