|
Sheriff, DA win judgment - Former Death Row inmates lose civil rights suit
The Third Judicial District Attorney's office and the Union Parish Sheriff's Office were victorious against a lawsuit, which if successful, could have financially crippled both.
The plaintiffs -- Albert Burrell and Michael Graham, Jr., filed the lawsuit in 2001 after being released from death row at Angola after serving 13 years for a crime the Louisiana Attorney General dismissed in 2000, citing a lack of evidence. Burrell and Graham each sought compensatory damages totaling $150 million in the trial held in the U.S. District Court Western District of Louisiana Alexandria Division. Click here to read full article. Click here to read judgment.
Supreme
Court rejects suit in Goldstein case
January 27, 2009 -
Reporting from Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday threw out a lawsuit by a Los Angeles man wrongfully convicted of murder and gave district attorneys a broad shield against being sued even if their management mistakes send an innocent person to prison.
Thomas L. Goldstein, a former Marine convicted in a 1979 shooting in Long Beach, spent 24 years in prison largely on the word of a heroin addict who had worked as a jailhouse informant for police and prosecutors. Edward F. Fink lied on the witness stand when he denied receiving a benefit for testifying for police, a judge found.
Goldstein
was freed in 2004, and he sued former Los Angeles County Dist.
Atty. John K. Van de Kamp and top deputy Curt Livesay, contending
they allowed prosecutors to regularly use jailhouse informants
and did not take steps to make sure they were telling the
truth. In Goldstein's case, the trial prosecutor did not know
Fink was lying because other prosecutors in the sprawling
district attorney's office did not share information. Click
here
for full article. Click here for the opinion.
ARE
YOU A VICTIM OF CRIME? If
so, click here for
a list of services.
|
