Regret isn’t enough.

Ken Anderson has been a Williamson County (Texas) district judge since 2002, but in 1987  he was the district attorney who prosecuted Michael Morton for fatally beating his wife to death. Morton was convicted and served 25 years in prison before DNA tests proved he was innocent. (This is yet another triumph of The Innocence Project.) Another man has been arrested for the murder of Morton’s wife Christine, as well as a second woman he allegedly killed in similar fashion while Morton was behind bars.

Last week, a five day hearing examined Judge Anderson regarding his conduct in the case, in a special court of inquiry to determine whether he engaged in criminal wrongdoing as well as unethical prosecution. Among the questions raised was why Anderson never divulged to Morton’s defense team a police report that Morton’s neighbors had said that they saw a suspicious man walking into the woods behind the Morton home shortly before the murder, and why Morton’s three-year-old son’s statement that “a monster,” not his father, beat the child’s mother to death was similarly withheld. On the stand enduring five hours of questioning, a tearful Anderson could only say that he didn’t remember not turning over the evidence to the defense, while defense attorneys adamantly insisted that they never received it. The hearing also revealed that Anderson kept his lead investigator from testifying at trial, when his testimony would have ensured that the child’s statement and the report about the stranger were raised in court, as well as allowing defense attorneys to cross-examine the investigator regarding his peculiar theory of the case.The theory, which was subsequently endorsed by DA Anderson, was that Morton become homicidal after his wife fell asleep when he sought to have sex with her, and donned his scuba wet suit so his son wouldn’t know it was him beating her to death. Continue reading →