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in front of judge quinlan. and quinlan vacated the death sentence but he refused to vacate guilt. >> judge quinlan refused to grant a new trial. we were devastated. yes, it was wonderful to have john thompson spared from execution, but we were still looking at a man in his 30s who was going to be facing the rest of his life in jail. >> so you're going to take the death penalty back and give me a life sentence? i was scared to death even more so now. you tell me i'm never going home again? that didn't give me no relief, none whatsoever. i was doomed. >> michael and gordon appealed the judge's decision, they knew this would be thompson's last chance for a new trial. >> john's going to go free or spend the rest of his life in prison.
>> john thompson's testimony was that he did have the gun, but he had bought that from kevin freeman. >> kevin freeman sold the murder weapon to an unwitting john thompson. john was involved in buying and selling some stolen property. it's not something he's proud of. >> i was a dope dealer. he was a burglar, you was a robber, you wanted dope, you need to bring me some type of collateral. he was bringing me tv, guns, jewelry. that was a part of a drug trade, being a fence. i'm sorry, that's how i came about being in possession of the murder weapon. >> the defense rested and the case was handed over to the jury. >> the jury gets up and leaves with your fate in their hands and you try to smile while they're leaving. all them passing right by you. all of them looking you in your face like for the last time. >> the pressure was enormous, it was almost like you couldn't breathe. there's a lot of nervous energy and small talk that goes on. >> before we can sit down and
the d.a.'s office, harry connick sr. had retired and the new d.a. had run for office on an anti-corruption campaign. now, he wanted to make a deal. >> the district attorney's office was not really ig eager to go try this case again based on the evidence as it then existed. john could plead to some lesser offense and be immediately released from prison. >> i'm like, hell no. i'm not pleading guilty to nothing. after all this stuff we proved, these people are still trying to make me plead guilty to something i didn't do. >> the jury got it wrong twice 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 john's innocence, we had to think about getting him out of jail as our first priority. >> was like, john, we're not talking to you no more as attorneys. we're getting ready to talk to you as a friend.
this happen to me? it's not what are you going to do to save my life? h it was about making us feel better about what we'd done for him and making sure his son was going to be okay. that's the kind of guy john thompson is. >> we were mostly silent on the way from angola to new orleans. there was very little to be said. on the way, gordon checked his voicemail. >> gordon had a message from elisa. >> so they're driving very solemnly. like, it's over. as they're exiting angola, they had no cell phone coverage for miles and miles and miles. and i, of course, calling their office in philadelphia, just berserk. i'm going nuts. >> there on my voicemail was a message from elisa saying i found something very important. i think this is really big. you have to call me right away. end of message. family. ones for the
contacted me. >> with john thompson scheduled to be executed in less than a month, defense investigator elisa abolafia desperately searched for answers. >> i, of course, was a complete nervous wreck because john was facing an execution date, may 20th. so i began with the carjacking case. first, i read the police report. >> in 1985 john thomson was convicted of carjacking three teenagers at gunpoint. without that conviction, thompson would have been much less likely to get the death sentence for the murder. elisa found reports from the first officer to respond to the carjacking scene. warren pope. >> when we got there, two cars were involved in a traffic accident, and i noticed some spots of fresh, wet blood. one of the victim's shoes, there was also blood on one of his pants legs. he was uninjured so was his brother and sister. so we assumed that it was perpetrator's blood. >> police files confirmed the carjacker's blood had been
type is blood "b." >> we were incredibly excited because we now knew the perpetrator had type "b" blood. >> but we didn't know what john's blood type was. so what we did first, we called john. >> my blood type? i don't know. they say, you don't know your own blood type? no. you think your mom will know? i said, i don't know, call her and ask. >> i spoke to his mother, please tell me you know his blood type? no, i don't. so i'm racking my brain. i asked john, did you ever have surgery at any time of your life? if you did, they had to draw your blood and test it. yes, when i was a teenager at charity hospital. thank goodness. again, scramble, scramble, go to my connection there who was the director of the records room. i say three weeks from now this man is going to be executed. it's a matter of life and death, please dig it up for me. and she did. >> the hospital records showed that thompson had blood type "o." >> it was a smoking gun that demonstrated that thompson was
there. and he looked at us and said, what's the date? we looked aim him and said, john, it's may 20th, which was basically a month off. >> i'd been around death row at that time long enough to understand what was going on. i was like, wow, it's my turn, it's my time. so i was trying to be strong. i was trying to, like, understand what's getting ready to happen. i'm getting ready to die for a crime i did not commit, anxiety kicked in. i didn't know how else to accept the reality that they're 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 who's going to graduate from high school on may 21st. yoil plea will you please go to his graduation and make sure he's okay after i'm gone? and then he spent the next 20 minutes trying to make us feel better. it was not how could you let
john thomson had been on death row at angola state prison for 14 years. by 1999 michael and gordon had proven thompson had not committed the carjacking outside the superdome, they had yet to prove their client was innocent of killing 34-year-old ray liuzza in cold blood. however, material michael and gordon finally received from the new orleans' d.a.'s office provided ample grounds for appeal. >> the daily police reports showed us that these witnesses, freeman and perkins, had told 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 john's guilt or consistent with freeman's guilt and that showed that freeman had lied at trial
>> we were able to prove beyond any doubt that, in fact, a reward was promised and paid and that the prosecutors failed to disclose it, and yet despite that, the judge said there was enough other evidence of john's guilt that the reward issue would not have made a difference. >> michael and gordon appealed the decision to the u.s. district court, the fifth circuit court of appeals and finally the u.s. supreme court. they all denied the appeal. >> matters became desperate. now we had no more appeals or challenges. on april 19th of 1999, the final death warrant was issued. we had struck out. we had failed. and he was going to die. >> the state set an execution date. >> we drove over to angola. john came into the room. we didn't tell him we were coming, but he knew why we were
>> arguments were basically twofold. first, that carjacking conviction had been used to keep john from being able to testify in his own defense in the murder case. and secondly, we argued that all of the evidence that we had amassed had shown that john thompson was innocent of the liuzza murder. >> michael and gordon filed their appeal in february of 2002. five months later they received the decision. >> i'll never forget it, a reporter called and said, what do you think about this decision? and i asked her to read it to me, and i said, skip to the end, skip to the end. >> the last line read, conviction and sentence reversed. >> i called gordon into my office. i couldn't get the words out. >> i remember it was july 17th, 4:30 in the afternoon, i -- i was tongue-tied. i said -- i couldn't -- 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