CRIMINAL JURISDICTION

Williamson County Justice System under Scrutiny by State Bar of Texas

By: Houston Criminal Lawyer John Floyd and Paralegal Billy Sinclair

Since our last post about the tragic case of Michael Morton, the “prosecutor of the year” in that case, now District Judge Ken Anderson, and his cohort, Mike Davis, who actually prosecuted Morton for the 1986 murder of his wife, face investigations by the State Bar of Texas and Morton’s attorneys, according to the Austin Statesman. The State Bar investigation is, as the newspaper accurately reported, a “rare step” by the Bar, as is the public acknowledgement that it has undertaken a disciplinary investigation against two of its members. Morton was freed from the state’s prison system on October 4, 2011 after serving 25 years for a murder he did not commit and on October 11, 2011 the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals formally exonerated the man after DNA testing of a critical piece of evidence not only cleared Morton of the murder of his wife but identified the real killer as well.

Anderson and Davis, along with key law enforcement personnel, withheld critical evidence at Morton’s 1987 trial which almost certainly led to his wrongful conviction. For example, the prosecutors withheld the transcript of an interview with Morton’s mother-in-law who questioned the couple’s 3-year-old son shortly after his mother, Christine, was beaten to death with a “billy club.” The boy told his grandmother that he saw his mother beaten to death and that his father was not at home at the time of the murder. Other significant evidence withheld was a document disclosing that Christine’s credit card, which was in her purse and taken by her killer, was used in a San Antonio store, and another document showing that a check made out to Christine was cashed nine days after her death and the signature on it appeared to be a forgery.

While the prosecutors and law enforcement withheld this critical evidence and focused their sole attention on convicting Morton for murdering his wife, the real killer, who has only been identified as “John Doe” pending further investigation, was roaming the streets of Austin where he killed yet another woman in 1987—the same year Williamson County officials were wrongfully convicting Morton for the brutal murder of his wife.

Maureen Ray, who works in the office of the chief disciplinary counsel for the State Bar told the Statesman: “We decided, because of the high-profile nature of the thing, that we were going to tell the public that we were looking into it.”

Anderson is none too happy about either the State Bar’s investigation or the investigation by Morton’s attorneys into his handling of the murder case. Through his attorney Mark Dietz, the “prosecutor of the year” filed a motion contending that District Judge Sid Harle did not have “jurisdiction” to issue a subpoena in connection with the investigation being sought by Morton’s attorneys into “professional misconduct” accusations leveled against both Anderson and Davis.

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