How inmate Michael Morton lost 25 years of his life

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/justice/exonerated-prisoner-update-michael-morton/index.html

by monsterix • 13 years ago

46 83 13 years ago

girvo15• 13 years ago

The prosecutor should serve at least 25 years in jail for withholding key evidence and ruining this persons life. Christ these stories make me so upset. :/

monsterix• 13 years ago

I'm curious about what percentage of incarcerated population in the US is innocent. US holds roughly 2.3 MM inmates in its prisons, that's highest rate of incarceration[1] in the world. Wondering if there is a way to put a number, or guess the percentage of innocent civilians serving jail time at any given point of time.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...

ghshephard2• 13 years ago

I'm also curious as to how many innocent americans are executed.

Given the huge number of Prisoners who have been on death row and exonerated, there must have been quite a few in the past prior to technologies like DNA testing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution

Note - this doesn't even include those who were innocent, but not provably so.

brazzy12• 13 years ago

Great. Now you know exactly how the jury felt when they ruined this persons life based on a complete lack of evidence that he committed a crime (never mind the withheld evidence against it).

Quoth the article: "We all felt so strongly that this was justice for Christine and that we were doing the right thing," says Mark Landrum, who was the jury foreman.

Righteous fury is the worst enemy of justice.

fnordfnordfnord8• 13 years ago

There appears to be no shortage of evidence that Ken Anderson is a criminal. "The State Bar’s Commission for Lawyer Discipline wrote in its court filing that Anderson knew of the evidence and withheld it. The filing also alleges that Anderson made a false statement to the court when he told the judge he had no evidence that could be favorable to Morton’s claims of innocence."[1]

[1] http://www.texastribune.org/2012/10/19/state-bar-seeks-disci...

nate_meurer4• 13 years ago

I agree with your last sentence, but I think it's a bit out of place here. The OP didn't call for a disproportionate sentence. Prosecutor Ken Anderson deliberate falsified a case that cost Mr Morton 25 years of his life. A 25 year sentence for Ken Anderson would seem perfectly reasonable to me.

girvo15• 13 years ago

I'm not angry, I'm upset.

More to the point, the prosecutor is guilty, which is why he received 10 days in jail. I'm expressing that that should have been a larger punishment for the anguish he caused, and admitted to. On top of that, this time they have a stack of evidence, enough to exonerate someone, and the prosecutors actions got another person killed.

Very different circumstances, in my opinion. I do agree with your final sentence, however.

shin_lao• 13 years ago

10 years in prison is a lot for a non-violent crime. He might have withheld evidence but in the end it's the jury who found him guilty.

girvo15• 13 years ago

The prosecutor got 10 days? Unless I'm reading your comment incorrectly.

The jury system cannot handle them being liable for imprisoning the wrong people, unfortunately. That's why we have all these rules in place in our legal system. The prosecutor was the one who made the decision to willingly withhold important evidence and lie to the jury to get the conviction, so I personally think he is culpable.

Oh, and by doing so, the actual killer went free, and murdered someone else. :(

scrumper• 13 years ago

10 days.

fnordfnordfnord8• 13 years ago

A non-violent crime? Are you kidding? If you were kidnapped and imprisoned by an entity other than the State, would that be a violent crime? False imprisonment is a violent crime.

He might have withheld evidence but in the end it's the jury who found him guilty.

You need to seriously rethink that statement. How could a jury be expected reach a correct solution when exculpatory evidence was hidden from them?

marquis• 13 years ago

There is an excellent longform article on this. Heartbreaking.

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-one?full...

http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-two?full...

thaumasiotes2• 13 years ago

Their last meeting was so brief that Eric [Morton's son] and Marylee [Morton's wife's sister] barely sat down. Eric, who was fifteen, was unable to look Michael in the eye. “I don’t want to come here anymore,” he choked out.

I remember going with my parents (I was in high school) to see my grandfather and deal with the hospital -- he had been hospitalized for a reason I don't recall and they found that his mind was damaged to the point that they couldn't overlook it. He said hello, tried to make small talk: how are things, do you have a girlfriend, any interesting developments in your life. Small talk is not one of my skills. I had nothing to say; I very often have nothing to say. And he turned and started admonishing my parents for forcing me to come: "He doesn't want to be here. We live in different worlds."

It hurt, very badly. I was there because I wanted to be there.

I can't imagine, even after twelve years, telling your father that visiting him twice a year is a waste of your time. What a staggering blow. No matter what Marylee believed (clearly, in this case, that Morton was guilty), the decent thing to do would have been to not discuss it with his son.

jwdunne2• 13 years ago

Why is it possible for either side to withhold evidence? Why is all evidence not put on a table for both sides to dissect?

Genuine questions. Currently it seems like a competition. This isn't competitive ground, as much as I see lawyers essentially competing over number of clears/convictions. This is about people's lives!

thaumasiotes2• 13 years ago

Evidence isn't conjured into existence by the judge and then withheld by lawyers. It's discovered by the lawyers. It's not a logical possibility to prevent them from failing to bring it to everyone else's attention.

jwdunne2• 13 years ago

I always thought the police gather evidence? I remember from my own interactions the police are always present. This is in the UK where processes may be much different...

fnordfnordfnord8• 13 years ago

It is possible because a prosecutor's incentives are to get convictions above all else, and because prosecutors are rarely (almost never) held to account for such crimes. Even when prosecutors deliberately obstruct efforts by the defense to obtain that evidence, going so far as to ignore an order from a higher court, the punishment is relatively small.

Ken Andersen was allowed to resign as district judge, and also to resign from the Texas State Bar, he was given a 10-day sentence for a criminal contempt charge for which he served 5 days in jail.

link http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2013/09/from-too-littl...

another link http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/why-michael-morton%E2%80%9...

csmuk6• 13 years ago

Re proesecutor: "He also agreed to a $500 fine, 500 hours of community service, and the loss of his law license, according to the Innocence Project, a legal clinic affiliated with Yeshiva University's Cardozo Law School."

Sorry not enough. This is one place that "an eye for an eye" should be used. Screw Ghandi's opinion on the subject. The guy was an asshole through and through who ruined two people's already ruined lives.

brazzy12• 13 years ago

I bet there were people who campaigned for the innocent man to be executed based on exactly this state of mind.

wavefunction3• 13 years ago

I don't see the equivalency. The prosecutor abused his official position and the legal system to personally advance his career. If anything, we should hold our officials and authorities to even harsher standards to ensure equitable treatment under the law.

fnordfnordfnord8• 13 years ago

In Texas, there is always some idiot[1] campaigning to have some poor bastard executed.

[1] usually a prosecutor.

arrrg2• 13 years ago

I will never understand punishment-crazy people.

His career was destroyed. That seems like a large enough disincentive to me. I cannot imagine that worse punishment would lead to better outcomes.

It seems to me rather that if you want to fight this you should look elsewhere. Punishing this person harder doesn’t seem like a solution to me.

girvo15• 13 years ago

Depends. Hopefully his punishment will become a standard, the article discusses how this is unprecedented. If it becomes standard, hopefully it is enough of a disincentive to balance out the prosecutors incentive to withhold evidence and push for convictions in all cases, as it stands now.

csmuk6• 13 years ago

I'm suggesting that he needs to be accountable on his own terms for his actions and should be held to the same standards as his judgement.

It's not a big deal for him as a prosecutor. Perhaps it'll be uncomfortable for a bit but the real story is:

$500 fine. Acceptable risk.

500 hours community service. Acceptable risk.

Struck off... Acceptable risk.

Why?

His career was certainly not destroyed. He can quite happily fall into a cosy job in a corporate back office as a legal consultant through his contact network and still get a nice pension.

sevenminaya• 13 years ago

Here's a perfect case where you would want Morton had become a mastermind in jail, to come out to frame the prosecutor for murder so he can go thru the same thing.

wil4212• 13 years ago

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer"

That was said in 1765, I think we are regressing. Power hungry police and prosecutors are getting worse. They only care about making arrests and getting convictions, innocence doesn't matter. I am surprised that the prosecutor was actually charged and then convicted.

melling6• 13 years ago

You are offering an opinion that has no basis in fact. Innocent people going to jail isn't a modern problem. We must certainly try to solve the problem but complaining that "power hungry police and prosecutors are getting worse" adds no value or intelligence to the conversation, and you can't even prove that we are worse off today than 100 years ago, for example.

Also, why would you be surprised that the prosecutor was charged and convicted? Wouldn't it stand by your reasoning that the other "power hungry prosecutors who only caring about making arrests and getting convictions" would jump at the chance to convict him?

girvo15• 13 years ago

The OP itself says that the prosecutor (now Judge) being convicted was a huge change in procedure. It never happens.

Based on your posts here, I'm getting the feeling that you are okay with the criminal justice system in the USA. You ask a lot of questions, I want to know what your stance is (honestly, I do!).

brianbreslin2• 13 years ago

Slightly (only slightly) off-topic: what is it going to take for us to see a complete or at least large overhaul of the justice system in the US? We're incarcerating too many people for minor crimes and it is causing a ripple effect on poverty and economic growth (not to mention ruining TONS of people's lives).

lobo_tuerto• 13 years ago

And not to mention enriching some people through wrong means.

melling6• 13 years ago

Can you be more specific? What minor crimes are you talking about? What's the breakdown of crimes for the the current prison population? Have any references to articles that have a deeper discussion so we can come up to speed?

girvo15• 13 years ago

Frankly, if you've got the highest per capita incarceration rate in the entire world, and is nearly 7X that of countries that are other first-world democracies (Canada, Australia, etc)... something tells me there is an issue, somewhere.

aestra3• 13 years ago

It is well know the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Both per capita and by sheer numbers. All the breakdown you can ever ask for is here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_Sta...

This part is what people are usually talking about:

Violent crime was not responsible for the quadrupling of the incarcerated population in the United States from 1980 to 2003. Violent crime rates had been relatively constant or declining over those decades. The prison population was increased primarily by public policy changes causing more prison sentences and lengthening time served, e.g. through mandatory minimum sentencing, "three strikes" laws, and reductions in the availability of parole or early release. These policies were championed as protecting the public from serious and violent offenders, but instead yielded high rates of confinement for nonviolent offenders. Nearly three quarters of new admissions to state prison were convicted of nonviolent crimes. 49 percent of sentenced state inmates were held for violent offenses. Perhaps the single greatest force behind the growth of the prison population has been the national "war on drugs." The number of incarcerated drug offenders has increased twelvefold since 1980. In 2000, 22 percent of those in federal and state prisons were convicted on drug charges.

kenshiro_o• 13 years ago

very sad story. I still can't believe the prosecuter only served 5 days in jail and paid a minor fine. These injustices are crushing my heart. I do really want to believe in fairness and Justice but after reading such a piece I cannot maintain those illusions.

What can we do as individuals and as a society to improve the Justice system and help rehabilitate former criminals? This is an area where we should also have start-ups looking to make a better tomorrow. Isn't that also part of "Changing The World"?

josu• 13 years ago

These things scare me more than terrorism

middleclick• 13 years ago

Morton was freed in October 2011. He was 57 years old. "I thank God this wasn't a capital case," he said.

I don't mean to turn this into an atheism debate, but personally, as someone who is an atheist, I find it fascinating how people still manage to have faith in God after such a case even after they spent 25 years of their life for a crime they did not commit. Don't get me wrong - the faith people have really amazes me and in a way, it helps keep them sane but it is fascinating nevertheless.

girvo15• 13 years ago

From my experience (am an atheist, was raised as a devout Catholic), it's a coping mechanism. Turn it into a "trial" handed to you to test your faith, and you can make sense of it.

Easier to deal with for some people, rather than accepting the inherent randomness that exists in life.

brazzy12• 13 years ago

According to the article, Morton only became religious while he was in prison. I guess starting to believe that there's something more important than the real world is one way of coping with a staggering injustice suffered in it.

fnordfnordfnord8• 13 years ago

In Texas prisons, religious ministries are allowed time and facilities to preach to inmates. The chapel in Texas prisons is often one of the only air-conditioned spaces (other than the library). Consequently, (I suspect) religious participation among inmates is higher than it might otherwise be.

source: I was a correctional officer in Texas for a couple of years.

jessaustin• 13 years ago

I'm not sure about heaven, but American prosecuting attorneys are one reason I believe in hell.

How inmate Michael Morton lost 25 years of his life

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