Exonerated Black Man John Thompson Asks Department of Justice to Investigate White New Orleans Prosecutors
Tuesday, August 2, 2016 at 11:23PM Exoneree and founder of Innocence Network project Resurrection After Exoneration John Thompson will file a formal complaint today asking the Department of Justice to investigate alleged incidents of prosecutorial misconduct during the tenure of former Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick.
Thompson will ask the department’s Civil Rights Division to review all cases handled by former Assistant District Attorney James Williams, one of the prosecutors who sentenced Thompson to death in 1985 for a murder he did not commit.
Two people convicted under Williams, including Thompson, were later exonerated and two others had their sentences commuted. Thompson said in a statement that
prosecutorial misconduct was systemic at the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s office for years and that other innocent people languish in prisons as a result.
“That same misconduct obviously didn’t stop at our cases,” Thompson said in the statement. “We were just lucky enough to have lawyers to prove it.”
Read the Times-Picayune story here.
Learn more about John Thompson’s case here.
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