13 Nov 2013
In our blog of April 23, 2013 (Former D.A. Arrested on Contempt and Tampering Charges), we reported on the case of Michael Morton, who was cleared of murder charges after spending 25 years in prison for the murder of his wife, based upon new DNA evidence.
After a judge reviewed the record, he determined that there was sufficient evidence to charge the former prosecutor in the case, Ken Anderson, with contempt of court, and tampering with evidence and with government records. Subsequent to serving as a prosecutor, Anderson served as a Williamson County judge for 11 years.
The central theme of the outcry against Anderson was that he concealed from the defense certain exculpatory information – evidence that might have helped the Morton and his attorneys to defend against the charges. That evidence consisted largely of statements by witnesses, including (a) a statement by Morton’s young son, who witnessed the event and said his father was not the culprit, and (b) statements from neighbors, who said that a man driving a dark green van was seen in the neighborhood just before the murder took place.
Eventally, Anderson entered a plea of no contest to the criminal contempt of court charge, and he was sentenced last week in the same courthouse where he served as a judge for over a decade. In addition to ten days in jail, he will have to perform 500 hours of community service. Anderson also resigned as a judge, and will be disbarred.
Some might view the sentence as somewhat lenient. After all, the charge of tampering with evidence is a felony. On the other hand, the prosecutors in the case say that the statute of limitations might have presented obstacles to a conviction.
This apparently brings to a conclusion a lengthy fight by a man who has spent much of his life behind bars based upon a wrongful conviction. Unfortunately, these types of situations arise more often than we’d like to think. In addition to prosecutorial misconduct, which was the issue in the Anderson case, other such convictions have been obtained through mistaken eyewitness identification, false confessions, false informant testimony, police misconduct, and through other means.
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