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Harry Connick Sr., who was New Orleans’ district lawyer for 3 many years and later confronted allegations that his workers generally held again proof that might have helped defendants, died Thursday at age 97.
Connick died peacefully at his house in New Orleans together with his spouse, Londa, and youngsters – Suzanna and musician and actor Harry Connick Jr. – by his aspect, in line with an obituary distributed by Harry Connick Jr.’s publicist. A reason behind loss of life was not offered.
Connick dethroned an incumbent prosecutor, Jim Garrison, in a 1973 election. He gained reelection 4 instances, and efficiently constructed biracial assist as town’s political energy base shifted to African Individuals.
Invoice Haber / AP
Connick remained undefeated, and retired in 2003. However he was later dogged by questions on whether or not his workplace withheld proof that favored defendants. The difficulty got here to the forefront with a 2011 U.S. Supreme Court docket ruling in a lawsuit filed by John Thompson, who was exonerated after 14 years on Louisiana’s loss of life row for a killing he did not commit.
In a 5-4 determination, the excessive courtroom overturned a $14 million award for Thompson, ruling that the New Orleans district lawyer’s workplace should not be punished for not particularly coaching prosecutors on their obligations to share proof that might show a defendant’s innocence. In a scathing dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg decried “Connick’s intentionally detached angle.”
The difficulty was revived in 2014 when a homicide conviction in opposition to Reginald Adams, imprisoned for 34 years, was reversed. Attorneys for the Innocence Undertaking New Orleans introduced proof that detectives and prosecutors within the case had withheld essential info earlier than Adams’ 1990 conviction.
Adams later acquired $1.25 million in a courtroom settlement.
Connick repeatedly declined to touch upon the instances. Nonetheless, in 2012 he defended his legacy in an interview with The Occasions-Picayune tinged with sports activities references.
“My status is predicated on one thing aside from a case, or two instances or 5 instances, or one interception or 20 interceptions. Have a look at the remainder of my report. I’ve extra yards than anyone,” Connick advised the newspaper.
He added: “I’ve to have a look at myself and say that is who I’m. That is what I’ve performed. Good? No. However I’ve performed nothing to go to confession about in that workplace. In any respect.”
New Orleans’ present district lawyer, Jason Williams, expressed condolences to Connick’s household.
“Mr. Connick stays the longest tenured District Lawyer, serving from 1973-2003. Such a longstanding public servant provides an unlimited quantity of themselves to their group – as do their households. Our ideas are with the Connick household throughout this troublesome time,” he mentioned in a press release.
Connick, a Navy veteran who served within the South Pacific throughout World Struggle II, nurtured his son into changing into a jazz piano prodigy, partly by arranging for the boy to sit down in with New Orleans Dixieland gamers and legends equivalent to pianist Eubie Blake and drummer Buddy Wealthy.
Connick was born March 27, 1926, in Cellular, Alabama, and moved to New Orleans together with his household at age 2. By the Seventies, he had grow to be part of town’s political material.
In 1973, Connick was a little-known federal prosecutor when he took on Garrison, a three-term district lawyer whose fame stretched far exterior New Orleans.
“I labored as a authorized help lawyer for over three years, and I realized firsthand in regards to the operation of Garrison’s workplace,” Connick mentioned in a 2001 interview. “I made a decision I may do a greater job than Jim Garrison.”
Referred to as “Large Jim,” the 6-foot-7 (201-cm) Garrison gained worldwide publicity when he unsuccessfully prosecuted a New Orleans businessman in reference to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and insisted {that a} huge cover-up was going down relating to the assassination.
After Garrison misplaced his massive case, Connick challenged him. Connick ran as a reformer and gained by simply over 2,000 votes.
Within the Seventies and ’80s, Connick led crackdowns on prostitutes and used nineteenth century morality legal guidelines to close down grownup guide outlets within the French Quarter.
Within the ’90s, anti-capital punishment teams attacked Connick for his insistence that prosecutors search the loss of life penalty in most first-degree homicide instances.
And Connick realized firsthand about being a defendant: Federal prosecutors charged him in 1990 with racketeering and aiding a sports-betting operation. The indictment alleged that Connick returned betting data to a convicted bookmaker who needed the data to gather playing money owed.
Connick was acquitted, then gained his fourth election the identical yr.
For years, the elder Connick carried out at weekly gigs in French Quarter nightclubs.
Connick sang requirements made well-known by Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Louis Prima. His voice generally wavered, however even in his later years Connick was spry and enthusiastic on stage, dancing and waving to the group.
His music was additionally politically helpful. By means of his gigs, Connick developed shut friendships with Black musicians – and Black voters. That was essential for a white candidate in a metropolis the place, on the time, almost 70% of voters had been African Individuals.
Help from highly effective Black politicians was additionally key to his political survival. In 1996, Connick defeated a Black challenger and gave credit score to Mayor Marc Morial, whose supporters campaigned closely for Connick.
Connick didn’t search reelection in 2002 and was succeeded by Eddie Jordan, a former U.S. lawyer who oversaw the profitable prosecution of former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards. Edwards was convicted in 2000 of taking payoffs from pursuits in search of riverboat on line casino licenses throughout his last time period within the Nineteen Nineties.
Funeral preparations for Connick are pending.
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