Reading John S News Today

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 didnt kill nobody. im not pleading guilty to nothing. i got on the phone, my mom said, i want you home. i dont care what those people say, i know you didnt do it, i want you home. i called the attorneys and said, come on, lets do it, its time for me to be with my family. >> gordon and i went down to new orleans to be there when john g...

Skip to the end. >> the last line read, conviction and sentence reversed. >> i called gordon into my office. i couldnt get the words out. >> i remember it was july 17th, 4:30 in the afternoon, i -- i was tongue tied i said, i couldnt -- 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 camp...

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 didnt tell him we were coming but he knew why we were there and he looked at us and said, whats the date? >> we looked at him and said, john, its may 20th. which was basically a month off. >> ive been around death row at that time long enough to understand what was going on. i was like, wow. i...

So that revealed quite a bit about the prosecutors who had been handling thompsons case. >> my next move is to go to the crime lab and kind of tip off people for the police department youre on to something naughty. i just go in and go, i need to see this old report, please. i didnt 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 didnt know johns blood type. what we did was call john. >> b...

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 johns guilt or consistent with freemans 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 t...

This city is like the perfect storm for crime. theres 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...

Reality theyre 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 hes okay after im 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 weve done for him and making sure going to be okay....

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 johns 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 youre guilty, could you handle that? is it fair o...

Was working and all the color had drained out of his face and he said the district attorneys 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 victims 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...

>> 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 didnt do it. i was skeptical of his innocence, but i remember feeling a very strong sense from reading johns file that things that happ...