A TINY BIT OF JUSTICE FOR WRONGLY-CONVICTED MICHAEL MORTON

Ex-DA Ken Anderson, now a state district judge, has been arrested for withholding evidence that showed Michael Morton, who spent 25 years in prison, did not kill his wife

A Texas Court of Inquiry has ordered the arrest of State District Judge Ken Anderson for withholding evidence when he was the District Attorney that would have resulted in the acquittal of Michael Morton for the 1986 murder of his wife, Christine. Instead, Morton was wrongly convicted and served nearly 25 years in prison until he was exonerated and released in 2011.

Anderson, who has been a state district judge since 2002, failed to inform defense attorneys that Morton’s 3-year-old son, who witnessed the murder, told investigators that his father was not the killer of his mother. Also withheld were interviews with neighbors which indicated someone other than Morton may have committed the murder.

Judge Louis Sturn, who presided over the week-long Court of Inquiry, declared: “Mr. Anderson consciously chose to conceal the availability of the exculpatory evidence so he could convict Mr. Morton for murder. This court cannot think of a more intrinsically harmful act than a prosecutor’s intentional choice to hide evidence so as to convict a defendant facing a murder charge and a life sentence.”

Morton was released from prison after DNA tests indicated another man, Mark Alan Norwood, was the killer of his wife. Norwood, who has since been convicted of Christine Morton’s murder, has also been indicted for killing another woman back in 1988, two years after he murdered Morton’s wife.

It is possible that investigators might have found evidence leading to the arrest of Norwood had Anderson not been so intent on convicting Morton. That would have prevented Norwood from killing another woman two years later.

Anderson has been charged with criminal contempt of court, tampering with evidence and tampering with government records. If convicted on all three counts, he should be sentenced consecutively to the maximum extent permitted by law. That would not make up for the 25 years Morton spent in prison, but it would give the wrongly convicted man a tiny bit of justice.