{"id":13107,"date":"2011-03-30T16:54:22","date_gmt":"2011-03-30T21:54:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=13107"},"modified":"2011-03-31T10:30:54","modified_gmt":"2011-03-31T15:30:54","slug":"connick-v-thompson-both-answers-are-right-%e2%80%94-what-was-the-question-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2011\/03\/connick-v-thompson-both-answers-are-right-%e2%80%94-what-was-the-question-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Connick v. Thompson: Both Answers Are Right \u2014 What Was the Question Again?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Supreme Court cases, the majority and dissent sometimes talk right past one another, framing the question for decision\u00a0so differently that they almost seem to be writing about different cases.\u00a0 See, e.g., the dueling opinions earlier this week in Connick v. Thompson<\/em> (No. 09-571).\u00a0 Thompson was convicted of attempted armed robbery and murder, and then sentenced to death.\u00a0 A month before his execution, a bloodstained swatch of cloth came to light that proved Thompson was not the perpetrator in the robbery prosecution.\u00a0 The murder charge was eventually retried, and Thompson was acquitted.\u00a0 In all, he served 18 years in prison based on his wrongful convictions.\u00a0 Moreover,\u00a0it turns out that an\u00a0assistant district attorney who was part of the team that prosecuted Thompson deliberately withheld the swatch.\u00a0 The District Attorney\u2019s office now concedes that Thompson\u2019s constitutional\u00a0rights were violated under Brady v. Maryland<\/em>.\u00a0 The question now\u00a0is whether the DA\u2019s office should be civilly liable to Thompson for this violation.<\/p>\n

Prior cases interpreting 42 U.S.C. \u00a7 1983 (the federal civil rights law Thompson invoked in his lawsuit) reject vicarious liability for the government when a government employee violates consitutional rights; in order to recover, as matters unfolded, Thompson was obliged to show that the District Attorney had been deliberately indifferent<\/em> to a need to train his subordinates regarding their Brady <\/em>responsibilities.\u00a0 Prior cases also establish that a \u201cfailure to train\u201d claim must ordinarily <\/em>be based on multiple violations of constitutional rights; a single violation, such as that suffered by Thompson, would require extraordinary circumstances to justify relief.<\/p>\n

So much everyone agreed on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the majority, the case presented a highly\u00a0abstract legal question: whether there is something particular about the difficulty and frequency of Brady <\/em>questions confronting line prosecutors that imposes a general duty on DAs to provide Brady <\/em>training, such that a failure to provide training could fairly be characterized as a deliberate indifference to defendants\u2019 Brady <\/em>rights.\u00a0 The majority sensibly answered this question in the negative, reasoning that prosecutors, as licensed attorneys, are perfectly capable of educating themselves about Brady<\/em>.\u00a0 Taking the case on the majority\u2019s terms, Thompson had to lose \u2014 to hold otherwise would effectively invite the federal courts to micromanage the CLE programs of DAs\u2019 offices across the country.<\/p>\n

But the dissent framed the issue quite differently.\u00a0 In the dissent\u2019s view, the case presented\u00a0the much less abstract question of whether the specific\u00a0evidence presented by Thompson at his civil trial permitted an inference that the DA had been deliberately indifferent to Thompson\u2019s rights.\u00a0 The case was not about Brady <\/em>training as a general proposition, but whether a particular DA in a particular set of circumstances was obliged to do more to instill a greater respect for and understanding of Brady <\/em>rights in his office.\u00a0 Framed this way, the case was more favorable to Thompson:<\/p>\n

Abundant evidence supported the jury\u2019s finding that additional Brady <\/em>training was necessary to ensure that Brady <\/em>violations would not occur: (1) Connick, the Office\u2019s sole policymaker, misunderstood Brady<\/em>.\u00a0 (2) Other leaders in the Office, who bore direct responsibility for training less experienced prosecutors, were similarly uninformed about Brady<\/em>.\u00a0 (3) Prosecutors in the Office received no Brady <\/em>training.\u00a0 (4) The Office shirked its reponsibility to keep prosecutors abreast of relevant legal developments concerning Brady <\/em>requirements.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Part of what drives the different perspectives of the majority and dissent is a different view of the scope of a failure to train claim.\u00a0 For the majority, such a claim is merely about the transmittal of information about constitutional rights; if subordinates already have the information or can easily discover it themselves, then there is no need to train.\u00a0 On the other hand, the dissenters see training as also involving a drawing of attention to constitutional rights \u2014 it\u2019s about conveying not merely the content of the rights, but also their importance.\u00a0 Thus, the dissent faulted the DA\u2019s \u201ccavalier approach to his staff\u2019s knowledge and observation of Brady <\/em>requirements,\u201d which \u201ccontributed to a culture of inattention to Brady<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 For instance, the dissent noted, the DA \u201cnever disciplined or fired a single prosecutor for violating Brady<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

What will the impact of Connick<\/em> be?\u00a0 Read for all it\u2019s worth, the majority\u2019s reasoning (training is about transmitting information, and prosecutors are perfectly able to learn this stuff on their own) would seem to leave little room for failure to train claims against prosecutors \u2014 perhaps even in multiple violation cases.\u00a0 On the other hand, the majority defined the question before it so narrowly that\u00a0future plaintiffs may still have\u00a0good grounds for distinguishing their cases if they have any office-specific evidence to rely on, as opposed to a generic theory that all DAs should provide Brady <\/em>training.<\/p>\n

Cross posted at Life Sentences Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Supreme Court cases, the majority and dissent sometimes talk right past one another, framing the question for decision\u00a0so differently that they almost seem to be writing about different cases.\u00a0 See, e.g., the dueling opinions earlier this week in Connick v. Thompson (No. 09-571).\u00a0 Thompson was convicted of attempted armed robbery and murder, and then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,30,122,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-rights","category-criminal-justice","category-public","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}