unfortunately, will never be cured of his sickness. and the only thing that we can do is lock him up for society. on this episode of "death row stories," the murder of a wealthy young man in the big easy seals the fate of a petty drug dealer. >> that's the guy who did it. there's no question in my mind. >> and gets two out of town lawyers a crash course in new orleans justice. >> the first thing, do you really understand what you're up against? >> but when evidence of innocence emerges, something was going on that was very unscrupulous and it was deliberate. the system will stop at nothing to get the verdict it wants. >> he had struck out and he was going to die. there's a body on the water.

>> he was butchered and murdered. >> many people proclaimed innocence. >> in this case, there are a number of things that stink. >> this man is remorseless. >> he needs to pay for it with his life. >> the electric chair flashed in front of my eyes. >> get a conviction at all costs, the truth forward. >> bourbon street. you can buy a song and dance for a dime. >> on december 5th, 1984, ray liuza, a fun loving bachelor from a prominent new orleans family was out on the town celebrating his promotion to vice president of one of the city's biggest hotels. >> ray was the epitome of people truly well and law of art in the history, the fine cuisine as well as the music.

>> late that night as liuza returned to his garden district apartment, he was approached by someone in the dark. >> he was bank robbed at gunpoint. he complied with the perpetrators giving them up everything that he had. he asked them not to shoot him. and they did five times. >> we got the call there was a shooting. the thing that distinguished the crime scene was the amount of violence that occurred. the remnants with bullet holes in the side. the suspect with a fire on his gun and every bullet with the weapon that hit. >> he said, why did they have to shoot me? he was then transported to charity hospital where he was pronounced dead and my father collapsed and had a heart

attack. and code blue, i'll never forget that night as long as i live. >> it was all over the news as soon as it happened. the tremendous amount of publicity. it's been a great shock to us. >> ray liuzza senior, a well known member of the community was able to recover. >> time will be able to adjust, but nothing will replace the lo loss. >> the liuzzas set up a $15,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of their son's killer but a month went by and police struggled to find any solid leads. until one night, a local fence named richard perkins contacted the liuzza family. said he had the murder weapon, given to him by a man named jon

thompson. >> john thompson was a low level drug dealer and grew up in new orleans, raised mostly by his grandmother. his father was a career criminal. >> perkins confronted thompson after the fact and got mr. thompson to admit he was the one who killed mr. liuzza. >> also had an accomplice named kevin freeman. police arrested both freeman and thompson. >> the story that kevin freeman told police is he and thompson were driving home together. the car ran out of gas. liuzza drove past and parked across the street from his apartment. and then thompson said i'm going to hit that guy and pulled a gun out of his pocket and then mr. freeman got cold feet, if you will and decided he didn't want to be part of it. as he was running away, freeman said he heard the shots. >> the police charged freeman and thompson with murder.

the local prosecutor wanted the death penalty for thompson but knew it would be an uphill battle because thompson was never convicted of a violent crime. that was about to change. >> on december 28th, 1984, 19-year-old jay lagarde, his sister mimi, 16, and younger brother, 12, went to super dome for a college basketball tournament. after the game, as they were getting in the car, an african-american man jumped into the backseat, pulled out a .357 magnum and said, i'm taking your wallet, i want your value abouts. he was instructed to drive away but instead did something brave or stupid and deliberately caused a car accident. the carjacker then leapt forward with the gun and jay turned

around and met him and they had a fight. jay is pressed with his back against the driver's side door and manages to kick the carjacker out of his face and the carjacker obviously injured. drops the gun and gets away. that crime remained unsolved until pictures of thompson appeared in the paper of ray liuzza. >> when thompson's picture appeared, all three children identified john thompson as their attacker. thompson went on trial for the carjacking first because prosecutors knew a conviction would make him more likely to receive the death penalty for the liuzza murder. this wasn't keeping with the law, senior father of harry conic jr. during connick sr.'s tenure,

handled thousands of cases with hard lined tactics. >> harry connick in death penalty cases, i don't think would have offered a deal bauds he was aggressive and wanted to lock them all forever. >> connick's lead prosecutor was jim williams. jim took great pride in his numerous death penalty convictions. he even kept a miniature electric chair on his desk. >> jim was regarded ads one of the most aggressive in the prosecutor's office. sliding up behind defendants in the courtroom and buzzing in their ears to mimic the buzz of electricity. >> thompson's carjacking trial lasted only two days. the testimony of the lagarde children was enough to convict thompson of armed robbery. he was given the maximum sentence. >> your heart stops beating for a minute, you know? that was my first conviction.

he gave me the maximum. 49.5 years. i realized that i was in some serious trouble. because now, we won't go to the murder trial. >> at the murder trial, both kevin freeman and richard perkins testified that thompson killed ray liuzza and since thompson had an alibi, thought the situation smelled bad. >> i can make chicken salad out of chicken. the facts are the facts of the case. >> we are one foot on the grave and one on the banana peel. >> if thompson took the stand in his own defense, jim williams would be able to bring up the carjacking conviction. >> i couldn't defend myself because the first question you asked me on the stand, have i been con victimed, yes, i had to say robbery. and so my lawyers advised me not to take the stand on my own

behalf although we wanted to. >> the jury convicted thompson of killing liuzza within two hours. the prosecution was able to use thompson to argue for the death penalty. >> the state called the carjacking victim in the little catholic school uniform and told the chilling story of how the person that carjacked them was holding a gun to the brother's head and she just knew both of them were going to be murdered together and she was never going to see her family. and that's the guy who did it and there's no question in my mind. and with that, the jury decided, mr. thompson deserved to die. he killed this man and he almost killed these three kids. so they decide, for a crime i didn't do. with my moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, the possibility of a flare was almost always on my mind. thinking about what to avoid,

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otezla. show more of you. death row, awaiting his execution when he got an unexpected call. >> j.t., we found you some attorneys. they're from philadelphia. a lawyer from philadelphia. he coming down to see you. >> the call from a non-profit group devoted to appealing sentences. >> on death row, got a date of execution. some lawyers saying he represent me. i'm like, come on. get real.

>> gordon and i normally represent big companies with litigation, trade secret litigation but this was my first case representing a criminal defendant. >> michael banks and gordon cooney were high powered corporate lawyers with interest in pro bono cases. >> the case itself did not suggest innocence. there was nothing we read that caused us to say, wow, this guy didn't do it. i was skeptical of his innocence, but i remember feeling a very strong sense from reading john's file that things that happened in john's trial were just fundamentally unfair. >> banks and cooney went to meet their new client. >> the first time i met john thompson was at the louisiana state penitentiary at angola and frankly, we had a bit of a hard time communicating. >> he knew nothing about new orleans and the criminal justice system here that locked up more people than our state

penitentiary as a whole. so first thing i asked, do you really understand what you're up against? >> neither michael or i had any idea in 1988 we'd spend the next quarter century working with john thompson. >> michael and gordon began preparing the appeal. their key argument was that the prosecution's star witness, richard perkins, had a hidden motive in the case. >> mr. perkins had been promised reward money by the prosecutors and that information never made it way in front of a jury. >> michael and gordon hired someone who knew inside and out on the case. >> something smells fishy. there's a reason. humans lie and they do things for their own advancement and their careers or some cash. people are very unscrupulous. >> seeking a reward that today would be worth more than

$30,000, richard perkins requested a meeting with the representative of the liuzza family. the conversation was recorded by police. >> asked me to meet with you. >> people were paid to testify. it's very enticing. >> received reward money after the trial and told by the police not to mention the payment of

the reward to anybody. >> soon, perkins saying he received $10,000 to do this. >> the jury would have thought different about that. >> wasn't even count as his testimony. >> gordon and michael file their appeal in june of 1989. after five years of waiting, the court finally agreed to hear their case. >> we were able to prove beyond any doubt that, in fact, we wpes was promised to get paid. there was enough other evidence of john's guilt that the reward issue would not have made a difference. >> michael and gordon appealed the decision. to the u.s. district court, the fifth circuit court of appeals and finally, the u.s. supreme court. they all denied the appeal. >> matters became desperate. now we had no more appeals or

challenges. on april 19th of 1999, the final death warrant was issued. we had struck out, failed. he was going to die. >> the state set an execution date. >> we drove to angola. john came into the room. we didn't tell him we were coming but he knew why we were there and he looked at us and said, what's the date? >> we looked at him and said, john, it's may 20th. which was basically a month off. >> i've been around death row at that time long enough to understand what was going on. i was like, wow. it's my time. it's my time. i was trying to be strong. i was trying to, like, understand what was ready to happen. i'm getting ready to die for a crime i did not commit. anxiety kicked in. i didn't know how to accept the

reality they're going to be getting ready to kill me. >> and then john did a really remarkable thing. he said, my youngest son, john jr., is the first person in my family to graduate from high school on may 21st. will you please go to his graduation and make sure he's okay after i'm gone? and then he spent the next 20 minutes trying to make us feel better. it was not, how could you let this happen to me? it was about making us feel better for what we've done for him and making sure going to be okay. that's the kind of guy john thompson is. >> we were mostly silent on the way from angola to new orleans. and there was very little to be said. on the way, gordon checked his voice mail. >> gordon had a message from lisa ablafia. >> they're driving solemnly like

it's over. exiting angola, no cell phone coverage for miles and miles. and of course, i'm calling their office in philadelphia, berserk. going nuts. >> there on my voice mail was a message from lisa saying, i found something very important. i think this is really big. you have to call me right away. end of message. when heartburn comes creeping up on you. fight back with relief so smooth and fast. tums smoothies starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. and neutralizes stomach acid at the source. tum-tum-tum-tum-tums smoothies, only from tums. no sixth grader's ever sat with but your jansport backpack is permission to park it wherever you please. hey. that's that new gear feeling. this week, these folders just one cent. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great. so what i'm saying is, people like options. when you take geico, you can call them anytime you feel like saving money. it don't matter, day or night.

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this city is like the perfect storm for crime. there's a lot of corruption and drunk tourists. there was so much crime in the paper and the news on a regular basis, i never paid attention to the murder of ray liuzza jr. until michael banks and gordon contacted me. >> with john thompson scheduled to be executed in less than a month, investigator lisa abalafia searched for answers. >> i was a nervous wreck because john was facing an execute date. may 20th. so i began with the carjacking case. first, i read the police report. in 1995, convicted of a carjacking. without that conviction, thompson would have been much less likely to get the death sentence for the murder.

the first officer to respond to the carjacking scene, warren pope. >> when we got there, two trap gaps and i'm notices spots. like blood from one of the victim's shoes and blood one of the pants legs and he was uninjured and so was his brother and sister. we assumed it was blood. >> the carjacker's blood was recovered but wondered why that evidence never introduced at trial. >> i went to the evidence room and i see that was checked out and not returned. i'm like, hello? they were so sure that john thompson was the carjacker, he would have tested his blood and gone, ta-da. that would have been your nail. so i knew something going on that was unscrupulous and deliberate. deliberate. >> the defense was never told that the blood had been tested,

so that revealed quite a bit about the prosecutors who had been handling thompson's case. >> my next move is to go to the crime lab and kind of tip off people for the police department you're on to something naughty. i just go in and go, i need to see this old report, please. i didn't get the crime lab report which tells me the blood type is blood b. >> we were incredibly excited because we now knew the perpetrator had type b blood but we didn't know john's blood type. what we did was call john. >> blood type? he said, i don't know. >> he said, you don't know your own blood type? i said, i don't know. does your mama know? i said, i don't know, call and ask. >> i'm racking my brain. i've asked john, did you ever have surgery in your life?

they have to draw your blood. yes, at a children at charity hospital. yes, scramble scramble scramble. go to the director of the records room. i said, three weeks from now, this man is going to be executed. it is a matter of life and death. please dig it up for me. and they did. the hospital records show thompson had blood type o. >> it was a smoking gun that demonstrated that thompson was innocent of the carjacking beyond a question and there's no question that the prosecution had clear obligation to turn over evidence that's favorable to the defense. >> the carjacking victims had clearly misidentified thompson. >> eyewitness testimony is so unreliable and more traumatic, the more likely they're wrong in their recollection of identifications. >> with clear evidence of

prosecutorial misconduct, they had to go new orleans parish, harry connick sr. >> harry connick sr. was certainly an iconic figure. he was a fan of jazz with a regular singing gig in new orleans but also fairly aggressive as well. it was a state of policy in his office to provide the desk the minimum and nothing more. >> we talked about the right way to handle this and rather than hold a big press conference and point the finger at the district attorney's office, we thought the right first step was to go to mr. connick himself. >> connick's reaction initially was he wanted time to think about it. told him he had a matter of two, maybe three hours. >> we've got an execution date in less than two weeks and said if you can't agree even with these facts, we'll, you know, take the next step that we think is appropriate. >> mr. connick realized he had no alternative. the evidence was all too clear.

it was physically and scientifically impossible for thompson to have been the carjacker. >> michael gordon and connick met with quinnlin that presided over both trials. upon learning of the hidden blood evidence, he grew furious. >> he said he was going to hold a hearing in open court to try to determine exactly how this had happened. he wanted all the citizens of new orleans to see. >> at the hearing, attorneys questioned the key prosecutors involved with thompson's case including jim williams. the man with the hair desk. he was given the blood results, he claims but denies it. >> he said he never saw it so at the end of the day, dishonesty and competence. they can either be the prosecutors who knew that evidence was being withheld in their case or prosecutors who

weren't in charge of their case when a man's life was on the line. >> visibly upset, overturned the carjacking conviction and ordered a stay of execution and connick to turn over every file on record to michael and gordon. >> that was the first time we really got a full look into the district attorney's files in the murder case against john thompson. and it was a moment that gordon and i looked at each other and said, he's really innocent. he did not kill ray liuzza. he was not there. we knew who the murderer was. we knew how it happened. for the very first time. they lived. ♪ they lived. ♪ they lived. ♪

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john thompson had been on death row at angola state prison for 14 years. by 1999 michael and gordon had proven thompson had not committed the carjacking outside the superdome, but they had yet to prove their client was innocent of killing 34-year-old ray liuzza in cold blood. however, material they finally received from the new orleans' d.a.'s office provided ample ground for an appeal. >> the daily police reports showed us that these witnesses, freeman and perkins had told

very, very different stories in 1985 before the trial as compared to what they said on the witness stand. we began to see how their stories were contrived to secure a conviction of an innocent man. >> there were numerous pieces of evidence inconsistent with john's guilt or consistent with freeman's guilt and that showed that freeman had lied at trial in his testimony on behalf of the state. >> after testifying he saw thompson murder ray liuzza, kevin freeman was given a plea deal and only served ten months in prison. >> we also received leads about potential witnesses who would be helpful. there was a woman who lived across the street from mr. liuzza, she got a very good look at the perpetrator. ms. kelly and other witnesses who testified they saw a man with a blue steel revolver, 6'0" tall with close cut hair running past them. john thompson was 5'8" with a

big bushy afro. kevin freeman was 6'0" went by the nickname kojak because of his close cut hair. once all the evidence was examined it was clear beyond imagination that kevin freeman, acting alone, murdered ray liuzza. >> michael and gordon now believed they had a strong case for a new trial. >> we had an evidentiary hearing in front of judge quinlan. and quinlan vacated the death sentence, but he refused to vacate guilt. >> judge quinlan refused to grant a new trial. >> we were devastated. yes, it was wonderful to have john thompson spared from execution, but we were still looking at a man in his 30s to be spending the rest of his life in jail. >> so you're going to take the death penalty back and give me a life sentence? i was scared to death even more so now. you tell me i'm never going home again?

that didn't give me no relief, none whatsoever. i was doomed. >> michael and gordon appealed the judge's decision, they knew this would be thompson's last chance for a new trial. >> john's going to go free or spend the rest of his life in prison. >> arguments were basically two fold. first, that carjacking conviction had been used to keep john from being able to testify in his own defense in the murder case. and secondly, we argued that all of the evidence that we had amassed had shown that john thomson was innocent of the liuzza murder. >> michael and gordon filed their appeal in february of 2002. five months later they received the decision. >> i'll never forget it, a reporter called and said, what do you think about this decision? and i asked her to read it to me, and i said, skip to the end,

skip to the end. >> the last line read, conviction and sentence reversed. >> i called gordon into my office. i couldn't get the words out. >> i remember it was july 17th, 4:30 in the afternoon, i -- i was tongue tied i said, i couldn't -- he said, new trial? i said yes. we hugged, we were ecstatic. >> as michael and gordon began preparing for the retrial, they got an unsolicited offer from the d.a.'s office, harry connick senior had retired and the new d.a. ran for office on an anti-corruption campaign. now, he wanted to make a deal. >> the district attorney's office was not eager to go and try this case again, based on the evidence as it then existed. john could plead to some lesser offense and be immediately released from prison. >> i'm like, hell no. i'm not pleading guilty to nothing. after all this stuff we proved, these people are still trying to make me plead guilty to something i didn't do. >> the jury got it wrong twice

before, there was some risk that a jury would get it wrong again, no matter how strong the evidence was. much as we were convinced of john's innocence, we had to think about getting him out of jail as our first priority. >> mike and them was like, john, we are not talking about you as attorneys, but we are going to talk to you as a friend. we cannot control the minds of 12 people, we can only present them the facts. if 12 members come back and say you're guilty, could you handle that? is it fair on your mom, your children? one hand you could walk out the door. on the other hand you might stay there the rest of your life. before you make a quick decision like that, why don't you think about it. hey terry stop! they have a special! so, what did you guys think of the test drive? i love the jetta. but what about a deal? terry, stop! it's quite alright... you know what? we want to make a deal with you.

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in april of 2003, john thompson faced the decision whether to plead guilty and walk away from prison or stand trial and risk the rest of his life behind bars. >> i didn't kill nobody. i'm not pleading guilty to nothing. i got on the phone, my mom said, i want you home. i don't care what those people say, i know you didn't do it, i want you home. i called the attorneys and said, come on, let's do it, it's time for me to be with my family. >> gordon and i went down to new orleans to be there when john got out of jail to have our big celebration. >> i was figuring out where john was going to go after he was released from prison and a criminal defense lawyer walked into the conference room where i

was working and all the color had drained out of his face and he said the district attorney's office had pulled the deal. >> we thought john was walking out of jail the next day. this was five days before the trial was to start. and the d.a. said no deal. we go to trial. >> as it turned out the victim's family had learned of the plea deal and voiced their objections to the district attorney. >> michael and i go to the prison, and john, again, put on a very brave face. he said, you know, what i did want that plea, and it was going to hang over my head for the rest of my life. i didn't do this, and i did want to do this, and you guys are just going to win this case, but we had lost four days because we didn't realize that we were preparing for trial. >> we need some more time to prepare for the case. he said you won't do that. we're going to win this case. i can't spend another day in place. as we walked down a long corridor we turn around and look back and there is john with his

head in his hands. we thought he was getting out of jail the next day. and now we found out that he had to stand trial with a risk of spending the rest of his life in prison. >> on the morning of may 7th, 2003, john thompson stood before the same judge in the same courtroom where he had been sentenced to death 18 years earlier. michael and gordon had a problem. they couldn't attack the damaging testimony of kevin freeman, the man they believed murdered ray liuzza. >> freeman was shot dead in 1995 while committing a robbery. >> with freeman dead, his previous testimony stood as evidence that thompson had committed the liuzza murder. >> we had all this evidence that freeman had lied in his original

testimony and we wouldn't be able to use that evidence effectively if we couldn't cross examine him live on the stand. >> michael and gordon proposed an unorthodoxed solution. after freeman's testimony was read into the record they would cross-examine the empty witness stand as if he were on the stand. >> we took the evidence of the lies and put them in the form of questions. >> you told the jury you didn't know that john thompson was going to rob someone. isn't it true, however, that you set out to rob someone? silence hung in the air after each question was posed, giving the jury time to imagine freeman's response. you suggested in your testimony that you stole nothing from mr. liuzza at all, but you admitted you stole all of his property, didn't you? >> we asked a series of questions like that, culminating in the final one, which was isn't it true, mr. freeman, that you and you alone murdered ray liuzza. the jury knew where we were coming from, they were able to

see the lies in kevin freeman's original story. >> informant richard perkins also took the stand. this time his testimony was devastating to the prosecution. >> perkins admitted that one of the prosecutors put him in a room with kevin freeman before they testified at the original criminal murder trial and said, you guys get your story straight. >> perkins also admitted receiving $10,500 after thompson was convicted. >> we were able to show why perkins implicated thompson. perkins was a street kid who needed money desperately. he saw a chance for more money than he had ever seen or imagined in any one place in 1985 and he went for it. >> for the first time in 18 years, john thompson was finally able to take the stand and proclaim his innocence. >> you could hear a pin drop. i mean literally. he finally had a chance to explain to a jury why he had the murder weapon. >> john thompson's testimony was

that he did have the gun, but he had bought that from kevin freeman. >> kevin freeman sold the murder weapon to an unwitting john thompson. john was involved in buying and selling some stolen property. it's not something he's proud of. >> i was a dope dealer. you was a burglar, you was a robber, you wanted dope, you need to bring me some type of collateral. that was a part of a drug trade, being a fence. i'm sorry, that's how i came about being in possession of the murder weapon. >> the defense rested and the case was handed over to the jury. >> the jury gets up and leaves with your fate in their hands you try to smile while they're leaving. all them passing right by you. all of them looking you in your face like for the last time. >> the pressure was enormous, it was almost like you couldn't breathe.

there's a lot of nervous energy and small talk that goes on. before we can sit down and order food, the jury reached a decision. boy, i was so scared i said what? they did -- what? how? that fast? >> the jury took only 35 minutes to agree on a verdict. >> the jury files back in, whenever a jury comes back, you're looking at every juror trying to look for some hint. and it seems like an eternity, >> and the heart meanwhile now is racing faster and faster and breathing is becoming increasingly challenging. >> this was the most agonizing moment either of us have had in our careers. and in our personal lives. and then the judge asked that the verdict be read aloud. no sixth grader's ever sat with the eighth grade girls. but your jansport backpack is permission to park it wherever you please. hey. that's that new gear feeling. this week, these folders just one cent. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great.

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the retrial of john thomson lasted only a day and a half. the jury took 35 minutes to return their verdict. >> when the jury come back, the judge asked them, has the jury reached a decision? the jury said, yes, your honor. and then said, will the defendant rise? >> there's incredible tension and nervous energy. and you just don't know, because juries can do anything. >> each word slows down in time. it's, we, the jury, find the defendant, john thompson, not guilty. i can't describe it. >> i literally felt like i was lifted off my chair.

>> i looked around at my mom and my son. the relief i felt of knowing that i'm going home. this is finally behind me. this is finally over with. >> we each gave him a big hug. it was a moment. >> after 18 years in prison, john thompson was finally going home. but aside from his freedom, he was walking away with little else. >> kick in the behind and $10. they didn't have no compensation available for nobody like myself. no matter how many years you do in prison you have to fend for yourself. >> so we approached the district attorney's office and we said, look, john lost the last 18 years of his life. you all nearly executed him eight times.

you need to do the right thing. we were told in no uncertain terms we could jump in the lake. so we filed a lawsuit against the new orleans district attorney's office. >> they proposed a settlement of $500,000 hoping to get half that amount. >> under the united states constitution, prosecutors are required to give the defendants evidence that is favorable to the defense, and these prosecutors did not. >> your job is to prosecute the guy and seek a conviction. that's your job. >> ada bruce whittaker received the blood report showing thompson didn't commit the carjacking. in a deposition, michael asked him if the prosecutors were obliged to disclose evidence. >> the understanding was, if you disclosed -- >> exculpatory evidence? >> exculpatory meaning what? >> that's a good question, i don't know if that's -- that's the kind of stuff that was never, perhaps, clarified to the extent it should have been clarified.

>> was there training for prosecutors on what that obligation meant? >> i don't recall there ever being training on that. i don't recall there being training, period. >> jim williams who prosecuted thompson was asked who decided what evidence would be shared. >> it was up to the attorney trying the case. we were expected to follow the rules. >> were there any other guidelines that you can recall as to how you were to make that determination? >> no. >> when we asked the prosecutors about their knowledge of the law that requires that favorable evidence be produced they got it all wrong. the district attorney's office had a handbook, it was flat out wrong. >> their failures of understanding were frankly pretty surprising. >> i stopped reading law books when i was -- when i became the d.a. >> a jury concluded that under harry connick's leadership, the d.a.'s office failed to provide pertinent evidence and violated

john thompson's constitutional rights. >> in 2007, the jury awarded john thompson $14 million. >> but the d.a.'s office would appeal the decision for the next four years. meanwhile, john thompson transformed his life, building an organization called resurrection after exoneration to help exonorees adjust to life after prison. he's also become a leading spokesman against prosecutorial misconduct. >> it's extraordinary to see him as a 10th grade high school dropout become a really compelling advocate, the way he has taken this tragedy that happened in his life and turned it into a force for positive change. >> after years of appeals, the d.a.'s office finally argued their case to the u.s. supreme court. 2011, the bitterly divided justices voted 5-4 to deny the

$14 million award. >> five justices of the supreme court believed the new orleans district attorney's office could not be liable because there was not a prior pattern of similar misconduct. >> the majority opinion written by justice clarence thomas found that even though connick's office withheld evidence in the thompson case, that was not enough to prove a pattern. and yet a study done in 2008 reported that during harry connick sr.'s tenure in one out of every four cases where the death penalty was imposed, evidence was withheld. >> that was crazy. if that is not a pattern, i don't know what is. so who is going to get the last laugh, jim williams? >> in the photo of jim williams with the electric chair of the five faces visible, all of them were released from death row. >> in my mind, we should charge them with attempted murder, this district attorney using false information that he know is

false to kill you. it's premeditated. so we're saying he can get away with murder? what makes him so special? the only thing he was hiding behind, a district attorney badge. >> unfortunately, the thomas opinion is the law of the land and it gives me great concern. >> make no bones about it, prosecutors are now a lot less accountable for what they do, because they know that if they don't produce evidence there's virtually no sanction for them or the office. >> john thompson's activism continues to sound the alarm against the supreme court decision and innocent people being found guilty and executed for crimes they did not commit. >> now i'm thinking about my children, the same thing could happen to them. a person could have that much power over your life, and without being held accountable for it. i can throw the evidence away, and still try to kill you. whether you did it or not, without no consequences. that's scary. that should be scary to everybody in the whole world.

captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com back in 1981, i had the american dream the beautiful wife, a house in the suburbs and a beautiful 6-year-old son. and one day i went to work, kissed my son good-bye and never saw him again. in two weeks i became the parent of a murdered child. and i'll always be the parent of a murdered child. i still have the heartache. still have the rage. i waited years for justice. i know what it's like to be there waiting for some answers. and over the years i learned how to do one thing really well, and that's how to catch these bastards and bring them back to justice.