Prosecutor Not Liable For Puttin Man on Death Row

[Brown]

I report the tale first in another thread:

In a completely unrelated case, involving totally unrelated facts, the U.S. Supreme Court today refused to hold a prosecutor accountable for a violation of a defendant's rights, which led to the defendant's wrongful conviction and nearly got him executed. Read the opinion here.

Basically, if you are arrested, you are entitled as a matter of right to compel the government to tell you about all evidence that indicates that you might be innocent. (People who have seen the movie "My Cousin Vinnie" might be aware of this right.) John Thompson, who was a filthy criminal and who did a lot of bad stuff, got accused of murder. He demanded all exculpatory evidence, but the government forgot to mention an itsy-bitsy lab report that showed that the murderer (who had kindly left behind a sample of his own blood) had a different blood type than Thompson had. Without this exculpatory evidence, Thompson got convicted and was put on death row.

He made all sorts of challenges to his conviction (perhaps even arguing "actual innocence"), but lost them all. Hey, he had his fair trial.

And then by a bit of luck an investigator turned up the lab report--less than a month before Thompson's scheduled execution. The murderer had blood type B. Thompson had blood type O. The District Attorney was shocked, but did the right thing: he moved to stop the execution and vacate the conviction, and the courts agreed. Thompson was retried and was found not guilty.

Well, no harm done, I guess.

Except Thompson didn't think so. He sued the prosecutor (the district attorney in New Orleans) for violations of his rights. By a five-to-four decision (and cynics can accurately guess without being told who are the five and who are the four), the Supreme Court ruled that the District Attorney would not be held accountable. Why? Because Thompson WON his case on the grounds that the district attorney's office had failed to train its prosecutors, and the Supreme Court said that you can't hold a district attorney's office liable for a failure to train if there is just one single rights violation.

It may be no coincidence that the state in which this little "oops" occurred was a Southern state. And by the way, it wasn't an "oops" at all. The prosecutor didn't just make a mistake; he deliberately suppressed exculpatory evidence (a matter which apparently bothered him enough to confess it on his deathbed, a confession which turned out to be accurate).

I think this case deserves its own thread.

A guy got tossed in the klink for 18 years, sitting 14 years on death row. Less than a month before he was to be put to death, evidence of prosecutorial misconduct surfaced. The convict (who apparently was a major scumbag, but not a major murdering scumbag) was eventually let go, but he got this crazy notion that maybe, just maybe, somebody ought to be held accountable for this outrage.

He sued the district attorney and won. Today, the Supreme Court took that victory away from him and virtually guaranteed that no one is going to be held accountable.

 

[theprestige]

How was it determined that the blood sample could only have belonged to the murderer?

 

[GodMark2]

He sued the district attorney and won.

No, he sued the Office of the District Attorney. There is a difference, and that difference was what the courts decision was over. He tried to say that the reason the prosecuting attorney suppressed evidence was because the Office of the District Attorney hadn't trained him properly in revealing exculpatory evidence.

The Court relied on the following:

The jury rejected Thompson’s claim that an unconstitutional office policy caused the Brady violation

Plaintiffs seeking to impose §1983 liability on local governments
must prove that their injury was caused by “action pursuant to official municipal policy,” which includes the decisions of a government’s
lawmakers, the acts of its policymaking officials, and practices so
persistent and widespread as to practically have the force of law.

A pattern of similar constitutional violations by untrained employees is “ordinarily necessary” to demonstrate deliberate indifference.

Thompson mistakenly relies on the “single-incident” liability
hypothesized in Canton, contending that the Brady violation in his
case was the “obvious” consequence of failing to provide specific
Brady training and that this “obviousness” showing can substitute
for the pattern of violations ordinarily necessary to establish municipal culpability.

The Court decided that the Office of the District Attorney was not the proper target of the suit, the prosecuting attorney should have been. You can't sue the entire system based on a single mans failure.

 

[Lowpro]

From the opinion:

legal duty to avoid violating citizens’ rights may rise to the level of anofficial government policy for §1983 purposes, but the failure to trainmust amount to “deliberate indifference to the rights of persons withwhom the [untrained employees] come into contact.” Canton v. Har-ris, 489 U. S. 378, 388. Deliberate indifference in this context re-quires proof that city policymakers disregarded the “known or obvi-ous consequence” that a particular omission in their training program would cause city employees to violate citizens’ constitutionalrights. Board of Comm’rs of Bryan Cty. v. Brown, 520 U. S. 397, 410. Pp. 6–9.

After reading this it just sounds like he never was able to actually sue on the grounds of deliberate indifference. He probably should lose, but at the same time, I think he should be given lots of money anyways.

 

[Checkmite]

I report the tale first in another thread:I think this case deserves its own thread.

A guy got tossed in the klink for 18 years, sitting 14 years on death row. Less than a month before he was to be put to death, evidence of prosecutorial misconduct surfaced. The convict (who apparently was a major scumbag, but not a major murdering scumbag) was eventually let go, but he got this crazy notion that maybe, just maybe, somebody ought to be held accountable for this outrage.

He sued the district attorney and won. Today, the Supreme Court took that victory away from him and virtually guaranteed that no one is going to be held accountable.

The person that needed to be held accountable is dead.

 

[Brown]

No, he sued the Office of the District Attorney. There is a difference, and that difference was what the courts decision was over. He tried to say that the reason the prosecuting attorney suppressed evidence was because the Office of the District Attorney hadn't trained him properly in revealing exculpatory evidence.

There is a difference between suing the district attorney in his individual capacity and suing him in his official capacity. But note that the party to the case was Harry Connick, the District Attorney. The District Attorney WAS sued, individually and in his capacity as a goverment official. From the opinion:

Thompson then brought this action against the district attorney’s office, Connick, Williams, and others, alleging that their conduct caused him to be wrongfully convicted, incarcerated for 18 years, and nearly executed.

When the office was found liable, Connick himself might not have been personally liable, but his office was at risk of liability (which is typical in civil rights cases). Throughout the opinion, the district attorney is referred to by name, Connick, rather than exclusively by office.

You are wrong in saying the district attorney wasn't sued. You are also wrong in saying that capacity of suit is what "the decision was over" (if that is indeed what you are saying, your post being poorly written and unclear). If you are saying that a governmental subdivision or office cannot be liable for the actions of an employee, then you are wrong about that, too.

You are also wrong in saying that the Court ruled who Thompson should have sued. Such a pronouncement would not have been necessary to the outcome of the case and would not have legal effect.

Justice Scalia, in a concurring opinion (NOT the majority opinion, which represents the official rationale) tried to lay all the blame on a "miscreant prosecutor" named Deegan who did the actual covering up of exculpatory evidence. Deegan, as has been noted, is long dead.

 

[Dunstan]

John Thompson, who was a filthy criminal and who did a lot of bad stuff, got accused of murder. He demanded all exculpatory evidence, but the government forgot to mention an itsy-bitsy lab report that showed that the murderer (who had kindly left behind a sample of his own blood) had a different blood type than Thompson had. Without this exculpatory evidence, Thompson got convicted and was put on death row.

Actually, the blood sample, and the resulting Brady violation, occurred in an armed robbery case, not the murder trial. Apparently he was charged with the murder first, and the resulting publicity led to him being fingered for a separate armed robbery. The robbery trial happened first, and he was convicted.

At the subsequent trial for murder, Thompson opted not to testify in his own defense because his robbery conviction would come into evidence if he had.

Not commenting on the merits of the decision, just clarifying.

 

[Beerina]

This thread is trying to play rhetorical games of outrage.


The details are a bit more interesting.


The guy didn't just sue out of the blue. Rather he was suing, claiming the state or whatever failed to provide the proper training to the employees, the prosecutor, in this case, so they'd know not to violate his rights by keeping info from him.

Fair enough so far. However, in order to sue, the government has to have known the lack of training was a problem, which it could not given this was a singleton instance. You need several, or at least one previous, for a pattern to emerge that allows people, the government in this case, to know that something needs to be done, and that, by not then providing training, the government is liable.

The plaintiff acknowledged this, and used a different, single-case argument. That argument was based on a case where, say, police officers needed to be trained on the proper scope of the use of deadly force, something officers are not, by default, expected to know. And apparently it was a hypothetical case at that.


The exact opposite is this particular case, with prosecutors who are indeed expected to know simple details (again, think My Cousin Vinny) like they're not supposed to withhold evidence.




That's it. The state couldn't know, based on a single incident, that it should train prosecutors, who are supposed to know already they cannot withhold evidence, that, golly, they are not supposed to withhold evidence.

It doesn't say the prosecutor shouldn't be jailed, or there aren't other avenues to sue under. You just can't say the government is liable for the particular reason that it should have known, absent any prior incidents, that a prosecutor would not know a core feature of his own profession, and trained them accordingly.



Now...as to the sarcastic 5-4 "guess who" comment, now consider the 4 in light of the above.

 

[Beerina]

Ginsburg makes a case for a pattern of error and misunderstanding of the finer details of what evidence counts in that a prosecutor could reasonably be expected to know the defendant should get it (as opposed to the confusion resulting in the prosecutor not turning over the evidence because they thought it didn't apply), and Scalia talks about that, "but in any event":

The withholding of evidence in his case was almost certainly
caused not by a failure to give prosecutors specific training,
but by miscreant prosecutor Gerry Deegan’s willful
suppression of evidence he believed to be exculpatory, in
an effort to railroad Thompson.

And that may or may not be an issue you can sue over, but it has nothing to do with training, or lack thereof.

 

[Brown]

Without getting too detailed, it should be noted that the civil rights statutes, and the Supreme Court cases interpreting them, have always had their quirks. This case is, in a way, no quirkier than some of the others. The basic statute in question reads:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State . . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress . . . .

Right out of the chute, the trouble starts. Every "person" ... does that just mean living organic people, or does it include corporations? More importantly, is a city (or any other governmental subdivision) a "person"? Is a State a "person"?

The Monell case, referred to in the opinion, found that governmental subdivision is a "person." (A later case found that a State is NOT a "person" within the meaning of this statute, although how this decision was reached was a bit strange in itself.) The liability of the governmental subdivision cannot be merely vicarious; there must be some element of official action that is independently wrongful. Since governmental entities act through organic people, this typically means that another living person (usually the boss) has to do something independently wrong, or wrongly fail to do something that should have been done. Improper official policy is one route for liability, failure to train is another.

(By the way, the term "under color of" has also caused its share of litigation, as have other words in the statute.)

Now, it may be noted that improper policy and failure to train liability show up in a lot of contexts, not just civil rights law. Improper policy is often an issue in (to use one example) various tort claim acts. Failure to train is often an issue in personal injury cases (and in many states, the burden of proving failure to train is far less onerous than the Supreme Court found it was in this civil rights case).

The Court might have viewed Thompson's failure to train claim more favorably if he had established abuses to others, similar to what happened to him. But he could not do so. (I leave it for another day to debate whether, if Thompson had shown, say, two such incidents, whether the Supreme Court would have been satisfied, or whether the Court would have regarded them all as isolated incidents, for which more training would not have made any difference.)

My concern with the majority opinion (and the concurrence) is what seems to me to be a very cavalier attitude that goes beyond where it needs to go. Deegan already knew what he was doing was wrong, so further training wouldn't have told him anything he didn't know. (Wouldn't it?) There was no indication of any recurring problem for which any training was needed. (Wasn't there?) And there's no way that Thompson could ever show that training would ever have made a difference? (No way, really?)

 

[Dunstan]

My concern with the majority opinion (and the concurrence) is what seems to me to be a very cavalier attitude that goes beyond where it needs to go. Deegan already knew what he was doing was wrong, so further training wouldn't have told him anything he didn't know. (Wouldn't it?) There was no indication of any recurring problem for which any training was needed. (Wasn't there?) And there's no way that Thompson could ever show that training would ever have made a difference? (No way, really?)

Reading the opinions, I'm somewhat surprised the Court granted cert in the first place. This decision doesn't really announce any new law, or shed much light on existing law. Before this ruling, the Court had acknowledged the possibility of liability in a "single violation" case, and that remains a possibility. All the Court did here was say, "yes, but these facts aren't enough." Which I think is the kind of thing that should usually be left to the circuits, at least until there's a sufficient body of case law that the Court can actually provide some meaningful guidance, like here's how juries should be instructed on such claims.

Here the Court seemed to take the case just to rule on factual issues -- hence the heated debates between Scalia and the dissent about the factual record -- and do exactly the kind of (alleged) error-correction that the Court usually insists isn't its job.

 

[Travis]

My own family tried to sue the District Attorney's office over their malicious prosecution of my little brother. We were told we couldn't so we sued the arresting officers instead.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The person that needed to be held accountable is dead.

The thing is employers are held liable for the misdeeds of employees actions all the time.

 

[Dunstan]

The thing is employers are held liable for the misdeeds of employees actions all the time.

You're talking about is the doctrine of respondeat superior, which doesn't apply under the Civil Rights Act. That was true before this case was decided, which is why the plaintiff had to rely on the failure to train argument. Even the dissenters took great pains to insist that their proposed holding would not be the equivalent of respondeat superior, as the majority and Scalia's concurrence accused.

 

[ponderingturtle]

You're talking about is the doctrine of respondeat superior, which doesn't apply under the Civil Rights Act. That was true before this case was decided, which is why the plaintiff had to rely on the failure to train argument. Even the dissenters took great pains to insist that their proposed holding would not be the equivalent of respondeat superior, as the majority and Scalia's concurrence accused.

Why?

 

[Dunstan]

Why?

As Brown alludes to in post#10 above, that was the Court's interpretation of the language of the statute and its legislative history in Monell v. Dept. of Soc. Svc.

Respondeat superior is just a common law doctrine, it's not a constitutional principle. So the issue is whether Congress, in passing the Civil Rights Act, intended for there to be such liability. The Court in Monell decided it didn't:

On the other hand, the language of § 1983, read against the background of the same legislative history, compels the conclusion that Congress did not intend municipalities to be held liable unless action pursuant to official municipal policy of some nature caused a constitutional tort. In particular, we conclude that a municipality cannot be held liable solely because it employs a tortfeasor -- or, in other words, a municipality cannot be held liable under § 1983 on a respondeat superior theory.

We begin with the language of § 1983 as originally passed:

"[A]ny person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of any State, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any person . . . to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution of the United States, shall, any such

Page 436 U. S. 692

law, statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage of the State to the contrary notwithstanding, be liable to the party injured in any action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress. . . ."

17 Stat. 13 (emphasis added). The italicized language plainly imposes liability on a government that, under color of some official policy, "causes" an employee to violate another's constitutional rights. At the same time, that language cannot be easily read to impose liability vicariously on governing bodies solely on the basis of the existence of an employer-employee relationship with a tortfeasor. Indeed, the fact that Congress did specifically provide that A's tort. became B's liability if B "caused" A to subject another to a tort suggests that Congress did not intend § 1983 liability to attach where such causation was absent. [Footnote 57] See Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U. S. 362, 423 U. S. 370-371 (1976).

Page 436 U. S. 693

Equally important, creation of a federal law of respondeat superior would have raised all the constitutional problems associated with the obligation to keep the peace, an obligation Congress chose not to impose because it thought imposition of such an obligation unconstitutional.

There's more discussion at the link if you want more of the Court's reasoning. (And for those who want to draw political conclusions about such things, Monell was a 1978 decision written by Justice Brennan, and decided by a 7-2 margin.)

 

[Brown]

The thing is employers are held liable for the misdeeds of employees actions all the time.

As Dunstan has explained, an employer can be responsible for the wrongful acts of employees committed in the course of employment, without any showing that the employer condoned the wrongful act or participated in it or did anything independently wrongful. This is a principle of basic tort law, and even in tort law there are exceptions to it.

In civil rights jurisprudence, there has to be (colloquially speaking) an official act or omission that is wrongful, not just a wrongful act or omission by an employee.

As a side note, there are many situations in which one person can be vicariously liable for the actions or omissions of another (i.e., held legally answerable for the wrongs of another person, even if doing no wrong himself). For example, if you own a car, you are liable for the injuries or damage caused by a driver who uses your car with permission.

In many civil tort suits (under state law), a claim may be brought against an employer for the wrongful acts of the employee, and for the wrongful acts of the employer in failing to properly train the employee. For example, if an employee through inexperience and carelessness uses a backhoe to damage your home, you can sue the employer for the employee's carelessness and for the employer's failure to train the employee about proper use of the equipment. State laws vary, of course, but in some states, failure to train is fairly easy to prove, and state courts would uphold a jury verdict if there were substantial evidence supporting it. As this case indicates, in federal civil rights cases, it can be a different ballgame.

 

[Beerina]

This "failure to train" seems like a bizarre path to take for suing. Are other avenues closed off by, say, legislation?

Why not just sue for misconduct? Certainly deliberately withholding information should be a directly criminal activity. Can't they just flat-out sue for that?

 

[Dunstan]

This "failure to train" seems like a bizarre path to take for suing. Are other avenues closed off by, say, legislation?

Why not just sue for misconduct? Certainly deliberately withholding information should be a directly criminal activity. Can't they just flat-out sue for that?

As Travis and his family discovered, prosecutors have immunity from civil claims based on their actions in representing the state. There are some good policy reasons for that, though not everyone finds them persuasive.

The plaintiff here tried to sue for malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress, but those claims were tossed before trial on immunity grounds.

Criminal proceedings are a different issue; I'm not sure to what extent immunity would apply there. Professional disciplinary actions are also a different story. Deegan, the undisputed "bad guy" prosecutor (the one who clearly knew of the report's existence), confessed to another prosecutor shortly before his death. That prosecutor sat on the information for years, and was disciplined by the state bar for his failure to come forward.

 

[Travis]

I forget what the specific immunity is called but it sure ticked us off at the time. As it was we did basically end up suing the county administration that funded the prosecutors office so we did kind of end up suing them in a roundabout way. Also we got the DA to resign as a result. That was nice.