Why does the justice usually side with cheating prosecutors, even when the evidence against them is clear and damning?

Reuters

Decades from now, when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is long gone from his post, historians will clamor to write about his remarkable tenure there. We'll see chapters on his confirmation hearings, which quickly devolved into chaos (and which raised questions that still have not been answered). There will be chapters on his rigid conservative ideology, his wife's commitment to political causes, and, I suspect, even a chapter or two on the fact that the Thomases like to travel around the country in a motor home.

All interesting stuff. But if true history is in the details, I hope Justice Thomas' future biographers will also take a long look at his dubious work in cases involving prosecutorial misconduct. At a time when Americans are just now awakening to the ugly truth about their justice systems, when dozens of capital defendants each year are exonerated, it's remarkable that Justice Thomas continues to adhere to a grim philosophy that justifies constitutional violations and excuses cheating on the part of prosecutors.

Last year, for example, in Connick v. Thompson, Justice Thomas wrote a 5-4 opinion that protected the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office from a civil lawsuit brought by a man who had been wrongfully convicted and spent 14 years on death row before investigators discovered that his prosecutors had failed to turn over to him a crime lab report. Justice Thomas contorted both logic and justice when he protected the cheating prosecutors from a $14 million jury verdict that had been affirmed by both lower federal courts.