University of New Orleans ScholarWorks@UNO University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations and Theses Dissertations 5-14-2010 Legal Exoneration: A Case Study through the Life History of John Thompson Celeste Lofton-Bagert University of New Orleans Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.edu/td Recommended Citation Lofton-Bagert, Celeste, "Legal Exoneration: A Case Study through the Life History of John Thompson" (2010). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations.edu/td/1138 This Thesis is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by ScholarWorks@UNO with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Thesis in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use.
For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights- holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Thesis has been accepted for inclusion in University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UNO. For more information, please contact scholarworks@uno. Legal Exoneration: A Case Study through the Life History of John Thompson A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of New Orleans in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Urban Studies by Celeste Lofton-Bagert B.
University of New Orleans, May, 2010 Dedication This thesis is dedicated to the thousands of people who have been wrongfully convicted throughout the history of the United States. ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank John Thompson for his continuous support and patience. I would also like to thank Martha Ward for her constructive criticism and optimism. Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Broderick Bagert Jr., for his critical eye.
iii Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………….v Chapter 1: Purpose, Background, and Methods…………………………………………….1 Meeting JT………………………………………………………………………………3 Chapter 2: The Literature on Exoneration.…………………………………………………7 Chapter 3: Early Life of John Thompson………………………………………………….10 From Early Life to Adulthood………………………………………………………….10 Outline of the Case…………………………………………………………………….16 Chapter 4: Life on Death Row and the Fight for Freedom…………………………….18 Death Row and Family………………………….21 The Fight for Freedom………………………………………………………………….30 JT Founds ―Resurrection After Exoneration‖………………………………………….33 Chapter 5: Does Exoneration ―Make Things Right?‖.46 iv Abstract The term ―exonerated‖ refers to a legal acquittal of a former conviction due to the introduction of new evidence. Since 1989, the number of legal exonerations has increased dramatically due to DNA and other new evidentiary technologies that can demonstrate innocence of formally convicted persons. This research focuses on the lived experience of exoneration and its aftermath through a life history of John Thompson (JT), a New Orleans native, convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1985. In 2003, after eighteen years in Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, fourteen on death row, JT was exonerated.
Exoneration theoretically removes the official stigma of conviction and restores full civil rights on former prisoners such as JT. Yet ―exonerees‖ face all the social, political, and personal problems that characterize the post-release experience of convicted felons. JT‘s experience is an important case of exonerees‘ quest for the restoration of standing, justice and compensation. Key Words Exoneration, wrongful conviction, death penalty, life history, reentry, Angola Prison, Louisiana State Penitentiary, stigma v Chapter 1 Introduction, Background and Methods This thesis will contribute to a deeper understanding of exoneration through an account of the life history of John Thompson, hereafter ―JT.‖ JT, a New Orleans native, was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1985.
In 2003, after eighteen years in, fourteen of which he spent on death row at Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, JT was exonerated. It is a contention of this thesis that the experience of exoneration is characterized by a tension between the official, legal removal of a criminal conviction and the lived reality that, in many aspects, is similar to that of convicted felons. Much of the same indignities and shame be faced by former felons are key components to the exoneree experience, and exonerees face similar challenges and stigma upon release. Exonerees must navigate a world that has changed since the time of their incarceration, and they often do not have the skills expected of them.
They cannot restore the portion their life spent in prison. As with other former prisoners, exonerees must re-establish relationships with friends and family members who have been inaccessible for long periods. Employers are not likely to understand or forgive large gaps in employment due to incarceration for a serious crime. Throughout these and other interactions, exonerees often are confronted with lingering suspicions of guilt among those they encounter, suspicions about whether they might have committed the crime after all.
In addition, research conducted by Grounds suggests that many exonerees suffer symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Grounds 2004:178). As with other ex-convicts, JT struggles financially, faces emotional trauma, and encounters suspicions about his guilt and his story illustrates the challenges wrongfully convicted people face after exoneration. His particular narrative of coping with those challenges and achieving some success, and the specific way he has sought to assure that society ―respect his innocence‖ can inform and contribute to our understanding of the nature of exoneration. He is the plaintiff in a lawsuit against the very individuals and organizations responsible for his wrongful conviction.
Within weeks of his release, JT filed a lawsuit against the New Orleans District Attorney‘s office for ―malicious prosecution‖, ―wrongful suppression of exculpatory evidence‖, and ―conspiracy.‖ JT was awarded a jury verdict and compensation of $14 million, a decision that has been appealed and is in the process of being considered by the U. JT also has founded an organization, Resurrection After Exoneration (RAE), to help other exonerees deal with the practical and emotional challenges of reintegrating into society. JT has become a leader among exonerees and a prominent spokesperson, giving voice to the realities and challenges exonerees face. JT‘s experience with stigma, his civil lawsuit, and his attempt to address larger injustices through RAE make his story an important case study in the quest for compensation and the restoration of standing.
The term exoneration as it is used here refers to a legal acquittal or governmental pardon of a former conviction due to the introduction of new evidence. Exoneration through an acquittal usually occur after a judge rules that the convicted person was wrongfully convicted, that is when the accused can show that the prior conviction was obtain faulty means. The most common causes of wrongful conviction are (1) eyewitness misidentification, (2) false confessions, (3) government (i. police or prosecutorial) misconduct, (4) dishonest informants, and (4) inadequate legal representation (Seigal 2005:7).
When a judge overturns a prior conviction, an acquittal can happen in one of two ways: a state or federal prosecutor can refuse to retry the case or a jury can find the defendant not guilty upon a retrial. Exoneration through a pardon refers to instances in which the state (a governor or the president) pardons an individual in light of new evidence that the office deems to be sufficient proof of innocence. The development of DNA technologies in the 1990s and 2000s opened the door to the re- examination of thousands of criminal convictions that originally were based on less definitive evidence. The number of exonerations has increased significantly in recent years.
In 1989 Gary Dotson, who spent ten years in an Illinois prison for rape, was the first person in the United States to be exonerated using DNA evidence (Garret 2008:2). Since then, more than 252 people have been exonerated with DNA-related evidence (Hartford Courant: April 2, 2010). The enhanced capacity to verify identity afforded by DNA technology has attracted increasing resources and attention to innocence claims, even when DNA evidence is not available. As a result, non-DNA related cases also are being overturned at an increasing rate.
A 2005 study led by Samuel Gross on the number of exonerations between the years 1989 and 2003 identified a total of 340 exonerations in that time period, including those that were not related to DA evidence (Gross, et al 2005:524). According to a study by Michael Risinger, the rate of exonerations also has increased, from twelve per year in the period 1989 to 1994, to forty-four 2 per year in 2002 and 2003 (Risinger 2007:762). Louisiana ranked fifth in the number of exonerations in the United States with seventeen. Seventy percent of the people in the study conducted by Gross and his colleagues were people of color, and they spent an average of thirteen years in prison (2005:524,547).
Exonerations usually involve cases of long sentences or death penalties, often for murder rape or other serious offences, because these cases offer defendants more opportunities to appeal and demonstrate their innocence. Resources available for felons to challenge their convictions are scarce and thus are concentrated on only the most serious cases. While inmates on death row constitute only one percent of the prison population, death row cases make up twenty-two percent of all exonerations (Gross, et al. This higher rate of exoneration among death row inmates is evidence not of any increased likelihood of wrongful conviction for death penalty cases, but of the increased opportunities for death-row inmates to challenge their convictions.
Many people convicted wrongfully of less serious crimes may never have the same opportunities to prove their innocence. Courts are not designed to remove the onus of a felony conviction or to restore standing. Rather, the role of the United States criminal court is to prove onus and removing standing. Thus when ac court removes the original ―guilty‖ verdict associated with a conviction, exonerees are often still ―ex-convicts‖ in the conceptions of popular culture.
Exoneration has a partial, incomplete, and always contested character and it is this partial nature of exoneration that defines exonerees‘ post-exoneration experience. In response to this situation, exonerees seek to remove the stigma associated with their criminal conviction, to restore the standing that has been stripped away, and in JT‘s words, to be ―made whole.‖ Meeting JT My entry point into exploring the phenomenon of exoneration was an interest in the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction. Devah Pager and others have spent considerable time and resources documenting the way in which ex-felons are punished well beyond the point at which they have "paid their debt to society." I live in a city where an inordinate amount of African American men are sent to prison every day. So I began examining the way in which prison and a criminal conviction leave an enduring "mark" on those convicted.
3 I became interested in the concept of stigma as it pertained to individuals with a criminal conviction, and became increasingly convinced that this stigma was important to understanding the experience of the criminal label. Around the same time I was beginning my research into the nature of criminal stigma, I was conducting interviews in jails across Louisiana and working alongside Innocence Project New Orleans and Resurrection After Exoneration (JT's organization to help exonerees). In the subject of exoneration, I found a fascinating and complex incidence of stigma. Here, a ―mark‖ of criminality is applied and then subsequently removed by the same institutions that bestowed it.
But as I began to interview exonerees, I found that they were experiencing stigma in ways that were very similar to the ―convicts‖ I was interviewing in prison. I met JT in 2007 while working for a local nonprofit organization associated with The Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO). IPNO provides legal assistance to selected persons sentenced to life in prison and who claim innocence in Louisiana and Mississippi. JT had organized a nonprofit, Resurrection After Exoneration (RAE).
He shared a cramped office space with IPNO‘s accountant, and before I began this research, I would chat with him whenever I met with the accountant or handed in reimbursements. In 2008 I began interviewing men who had been exonerated in Louisiana. I met Dan Bright, Ryan Matthews, Travis Hayes, Greg Bright and others.