The Story of Dan Bright: Crime, Corruption and Injustice in the Crescent City by Dan Bright Justin Nobel & Clive Stafford Smith

Author:Dan Bright, Justin Nobel & Clive Stafford Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of New Orleans Press

CHAPTER TEN

HARRY CONNICK AND ORLEANS PARISH

I was booked on first-degree murder and placed in Orleans Parish Prison, where I had first visited Goldy more than ten years before. Now he was at Angola, and I was the one in OPP. It was an old jail meant to hold hundreds of people, but there were thousands in there. They put me in a tier on the fourth floor for capital offenses—murder, kidnapping, rape, robbery. A tier is a big open room with a line of beds stacked three on top of one another against the wall.

The state has 60 days to present their case before a grand jury, and during this time, you are kept in OPP. Then a grand jury examines the evidence and decides whether to let you go or bring an indictment and proceed with the case. I figured when my 60 days was up they'd cut me loose. But on about my 60th day, the police woke me up and said to get ready for court. These assholes were actually going to put me in front of a grand jury. I couldn't believe it.

I knew two guys on my tier, Manny, who was from the Florida Projects, and Wine, from the Calliope Projects. I woke Manny and told him to call Tyra and tell her to meet me in court. OPP is connected to Orleans Parish Criminal District Court. I put on my prison issued uniform, orange pants and an orange shirt, and they put me in handcuffs and shackles and brought me into Courtroom F. I hadn't heard from Banks since getting to OPP, and when I got into court, he wasn't there. Where the fuck was he? Probably getting loaded or high with some women.

The Judge was Dennis Waldron. He used to be an assistant District Attorney, which is how it works in Orleans Parish. Serve time as a DA in the office of Harry Connick, who was the head DA back then, and if you win your cases and push hard, you'll probably become a judge. But you still have the connection to the DA's office, and you're still loyal to Connick.

To give you an idea of what kind of shop Connick was running as head DA: in 1994, two years before my trial, a case involving Connick's office went all the way to the Supreme Court. Justice David Souter tore these New Orleans prosecutors apart, saying Connick's office had “descend[ed] to a gladiatorial level unmitigated by any prosecutorial obligation for the sake of the truth.” And in 2011, another case from my time, this guy named Juan Smith goes to the Supreme Court. This time the justices conclude in an 8 to 1 decision that evidence that could have helped Smith was suppressed by prosecutors in Connick's office, and that they also presented false or misleading evidence to help convict him. Strike two for Connick.

In another case from my era, this man named John Thompson was convicted of murder under Connick's office and served 14 years on death row.

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