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John Thompson - A Life Reclaimed After Exoneration

By Steve Hall

"Free after 14 years on death row, man seeks to help other falsely accused ex-prisoners," is the title of Lolis Eric Elie's report for the New Orleans Times-Picayune.When John Thompson's lawyers arrived at Angola State Penitentiary for a somber meeting more than a decade ago, he didn't ask for much detail about his case. He only asked them for a date -- the day the state would put him to death. May 20, 1999, they told him -- one day before his youngest son was to graduate from high school in New Orleans. Lots of dates had been set before then. Amid those dates and the appeals that separated them, Thompson had grown close to Michael Banks and Gordon Cooney, his Philadelphia lawyers. Their conversations at times drifted from life-and-death legal questions to more ordinary subjects: the New Orleans Saints and Philadelphia Eagles...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on September 14, 2009 (boomark / email).