Lead Opinion
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office now concedes that, in prosecuting respondent John Thompson for attempted armed robbery, prosecutors failed to disclose evidence that should have been turned over to the defense under Brady v. Maryland,
After his release from prison, Thompson sued petitioner Harry Connick, in his official capacity as the Orleans Parish district attorney, for damages under Rev. Stat. §1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983. Thompson alleged that Connick had failed to train his prosecutors adequately about their duty to produce exculpatory evidence and that the lack of training had caused the nondisclosure in Thompson’s robbery case. The jury awarded Thompson $14 million, and the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed by an evenly divided en banc court. We granted certiorari to decide whether a district attorney’s office may be held liable under § 1983 for failure to train based on a single Brady violation. We hold that it cannot.
I
A
In early 1985, John Thompson was charged with the murder of Raymond T. Liuzza, Jr., in New Orleans. Publicity following the murder charge led the victims of an unrelated
As part of the robbery investigation, a crime scene technician took from one of the victims’ pants a swatch of fabric stained with the robber’s blood. Approximately one week before Thompson’s armed robbery trial, the swatch was sent to the crime laboratory. Two days before the trial, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Whittaker received the crime lab’s report, which stated that the perpetrator had blood type B. There is no evidence that the prosecutors ever had Thompson’s blood tested or that they knew what his blood type was. Whittaker claimed he placed the report on Assistant District Attorney James Williams’ desk, but Williams denied seeing it. The report was never disclosed to Thompson’s counsel.
Williams tried the armed robbery case with Assistant District Attorney Gerry Deegan. On the first day of trial, Deegan checked all of the physical evidence in the case out of the police property room, including the bloodstained swatch. Deegan then checked all of the evidence but the swatch into the courthouse property room. The prosecutors did not mention the swatch or the crime lab report at trial, and the jury convicted Thompson of attempted armed robbery.
A few weeks later, Williams and Special Prosecutor Eric Dubelier tried Thompson for the Liuzza murder. Because of the armed robbery conviction, Thompson chose not to testify in his own defense. He was convicted and sentenced to death. State v. Thompson,
B
Thompson then brought this action against the district attorney’s office, Connick, Williams, and others, alleging that their conduct caused him to be wrongfully convicted, incarcerated for 18 years, and nearly executed. The only claim that proceeded to trial was Thompson’s claim under § 1983 that the district attorney’s office had violated Brady by fail
Before trial, Conniek conceded that the failure to produce the crime lab report constituted a Brady violation.
Although no prosecutor remembered any specific training session regarding Brady prior to 1985, it was undisputed at trial that the prosecutors were familiar with the general Brady requirement that the State disclose to the defense evidence in its possession that is favorable to the accused. Prosecutors testified that office policy was to turn crime lab reports and other scientific evidence over to the defense. They also testified that, after the discovery of the undisclosed crime lab report in 1999, prosecutors disagreed about whether it had to be disclosed under Brady absent knowledge of Thompson’s blood type.
The jury rejected Thompson’s claim that an unconstitutional office policy caused the Brady violation, but found the district attorney’s office liable for failing to train the prosecutors. The jury awarded Thompson $14 million in damages, and the District Court added more than $1 million in attorney’s fees and costs.
After the verdict, Conniek renewed his objection — which he had raised on summary judgment — that he could not have
A panel of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed. The panel acknowledged that Thompson did not present evidence of a pattern of similar Brady violations,
II
The Brady violation conceded in this ease occurred when one or more of the four prosecutors involved with Thompson’s armed robbery prosecution failed to disclose the crime lab report to Thompson’s counsel. Under Thompson’s failure-to-train theory, he bore the burden of proving both (1) that Connick, the policymaker for the district attorney’s office, was deliberately indifferent to the need to train the prosecutors about their Brady disclosure obligation with respect to evidence of this type and (2) that the lack of training actually caused the Brady violation in this case. Connick argues that he was entitled to judgment as a matter of law because Thompson did not prove that he was on actual or constructive notice of, and therefore deliberately indifferent to, a need for more or different Brady training. We agree.
Title 42 U. S. C. § 1983 provides in relevant part:
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State . . . subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress . . .
A municipality or other local government may be liable under this section if the governmental body itself “subjects” a person to a deprivation of rights or “causes” a person “to be subjected” to such deprivation. See Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs.,
Plaintiffs who seek to impose liability on local governments under § 1983 must prove that “action pursuant to official municipal policy” caused their injury. Monell, 436 U. S.,
In limited circumstances, a local government’s decision not to train certain employees about their legal duty to avoid violating citizens’ rights may rise to the level of an official government policy for purposes of § 1983. A municipality’s culpability for a deprivation of rights is at its most tenuous where a claim turns on a failure to train. See Oklahoma City v. Tuttle,
“ '[Deliberate indifference’ is a stringent standard of fault, requiring proof that a municipal actor disregarded a known or obvious consequence of his action.” Bryan Cty.,
B
A pattern of similar constitutional violations by untrained employees is “ordinarily necessary” to demonstrate deliberate indifference for purposes of failure to train. Bryan Cty.,
Although Thompson does not contend that he proved a pattern of similar Brady violations,
C
1
Instead of relying on a pattern of similar Brady violations, Thompson relies on the “single-incident” liability that this Court hypothesized in Canton. He contends that the Brady violation in his case was the “obvious” consequence of failing to provide specific Brady training, and that this showing of “obviousness” can substitute for the pattern of violations ordinarily necessary to establish municipal culpability.
In Canton, the Court left open the possibility that, “in a narrow range of circumstances,” a pattern of similar violations might not be necessary to show deliberate indifference. Bryan Cty., supra, at 409. The Court posed the hypothetical example of a city that arms its police force with firearms and deploys the armed officers into the public to capture fleeing felons without training the officers in the constitutional limitation on the use of deadly force. Canton, supra, at 390, n. 10. Given the known frequency with which police attempt to arrest fleeing felons and the “predictability that an officer lacking specific tools to handle that situation will violate citizens’ rights,” the Court theorized that a city’s decision not to train the officers about constitutional limits on
Failure to train prosecutors in their Brady obligations does not fall within the narrow range of Canton's hypothesized single-incident liability. The obvious need for specific legal training that was present in the Canton scenario is absent here. Armed police must sometimes make split-second decisions with life-or-death consequences. There is no reason to assume that police academy applicants are familiar with the constitutional constraints on the use of deadly force. And, in the absence of training, there is no. way for novice officers to obtain the legal knowledge they require. Under those circumstances there is an obvious need for some form of training. In stark contrast, legal “[t]raining is what differentiates attorneys from average public employees.”
Attorneys are trained in the law and equipped with the tools to interpret and apply legal principles, understand constitutional limits, and exercise legal judgment. Before they may enter the profession and receive a law license, all attorneys must graduate from law school or pass a substantive examination; attorneys in the vast majority of jurisdictions must do both. See, e. g., La. State Bar Assn. (LSBA), Articles of Incorporation, La. Rev. Stat. Ann. §37, ch. 4, App., Art. 14, §7 (1988 West Supp.) (as amended through 1985). These threshold requirements are designed to ensure that all new attorneys have learned how to find, understand, and apply legal rules. Cf. United States v. Cronic,
Nor does professional training end at graduation. Most jurisdictions require attorneys to satisfy continuing-education requirements. See, e. g., LSBA, Articles of Incorporation, Art. 16, Rule 1.1(b) (effective 1987); La. Sup. Ct. Rule XXX (effective 1988). Even those few jurisdictions that do not impose mandatory continuing-education requirements mandate that attorneys represent their clients competently and encourage attorneys to engage in continuing study and education. See, e. g., Mass. Rule Prof. Conduct 1.1 and comment 6 (West 2006). Before Louisiana adopted continuing-education requirements, it imposed similar general competency requirements on its state bar. LSBA, Articles of Incorporation, Art. 16, EC 1-1, 1-2, DR 6-101 (West 1974) (effective 1971).
Attorneys who practice with other attorneys, such as in district attorney’s offices, also train on the job as they learn from more experienced attorneys. For instance, here in the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, junior prosecutors were trained by senior prosecutors who supervised them as they worked together to prepare cases for trial, and trial chiefs oversaw the preparation of the cases. Senior attorneys also circulated court decisions and instructional memoranda to keep the prosecutors abreast of relevant legal developments.
In addition, attorneys in all jurisdictions must satisfy character and fitness standards to receive a law license and are personally subject to an ethical regime designed to reinforce the profession’s standards. See, e. g., LSBA, Articles of Incorporation, Art. 14, §7 (1985); see generally id., Art. 16 (1971) (Code of Professional Responsibility). Trial lawyers have a “duty to bring to bear such skill and knowledge as will render the trial a reliable adversarial testing process.” Strickland v. Washington,
In light of this regime of legal training and professional responsibility, recurring constitutional violations are not the “obvious consequence” of failing to provide prosecutors with formal in-house training about how to obey the law. Bryan Cty.,
A second significant difference between this ease and the example in Canton is the nuance of the allegedly necessary training. The Canton hypothetical assumes that the armed police officers have no knowledge at all of the constitutional limits on the use of deadly force. But it is undisputed here that the prosecutors in Connick’s office were familiar with the general Brady rule. Thompson’s complaint therefore cannot rely on the utter lack of an ability to cope with constitutional situations that underlies the Canton hypothetical, but rather must assert that prosecutors were not trained about particular Brady evidence or the specific scenario related to the violation in his case. That sort of nuance simply cannot support an inference of deliberate indifference here. As the Court said in Canton, “[i]n virtually every instance where a person has had his or her constitutional rights violated by a city employee, a §1983 plaintiff will be able to point to something the city ‘could have done’ to prevent the unfortunate incident.”
We do not assume that prosecutors will always make correct Brody decisions or that guidance regarding specific Brady questions would not assist prosecutors. But showing merely that additional training would have been helpful in making difficult decisions does not establish municipal liability. “[P]rov[mg] that an injury or accident could have been avoided if an [employee] had had better or more training, sufficient to equip him to avoid the particular injury-causing conduct” will not suffice. Canton, supra, at 391. The possibility of single-incident liability that the Court left open in Canton is not this case.
2
The dissent rejects our holding that Canton’s hypothesized single-incident liability does not, as a legal matter, encompass failure to train prosecutors in their Brady obligation. It would instead apply the Canton hypothetical to this case, and thus devotes almost all of its opinion to explaining
By the end of its opinion, however, the dissent finally reveals that its real disagreement is not with our holding today, but with this Court’s precedent. The dissent does not see “any reason,” post, at 108, for the Court’s conclusion in Bryan County that a pattern of violations is “ordinarily necessary” to demonstrate deliberate indifference for purposes of failure to train,
3
The District Court and the Court of Appeals panel erroneously believed that Thompson had proved deliberate indifference by showing the “obviousness” of a need for additional training. They based this conclusion on Connick’s awareness that (1) prosecutors would confront Brady issues while
It does not follow that, because Brady has gray areas and some Brady decisions are difficult, prosecutors will so obviously make wrong decisions that failing to train them amounts to “a decision by the city itself to violate the Constitution.” Canton, supra, at 395 (O’Connor, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). To prove deliberate indifference, Thompson needed to show that Connick was on notice that, absent additional specified training, it was “highly predictable” that the prosecutors in his office would be confounded by those gray areas and make incorrect Brady decisions as a result. In fact, Thompson had to show that it was so predictable that failing to train the prosecutors amounted to conscious disregard for defendants’ Brady rights. See Bryan Cty., supra, at 409; Canton, supra, at 389. He did not do so.
Ill
The role of a prosecutor is to see that justice is done. Berger v. United States,
We conclude that this case does not fall within the narrow range of “single-incident” liability hypothesized in Canton as
The judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is reversed.
It is so ordered.
Notes
After Thompson discovered the crime lab report, former Assistant District Attorney Michael Riehlmann revealed that Deegan had confessed to him in 1994 that he had “intentionally suppressed blood evidence in the armed robbery trial of John Thompson that in some way exculpated the defendant.” Record EX588; see also id., at 2677. Deegan apparently had been recently diagnosed with terminal cancer when he made his confession. Following a disciplinary complaint by the district attorney’s office, the Supreme Court of Louisiana reprimanded Riehlmann for failing to disclose Deegan’s admission earlier. In re Riehlmann, 2004-0680 (La. 1/19/05),
Thompson testified in his own defense at the second trial and presented evidence suggesting that another man committed the murder. That man, the government’s key witness at the first murder trial, had died in the interval between the first and second trials.
Because Conniek conceded that the failure to disclose the crime lab report violated Brady, that question is not presented here, and we do not address it.
The District Court rejected Conniek’s proposed deliberate indifference jury instruction — which would have required Thompson to prove a pattern of similar violations — for the same reasons as the summary judgment motion. Tr. 1013; Record 993; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 26.
Because we conclude that Thompson failed to prove deliberate indifference, we need not reach causation. Thus, we do not address whether the alleged training deficiency, or some other cause, was the “ ‘moving force,’ ” Canton v. Harris,
The same eannot be said for the dissent, however. Affirming the verdict in favor of Thompson would require finding both that he proved deliberate indifference and that he proved causation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the dissent has not conducted the second step of the analysis, which would require showing that the failure to provide particular training (which the
Thompson had every incentive at trial to attempt to establish a pattern of similar violations, given that the jury instruction allowed the jury to find deliberate indifference based on, among other things, prosecutors’ “history of mishandling” similar situations. Record 1619.
Thompson'also asserts that this case is not about a “single incident” because up to four prosecutors may have been responsible for the nondisclosure of the crime lab report and, according to his allegations, withheld additional evidence in his armed robbery and murder trials. But contemporaneous or subsequent conduct cannot establish a pattern of violations that would provide “notice to the citfy] and the opportunity to conform to constitutional dictates . . . .” Canton,
The Louisiana State Bar Code of Professional Responsibility included a broad understanding of the prosecutor’s duty to disclose in 1985:
“With respect to evidence and witnesses, the prosecutor has responsibilities different from those of a lawyer in private practice: the prosecutor should make timely disclosure to the defense of available evidence, known to him, that tends to negate the guilt of the accused, mitigate the degree of the offense, or reduce the punishment. Further, a prosecutor should not intentionally avoid pursuit of evidence merely because he believes it will damage the prosecution’s case or aid the accused.” LSBA, Articles of Incorporation, Art. 16, EC 7-13 (1971); see also ABA Model Rule of Prof. Conduct 3.8(d) (1984) (“The prosecutor in a criminal case shall . . . make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense ... ”).
In addition to these ethical rules, the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure, with which Louisiana prosecutors are no doubt familiar, in 1985 required prosecutors, upon order of the court, to permit inspection of evidence “favorable to the defendant. . . which [is] material and relevant to the issue of guilt or punishment,” La. Code Crim. Proc. Ann., Art. 718 (West 1981) (added 1977), as well as “any results or reports” of “scientific tests or experiments, made in connection with or material to the particular case,” if those reports are exculpatory or intended for use at trial, id., Art. 719.
Contrary to the dissent’s assertion, see post, at 108, n. 26 (citing post, at 96-98), a prosecutor’s youth is not a “specific reason” not to rely on professional training and ethical obligations. See supra, at 64-65 (citing United States v. Cronic,
Thompson also argues that he proved deliberate indifference by “direct evidence of policymaker fault” and so, presumably, did not need to rely on circumstantial evidence at all Brief for Respondent 37. In support, Thompson contends that Connick created a “culture of indifference” in the district attorney’s office, id., at 38, as evidenced by Connick’s own allegedly inadequate understanding of Brady, the office’s unwritten Brady policy that was later incorporated into a 1987 handbook, and an offieewide “restrictive discovery policy,” Brief for Respondent 39-40. This argument is essentially an assertion that Connick’s office had an unconstitutional policy or custom. The jury rejected this claim, and Thompson does not challenge that finding.
The dissent spends considerable time finding new Brady violations in Thompson’s trials. See post, at 81-90. How these violations are relevant even to the dissent’s own legal analysis is “a mystery.” Post, at 81, n. 2. The dissent does not list these violations among the “[ajbundant evidence” that it believes supports the jury’s finding that Brady training was obviously necessary. Post, at 93. Nor does the dissent quarrel with our conclusion that contemporaneous or subsequent conduct cannot establish a pattern of violations. The only point appears to be to highlight what the dissent sees as sympathetic, even if legally irrelevant, facts.
In any event, the dissent’s findings are highly suspect. In finding two of the “new” violations, the dissent belatedly tries to reverse the- Court of Appeals’ 1998 decision that those Brady claims were “without merit.” Compare Thompson v. Cain,
Although the dissent acknowledges that “deliberate indifference liability and respondeat superior liability are not one and the same,” the opinion suggests that it believes otherwise. Post, at 109, n. 28; see, e. g., post, at 109 (asserting that “the buck stops with [the district attorney]”); post, at 100 (suggesting municipal liability attaches when “the prosecutors” themselves are “deliberately indifferent to what the law requires”). We stand by the longstanding rule — reaffirmed by a unanimous Court earlier this Term — that to prove a violation of § 1983, a plaintiff must prove that “the municipality’s own wrongful conduct” caused his injury, not that the municipality is ultimately responsible for the torts of its employees. Los Angeles County v. Humphries,
Concurrence Opinion
with whom Justice Alito joins, concurring.
I join the Court’s opinion in full. I write separately only to address several aspects of the dissent.
1. The dissent’s lengthy excavation of the trial record is a puzzling exertion. The question presented for our review is whether a municipality is hable for a single Brady violation by one of its prosecutors, even though no pattern or practice of prior violations put the municipality on notice of a need for specific training that would have prevented it. See Brady v. Maryland,
The dissent defers consideration of this question until the twenty-third page of its opinion. It first devotes considerable space to allegations that Connick’s prosecutors misunderstood Brady when asked about it at trial, see post, at 93-95 (opinion of Ginsburg, J.), and to supposed gaps in the
“First: The District Attorney was certain that prosecutors would confront the situation where they would have to decide which evidence was required by the constitution to be provided to an accused[;]
“Second: The situation involved a difficult choice, or one that prosecutors had a history of mishandling, such that additional training, supervision, or monitoring was clearly needed[; and]
“Third: The wrong choice by a prosecutor in that situation will frequently cause a deprivation of an accused’s constitutional rights.” App. 828.
That theory of deliberate indifference would repeal the law of Monell
That result cannot be squared with our admonition that failure-to-train liability is available only in “limited circumstances,” id., at 387, and that a pattern of constitutional violations is “ordinarily necessary to establish municipal culpability and causation,” Board of Comm’rs of Bryan Cty. v. Brown,
2. Perhaps for that reason, the dissent does not seriously contend that Thompson’s theory of recovery was proper. Rather, it accuses Connick of acquiescing in that theory at trial. See post, at 102. The accusation is false. Conniek’s
“[Connick’s counsel]: Also, as part of that definition in that same location, Your Honor, we would like to include language that says that deliberate indifference to training requires a pattern of similar violations and proof of deliberate indifference requires more than a single isolated act.
“[Thompson’s counsel]: That’s not the law, Your Honor.
“THE COURT: No, I’m not giving that. That was in your motion for summary judgment that I denied.” Tr. 1013.
Nothing more is required to preserve a claim of error. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 51(d)(1)(B).
3. But in any event, to recover from a municipality under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, a plaintiff must satisfy a “rigorous” standard of causation, Bryan Cty.,
4. The dissent suspends disbelief about this, insisting that with proper Brady training, “surely at least one” of the prosecutors in Thompson’s trial would have turned over the lab report and blood swatch. Post, at 98. But training must consist of more than mere broad encomiums of Brady: We have made clear that “the identified deficiency in a city’s training program [must be] closely related to the ultimate injury.” Canton, supra, at 391. So even indulging the dissent’s assumption that Thompson’s prosecutors failed to disclose the lab report in good faith — in a way that could be prevented by training — what sort of training would have prevented the good-faith nondisclosure of a blood report not known to be exculpatory?
Since Thompson’s trial, however, we have decided a case that appears to say just the opposite of the training the dissent would require: In Arizona v. Youngblood,
5. By now the reader has doubtless guessed the best-kept secret of this case: There was probably no Brady violation at all — except for Deegan’s (which, since it was a bad-faith, knowing violation, could not possibly be attributed to lack of training).
Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs.,
Batson v. Kentucky,
I do not share the dissent's confidence that this result will be avoided by the instruction’s requirement that ‘“more likely than not the Brady material would have been produced if the prosecutors involved in his underlying criminal cases had been properly trained, supervised or monitored regarding the production of Brady evidence.’” Post, at 101-102, n. 17 (quoting Tr. 1100). How comforting that assurance is depends entirely on what proper training consists of. If it is not limited to training in aspects of Brady that have been repeatedly violated, but includes — as the dissent would have it include here — training that would avoid any one-time violation, the assurance is no assurance at all.
The dissent’s contention that “[t]he instruction Connick proposed resembled the charge given by the District Court,” post, at 102, n. 18, disregards his requested instruction concerning the necessity of a pattern of prior violations. It is meaningless to say that after “the court rejected [Connick’s] categorical position,” as it did, he did not “assail the District Court’s formulation of the deliberate indifference instruction,” post, at 103, n. 18. The prior-pattern requirement was part of Connick’s requested formulation of deliberate indifference: “To prove deliberate indifference, a plaintiff must demonstrate ‘at least a pattern of similar violations arising from training that is so clearly inadequate as to be obviously likely to result in a constitutional violation.’” Record, Doc. 94, p. 18 (emphasis added).
What the dissent does cite in support of its theory comes from an unexpected source: Connick’s testimony about what qualifies as Brady material. See post, at 98, n. 13. (“Or Connick could have told prosecutors what he told the jury when he was asked whether a prosecutor must disclose a crime lab report to the defense, even if the prosecutor does not know the defendant’s blood type: ‘Under the law it qualifies as Brady material’ ” (quoting Tr. 872)). Given the effort the dissent has expended persuading us that Conniek’s understanding of Brady is profoundly misguided, its newfound trust in his expertise on the subject is, to the say the least, surprising.
The dissent’s only response to this is that the jury must have found otherwise, since it was instructed that “ ‘[f]or liability to attach because of a failure to train, the fault must be in the training program itself, not in any particular prosecutor.’ ” Post, at 105, n. 20 (quoting Tr. 1098). But this instruction did not require the jury to find that Deegán did not commit a bad-faith, knowing violation; it merely prevented the jury from finding that, if he did so, Connick was liable for a failure to train. I not only agree with that; it is part of my point.
Dissenting Opinion
with whom Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan join, dissenting.
In Brady v. Maryland,
The Court holds that the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office (District Attorney’s Office or Office) cannot be held liable, in a civil rights action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983, for the grave injustice Thompson suffered. That is so, the Court tells us, because Thompson has shown only an aberrant Brody violation, not a routine practice of giving short shrift to Brady’s requirements. The evidence presented to the jury that awarded compensation to Thompson, however, points distinctly away from the Court’s assessment. As the trial record in the § 1983 action reveals, the conceded, long-concealed prosecutorial transgressions were neither isolated nor atypical.
From the top down, the evidence showed, members of the District Attorney’s Office, including the District Attorney himself, misperceived Brady’s compass and therefore inadequately attended to their disclosure obligations. Throughout the pretrial and trial proceedings against Thompson, the team of four engaged in prosecuting him for armed robbery and murder hid from the defense and the court exculpatory information Thompson requested and had a constitutional right to receive. The prosecutors did so despite multiple opportunities, spanning nearly two decades, to set the record straight. Based on the prosecutors’ conduct relating to Thompson’s trials, a fact trier could reasonably conclude that
What happened here, the Court’s opinion obscures, was no momentary oversight, no single incident of a lone officer’s misconduct. Instead, the evidence demonstrated that misperception and disregard of Brady’s disclosure requirements were pervasive in Orleans Parish. That evidence, I would hold, established persistent, deliberately indifferent conduct for which the District Attorney’s Office bears responsibility under § 1983.
I dissent from the Court’s judgment mindful that Brady violations, as this case illustrates, are not easily detected. But for a chance discovery made by a defense team investigator weeks before Thompson’s scheduled execution, the evidence that led to his exoneration might have remained under wraps. The prosecutorial concealment Thompson encountered, however, is bound to be repeated unless municipal agencies bear responsibility — made tangible by § 1983 liability — for adequately conveying what Brady requires and for monitoring staff compliance. Failure to train, this Court has said, can give rise to municipal liability under § 1983 “where the failure . . . amounts to deliberate indifference to the rights of persons with whom the [untrained employees] come into contact.” Canton v. Harris,
I
I turn first to a contextual account of the Brady violations that infected Thompson’s trials.
A
In the early morning hours of December 6,1984, an assailant shot and killed Raymond T. Liuzza, Jr., son of a prominent New Orleans business executive, on the street fronting the victim’s home. Only one witness saw the assailant. As recorded in two contemporaneous police reports, that
While engaged in the murder investigation, the Orleans Parish prosecutors linked Thompson to another violent crime committed three weeks later. On December 28, an assailant attempted to rob three siblings at gunpoint. During the struggle, the perpetrator’s blood stained the oldest child’s pant leg. That blood, preserved on a swatch of fabric cut from the pant leg by a crime scene analyst, was eventually tested. The test conclusively established that the perpetrator’s blood was type B. Id., at EX151. Thompson’s blood is type O. His prosecutors failed to disclose the existence of the swatch or the test results.
B
One month after the Liuzza murder, Richard Perkins, a man who knew Thompson, approached the Liuzza family. Perkins did so after the family’s announcement of a $15,000 reward for information leading to the murderer’s conviction. Police officers surreptitiously recorded the Perkins-Liuzza conversations.
Freeman was six feet tall and went by the name “Kojak” because he kept his hair so closely trimmed that his scalp was visible. Unlike Thompson, Freeman fit the eyewitness’ initial description of the Liuzza assailant’s height and hair style. As the Court notes, ante, at 56, n. 2, Freeman became the key witness for the prosecution at Thompson’s trial for the murder of Liuzza.
After Thompson’s arrest for the Liuzza murder, the father of the armed robbery victims saw a newspaper photo of Thompson with a large Afro hairstyle and showed it to his children. He reported to the District Attorney’s Office that the children had identified Thompson as their attacker, and the children then picked that same photo out of a “photographic lineup.” Record EX120, EX642-EX643. Indicting Thompson on the basis of these questionable identifications, the District Attorney’s Office did not pause to test the pant leg swatch dyed by the perpetrator’s blood. This lapse ignored or overlooked a prosecutor’s notation that the Office “may wish to do [a] blood test.” Id., at EX122.
The murder trial was scheduled to begin in mid-March 1985. Armed with the later indictment against Thompson for robbery, however, the prosecutors made a strategic choice: They switched the order of the two trials, proceeding first on the robbery indictment. Id., at EX128-EX129. Their aim was twofold. A robbery conviction gained first would serve to inhibit Thompson from testifying in his own defense at the murder trial, for the prior conviction could be
Recognizing the need for an effective prosecution team, petitioner Harry F. Connick, District Attorney for the Parish of Orleans, appointed his third-in-command, Eric Dubelier, as special prosecutor in both cases. Dubelier enlisted Jim Williams to try the armed robbery ease and to assist him in the murder case. Gerry Deegan assisted Williams in the armed robbery ease. Bruce Whittaker, the fourth prosecutor involved in the cases, had approved Thompson’s armed robbery indictment.
C
During pretrial proceedings in the armed robbery case, Thompson filed a motion requesting access to all materials and information “favorable to the defendant” and “material and relevant to the issue of guilt or punishment,” as well as “any results or reports” of “scientific tests or experiments.” Id., at EX144, EX145. Prosecutorial responses to this motion fell far short of Brady compliance.
Second, Dubelier or Whittaker ordered the crime laboratory to rush a pretrial test of the swatch. Tr. 952-954. Whittaker received the lab report, addressed to his attention, two days before trial commenced. Immediately thereafter, he placed the lab report on Williams’ desk. Record EX151, EX589. Although the lab report conclusively identified the perpetrator’s blood type, id., at EX151, the District Attorney’s Office never revealed the report to the defense.
“[B]ased solely on the descriptions” provided by the three victims, Record 683, the jury convicted Thompson of attempted armed robbery. The court sentenced him to 49.5 years without possibility of parole — the maximum available sentence.
D
Prosecutors continued to disregard Brady during the murder trial, held in May 1985, at which the prosecution’s order-of-trial strategy achieved its aim.
First, the prosecution undermined Thompson’s efforts to impeach Perkins. Perkins testified that he volunteered information to the police with no knowledge of reward money. Record EX366, EX372-EX373. Because prosecutors had not produced the audiotapes of Perkins’ conversations with the Liuzza family (or a police summary of the tapes), Thompson’s attorneys could do little to cast doubt on Perkins’ credibility. In closing argument, the prosecution emphasized that Thompson presented no “direct evidence” that reward money had motivated any of the witnesses. Id., at EX3171-EX3172.
Second, the prosecution impeded Thompson’s impeachment of key witness Kevin Freeman. It did so by failing to disclose a police report containing Perkins’ account of what he had learned from Freeman about the murder. See swpra, at 82. Freeman’s trial testimony was materially inconsistent with that report. Tr. 382-384, 612-614; Record EX270-EX274. Lacking any knowledge of the police report, Thompson could not point to the inconsistencies.
Third, and most vital, the eyewitness’ initial description of the assailant’s hair, see supra, at 81, was of prime relevance, for it suggested that Freeman, not Thompson, murdered Liuzza, see supra, at 82. The materiality of the eyewitness’ contemporaneous description of the murderer should have been altogether apparent to the prosecution. Failure to produce the police reports setting out what the eyewitness first said not only undermined efforts to impeach that witness and the police officer who initially interviewed him. The omission left defense counsel without knowledge that the prosecutors were restyling the killer’s “close cut hair” into an “Afro.”
Prosecutors finessed the discrepancy between the eyewitness’ initial description and Thompson’s appearance. They asked leading questions prompting the eyewitness to agree
The jury found Thompson guilty of first-degree murder. Having prevented Thompson from testifying that Freeman was the killer, the prosecution delivered its ultimate argument. Because Thompson was already serving a near-life sentence for attempted armed robbery, the prosecution urged, the only way to punish him for murder was to execute him. The strategy worked as planned; Thompson was sentenced to death.
E
Thompson discovered the prosecutors’ misconduct through a serendipitous series of events. In 1994, nine years after Thompson’s convictions, Deegan, the assistant prosecutor in the armed robbery trial, learned he was terminally ill. Soon thereafter, Deegan confessed to his friend Michael Riehlmann that he had suppressed blood evidence in the armed robbery case. Id., at EX709. Deegan did not heed Riehlmann’s counsel to reveal what he had done. For five years, Riehlmann, himself a former Orleans Parish prosecutor, kept Deegan’s confession to himself. Id., at EX712-EX713.
On April 16, 1999, the State of Louisiana scheduled Thompson’s execution. Id., at EX1366-EX1367. In an eleventh-hour effort to save his life, Thompson’s attorneys hired a private investigator. Deep in the crime lab archives, the investigator unearthed a microfiche copy of the lab report identifying the robber’s blood type. The copy showed that the report had been addressed to Whittaker. See
Thompson's lawyers presented to the trial court the crime lab report showing that the robber’s blood type was B, and a report identifying Thompson’s blood type as O. This evidence proved Thompson innocent of the robbery. The court immediately stayed Thompson’s execution, id., at EX590, and commenced proceedings to assess the newly discovered evidence.
Connick sought an abbreviated hearing. A full hearing was unnecessary, he urged, because the Office had confessed error and had moved to dismiss the armed robbery charges. See, e. g., id., at EX617. The court insisted on a public hearing. Given “the history of this case,” the court said, it “was not willing to accept the representations that [Connick] and [his] office made [in their motion to dismiss],” id., at EX882. After a full day’s hearing, the court vacated Thompson’s attempted armed robbery conviction and dismissed the charges. Before doing so, the court admonished:
“[A]ll day long there have been a number of young Assistant D. A.’s . . . sitting in this courtroom watching this, and I hope they take home . . . and take to heart the message that this kind of conduct cannot go on in this Parish if this Criminal Justice System is going to work.” Id., at EX883.
The District Attorney’s Office then initiated grand jury proceedings against the prosecutors who had withheld the lab report. Connick terminated the grand jury after just one day. He maintained that the lab report would not be
F
Thereafter, the Louisiana Court of Appeal reversed Thompson’s murder conviction. State v. Thompson, 2002-0361, p. 10 (7/17/02),
On May 9, 2003, having served more than 18 years in prison for crimes he did not commit, Thompson was released.
II
On July 16, 2003, Thompson commenced a civil action under 42 U. S. C. § 1983 alleging that Connick, other officials of the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office, and the Of
Having weighed all the evidence, the jury in the § 1983 case found for Thompson, concluding that the District Attorney’s Office had been deliberately indifferent to Thompson’s Brady rights and to the need for training and supervision to safeguard those rights. “Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to [Thompson], as appropriate in light of the verdic[t] rendered by the jury,” Patrick v. Burget,
Over 20 years ago, we observed that a municipality’s failure to provide training may be so egregious that, even without notice of prior constitutional violations, the failure “could properly be characterized as ‘deliberate indifference’ to constitutional rights.” Canton,
Thompson’s § 1983 suit proceeded to a jury trial on two theories of liability: First, the Orleans Parish Office’s official Brady policy was unconstitutional; and second, Connick was deliberately indifferent to an obvious need to train his prosecutors about their Brady obligations. Connick’s Brady policy directed prosecutors to “turn over what was required by state and federal law, but no more.” Brief for Petitioners 6-7. The jury thus understandably rejected Thompson’s claim that the official policy itself was unconstitutional. Ante, at 57.
The jury found, however, that Connick was deliberately indifferent to the need to train prosecutors about Brady's command. On the special verdict form, the jury answered yes to the following question:
“Was the Brady violation in the armed robbery case or any infringements of John Thompson’s rights in the murder trial substantially caused by [Connick’s] failure, through deliberate indifference, to establish policies and procedures to protect one accused of a crime from these constitutional violations?” Record 1585.
Consistent with the question put to the jury, and without objection, the court instructed the jurors: “[Y]ou are not limited to the nonproduced blood evidence and the resulting infringement of Mr. Thompson’s right to testify at the murder trial. You may consider all of the evidence presented during this trial.” Tr. 1099; Record 1620.
Abundant evidence supported the jury’s finding that additional Brady training was obviously necessary to ensure that Brady violations would not occur: (1) Connick, the Office’s sole policymaker, misunderstood Brady. (2) Other leaders in the Office, who bore direct responsibility for training less experienced prosecutors, were similarly uninformed about Brady. (3) Prosecutors in the Office received no Brady training. (4) The Office shirked its responsibility to keep prosecutors abreast of relevant legal developments concerning Brady requirements. As a result of these multiple shortfalls, it was hardly surprising that Brady violations in. fact occurred, severely undermining the integrity of Thompson’s trials.
1
Connick was the Office’s sole policymaker, and his testimony exposed a flawed understanding of a prosecutor’s Brady obligations. Connick admitted to the jury that his
2
The testimony of other leaders in the District Attorney’s Office revealed similar misunderstandings. Those misunderstandings, the jury could find, were in large part responsible for the gross disregard of Brady rights Thompson experienced. Dubelier admitted that he never reviewed police files, but simply relied on the police to flag any potential Brady information. Tr. 542. The court, however, instructed the jury that an individual prosecutor has a “duty ... to learn of any favorable evidence known to others acting on the government’s behalf in the case, including the police.” Id., at 1095; Record 1614. Williams was asked whether “Brady material includes documents in the possession of the district attorney that could be used to impeach a witness, to show that he’s lying”; he responded simply, and mistakenly, “No.” Tr. 381. The testimony of “high-ranking individuals in the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office,” Thompson’s expert explained,
The jury could attribute the violations of Thompson’s rights directly to prosecutors’ misapprehension of Brady. The prosecution had no obligation to produce the “close-cut hair” police reports, Williams maintained, because newspaper reports had suggested that witness descriptions were not consistent with Thompson’s appearance. Therefore, Williams urged, the defense already “had everything.” Tr. 139. Dubelier tendered an alternative explanation for the nondisclosure. In Dubelier’s view, the descriptions were not “inconsistent with [Thompson’s] appearance,” as portrayed in a police photograph showing Thompson’s hair extending at least three inches above his forehead. Id., at 171-172; Record EX73. Williams insisted that he had discharged the prosecution’s duty to disclose the blood evidence by mentioning, in a motion hearing, that the prosecution intended to obtain a blood sample from Thompson. Tr. 393-394. During the armed robbery trial, Williams told one of the victims that the results of the blood test made on the swatch had been “inconclusive.” Id., at 962. And he testified in the §1983 action that the lab report was not Brady material “because I didn’t know what the blood type of Mr. Thompson was.” Tr. 393. But see supra, at 84, n. 5 (District Court instructed the jury that the lab report was Brady material).
Connick should have comprehended that Orleans Parish prosecutors lacked essential guidance on Brady and its application. In fact, Connick has effectively conceded that Brady training in his Office was inadequate. Tr. of Oral Arg. 60. Connick explained to the jury that prosecutors’ offices must “make . . . very clear to [new prosecutors] what their responsibility [i]s” under Brady and must not “giv[e] them a lot of leeway.” Tr. 834-835. But the jury heard ample evidence that Connick’s Office gave prosecutors no Brady guidance, and had installed no procedures to monitor Brady compliance.
In 1985, Connick acknowledged, many of his prosecutors “were coming fresh out of law school,” and the Office’s “[h]uge turnover” allowed attorneys with little experience to advance quickly to supervisory positions. See Tr. 853-854, 832. By 1985, Dubelier and Williams were two of the highest ranking attorneys in the Office, id., at 342, 356-357, yet neither man had even five years of experience as a prosecutor, see supra, at 83, n. 3; Record EX746; Tr. 55, 571-576.
Dubelier and Williams learned the prosecutorial craft in Connick’s Office, and, as earlier observed, see supra, at' 95, their testimony manifested a woefully deficient understanding of Brady. Dubelier and Williams told the jury that they did not recall any Brady training in the Office. Tr. 170-171, 364.
Connick testified that he relied on supervisors, including Dubelier and Williams, to ensure prosecutors were familiar with their Brady obligations. Tr. 805-806. Yet Connick did not inquire whether the supervisors themselves understood the importance of teaching newer prosecutors about Brady. Riehlmann could not “recall that [he] was ever trained or instructed by anybody about [his] Brady obligations,” on the job or otherwise. Tr. 728-729. Whittaker agreed it was possible for “inexperienced lawyers, just a few weeks out of law school with no training,” to bear responsi
Thompson’s expert characterized Connick’s supervision regarding Brady as “the blind leading the blind.” Tr. 458. For example, in 1985 trial attorneys “sometimes . .. went to Mr. Connick” with Brady questions, “and he would tell them” how to proceed. Tr. 892. But Connick acknowledged that he had “stopped reading law books . . . and looking at opinions” when he was first elected District Attorney in 1974. Id., at 175-176.
As part of their training, prosecutors purportedly attended a pretrial conference with the Office’s chief of trials before taking a case to trial. Connick intended the practice to provide both training and accountability. But it achieved neither aim in Thompson’s prosecutions, for Dubelier and Williams, as senior prosecutors in the Office, were free to take cases to trial without pretrying them, and that is just how they proceeded in Thompson’s prosecutions. Id., at 901-902; Record 685. But cf. ante, at 65 (“[T]rial chiefs oversaw the preparation of the cases.”).
Prosecutors confirmed that training in the District Attorney’s Office, overall, was deficient. Soon after Connick retired, a survey of assistant district attorneys in the Office revealed that more than half felt that they had not received the training they needed to do their jobs. Tr. 178.
Thompson, it bears emphasis, is not complaining about the absence of formal training sessions. Tr. of Oral Arg. 55. But cf. ante, at 68. His complaint does not demand that Brady compliance be enforced in any particular way. He asks only that Brady obligations be communicated accurately and genuinely enforced.
4
Louisiana did not require continuing legal education at the time of Thompson’s trials. Tr. 361. But cf. ante, at 65. Primary responsibility for keeping prosecutors an courant with developments in the law, therefore, resided in the District Attorney’s Office. Over the course of Connick’s tenure as District Attorney, the jury learned, the Office’s chief of appeals circulated memoranda when appellate courts issued important opinions. Tr. 751-754, 798.
The 1987 Office policy manual was a compilation of memoranda on criminal law and practice circulated to prosecutors from 1974, when Connick became District Attorney, through 1987. Id., at 798. The manual contained four sentences, nothing more, on Brady.
As earlier noted, see supra, at 88-89, Connick resisted an effort to hold prosecutors accountable for Brady compliance because he felt the effort would “make [his] job more difficult.” Tr. 978. He never disciplined or fired a single prosecutor for violating Brady. Tr. 182-183. The jury was told of this Court’s decision in Kyles v. Whitley,
B
In Canton, this Court spoke of circumstances in which the need for training may be “so obvious,” and the lack of training “so likely” to result in constitutional violations, that policymakers who do not provide for the requisite training “can reasonably be said to have been deliberately indifferent to the need” for such training.
Canton offered an often-cited illustration. “[C]ity policymakers know to a moral certainty that their police officers will be required to arrest fleeing felons.” Ibid., n. 10. Those policymakers, Canton observed, equip police officers with firearms to facilitate such arrests. Ibid. The need to instruct armed officers about “constitutional limitations on the use of deadly force,” Canton said, is “‘so obvious,’ that failure to [train the officers] could properly be characterized as ‘deliberate indifference’ to constitutional rights.” Ibid.
The District Court, tracking Canton’s language, instructed the jury that Thompson could prevail on his “deliberate indifference” claim only if the evidence persuaded the jury on three points. First, Connick “was certain that prosecutors would confront the situation where they would have to decide which evidence was required by the Constitution to be provided to the accused.” Tr. 1099. Second, “the situation involved a difficult choice[,] or one that prosecutors had a history of mishandling, such that additional training, supervision or monitoring was clearly needed.” Ibid. Third, “the wrong choice by a prosecutor in that situation would frequently cause a deprivation of an accused’s constitutional rights.” Ibid.; Record 1619-1620; see Canton,
The jury, furthermore, could reasonably find that Brady rights may involve choices so difficult that Connick obviously knew or should have known prosecutors needed more than perfunctory training to make the correct choices. See Canton,
Based on the evidence presented, the jury could conclude that Brady errors by untrained prosecutors would frequently cause deprivations of defendants’ constitutional rights. The jury learned of several Brady oversights in Thompson’s trials and heard testimony that Connick’s Office had one of the worst Brady records in the country. Tr. 163. Because prosecutors faced considerable pressure to get convictions, id., at 317, 341, and were instructed to “turn over what was required by state and federal law, but no more,” Brief for
In sum, despite Justice Scalia’s protestations to the contrary, ante, at 72, 76, the Brady violations in Thompson’s prosecutions were not singular and they were not aberrational. They were just what one would expect given the attitude toward Brady pervasive in the District Attorney’s Office. Thompson demonstrated that no fewer than five prosecutors — the four trial prosecutors and Riehlmann — disregarded his Brady rights. He established that they kept from him, year upon year, evidence vital to his defense. Their conduct, he showed with equal force, was a foreseeable consequence of lax training in, and absence of monitoring of, a legal requirement fundamental to a fair trial.
Unquestionably, a municipality that leaves police officers untrained in constitutional limits on the use of deadly weapons places lives in jeopardy. Canton,
Brady, this Court has long recognized, is among the most basic safeguards brigading a criminal defendant’s fair trial right. See Cone v. Bell,
The Court nevertheless holds Canton’s example inapposite. It maintains that professional obligations, ethics rules, and training — including on-the-job training — set attorneys apart from other municipal employees, including rookie police officers. Ante, at 64-68. Conniek “had every incentive at trial to attempt to establish” that he could reasonably rely on the professional education and status of his staff. Cf. ante, at 62, n. 6. But the jury heard and rejected his argument to that effect. Tr. 364, 576-577, 834-835.
The Court advances Connick’s argument with greater clarity, but with no greater support. On what basis can one be confident that law schools acquaint students with prosecutors’ unique obligation under Brady? Whittaker told the jury he did not recall covering Brady in his criminal procedure class in law school. Tr. 335. Dubelier’s alma mater, like most other law faculties, does not make criminal procedure a required course.
Conniek suggested that the bar examination ensures that new attorneys will know what Brady demands. Tr. 835. Research indicates, however, that from 1980 to the present, Brady questions have not accounted for even 10% of the total points in the criminal law and procedure section of any administration of the Louisiana Bar Examination.
The majority’s suggestion that lawyers do not need Brady training because they “are equipped with the tools to find, interpret, and apply legal principles,” ante, at 70, “blinks reality” and is belied by the facts of this case. See Brief for Former Federal Civil Rights Officials and Prosecutors as Amici Curiae 13 (hereinafter Prosecutors Brief). Connick himself recognized that his prosecutors, because of their inexperience, were not so equipped. Indeed, “understanding and complying with Brady obligations are not easy tasks, and the appropriate way to resolve Brady issues is not always self-evident.” Prosecutors Brief 6. “Brady compliance,” therefore, “is too much at risk, and too fundamental to the fairness of our criminal justice system, to be taken for granted,” and “training remains critical.” Id., at 3, 7.
The majority further suggests that a prior pattern of similar violations is necessary to show deliberate indifference to defendants’ Brady rights. See ante, at 57-59, and n. 4,63-64.
A district attorney aware of his office's high turnover rate, who recruits prosecutors fresh out of law school and promotes them rapidly through the ranks, bears responsibility
* * *
For the reasons stated, I would affirm the judgment of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Like that court and, before it, the District Court, I would uphold the jury’s verdict awarding damages to Thompson for the gross, deliberately indifferent, and long-continuing violation of his fair trial right.
Exhibits entered into evidence in Thompson’s §1983 trial are herein cited by reference to the page number in the exhibit binder compiled by the District Court and included in the record on appeal.
The majority endorses the Fifth Circuit’s conclusion that, when Thompson was tried for murder, no Brady violation occurred with respect to these audio tapes “[bjecause defense counsel had knowledge of such evidence and could easily have requested access from the prosecution.” Thompson v. Cain,
At the time of their assignment, Dubelier had served in the District Attorney’s Office for three and a half years, Williams, for four and a half years, Deegan, a recent law school graduate, for less than one year, and Whittaker, for three years.
Connick did not dispute that failure to disclose the swatch and the crime lab report violated Brady. See Tr. 46, 1095. But cf. ante, at 57, 59 (limiting Conniek’s concession, as Connick himself did not, to failure to disclose the crime lab report).
In Justice Scalia’s contrary view, “[t]here was probably no Brady violation at all,” or, if there was any violation of Thompson’s rights, it “was surely on the very frontier of our Brady jurisprudence,” such that “Con-nick could not possibly have been on notice” of the need to train. Ante, at 78. Conniek’s counsel, however, saw the matter differently. “[A]ny reasonable prosecutor would have recognized blood evidence as Brady material,” he said, indeed “the proper response” was “obvious to all.” Record 1663,1665.
The majority assails as “highly suspect” the suggestion that prosecutors violated Brady by failing to disclose the bloodstained swatch. See ante, at 69, n. 11. But the parties stipulated in Thompson’s § 1983 action, and the jury was so informed, that, “[p]rior to the armed robbery trial, Mr. Thompson and his attorneys were not advised of the existence of the blood evidence, that the evidence had been tested, [or] that a blood type was determined definitively from the swatch . . . .” Tr. 46. Consistent with this stipulation, Thompson’s trial counsel testified that he spoke to “[t]he clerk who maintained] the evidence” and learned that “[t]hey didn't have any blood evidence.” Id., at 401. And the District Court instructed the jury, with no objection from Conniek, “that the nonproduced blood evidence . . . violated [Thompson’s] constitutional rights as a matter of law.” Id., at 1095.
Justice Scalia questions petitioners’ concession that Brady was violated when the prosecution failed to inform Thompson of the blood evidence. He considers the evidence outside Brady because the prosecution did not endeavor to test Thompson’s blood, and therefore avoided knowing
During jury deliberations in the armed robbery case, Williams, the only Orleans Parish trial attorney common to the two prosecutions, told Thompson of his objective in no uncertain terms: “I’m going to fry you. You will die in the electric chair.” Tr. 252-253.
The Louisiana Court of Appeal concluded, and Conniek does not dispute, that Thompson “would have testified in the absence of the attempted armed robbery conviction.” State v. Thompson, 2002-0361, p. 7 (7/17/02),
Thompson argued that “the State failed to produce police reports ‘and other information’ which would have identified ‘eye- and ear-witnesses’ whose testimony would have exonerated him and inculpated [Freeman], . . . and would have shown that [Perkins,] . . . who stated [he] heard [Thompson] admit to committing the murder[,] had been promised reward money for [his] testimony.” Thompson,
The Court notes that in Thompson v. Cain, the Ffth Circuit rejected Brady claims raised by Thompson, characterizing one of those claims as “without merit.” Ante, at 69, n. 11 (quoting Thompson,
Connick has never suggested to this Court that the jury in the § 1983 trial was bound by the Fifth Circuit’s 1998 Brady rulings. That court “a£ford[ed] great deference to” the state trial court’s findings, made after a 1995 postconviction relief hearing. Thompson,
The court permitted Thompson to introduce evidence of other Brady violations, but because “the blood evidence alone proved the violation [of Thompson’s constitutional rights],” the court declined specifically “to ask the jury [whether] this other stuff [was] also Brady.” Tr. 1003. The court allowed Thompson to submit proof of other violations to “sho[w] the cumulative nature .. . and impact [of] evidence .. . as to . .. the training and deliberate indifference . . . .” Ibid. But cf. ante, at 69, n. 11 (questioning how “these violations are relevant” to this case). Far from indulg
The Court misleadingly states that “the District Court instructed the jury that the ‘only issue’ was whether the nondisclosure [of the crime lab report] was caused by either a policy, practice, or custom of the district attorney’s office or a deliberately indifferent failure to train the office’s prosecutors.” Ante, at 57. The jury instruction the majority cites simply directed the jury that, with regard to the blood evidence, as a matter of law, Thompson’s constitutional rights had been violated. Record 1614-1615. The court did not preclude the jury from assessing evidence of other infringements of Thompson’s rights. Id., at 1585; see Kyles v. Whitley,
With no objection from petitioners, the court found Thompson’s expert, Joseph Lawless, qualified to testify as an expert in criminal law and procedure. Tr. 419, 426. Lawless has practiced criminal law for 30 years; from 1976 to 1979, he was an Assistant District Attorney, and thereafter he entered private practice. Id., at 412. He is the author of Prosecutorial Misconduct: Law, Procedure, Forms (4th ed. 2008), first published in 1985. Tr. 414. The text is used in a class on ethics and tactics for the
To ward off Brady violations of the kind Connick conceded, for example, Connick could have communicated to Orleans Parish prosecutors, in no uncertain terms, that, “[i]f you have physical evidence that, if tested, can establish the innocence of the person who is charged, you have to turn it over.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 34; id., at 36 (“[I]f you have evidence that can
The Court can scarcely disagree with respect to Dubelier, Williams, and Whittaker, for it acknowledges the “flagran[cy]” of Deegan’s conduct, see ante, at 60, n. 5, and does not dispute that, pretrial, other prosecutors knew of the existence of the swatch and lab report.
Section 5.25 of the manual, titled “Brady Material,” states in full:
“In most cases, in response to the request of defense attorneys, the Judge orders the State to produce so called Brady material — that is, information in the possession of the State which is exculpatory regarding the defendant. The duty to produce Brady material is ongoing and continues
During the relevant time period, there were many significant developments in this Court’s Brady jurisprudence. Among the Brody-related decisions this Court handed down were United States v. Bagley,
In the same period, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued dozens of opinions discussing Brady, including State v. Sylvester,
Justice Scalia contends that this “theory of deliberate indifference would repeal the law of Monell [v. New York City Dept. of Social Servs.,
The deliberate indifference jury instruction in this case was based on the Second Circuit’s opinion in Walker v. New York,
The instruction Connick proposed resembled the charge given by the District Court. See supra, at 101. Connick’s proposed instruction read: “Before a district attorney’s failure to train or supervise constitutes deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of citizens: (1) the plaintiff must show that Harry Connick knew ‘to a moral certainty’ that his employees will confront a given situation; (2) the plaintiff must show that the situation either presents the employee with a difficult choice ... such that training or supervision will make the choice less difficult or that there is a history of employees mishandling the situation; and (3) the plaintiff must show that the wrong ehoice by the assistant district attorney will frequently cause the deprivation of a citizen’s constitutional rights.” Record 992 (citing Canton,
Petitioners, it is true, argued all along that “[t]o prove deliberate indifference, Thompson had to demonstrate a pattern of violations,” Brief for Appellants in No. 07-30443 (CA5), p. 41; see ante, at 74-75 (Scalia, J., concurring), but the court rejected their categorical position. Petitioners
Courts have noted the often trying nature of a prosecutor’s Brady obligation. See, e. g., State v. Whitlock,
The jury could draw a direct, causal connection between Connick’s deliberate indifference, prosecutors’ misapprehension of Brady, and the Brady violations in Thompson’s case. See, e. g., supra, at 94 (prosecutors’ misunderstandings of Brady “were in large part responsible for the gross disregard of Brady rights Thompson experienced”); supra, at 95 (“The jury could attribute the violations of Thompson’s rights directly to prosecutors’ misapprehension of Brady.”)-, supra, at 94-95 (Williams did not believe Brady required disclosure of impeachment evidence and did not believe he had any obligation to turn over the impeaching “close-cut hair” police reports); supra, at 95 (At the time of the armed robbery trial, Williams reported that the results of the blood test on the swatch were “inconclusive.”); ibid. (“IWilliams] testified ... that the lab report was not Brady material... .”); supra, at 96 (Dubelier and Williams, the lead prosecutors in Thompson’s trials, “learned the prosecutorial craft in Conniek’s Office,” “did not recall any Brady training,” demonstrated “a woefully deficient understanding of Brady,” and received no supervision during Thompson’s trials); supra, at 98 (“Had Brady's importance been brought home to prosecutors, surely at least one of the four officers who knew of the swatch and lab report would have revealed their existence to defense counsel and the court.”); supra, at 100 (Connick did not want to hold prosecutors accountable for Brady compliance because he felt that doing so would make his job more difficult); supra, at 100 (Connick never disciplined a single prosecutor for violating Brady)-, supra, at 103 and this page (“Because prosecutors faced considerable pressure to get convictions, and were in
I note, furthermore, that the jury received clear instructions on the causation element, and neither Conniek nor the majority disputes the accuracy or adequacy of the instruction that, to prevail, Thompson must prove “that more likely than not the Brady material would have been produced if the prosecutors involved in his underlying criminal cases had been properly trained, supervised or monitored regarding the production of Brady evidence.” Tr. 1100.
The jury was properly instructed that “[f]or liability to attach because of a failure to train, the fault must be in the training program itself, not in any particular prosecutor.” Id., at 1098. Under that instruction, in finding Conniek liable, the jury necessarily rejected the argument— echoed by Justice Scalia — that Deegan “was the only bad guy.” Id., at 1074. See also id., at 1057; ante, at 76. If indeed Thompson had shown simply and only that Deegan deliberately withheld evidence, I would agree that there would be no basis for liability. But, as reams of evidence showed, disregard of Brady occurred, over and over again in Orleans Parish, before, during, and after Thompson’s 1985 robbery and murder trials.
See Tulane University Law School, Curriculum, http://www.law. tulane.edu (select “Academics”; select “Curriculum”) (as visited Mar. 21, 2011, and in Clerk of Court’s case file).
See Supreme Court of Louisiana, Committee on Bar Admissions, Compilation of Louisiana State Bar Examinations, Feb. 1980 through July 2010 (available in Clerk of Court’s case file).
See La. State Bar Assn., Articles of Incorporation, Art. 14, § 10(A), La. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 37, ch. 4, App. (West 1974); ibid. (West 1988).
Board of Comm’rs of Bryan Cty. v. Brown,
When Congress sought to render a claim for relief contingent on showing a pattern or practice, it did so expressly. See, e. g., 42 U. S. C. § 14141(a) (“It shall be unlawful for any governmental authority ... to engage in a pattern or practice of conduct by law enforcement officers ... that deprives persons of rights . .. protected by the Constitution .. ..”); 15 U. S. C. § 6104(a) (“Any person adversely affected by any pattern or practice of telemarketing... may... bring a civil action....”); 49 U. S. C. § 306(e) (authorizing the Attorney General to bring a civil action when he “has reason to believe that a person is engaged in a pattern or practice [of] violating this section”). See also 47 U. S. C. §532(e)(2)-(3) (authorizing the Federal Communications Commission to establish additional rules when “the Commission finds that the prior adjudicated violations of this section constitute a pattern or. practice of violations”).
In the end, the majority leaves open the possibility that something other than “a pattern of violations” could also give a district attorney “specific reason” to know that additional training is necessary. See ante, at 67. Connick, by his own admission, had such a reason. See supra, at 96-98.
For example, a prosecutor’s office could be deliberately indifferent if it had a longstanding open-file policy, abandoned that policy, but failed to provide training to show prosecutors how to comply with their Brady obligations in the altered circumstances. Or a district attorney could be deliberately indifferent if he had a practice of pairing well-trained prosecutors with untrained prosecutors, knew that such supervision had stopped untrained prosecutors from committing Brady violations, but nevertheless changed the staffing on cases so that untrained prosecutors worked without supervision.
If the majority reads this statement as an endorsement of respondeat superior liability, ante, at 70, n. 12, then it entirely “misses [my] point,” cf. ante, at 69. Canton recognized that deliberate indifference liability and respondeat superior liability are not one and the same.