From MSNBC.com and the AP:
GEORGETOWN, Texas — Texas prosecutors agreed Monday to release an Austin man who spent nearly 25 years in prison for beating his wife to death — but always maintained his innocence — after DNA tests showed another man was responsible.
District Judge Sid Harle recommended Michael Morton go free to the state Court of Criminal Appeals, which will make the final determination on overturning his conviction. Morton is set for release Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning, following a final hearing before Harle.The case will likely raise more questions about John Bradley, district attorney for Williamson County north of Austin and once a Gov. Rick Perry appointee to head the Texas Forensic Science Commission. Bradley criticized the commission's investigation of the case of Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in 2004 after being convicted of arson in the deaths of his three children. Experts have since concluded that case's forensic science was faulty.
The Innocence Project, a New York-based organization that specializes in using DNA testing to overturn wrongful convictions, has accused Bradley of suppressing evidence that would have helped clear Morton, who was convicted on circumstantial evidence and sentenced to life in prison for his wife's August 1986 beating death.
Bradley said in court Monday that he wasn't involved in the original trial, and urged the public to "recall that prosecutors are called upon to do justice . . . that we are searching for the fair solution."
Prosecutors had alleged Morton became enraged after his wife refused to have sex with him following a dinner celebrating his 32nd birthday.
But tests performed this summer on a blood-stained, blue bandana found shortly after the crime near Morton's home revealed DNA from his wife and an unidentified man convicted in multiple states, including California. Authorities have withheld his identity amid ongoing investigations.
Morrison said DNA testing techniques that weren't yet available during the original trial proved the bandana contained blood from another man — and that DNA evidence also linked that man to a similar 1988 slaying in Austin committed after Morton was already behind bars.
Authorities are now investigating whether that man was responsible for the slaying of Debra Jan Baker, who was beaten to death in her bed. According to local media reports, cold case investigators are examining the possibility that the man may have been a serial killer who operated in the Austin area in the 1980s.
Morrison also said there were six instances where prosecutors and investigators hid non-DNA evidence that could have exonerated Morton from his defense attorney during the original trial.
Morton said the intruder stole his wife's purse, and Barry Sheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, said the evidence not turned over to Morton's original lawyer included information that one of his wife's credit cards was used two days after her slaying and one of her checks was cashed nine days later.
"I want to know how a dead woman uses a credit card and cashes a check," he said.
Morton's attorney, Houston-based John Raley, said he told his client Saturday that he would soon be released and "he was thrilled."
"He's kind of going to be Rip Van Winkle," Raley said. "He's never held a cell phone. Reagan was president when he went in, so there's going to be a long adjustment."
The Innocence Project has claimed in court documents that Bradley, the county district attorney since 2001, suppressed evidence that strengthened Morton's case during the DNA proceedings. That evidence — including a transcript of a police interview indicating that Morton's son said the attacker was not his father — was ultimately obtained by the Innocence Project through a request under the Texas Public Information Act.
Perry, the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, appointed Bradley to the forensic science commission in 2009. But the Texas Senate refused to confirm him after he told reporters that Willingham, executed for alleged arson, was a "guilty monster."
Bradley succeeded in getting an attorney general's ruling limiting the commission's scope of the inquiry into the Willingham case. It is due to release a report Oct. 14, but it will only offer guidance on investigating arson cases, not a ruling on the evidence in the Willingham case.
That case could become an election issue for Perry because a report indicating that the science in the Willingham case was faulty was submitted to his office as part of the appeals Willingham's lawyers filed before his execution.
DG - while I agree with you on the sentiments posted concerning the death penalty, why do you single out "vengeful Republicans" in the title? Unfortunately, according to polling, a majority of Independents and Democrats also support the death penalty.
ReplyDeleteEven when asked based on political philosophy, a majority of moderates and liberals also favor the death penalty. It seems like America in general is a vengeful country.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/gallup-poll-who-supports-death-penalty
Jim -fair question! Good question!
ReplyDeleteIn this case, and in the case of other instances where the factual evidence was very strong that the person convicted in Texas was in fact innocent, it has consistently been the political right which has been the most intransigent about continuing the executions ANYWAY.
Whatever polls indicate pro-death penalty, if you go beyond that very general question, there is a very definite desire among independents and the left to pull back from executions where the death penalty was either incorrect or unfair that is very much at odds with the Texas right law-and-order crowd.
Here is just one example of a source which supports my contention that while supporting the death penalty, there is a very genuine and widely held concern about NOT executing innocent people.
A recent poll by NationalChristianPoll.com found that two-thirds of active Christians who oppose the death penalty are concerned about judicial error that could lead to an innocent person being executed.
(http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/node/2312)
If you look at the appeals, and clemency process for death penalty convictions in Texas, compared to other states where death convictions are modified or overturned, in Texas it is pretty much NEVER done. The exceptions have largely been forced on Texas by the SCOTUS. This is NOT the case in other jurisdictions.
I'll go further - I'll bet you that the less red a state is, the more willing that state is to initiate either a moratorium on the death penalty, directly because of the execution of innocent people OR, the more people who are demonstrated to be innocent or at least wrongly convicted have the death sentence changed.
UNlike Texas.
That intense unwillingness to reconsider or modify the death penalty, given that so many of them are wrong and that we execute so many people is a distinction, a difference, between the right - largely under the umbrella of the Republicans, tea partiers included -and everyone else.
I guess that's a sad truth that Jim brings up. But, I can't help but think these veangeful sentiments are more prevalent and more deep-seated in Republicans. I could be biased.
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