Did Williamson County Officials Perpetrate Fraud to Secure a Murder Conviction?

Did the suppression of evidence by either Williamson County investigators or prosecutors cause an innocent man to be convicted of murder and a killer to remain free? The Innocence Project of New York is alleging exactly that and activity surrounding a new investigation of Michael Morton’s 1987 murder conviction makes the question all the more compelling.

The Austin American-Statesman’s Chuck Lindell has provided strong coverage of recent events. Earlier this week he wrote:

A mystery file, unsealed after 24 years in storage at an Austin courthouse, indicates that prosecutors or investigators perpetrated a fraud to secure the murder conviction and life sentence for Michael Morton in 1987, the Innocence Project of New York alleged in a court filing Tuesday.

The file, sealed under a 1987 court order amid Morton’s appeals, was ordered open last week as part of the Innocence Project’s claim that recent DNA tests prove Morton did not kill is wife, Christine.

Sgt. Don Wood, now retired, was the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office lead investigator assigned to Christine Morton’s 1986 murder. The recently unsealed file was expected to contain all materials produced by Wood in the course of his investigation. Instead, the Statesman reports the file’s only contents were a five-page report detailing Wood’s first day of investigating the case and a Michael Morton-signed one-page consent form allowing a search of his house and pickup.

In its Aug. 30 Motion to Preserve and Produce Documents, the Innocence Project contends that the file’s sparse contents raises the “specter of official misconduct,” a view supported by evidence uncovered via a 2008 Public Information Act request submitted to the WCSO. That evidence, ordered released by the Texas Attorney General’s office over objections from Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, included a transcript of Wood’s interview with Christine’s mother less than two weeks after the murder in which she describes a conversation with the Morton’s three-year-old son who told of witnessing an unknown man murder his mother.

It also included reports of a green van and suspicious occupant on the street behind the Morton’s address as well as information suggesting investigators apparent failure to pursue leads related to the use and recovery of Christine Morton’s missing credit card from a San Antonio store two days after the murder.

Per the Statesman :

“If trial prosecutors had the transcript in their 1987 file and willfully concealed it from this court and/or the Court of Appeals, then they have committed fraud on the court of the highest order – and in the process, condemned an innocent man to prison for a quarter-century,” the Innocence Project motion reads.

Ken Anderson, now judge of Williamson County’s 277th District Court, was district attorney in 1987 and prosecuted the Morton case. His second chair was then-Assistant District Attorney Mike Davis, a Round Rock attorney who still performs legal work for the county.

Suspicions of evidence withholding date back to 1987 as within weeks after the verdict, Morton’s then-legal team filed a motion for a new trial which included a description of Mike Davis making post-verdict remarks to the jury about the case investigator’s evidence saying that “Sgt. Wood’s reports were sizable (he held up his hand and indicated about one inch between his fingers), and if the defense had gotten them, we would have been able ‘to raise more doubt than we did.’”

A landmark 1963 U.S. Supreme Court decision requires prosecutors and law enforcement to provide defense lawyers with evidence that is favorable to the defendant and could change the trial’s outcome, but that appears to not have happened in the Morton case.

And this evidence becomes all the more important when coupled with recent DNA testing performed on a bandanna found on an abandoned construction site approximately 100 yards from the crime scene. After years of litigation due to repeated objections from Bradley, the Texas Court of Appeals finally last year granted testing on the bandanna.

A report issued in June identified Christine Morton’s blood and hair on the bandanna intermingled with DNA belonging to a man other than Michael. Per Morton attorney John Raley, the DNA has now been matched to a man with a state and federal felony record for offenses in three states that include burglary of a residence, “extensive” drug use and assault with intent to kill. Raley characterized the man as a violent criminal and, at an Aug. 23 hearing seeking to have Bradley recused and an independent investigator appointed, noted that the DNA matched-individual is not currently incarcerated.

With their new Motion to Preserve and Produce Documents filing, the Statesman reports that the Innocence Project has asked District Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield to order Bradley and Sheriff James Wilson to produce all materials in their Morton files from 1987 to mid-August 2011. But despite Assistant District Attorney Kristen Jernigan’s courtroom pledge to work with the defense team and Stubblefield’s warnings against “foot dragging,” the Williamson County District Attorney’s office is currently resisting production of new documents.

Stubblefield denied the Bradley recusal motion. He also expressed the need for expediency with this investigation, however his own voluntary recusal of himself may now further slow proceedings as Judge Sid Harle of San Antonio takes over the case. Harle, appointed to replace Stubblefield by the Texas Supreme Court, presides over the 226th District Court. The disposition of a Sept. 27 court hearing is unknown at this time.

Meanwhile, the new Innocence Project motion says “The unsealing of the Wood file and the revelations of its sparse contents makes it even more critical that the state be compelled to provide full, truthful and specific answers.” Critical and urgent. After all, a seemingly innocent man remains in prison while an unidentified-to-the-public killer is on the loose.


People also view

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *