His sudden downfall seemed all the more confusing given that he had been one of the city’s most important local power brokers for years. He was elected five times to six-year terms, mostly without difficulty, and his support was eagerly sought by influential black and white politicians in New Orleans.
Nevertheless, his reserved approach to the public prosecutor’s office had become proverbial. Even before he began a weekly assignment at a French Quarter club following his son’s blossoming international career, Connick “left the courtroom work to his assistants, a low-paid, hard-working group of mostly white men,” wrote journalist Jed Horne in “Desire Street” (2005), a book about the case of Curtis Kyles, whose 1984 murder conviction was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1995 because Mr. Connick’s aides withheld evidence.
“The office locked up mostly black men, mostly poor people, in a way that required them to hide the evidence they were supposed to disclose,” Denise LeBoeuf, a New Orleans lawyer, said in an interview. “It was under his supervision. That will always be with him.”
Joseph Harry Fowler Connick was born on March 27, 1926, in Mobile, Alabama, to James Connick, a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Jessie (Fowler) Connick, a nurse. He grew up in New Orleans, where he attended a parochial school.
After serving with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific during World War II, he returned to New Orleans to attend Loyola University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree, and Tulane University, where he earned a law degree.
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2024-01-27 22:01:39
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