STORY: "Anderson court of inquiry to resume in Morton case," by reporter Chuck Lindell, published in the Statesman on April 18, 2013.
GIST: "With
his freedom and legacy stake, former Williamson County District
Attorney Ken Anderson returns to court Friday afternoon as the inquiry
continues into his handling of Michael Morton’s prosecution in 1986-87. A ruling is considered likely. District
Judge Louis Sturns, who is presiding over the court of inquiry, must
determine whether there is reason to believe that Anderson violated
state law by intentionally hiding favorable evidence from Morton and his
trial lawyers. Such a ruling would require Sturns to issue a warrant
for Anderson’s arrest, the first step toward a possible criminal trial. Sturns
also must decide if Anderson should be held in contempt of court for
allegedly lying to Morton’s trial judge. Such a finding could lead to
jail time. Morton served almost 25 years in prison for the murder of his first wife, Christine, before he was exonerated in 2011.......... Courts
of inquiry are rare and uniquely Texas proceedings that examine
allegations of wrongdoing to determine if a state law has been broken.
Such courts function somewhat like grand juries, which decide whether
there is enough evidence to proceed to trial. The latest hearing
begins at 1 p.m. in the same Georgetown courthouse where Anderson has
served as a state district judge since 2002. He was appointed to the
bench by Gov. Rick Perry after 16 years as Williamson County’s top
prosecutor, where his tough-on-crime swagger meshed perfectly with the
county’s law-and-order image. Morton’s 1987 trial was one of his
earliest cases as district attorney. Lawyers involved in the court
of inquiry declined to discuss what will take place at the hearing, and
Sturns has not answered media inquiries since the Texas Supreme Court
appointed him to lead the inquiry in early 2012. Sturns has had 10
weeks to wade through transcripts of more than 45 hours of testimony
from February’s hearings, plus boxes of evidence from the trial and
investigative files related to Christine Morton’s murder and hours of
videotaped depositions by Anderson and others taken in 2011......... Rusty Hardin, a Houston lawyer acting
in a role similar to a prosecutor, argued that the district attorney’s
office under Anderson engaged in a “pattern and practice” of withholding
favorable information from defense lawyers in violation of the U.S.
Constitution. Hardin focused on two pieces of evidence that he said were never revealed to Morton’s trial lawyers: • A police report of a driver of a green van who appeared to have been watching the Morton home. •
A transcript of a taped police interview in which Rita Kirkpatrick, the
mother of murder victim Christine Morton, related a conversation she .had with the Mortons’ 3-year-old son Eric, who spoke of seeing a
“monster” hurt his mother."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/anderson-court-of-inquiry-to-resume-in-morton-case/nXQnN/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
I
have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses
several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of
the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this
powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and
myself get more out of the site.
The
Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible
years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr.
Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of
Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic"
section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It
can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com
Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog.
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