weren t in charge of their case when a man s life was on the line. visibly upset, overturned the carjacking conviction and ordered a stay of execution and connick to turn over every file on record to michael and gordon. that was the first time we really got a full look into the district attorney s files in the murder case against john thompson. and it was a moment that gordon and i looked at each other and said, he s really innocent. he did not kill ray liuzza. he was not there. we knew who the murderer was. we knew how it happened. for the very first time. they lived. they lived. they lived.
skip to the end. the last line read, conviction and sentence reversed. i called gordon into my office. i couldn t get the words out. i remember it was july 17th, 4:30 in the afternoon, i i was tongue tied i said, i couldn t he said, new trial? i said yes. we hugged, we were ecstatic. as michael and gordon began preparing for the retrial, they got an unsolicited offer from the d.a. s office, harry connick senior had retired and the new d.a. ran for office on an anti-corruption campaign. now, he wanted to make a deal. the district attorney s office was not eager to go and try this case again, based on the evidence as it then existed. john could plead to some lesser offense and be immediately released from prison. i m like, hell no. i m not pleading guilty to nothing. after all this stuff we proved, these people are still trying to make me plead guilty to something i didn t do. the jury got it wrong twice
handled thousands of cases with hard lined tactics. harry connick in death penalty cases, i don t think would have offered a deal bauds he was aggressive and wanted to lock them all forever. connick s lead prosecutor was jim williams. jim took great pride in his numerous death penalty convictions. he even kept a miniature electric chair on his desk. jim was regarded ads one of the most aggressive in the prosecutor s office. sliding up behind defendants in the courtroom and buzzing in their ears to mimic the buzz of electricity. thompson s carjacking trial lasted only two days. the testimony of the lagarde children was enough to convict thompson of armed robbery. he was given the maximum sentence. your heart stops beating for a minute, you know? that was my first conviction.
was there training for prosecutors on what that obligation meant? i don t recall there ever being training on that. i don t recall there being training, period. jim williams who prosecuted thompson was asked who decided what evidence would be shared. it was up to the attorney trying the case. we were expected to follow the rules. were there any other guidelines that you can recall as to how you were to make that determination? no. when we asked the prosecutors about their knowledge of the law that requires that favorable evidence be produced they got it all wrong. the district attorney s office had a handbook, it was flat out wrong. their failures of understanding were frankly pretty surprising. i stopped reading law books when i was when i became the d.a. a jury concluded that under harry connick s leadership, the d.a. s office failed to provide pertinent evidence and violated
$14 million award. five justices of the supreme court believed the new orleans district attorney s office could not be liable because there was not a prior pattern of similar misconduct. the majority opinion written by justice clarence thomas found that even though connick s office withheld evidence in the thompson case, that was not enough to prove a pattern. and yet a study done in 2008 reported that during harry connick sr. s tenure in one out of every four cases where the death penalty was imposed, evidence was withheld. that was crazy. if that is not a pattern, i don t know what is. so who is going to get the last laugh, jim williams? in the photo of jim williams with the electric chair of the five faces visible, all of them were released from death row. in my mind, we should charge them with attempted murder, this district attorney using false information that he know is