The SCOTUSblog case file for Smith v. Cain contains all briefing. The Louisiana case will be argued Tuesday, November 8, at the Suprme Court.
The New York Times posts a preview, "Supreme Court Looks Again at Methods of D.A.’s Office in Louisiana." It's written by Campbell Robertson in New Orleans and Adam Liptak.
For the third time in 16 years and the second time in two, the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office must explain itself before the United States Supreme Court.
Each of the cases involves charges of prosecutorial misconduct, and in particular the failure to turn over crucial evidence to the defense, a constitutional violation that defense lawyers, former prosecutors and four Supreme Court justices have said was at least at one time “pervasive” in the district attorney’s office here. In the case last year, one of the key issues was not whether the misconduct took place, but just how widespread it was.
On Tuesday, the justices will hear the case of Juan Smith, who was convicted of murdering five people here. The court will consider whether he deserves a new trial because prosecutors withheld evidence from his lawyers. Such a concealment can be a violation of Brady v. Maryland, the 1963 Supreme Court decision that required prosecutors to turn over favorable evidence to the defense.
The Orleans Public Defenders office, in a brief supporting Mr. Smith, said that 28 convictions obtained by the district attorney’s office were later ruled to have been tainted by violations of this kind.
The district attorney’s office disagrees, saying the correct number is 13. In its own Supreme Court brief, it called such lapses lamentable.
“It is inarguable,” the office told the justices, “that, in striving to comply with the teachings of this court, the state has not always succeeded in attaining its goal.”
These failures have had very real consequences. Four defendants who were sentenced to death in Orleans Parish were later exonerated in cases involving violations of the Brady decision; another, who was facing a death sentence, was granted a new trial last year.
More broadly, according to a survey of both capital and non-capital cases by the Innocence Network, 10 prisoners have been exonerated since 1990 in Orleans Parish in such cases.
Two of the capital cases reached the Supreme Court. In the first, in 1995, the justices admonished District Attorney Harry F. Connick, who ran the office from 1974 to 2003, and told him to be more careful. In a concurrence, Justice John Paul Stevens called the office’s violations “blatant and repeated.”
Still, Mr. Connick testified in 2007 that he had seen no need to change the office’s policies after the 1995 warning. That testimony came in the trial of a civil claim brought by a former death row inmate, John Thompson, who was exonerated after 18 years when withheld evidence came to light. The jury awarded him $14 million.
The Supreme Court wiped out that award in March, in a 5-to-4 decision that split along ideological lines.
"Supreme Court to take another look at prosecutorial misconduct," by Robert Barnes for the Washington Post. It appeared in the October 30 issue.
Prosecutors, says Angela Davis, former head of the D.C. public defenders office, “are the most powerful officials in our criminal justice system.”
Davis, a professor at American University’s Washington College of Law, explains:
“They decide whether a person’s going to be charged, what to charge them with, whether there’s going to be a plea bargain and what the plea bargain will be. As they make those decisions, they exercise almost boundless discretion.”
That combination of power and discretion, she said, “can and has led to abuse.”
And:
The new case, Smith v. Cain, is not about punishing prosecutors. It is about whether withholding evidence should mean a new trial for Juan Smith, who prosecutors said was involved in a gangland-style shooting that left five dead. Prosecutors have an obligation under a nearly 50-year-old Supreme Court precedent in Brady v. Maryland to turn over any evidence material to a defendant’s guilt or punishment.
The case is expected to be determined by its specific facts rather than the potential for a new examination of Brady. It also seems not coincidental that it involves New Orleans prosecutors.
Smith’s lawyers point out that courts have overturned four death sentences from Orleans Parish because of violations of the Brady rules, and they say eight other non-capital cases have met the same fate.
The American Bar Association has asked the court to use the case to tell prosecutors that they have a greater obligation than simply meeting Brady requirements. The ABA says the court should mandate that prosecutors abide by ABA model rules that call for disclosure of any exculpatory evidence, whether it is determined to be material or not.
The National District Attorneys Association replied that the ABA is nothing but a private association of lawyers that consistently takes the side of criminal defendants. The regulation of prosecutors, it says, “is appropriately left to the individual states.”
Coverage of Connnick v. Thompson begins at the link; more on Brady v. Maryland, viz Oyez. Related posts are in the prosecutorial misconduct index.
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