Innocent man......

 Imagine being out to dinner with the love of your life and your
beautiful, smiling, 3-year-old child. It's
a double celebration: your birthday
and the end of your young boy's
difficult recovery from surgery for a
heart defect. As you cross the street afterward,
holding hands and swinging the little
one up in the air, you think, "This is
what it's about." You know it's one of the best days of
your life. For Michael Morton, that day was
August 12, 1986. He had just turned
32. The next day, it was all taken away.
The dream became a nightmare. Christine, his wife, was attacked and
killed at their home in Williamson
County, Texas, just outside Austin.
Michael Morton was at work at the
time. Still, authorities suspected him. "Innocent people think that if you just
tell the truth then you've got nothing to
fear from the police," Morton says
now. "If you just stick to it that the
system will work, it'll all come to light,
everything will be fine." Instead, Morton was charged, ripped
away from his boy, and put on trial.
The prosecutor, speaking to the jury
in emotional terms with tears
streaming down his face, laid out a
graphic, depraved sexual scenario, accusing Morton of bludgeoning his
wife for refusing to have sex on his
birthday. "There was no scientific evidence,
there was no eyewitness, there was
no murder weapon, there was no
believable motive," Morton says. "... I
didn't see how any rational, thinking
person would say that's enough for a guilty verdict." But with no other suspects, the jury
convicted him. "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. Morton spent nearly 25 years in
prison. He saw his son Eric only twice a year.
"I would love seeing him, I was
fascinated with his every move,"
Morton says. But Eric "was becoming
more distant," Morton says. "He was
becoming less mine." As a teen, Eric had no memories of
his father outside of prison. Letters his
dad wrote him were "just a window
into a life that never happened," he
says. His father "barely existed in my
life. I didn't have memories of him outside of the visits to prison." Eric decided to stop visiting. "I think it
was embarrassing for me to think that
I had to go to jail to see my dad." Michael Morton wrote Eric saying he
had to come and tell him that in
person. He did. "It was another one of those numb,
painful things," Morton says. "I just
looked at my sister-in-law and said
something like, 'Take care of my
son.'" Eric also changed his last name to
that of the relatives who raised him. A few years ago, a group of attorneys,
working pro bono on Morton's behalf,
managed to bring the truth to light.
Not only was Morton innocent, but the
prosecutor, Ken Anderson, was
accused of withholding crucial evidence. The little boy, Eric, had seen the
attack and told relatives that daddy
was not home at the time. He
described the man who did it.
Neighbors had described a man
parking a green van behind the Mortons' house and walking off into a
wooded area. A blood-stained
bandana was found nearby. None of
that evidence made it into the trial. It took years of fighting, but Morton's
attorneys finally got the bandana
tested for DNA. It contained Christine
Morton's blood and hair and the DNA
of another man -- a convicted felon
named Mark Norwood. Norwood had killed Christine Morton.
And since no one figured that out
after her death, he remained free. He
killed another woman in the Austin
area, Debra Baker, in similar
circumstances less than two years later, authorities say. Norwood has now been convicted in
Morton's killing, and indicted in
Baker's killing. Morton was freed in October 2011.
He was 57 years old. "I thank God
this wasn't a capital case," he said. Morton's story, told in the CNN Films'
documentary "An Unreal Dream,"
shines a spotlight on wrongful
convictions in the United States. More
than 2,000 wrongfully convicted
people were exonerated between 1989 and 2012, according to data
compiled by the University of
Michigan Law School. But Morton's case has paved new
ground that could affect cases
nationwide. Last month, Anderson -- Morton's
prosecutor who in 2001 became a
judge -- pleaded no contest to
criminal contempt for deliberately
withholding exculpatory evidence. Anderson's punishment pales in
comparison to Morton's experience.
The former prosecutor stepped down
from his position as a judge and
agreed to 10 days in jail. He then
served only five of those days, under Texas laws involving good behavior
behind bars. 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. It's "an extremely rare instance, and
perhaps the first time, that a
prosecutor has been criminally
punished for failing to turn over
exculpatory evidence," the Innocence
Project said. The "historic precedent demonstrates
that when a judge orders a prosecutor
to look in his file and disclose
exculpatory evidence, deliberate
failure to do so is punishable by
contempt," said Barry Scheck, the project's co-director. The organization is working with the
Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers
Association and the Innocence
Project of Texas to coordinate a
review of Anderson's cases. Anderson, meanwhile, has not
publicly acknowledged any personal
wrongdoing. In court, he said he
couldn't remember details of the case,
and that he and his family have been
through false accusations over it. "I apologize that the system screwed
up. I've beaten myself up on what I
could have done different and I don't
know," he said, acknowledging
Morton's "pain." Morton asked a judge to "do what
needs to be done, but at the same
time to be gentle with Judge
Anderson." In prepared remarks outside the
courthouse, Anderson repeated that
he wanted to "formally apologize for
the system's failure to Mr. Morton and
every other person who was affected
by the verdict." CNN left a voice mail at a phone
number listed for Anderson in Texas,
but did not hear back. Morton now works on programs to
help other innocent people behind
bars. Earlier this year, Texas Gov.
Rick Perry signed the Michael Morton
Act into law, requiring prosecutors to
turn evidence over to defense lawyers in criminal cases, upon the
defendant's request, without the need
for a court order. The law will make the state's criminal
justice system "fairer and helping
prevent wrongful convictions," Perry
said. "Other people often feel far more
anger than I do," Morton says.
"Vindication is very, very good, but it's
something I knew all along. ... It's
really nothing new for me." He had a religious epiphany in jail,
and credits his newfound inner peace
with the knowledge that God "loves
me." He's now close with his son -- and
daughter-in-law, and granddaughter,
who is named after Christine. "I've
never seen a more perfect child,"
Morton says. "Life has come full circle," his son Eric
says. "...I do love him." "The conundrums of life, the
philosophical paradoxes, the
metaphysical problems -- I feel like I
get it now," Michael Morton says with
a smile. "I understand suffering and
unfairness. I can't think of anything better to receive than that. I'm good
with this."