New York Times 04/09/11 - "The Prosecution Rests, but I Can’t" by John Thompson
I SPENT 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I’ve been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date. Those prosecutors were never punished. Last month, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to overturn a case I’d won against them and the district attorney who oversaw my case, ruling that they were not liable for the failure to turn over that evidence — which included proof that blood at the robbery scene wasn’t mine. Because of that, prosecutors are free to do the same thing to someone else today. Read more.
HattiesburgAmerican.com 01/03/2011 "Exonerated prisoner attends first NFL game" by Jason Munz
Four months ago, Phillip Bivens was confined to a prison cell. For nearly 30 years, the 59-year-old California native spent each and every day in prison. However on Sunday, Bivens - as a free man - got to go somewhere he'd never been before: a professional football game. Read more.
Mother Jones 10/6/2010 "14 Years on Death Row. $14 Million in Damages?" by James Ridgeway
The model electric chair sitting on the desk of the New Orleans prosecutor Jim Williams seemed like a classic piece of Southern Gothic. But for John Thompson, it was all too real. "Seated" in the electric chair were photographs of five African American men that the Orleans Parish District Attorney's office had proudly sent to death row. Thompson's picture was dead center. The meaning was pretty clear, he recalls: "They were trying to kill me." Read more.
USA Today 10/5/2010 "Prosecuting offices' immunity tested" by Brad Heath and Kevin McCoy
Americans can sue almost anyone for almost anything. But they can't sue prosecutors. Not when prosecutors hide evidence that could prove someone's innocence. Not when they violate basic rules designed to make sure trials are fair. Not even when those abuses put innocent people in prison. Read more.
Fear.less Magazine 13/7/2010 "Resurrect Yourself" by John Thompson
They fast on days of execution - no one eats anything at all – all they do is pray for the victim’s family, for the people who are waiting outside for the executions to happen, and for the prisoner. The hardest thing in the world is to watch a man who you became friends with and had known for years, get dragged away to be killed. Read more.
Reprieve 22/6/2010 "Resurrection After Exoneration" by Clemency Wells
In a small, chic art gallery in the French Quarter of New Orleans, three men stood on Saturday evening in front of a well-dressed, well-heeled crowd and told their stories. Greg Bright, tall, chiseled and imposing, Albert Burrell who with his cowboy hat, bolo tie and syrup-thick accent seemed to embody Texas and John "JT" Thompson, bespectacled, enthusiastic and articulate. Read more.
WWLTV Sunday Edition 20/6/2010 "Book tells story of inmate wrongfully convicted of murder"
Because a prosecutor withheld crucial blood evidence, a New Orleans man, John Thompson, was convicted of two crimes he didn't commit. He got out thanks to the persistence of two attorneys and the deathbed confession of a prosecutor who told a fellow prosecutor he had withheld that crucial evidence. Read more.
Times-Picayune 19/6/2010 "Ex-offenders set free to fail? A guest column by Jed Horne"
The warrant issued for the arrest of Curtis Kyles, in connection with the murder of a young woman earlier this month, has inspired I-told-you-so reactions from two very different camps. On the one hand are people who cite the warrant as proof that Kyles was a murderer all along. Others argue that he may have been turned into one by the twisting experience of his many years on Death Row and the lack of rehabilitative services once he was released. Read more.
Associated Press 22/03/2010 "U.S. Supreme Court to review $14 million judgment against New Orleans DA's office"
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider a New Orleans prosecutors' appeal of a $14 million judgment to a former death row inmate who accused them of withholding evidence to help convict him of murder. The court said Monday it will get involved in a case that divided the federal appeals court in New Orleans 8 to 8. Read more.
Gambit Weekly 22/2/2010 "$10 and a bus ticket" by David Winkler-Schmit
For most exonerees, no one is there to greet them when they get out. After what is often decades of imprisonment, Angola gives them $10, a bus ticket and whatever personal belongings they can carry. What they do have are numerous obstacles to overcome — no job, no money, no shelter, no clothes and no transportation — and the trauma associated with living in prison: mental illness and few life skills for surviving on the outside. Read more.