"Prosecutor misdeeds may have let killer kill again," is the title of Will Weissert's AP report. It's via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Caitlin Baker was 3 when her mother, Debra, was beaten to death and left naked in bed in her Austin home. Although the pain of the loss has faded in the 23 years since, her anger that her mother's killer was never caught has not.
Less than two years before that January 1988 slaying, unbeknownst to all but a few people until recently, the mother of another woman bludgeoned to death in bed during an attack at her home about 15 miles away told an investigator that her 3-year-old grandson watched a "monster" do the killing, not his father, as police suspected. She urged him to pursue other leads, but her daughter's husband, Michael Morton, was instead convicted of murder and sentenced to life.
New DNA testing linked the killings of Debra Baker and Christine Morton to another man with a prison record in several states. Police have not publicly identified the suspect, whom they are trying to locate, but his genetic links to both slayings led to Morton's release from prison last week after nearly 25 years behind bars, and his formal exoneration by an appeals court on Wednesday.
But lawyers for the Innocence Project, a New York-based group that spent years fighting for DNA testing in Morton's case and the release of his police case files, say he likely never would have been convicted if the prosecutor in charge of the case hadn't withheld key evidence from the defense, including his mother-in-law's statements. And if, as the lawyers contend, investigators disregarded and hid evidence that cast doubt on Morton's guilt, could they have more doggedly pursued leads that might have helped them prevent Baker's killing?
In filings before state District Judge Sid Harle, the Innocence Project has alleged misconduct by Ken Anderson, now a sitting judge in Williamson County just north of Austin, who was the county's district attorney at the time, and prosecuted Morton's case. The charges could lead to the state bar taking disciplinary action against Anderson, or Harle himself possibly urging state and federal prosecutors to investigate, said Barry Scheck, the Innocence Project's co-founder.
"I think everybody can see how offensive this conduct is, if true," Scheck said. "I am profoundly troubled by this. Profoundly troubled, and determined to get answers."
At Time, "In Perry’s Texas, a Well-Connected DA with a Knack for Blocking New Evidence," is the title of Mark Benjamin's post.
Michael Morton faced a throng of reporters last Tuesday just after a Texas judge freed him following 25 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. Now gray-haired and 57, Morton looked on the bright side. “I thank God that this was not a capital case,” he said.
In the final years of a legal battle spanning more than two decades, attorneys at the New York-based Innocence Project fought for DNA testing that ultimately exonerated Morton in the murder of his wife and pried loose exculpatory information from Texas government files that officials had withheld from Morton’s attorneys since before his 1987 trial.
These efforts probably would have sprung Morton from prison years ago were it not for the role of Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, a well-connected ally of Texas Governor Rick Perry, who fought tenaciously for six years to keep Morton behind bars. Twice a Perry appointee to influential legal posts, Bradley has generated controversy in his handling of two high-profile cases: Morton’s incarceration and the forensic review of evidence against Cameron Todd Willingham, a man who was executed in 2004 despite a cloud of uncertainty around the expert testimony that led to his conviction.
In early 2005, Morton’s attorneys sought DNA testing on a blood-stained bandana found outside the Morton home on the day after the brutal murder, which took place on Aug. 13, 1986. Court records show that Bradley, who was appointed by Perry in 2001 and was not Morton’s original prosecutor, sought to prevent that testing from ever taking place and tried to limit its effect on the case.
At first, Bradley argued that testing the bandana would open the floodgates to an indeterminable amount of new evidence. “One has to wonder whether petitioner would file another motion at some future date seeking additional testing of even more items,” he wrote in October of 2005. In a 2009 filing, Bradley argued that the bandana was irrelevant because it was found “a football field’s length” from the Morton’s house, and that if any DNA testing did take place “it should not incorporate the possibility of a match of any DNA profile recovered from the bandana to a known offender.
District attorneys vary widely in their willingness to consider new evidence, but Bradley’s efforts make him an outlier. The Innocence Project says it has to fight a prosecutor’s objections to DNA testing in less than half of its cases, and most resistance dries up quickly. Death penalty opponents are particularly critical of prosecutors who resist DNA testing. Steve Hall, director of the StandDown Texas project, called Bradley’s behavior in the Morton case “abhorrent.”
"Texas man jailed 25 years for murder is exonerated," by Molly Hennessy-Fiske for the Los Angeles Times, via the Sacramento Bee.
Morton has been staying with his parents in East Texas since his release. Nina Morrison, an Innocence Project lawyer, told the Times that she called Morton on Wednesday to tell him about the ruling.
"He's thrilled and relieved and looking forward to the next chapter in his life, but also still determined to get to the bottom of how and why he was wrongfully convicted in the first place and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else," Morrison said. "There's still a lot of unanswered questions and he very much wants answers."
Chuck Lindell, who broke the story of the tangled case in mid-August writes, "Court affirms Morton's innocence," for today's Austin American-Statesman.
Wednesday's ruling by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals qualified Morton for compensation from Texas — $80,000 for each year he was wrongly imprisoned, or about $2 million, with another $2 million annuity that would earn 5 percent interest and pay out monthly.
But the rapid ruling may jeopardize Morton's plans to pursue evidence supporting allegations that then-prosecutor Ken Anderson, now a district judge, improperly suppressed pretrial evidence that pointed to Morton's innocence. Defense lawyers also accused sheriff's investigators of ignoring leads that could have solved Christine Morton's murder.
Under an agreement reached last week with Bradley, Morton's lawyers were given a chance to conduct a limited investigation into the allegations of misconduct — but only until the appeals court ruled on Morton's innocence claim.
Defense lawyers believe they have until Nov. 7 to complete that investigation because appellate court rulings do not become final until a mandate issued 25 days after a ruling is announced.
"I am confident we will find a way to get it done in the next (month), if not after," Morrison said, providing no details because District Judge Sid Harle placed the investigation agreement under seal in court files.
But if defense lawyers hope to force Anderson and others to answer questions under oath, they may have trouble convincing Harle to order the depositions.
The claims of official misconduct were included in the same petition that urged the appeals court to declare Morton innocent. Now that appellate judges have established Morton's innocence, the petition is disposed of and the remaining claims are considered moot.
Bradley declined to comment on the defense-led investigation, citing the sealed court records.
And:
John Raley, a Houston civil lawyer who has represented Morton for free since 2005, said Morton is considering additional schooling after earning a master's degree in literature from the University of Houston while in prison.
"He said something about Shakespeare during one of our phone calls years ago," Raley said. "So I sent him the complete works of Shakespeare, and he was thrilled."
Their letters and conversations, Raley said, are frequently sprinkled with Shakespearean quotes and references to literary works by John Milton and others.
Beyond suddenly having a future to plan, however, Morton is still adapting to life outside prison, Raley said.
"All of the everyday things people take for granted, Michael thinks are wonderful. This is a brave new world for him," Raley said.
Earlier coverage of Michael Morton's exoneration begins with the preceding post.
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