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**REINA** · Forum Trustee Joined: 10 Feb 2006 Posts: 7850 Location: CA

Ex-inmate near execution awarded $14 million

La. man cleared in killing spent 18 years in prison, most on death row

NEW ORLEANS - A federal jury awarded $14 million Friday to a former death row inmate who came within weeks of execution but was exonerated.

John Thompson, 40, maintained through 18 years in prison that he was innocent of killing hotel executive Ray Liuzza, 34, during a robbery in December 1984.

In 1999, weeks before Thompson was to die, a defense investigator found a crime lab report that cleared him of the robbery charge. The blood type of the robber, found on the victim’s pants, did not match Thompson’s.

A judge resentenced Thompson to live in prison without parole, but the murder conviction stood until a state appeals court overturned it and ordered a new trial. Thompson was found not guilty in the retrial.

Jurors in the civil trial ordered the Orleans Parish and several current and former prosecutors to pay Thompson, said Gordon Cooney. Along with fellow attorney Michael Banks, Cooney worked 14 years to have Thompson retried and acquitted.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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**REINA** · Forum Trustee Joined: 10 Feb 2006 Posts: 7850 Location: CA

This is every defense lawyers dream!

The man should get a cool $1M for each year he was imprisoned. Mad

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**Katt** · Posted: Sat 02 10, 2007 6:33 pm Post subject:

No amount of money will ever pay for the 18 years that man lost in the Can or the horrors he might've been submitted to, but 14 mill should at least mitigate the pain a little Wink

(I would've ask for more thou)

**BillyB** · Posted: Sat 02 10, 2007 8:03 pm Post subject:

**quindioman** · Resident Ñero Joined: 08 Jun 2006 Posts: 2310

A clear example of why I don't believe in the death penalty.....I'm tempted to say this guy was lucky but 18 years of your life is a MASSIVE slice that no amount of money can bring back.

**BillyB** · Posted: Sat 02 10, 2007 8:10 pm Post subject:

The problem is that a lot of prosecutors think their job is to get convictions instead of getting justice.

**quindioman** · Resident Ñero Joined: 08 Jun 2006 Posts: 2310

**hippiechick** · Posted: Sat 02 10, 2007 9:07 pm Post subject:

**REINA** · Forum Trustee Joined: 10 Feb 2006 Posts: 7850 Location: CA

**hippiechick** · Posted: Sat 02 10, 2007 9:57 pm Post subject:

**REINA** · Forum Trustee Joined: 10 Feb 2006 Posts: 7850 Location: CA

**scooby_1781** · Posted: Sun 02 11, 2007 9:55 am Post subject:

A terrible injustice was done to this man, his life will never be the same & I am positive that this is not the same person who entered prison. It does not say where he did his time, but in Louisiana, Angola State Penitentury is the place where death row is & that place is a hell hole. In my profession I deal with parolees daily and almost every one of them is not the same person who first went to prison. I hear this fact from the families and friends all the time. I hope this man uses the deserved money wisely, but how many more appeals to the judgement reward is the state going to try & how much goes to his lawyer(s).
Individuals on death row being found innocent is not as uncommon as you think:
http://ccadp.org/free-life.htm
A Question of Innocence

On April 8, 2002, Ray Krone was released from prison in Arizona after DNA evidence proved that he was not responsible for the 1991 murder of a Phoenix bartender. Krone became the 100th person exonerated and released from death row since 1973. Convicted twice for a brutal murder, Krone spent ten years in prison, two of them on death row. The DNA evidence that ultimately proved his innocence also implicated the real murderer.

Unfortunately, Ray Krone's story is not unique. As of February 2004, 113 inmates had been found innocent and released from death row. More than half of these have been released in the last 10 years. That means one person has been exonerated for every eight people executed.

A study by Columbia University professor James Liebman examined thousands of capital sentences that had been reviewed by courts in 34 states from 1973 to 1995. "An astonishing 82 percent of death row inmates did not deserve to receive the death penalty," he said in his conclusion. "One in twenty death row inmates is later found not guilty."

The vast majority of those exonerated were found innocent because someone came forward to confess committing the crime; key witness testimony was found to be illegitimate; or new evidence was found to support innocence

In many other cases, it was good fortune rather than the criminal justice system that established innocence. In several cases, college or law school students investigated cases and unearthed essential evidence. For example, students in an investigative journalism class at Webster University uncovered evidence of misconduct by prosecutors, who talked a witness into giving false testimony and withheld crucial trial evidence, and helped get a new trial for Louisiana death row inmate Richard Clay. If it had not been for the work of these students, an innocent person may have been put to death.

Although there has been much attention surrounding the use of DNA testing, only 13 death row inmates of 113 have been exonerated by use of DNA. Many people falsely believe that DNA testing is a panacea that guarantees innocent people will not be put to death. However, it is important to note that DNA testing is not always able to determine the killer. In many cases, there is no physical evidence to test. DNA testing can be a critical tool for proving innocence, but it is still only available in a fraction of cases. For instance, five of the seventeen people released from death row were released because DNA evidence revealed their innocence.

The potential risk of executing an innocent person is horrific and the ultimate indicator that America's criminal justice system is broken. Even the most ardent proponent of capital punishment has no tolerance for the execution of innocent people. The exoneration of 113 death row inmates undoubtedly demonstrates that the capital punishment system is in desperate need of reform.

Case Studies
Joseph Amrine was sentenced to death for murdering a fellow inmate in 1986, a conviction based largely on circumstantial and conflicting evidence. After the trial, three men who testified against Amrine recanted their stories, leaving no evidence linking him to the murder. In addition, a corrections office that witnessed the murder testified that Amrine was not responsible for the death. In a 4-3 vote in April 2003, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered Amrine released 30 days from their mandate. After spending 18 years on death row, Joseph Amrine was released from prison after prosecutors decided there was not enough evidence to re-try him.

Earl Washington, who was found to suffer from pronounced mental retardation, was sentenced to death in 1984 after falsely confessing to the rape and murder of a woman in Virginia. DNA tests conducted after he was sentenced to death proved that he was not the rapist. Mr. Washington was released in 2000, but only after serving 16 years in prison, 14 of them on death row, for a crime he did not commit.

Anthony Porter was convicted in 1982 of a drug-related double murder. In September 1998, 2 days before his scheduled execution, his volunteer lawyer won a stay to look into his mental competency (Porter's IQ has been assessed as between 51 and 75). Then a vital witness recanted, and journalism students at Northwestern University, along with a volunteer criminal investigator, obtained a videotaped confession from the actual murderer. The actual murderer was subsequently sentenced to 37 years in prison. Released in 1999, Mr. Porter spent 16 years on Illinois death row for a murder did not commit.

http://www.aclu.org/capital/innocence/10361pub20031209.html
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**Katt** · Posted: Sun 02 11, 2007 10:04 am Post subject:

**BillyB** · Posted: Sun 02 11, 2007 2:42 pm Post subject:

**scooby_1781** · Posted: Sun 02 11, 2007 6:25 pm Post subject:

His original lawyer most likely was not his death row lawyer there lawyers that specialize just in death row cases.
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**BillyB** · Posted: Sun 02 11, 2007 6:34 pm Post subject:

**cachaco** · Posted: Thu 02 15, 2007 9:35 am Post subject: