Three Dead Men Walking Free Today

Three men walk free on a historic day for US justice

(Independent) – It is just possible that Tuesday 4 October 2011 will go down in American legal history. Not for an especially lurid crime, the capture of a most wanted criminal, or a historic ruling by the Supreme Court – but because on that day, in separate corners of the country, three men were released from prison after spending more than six decades behind bars, each convicted of a murder he did not commit.

In Austin, Texas, Michael Morton walked free, exonerated by new DNA tests of killing his wife in 1986. In Chicago, Jacques Rivera left Cook County Jail, having been convicted in 1990 of a gang-related murder on the basis of false evidence from the sole witness to the crime. And in Los Angeles, the 37-year-old Obie Anthony– amazingly bearing no grudges – saw his 1994 murder conviction overturned after it was conclusively shown that the star witness in his case, a pimp, had lied after cutting a deal with prosecutors.

« click for story
Obie Anthony celebrates with friends and family after his release from jail (AP)

The cases were connected in only two respects. Each was a shocking miscarriage that exposed deep flaws in the way the criminal justice system works in the US. And each of the three men could thank for their release an independent, non-profit body called the Innocence Project, working on the assumption, so easy to articulate but often so hard to translate into deed, that the law must acknowledge when it has made a mistake.

No one knows exactly how many wrongful convictions occur in the US every year, but studies suggest anywhere from 2 to 5 per cent of the country’s overall prison population of over 2 million – i.e. anywhere between 40,000 and 100,000 people – may be innocent. Suffice to say that since the Project was founded in 1992, more than 250 people have been exonerated through DNA testing, including 17 under sentence of death. The Project is currently working on 300 active cases, but these are plainly the tip of an iceberg of error.

Proud of his role as executioner of Texas …

DA Agrees DNA Evidence Doesn’t Support Morton’s Guilt

(Texas Tribune) – The Morton case could have serious ramifications for John Bradley, the former head of the Texas Forensic Science Commission who was critical of efforts to examine questions about the arson science used to convict Cameron Todd Willingham in the 1991 deaths of his three daughters. (Willingham was executed in 2004)

For more than six years, Bradley resisted turning over the bandana and other evidence for new DNA testing until a Texas appellate court ordered him to do so last year. On Monday, Bradley said he could not discuss the reasons he opposed DNA testing in the Morton case for more than six years. Doing so, he said, would jeopardize the ongoing investigation of the murders of Christine Morton and Debra Jan Baker.

“As a lawyer, I had what I believe are good-faith reasons for raising concerns about that.”

Raley, Morton’s defense attorney, said the case proves that prosecutors should never fight against DNA testing. “It can only reveal the truth,” Raley said. “And those that oppose it are being inherently illogical.”

According to the Innocence Project, there have been 43 DNA exonerations in Texas, not including Morton’s case, which still must be reviewed and approved by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Morton’s attorneys also say Bradley sat on evidence that should have been turned over to the defense and that could have helped exonerate him. In addition to making claims of innocence on behalf of Morton in legal documents filed today, his lawyers also alleged that Williamson County prosecutors violated his due process rights in several ways.

Morton’s lawyers claimed that the Williamson County district attorney’s office withheld a transcript of a conversation between Rita Kirkpatrick, Christine Morton’s mother, and an investigator in which she told the officer that Morton’s 3-year-old son saw a “monster” who was not his father attack and kill his mother.

The defense attorneys also allege prosecutors withheld information about Christine Morton’s credit card being used in San Antonio two days after she was killed and about a check made out to her that was cashed with her forged signature nine days after her death.