Connick v. Thompson (09-571)

argument 09-571

Connick v. Thompson

Supreme Court of the United States 1h 1m 7 speakers 8 chapters transcribed 4 days ago official recording ↗

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What legal question does Connick v. Thompson raise about district‑attorney liability under §1983?

John G. Roberts 0:06

We'll hear argument next in case 09571, Connick v. Thompson. Mr. Duncan.

Jeffrey B. Duncan 0:12

Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court, this case asks when a district attorney's office may be liable under Section 1983 for inadequately training prosecutors. Petitioner Orleans Parish, district attorney's office, was found liable for the terrible injuries caused to Mr. Thompson by Brady violation on the theory the office was deliberately indifferent to Brady training. This, despite the fact that there was proved no pattern of previous misconduct by office prosecutors. The District Court exempted this case from the ordinary pattern requirement by making a flawed analogy to a hypothetical in this Court's City of Canton opinion. There, the Court suggested that a city may be liable, absent a pattern, if it fails to inform police officers of the basic constitutional standard for deadly force.

Jeffrey B. Duncan 1:03

Extending that hypothetical to this case was error. It misunderstood Canton's distinction between single incident and pattern liability, nullifying Canton's stringent standards of fault and causation.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1:17

Isn't this something in between? Because in Canton, the hypothetical was one rookie police officer. Here, it wasn't one rogue prosecutor. there were four prosecutors who knew of this blood evidence. And there were multiple opportunities for them to disclose it. But four of them apparently thought it was okay under Brady to keep this quiet. Now, if we were just talking about what was his name, Deegan, it would be a different case. But we have the three other prosecutors. And so I think it's questionable to characterize this as a single incident.

Jeffrey B. Duncan 2:16

I understand your question, Justice Ginsburg. Our argument does not turn on whether it was one or three or four prosecutors. What our argument does turn on is that the theory from the Canton hypothetical, which does not require a pattern, was clearly at issue in this case. The district court analogized to Canton in order to allow the jury to find liability absent a pattern. There is no question that Whether it was one or four prosecutors, this is a single incident of a Brady

Elena Kagan 2:47

prosecution.

Jeffrey B. Duncan 2:49

A single incident.

Elena Kagan 2:51

And Canton said, if you know that a tort is likely to happen without training, then one incident is enough. Every prosecutor knows that there can be Brady violations if people are not taught what Brady means, because it's not self-evident that in every situation, correct? That's true, Justice. All right. So if you know that rookie prosecutors in most prosecutors' offices are filled with young ADAs who have just come out of law school, if you know that they are going to meet some situations where the answer is not intuitively known, like that if you get a lab report, you should turn it over, Don't you have an obligation, isn't that what the jury said, to train them to turn over lab reports? Now, I know you claim you had that policy.

Elena Kagan 3:53

Correct. We can talk later about whether or not there was sufficient evidence for the jury to disbelieve that you had that policy or not. That's a sufficiency of the evidence question. But if you know that lab reports have to be turned over, you've conceded it's a Brady violation not to do it, and they were sufficient and you had no policy, I know you're disputing that, and you had no policy of turning it over, why aren't you responsible for a Canton-like

Jeffrey B. Duncan 4:26

violation? The question is, under the Brady scenario, which side of the Canton line does it fall on? Does it fall on the single incident line or the pattern line? We say it falls on the pattern line.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg 4:39

But life doesn't always come in just two categories. And my suggestion to you is this doesn't fit into the single rookie. You have — if you have four prosecutors who are not turning over this evidence, then it seems like there's kind of a culture in the office that we don't turn over — either we don't understand Brady — Because one suggestion was, well, having the blood sample will show you you'd have to have the blood sample from Thompson to have it mean anything. So there was misunderstanding about that.