"When They Imprison the Wrong Guy," is by New York Times OpEd columnist Nicholas Kristof.
A great deal has been written about the shortcomings of the American criminal justice system, but perhaps nothing more searing than Morton’s book, “Getting Life.” It is a devastating and infuriating book, more astonishing than any legal thriller by John Grisham, a window into a broken criminal justice system.
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Finally, it’s worth noting that Michael Morton is able to deliver this aching and poignant look at the criminal justice system only because he didn’t get a death sentence. When Morton was finally freed from prison, some of his first words were: “Thank God this wasn’t a capital case.”
"Exoneree's 25-year prison odyssey," is by Mark Dore for the San Antonio Express-News.
On one of the 25 Christmases he spent in prison, Michael Morton received the best gift of his life — a cheap, all-plastic typewriter, with nothing even the most inventive inmate could fashion into a weapon.
He pounded on the rickety machine for hours, crafting fiction, writing legal documents and tapping out a 1,000-page prison journal. The memoir Morton fashioned in his cell — “Getting Life: An Innocent Man's 25-Year Journey From Prison to Peace,” out Tuesday — is a jarring testament that truth really can be stranger than fiction.
After serving two-and-a-half decades behind bars for the 1986 murder of his wife — a crime he did not commit — Morton has been the subject of a documentary, several media profiles and hours of TV talk-time. His story — a Texas story, out of Williamson County, north of Austin — attracted national attention.
With “Getting Life,” Morton takes his horrifying experience into his own hands, something he said carried none of the anxiousness he has felt in the past when he was interviewed.
Earlier coverage of Michael Morton begins at the link.
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