Evidence of Innocence: The case of Michael Morton — Transcript

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1. 0:01it's not every day that a convicted
2. 0:03murderer clears his name and then
3. 0:06returns to court to argue that his
4. 0:08prosecutor should be prosecuted but
5. 0:11that's what happened in a high-profile
6. 0:13case in Texas that raises broader
7. 0:16questions about the power prosecutors
8. 0:18have and what happens when they're
9. 0:20accused of misusing it at the center of
10. 0:23this story which we first told you about
11. 0:25in March is a man named Michael Morton
12. 0:29he was once a an ordinary citizen with a
13. 0:31wife a child a job and no criminal
14. 0:34record whatsoever but then he was sent
15. 0:38to prison for
16. 0:40life the story will continue in a
17. 0:48moment in 1987 in a very public trial
18. 0:52Michael Morton was convicted of brutally
19. 0:54murdering his wife as he was led away to
20. 0:57prison he insisted he would was innocent
21. 1:00I didn't do this I'm sorry what I did
22. 1:03not do this hardly anyone believed him
23. 1:08until last year when he was exonerated
24. 1:11by DNA testing let's go by then he had
25. 1:15spent nearly 25 years of his life behind
26. 1:19B what was it like for you to walk from
27. 1:22the court a free man it was so alien at
28. 1:26first it wasn't quite
29. 1:28real we stepped out of the courtroom and
30. 1:32it was a beautiful sunny day but the sun
31. 1:35felt so good on my face on my skin I
32. 1:38could just feel like I was just drinking
33. 1:39in the sunshine had you felt it in 25
34. 1:43years I'd felt the Sun but I hadn't felt
35. 1:46free
36. 1:48sun and free sun feels different it does
37. 1:51it sounds stupid but it feels different
38. 1:54his nightmare began on a summer
39. 1:56afternoon in
40. 1:581986 when he came home from from work in
41. 2:00Austin Texas and found the sheriff at
42. 2:03his house a neighbor had discovered his
43. 2:06three-year-old son Eric alone in the
44. 2:08yard and his wife Christine bludgeon to
45. 2:12death in the bedroom I didn't really
46. 2:14have the opportunity to grief for her
47. 2:16because it everything changed so rapidly
48. 2:19away from her to me so were you a
49. 2:23suspect from the very first moment yeah
50. 2:25all the questions were um adversarial
51. 2:29accusatory
52. 2:30it became clear to me that the sheriff
53. 2:33showed up looked around and okay husband
54. 2:36did this and not long after that you
55. 2:39were arrested about 6 weeks yeah they
56. 2:43literally pulled my son out of my arms
57. 2:45cuz he was screaming for me and you know
58. 2:47the little hands out and they're he's
59. 2:49being pulled away
60. 2:52and that was one of the worst
61. 2:55Parts Williamson County district
62. 2:57attorney Ken Anderson prose uted Michael
63. 3:00Morton he told the jury Morton killed
64. 3:04his wife because she wouldn't have sex
65. 3:05with him there was no murder weapon or
66. 3:08direct evidence linking Morton to the
67. 3:10crime but Anderson argued persuasively
68. 3:14that Morton was violent and unremorseful
69. 3:17it got sickening after a while to watch
70. 3:19him cry at the wrong times and he seemed
71. 3:21only to cry for himself Morton and his
72. 3:24original trial lawyers always suspected
73. 3:27there was evidence that would have
74. 3:29helped a establish his innocence that
75. 3:31Anderson wasn't telling them about but
76. 3:34they were never given full access to the
77. 3:36police reports in the prosecutor's file
78. 3:39it wasn't until recently after years of
79. 3:42legal wrangling that lawyers Barry Sheek
80. 3:45and Nina Morrison of the Innocence
81. 3:47Project and John Ry a private attorney
82. 3:50in Houston finally got a look at
83. 3:52Anderson's file from the original trial
84. 3:55it was one of those moments where you
85. 3:57almost you almost faint hold in my hand
86. 4:01a copy of a document that the district
87. 4:03attorney at the time had and didn't tell
88. 4:05anybody about it on the defense side
89. 4:07that document would have proved what
90. 4:09would have proved that Michael Morton is
91. 4:11innocent he's talking about this police
92. 4:14report in which Christine's mother told
93. 4:17investigators that her three-year-old
94. 4:19grandson Eric had witnessed the murder
95. 4:22and described to her in detail how he
96. 4:24saw a monster with a big mustache kill
97. 4:27his mother he hit mama mommy Eric says
98. 4:30in the report was Daddy there his
99. 4:32grandmother asks no Mommy and Eric was
100. 4:36there there was also this report in
101. 4:39which a neighbor described seeing a
102. 4:41suspicious man Park a green van on the
103. 4:44street and walk into the wooded area
104. 4:47behind the Morton home Barry Sheek says
105. 4:50this is precisely the kind of
106. 4:52information a prosecutor is legally and
107. 4:55ethically obligated to disclose sitting
108. 4:58in the prosecutor file and sitting in
109. 5:01the sheriff's file there was a set of
110. 5:04documents which if they had been
111. 5:06revealed and the defense had seen them
112. 5:08Michael Morton would have been acquitted
113. 5:10Ken Anderson went on to be named
114. 5:13prosecutor of the year in Texas and
115. 5:15since 2002 he's been a district judge in
116. 5:19the same court where Michael Morton was
117. 5:22convicted all those years Morton
118. 5:25languished in prison my first cell I
119. 5:28could stretch up my arms and before my
120. 5:31elbows locked I was touching both
121. 5:33walls and you got two grown men in there
122. 5:36food's
123. 5:37abysmal you're never alone the system
124. 5:41controls every part of your life it's
125. 5:42Soul destroy yeah it it eats at you kind
126. 5:46of like a rust the one thing he told us
127. 5:49that sustained him was the thought of
128. 5:52his son he was allowed to see Eric for 2
129. 5:55hours once every 6 months when he was
130. 5:59about about 12 or 13 years old he wrote
131. 6:02to you and said he didn't want to come
132. 6:03and see you anymore was your heart
133. 6:05broken can't really limit it to your
134. 6:08heart everything yeah it's just uh when
135. 6:11you're a child says they no longer want
136. 6:14to come see
137. 6:16you and then when he turned 18 what did
138. 6:19he do I got notice in the mail that he
139. 6:22was going to be adopted by my uh
140. 6:24sister-in-law and her husband both good
141. 6:27folks and he was going to change his
142. 6:30name and what did that do to you that
143. 6:33was uh when I hit rock bottom that was
144. 6:35the end of it that's when I had nothing
145. 6:39left what finally gave him back his
146. 6:42freedom last fall was DNA evidence after
147. 6:45fighting the District Attorney's office
148. 6:47for 5 years the Innocence Project won
149. 6:50permission to do DNA testing on a bloody
150. 6:53bandana found near the crime scene on it
151. 6:57the lab found Christine Morton's blood
152. 7:00and the DNA of a known felon Mark Allan
153. 7:03Norwood who's since been arrested for
154. 7:05her murder his DNA has also been matched
155. 7:09to the crime scene of another young
156. 7:11woman who was murdered after Christine
157. 7:14it's not just that an innocent man was
158. 7:17put in jail it was that a killer went
159. 7:21free yes I think Eric described him well
160. 7:23is a monster they they never looked for
161. 7:26the monster so just to be clear from
162. 7:29both of you you you believe that Ken
163. 7:31Anderson the prosecutor in Michael's
164. 7:33case willfully deliberately withheld
165. 7:36evidence we believe that there's
166. 7:38probable cause to believe that he
167. 7:41violated a court order withheld
168. 7:43exculpatory evidence and violated other
169. 7:45laws of the State of Texas so the first
170. 7:48thing that anybody wants to know hearing
171. 7:50that is why why would he do that you
172. 7:52know I've seen a lot of these cases and
173. 7:54I cannot get inside of his mind I can
174. 7:57just talk generally that you know
175. 8:00sometimes people uh break rules cuz they
176. 8:03want to win I want to formally apologize
177. 8:07for the systems failure to Mr Morton in
178. 8:10his only public statement late last year
179. 8:13judge Anderson told reporters a mistake
180. 8:16had been made but he also said this in
181. 8:19my heart I know there was no misconduct
182. 8:23whatsoever under oath Anderson has said
183. 8:26there's no way he wouldn't have told the
184. 8:28defense about those police reports in
185. 8:31his file but he couldn't specifically
186. 8:33remember doing so he wouldn't speak with
187. 8:36us but his laer Eric Nichols a former
188. 8:39deputy Attorney General of Texas told us
189. 8:42those reports in his client's file would
190. 8:45not have been enough to acquit Michael
191. 8:47Morton to suggest that my client did
192. 8:49something wrong or committed a criminal
193. 8:51law violation or violated the rules of
194. 8:53ethics of the State of Texas or
195. 8:55elsewhere is completely unwarranted well
196. 8:58let me read to you what um one of
197. 9:00Michael Morton's original defense
198. 9:02attorneys says on this subject Bill
199. 9:03white in his sworn affidavit he says I
200. 9:07had absolutely no idea at the time that
201. 9:09Eric had made a very specific statement
202. 9:11about witnessing the murder in progress
203. 9:14it is clear to me that conscious
204. 9:15decisions were made to conceal evidence
205. 9:17and or ignore the truth in spite of the
206. 9:2125
207. 9:22years that seems to be very clear to me
208. 9:25is it to you and it's also clear to my
209. 9:27client that he would have had some
210. 9:29discussions with the defense Council
211. 9:31about Eric Morton the precise details
212. 9:34unfortunately are lost to the sands of
213. 9:37time take him at his word well dep what
214. 9:40what you're what you're talking about
215. 9:41Laura we are engaging in
216. 9:44speculation about uh matters that
217. 9:46occurred 25 years ago oh rise please in
218. 9:50February a Texas judge agreed with
219. 9:52Michael Morton's legal team that there
220. 9:55was probable cause to believe Ken
221. 9:57Anderson violated the law
222. 9:59and Anderson is now the subject of a
223. 10:02special criminal
224. 10:04inquiry that's extremely rare Studies
225. 10:07have shown prosecutors are hardly ever
226. 10:10criminally charged or disciplined for
227. 10:12serious error or
228. 10:14misconduct and one thing Ken Anderson
229. 10:16doesn't have to worry about is being
230. 10:18sued for damages by Michael Morton
231. 10:21because the Supreme Court has ruled that
232. 10:23prosecutors have absolute immunity from
233. 10:26civil lawsuits for their legal work
234. 10:29doctors lawyers policemen there are all
235. 10:31kinds of people who do their job with
236. 10:33limited immunity or no immunity it just
237. 10:36seems hard to understand why prosecutors
238. 10:38have to have a different standard to
239. 10:39everybody else seeing that Justice is
240. 10:42done in many instances requires very
241. 10:45difficult judgments and to come back
242. 10:47behind those prosecutors and second
243. 10:49guess them or sue them would throw a
244. 10:54wrench into that system of prosecutors
245. 10:58Seeking Justice Justice I have to say
246. 11:00there's a certain irony in hearing you
247. 11:02say it's the job of a prosecutor to seek
248. 11:05Justice right because in this particular
249. 11:07case that's exactly what Michael Morton
250. 11:09did not get with the benefit of
251. 11:11hindsight with the benefit of DNA test
252. 11:13results that came available in 2011
253. 11:16you're absolutely correct but the legacy
254. 11:19of this case the Morton case should not
255. 11:22be an effort to vilify prosecutors
256. 11:26either my client individually or all
257. 11:27prosecutors in general
258. 11:29now I want to make it very very clear
259. 11:32that I don't believe that there's an
260. 11:33epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct in
261. 11:35this country on the other hand it does
262. 11:37happen and this is a very important
263. 11:40moment we've had a whole series of cases
264. 11:42in this country that have focused
265. 11:44attention on this issue cases like the
266. 11:46corruption trial of former Alaska
267. 11:48Senator Ted Stevens a special
268. 11:51investigator found systemic concealment
269. 11:54of evidence that would have helped the
270. 11:56Senator's case in North Carolina this
271. 11:59man spent 8 years in prison even though
272. 12:02someone else had confessed to the crime
273. 12:05his lawyers say the prosecutor never
274. 12:07told them in Louisiana this man
275. 12:10discovered a few weeks before his
276. 12:12scheduled execution that prosecutors
277. 12:15hadn't disclosed a blood test that
278. 12:17exonerated
279. 12:18him if you did those things if you did
280. 12:22the sort of stuff where you were hiding
281. 12:23evidence from a homicide investigation
282. 12:26they' lock you up in a minute that's the
283. 12:28first time I've sensed any kind of anger
284. 12:31in you I try to be very forgiving but
285. 12:34I'll be honest not only the actual
286. 12:37murderer responsible for this but the
287. 12:40people who put me there I wanted to get
288. 12:42back at them and uh when I
289. 12:47finally let that go and put it away it's
290. 12:51like I dropped 25 lbs I just
291. 12:55felt Michael Morton was recently
292. 12:58reunited with his son he's received
293. 13:01nearly $2 million under a Texas law that
294. 13:05provides compensation for people who are
295. 13:08wrongfully convicted I don't have a lot
296. 13:10of things really driving me but one of
297. 13:13the things is I don't want this to
298. 13:14happen anybody else Revenge isn't the
299. 13:17issue here Revenge I know doesn't
300. 13:20work but accountability
301. 13:23works it's what balances out it's the
302. 13:26equilibrium it's the it's it's the the
303. 13:29social glow in a way because if you're
304. 13:32not count
305. 13:34accountable then you can do anything