So it was a sudden reversal of fortune for Anderson when, eight days after Michael’s release, the CCA overturned Michael’s conviction on grounds of actual innocence. The ruling meant that Anderson had secured a guilty verdict against an indisputably innocent man. Yet whether he, or anyone else involved in the case, would ever be held accountable for the wrongful conviction remained an open question.
Immediately after his release, Michael’s legal team began digging for answers. Thanks to Scheck’s negotiations with Bradley, the lawyers—who now numbered six, including Morrison, Raley, and Scheck—were able to depose Anderson, Mike Davis (the former assistant DA who helped prosecute the case), and Wood and take affidavits from many others. The testimony was revealing. During his deposition, Anderson said that he had likely informed Allison and his co-counsel, Bill White, of the transcript in which Rita Kirkpatrick told Wood what Eric had seen but admitted that he had no recollection of what he had actually done.
“There’s no way on God’s green earth, if that was in my file, I wouldn’t have told them that Eric said that the monster killed his mother,” Anderson testified. Allison and White are both emphatic that he never did so. “If we had known what Eric told his grandmother, we would have fought hard to have the jury hear that evidence,” Allison told me. “Eric’s account would have been critical, because it supported the theory we presented at trial that an unknown intruder killed Christine.”
Shortly after the investigation concluded in November, Anderson made what still remains his only public statement about the case. Standing outside the old courthouse on the town square in Georgetown, the white-haired judge looked down at his prepared remarks as he told reporters that he had behaved ethically—“In my heart, I know there was no misconduct whatsoever”—and that he had no plans to step down from the bench. Caitlin Baker, who stood in attendance, was unimpressed, telling reporters afterward that Anderson should resign. She held Anderson partially responsible for her mother’s murder, she said, because his single-minded pursuit of Michael had allowed the real killer to go unpunished. “She could be alive right now,” she said. Her outrage was fueled by what was widely seen as Anderson’s failure to take any personal responsibility for his role in a conviction that he had long trumpeted as one of the pinnacles of his prosecutorial career. “As district attorney at the time, and as woefully inadequate as I realize it is, I want to formally apologize for the system’s failure to Mr. Morton and every other person who was affected by the verdict,” he had said before fielding a few questions and walking away.
Many observers in Williamson County wondered if the matter would end there. Rarely have Texas prosecutors had to answer tough questions about their conduct, even in the wake of wrongful convictions. But in February, Judge Harle ruled that the investigation conducted by Michael’s lawyers suggested that there was probable cause to believe Anderson had broken the law in failing to turn over evidence that was “highly favorable” to the defense. Harle recommended that the Texas Supreme Court launch a court of inquiry to look into the matter. A week later, the Supreme Court concurred with Harle’s findings and ruled that an inquiry should proceed. Anderson would have to answer for his alleged misconduct.
There was no precedent for this decision. A court of inquiry is an arcane and extremely rare legal procedure, unique to Texas, that can be used to investigate wrongdoing, most often on the part of state officials. But as far as anyone can remember, it has never before been used to probe allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, much less when the subject of the investigation was a sitting district judge. Nevertheless, the decision was well received. “The pursuit of justice shouldn’t end with an innocent person’s release from prison,” the Austin American-Statesman concluded in an editorial extolling Harle’s recommendation.
By then the tide of public opinion had turned against Anderson and Bradley. As the face of the Williamson County DA’s office, Bradley—who had devoted untold time and taxpayer money to opposing Michael’s requests for DNA testing—was excoriated in the local press. “Adjust the facts as needed, feign respectability, stick to the talking points, and, above all else, protect your friends and associates,” wrote local legal blogger Lou Ann Anderson, suggesting that Williamson County was less tough on crime than “light on justice.” Though Bradley had long been considered bulletproof politically in Williamson County, he soon found himself in a hard-fought race against a primary challenger. Despite support from Governor Perry, who sent letters to the county’s registered Republicans exhorting them to vote for Bradley, the DA was defeated by a stunning ten-point margin. The race had become a referendum on his handling of the Morton case; in the months leading up to primary day, his critics had tied bandanas to his political signs.
This fall, attention turned back to Anderson. On October 4, the first anniversary of Michael’s release, the state bar issued a withering report on Anderson’s conduct. Sixteen years earlier, the agency had named him “Prosecutor of the Year”; now it filed disciplinary charges against the judge. After a ten-month investigation, it had concluded that Anderson had deliberately withheld evidence. A judge appointed by the Texas Supreme Court will hear evidence at an upcoming disciplinary hearing, which has not yet been scheduled. If the judge determines that Anderson withheld evidence, he could be reprimanded, have his law license suspended, or be disbarred.
As devastating as these penalties would be to a sitting judge, Anderson is no doubt far more concerned about the possible outcome of the court of inquiry, which is slated to begin on December 10. Fort Worth district judge Louis Sturns will preside over the inquiry, with legendary Houston criminal defense attorney Rusty Hardin—once a top prosecutor in the Harris County DA’s office—serving as special prosecutor. The unusual legal proceeding will be held in Georgetown, at the Williamson County Justice Center, just down the hall from Anderson’s courtroom. The irony of the situation will not be lost on anyone; the former DA—who subjected Michael to a ruthless cross-examination in 1987—could himself be called to testify while Michael looks on. If Sturns finds that Anderson violated the law, he could refer the case to the Texas attorney general’s office, even though Anderson’s attorneys have argued that the statute of limitations has long since expired on any offenses that he might be charged with. Michael’s lawyers, however, argue that the four-year window during which a prosecutor can be charged for violations such as suppression of evidence has not yet closed because Anderson committed an ongoing act of “fraudulent concealment” that did not end until August 2011, when Judge Lott’s file was unsealed.
Anderson is also expected to put on a vigorous defense that will draw on a narrow reading of what his legal obligations were to turn over evidence. He did not provide Wood’s reports and notes to Lott, explained Anderson’s attorney, Eric Nichols, “because it should be abundantly clear to any objective reader of the record that what the state agreed to produce was only a report from the day on which Christine Morton’s body was found.” The strategy of Anderson’s legal team will presumably involve trying to shift blame onto the late Sheriff Boutwell, whose mishandling of the investigation into Christine’s murder cast a long shadow on the case. They have pointed to the fact that several pieces of evidence, such as the phone message about Christine’s credit card, were found only in the sheriff’s office’s files, not the former prosecutor’s. Regardless, Allison told me he believed it was implausible that Anderson had not seen all the documents in the case, irrespective of where they were stored. “As the DA, Ken would have had complete access to the sheriff’s office’s records,” he said. “Quite frankly, I can’t imagine him stepping anywhere near the courtroom before going through every piece of paper first. He’s very meticulous.” No one knows exactly how long the court of inquiry will last; it could well be concluded before Christmas.
The denouement of the Morton case will come in January when Mark Alan Norwood, who was arrested last fall in Bastrop, will stand trial for Christine’s murder. Given Williamson County’s obvious con
flict of interest—its own prosecutors, while fighting Michael’s efforts to prove his innocence, discounted the very same DNA evidence that implicated Norwood—the case will be tried by special prosecutor Lisa Tanner of the attorney general’s office. Because there is a gag order in the case, it is unknown if state investigators have been able to connect Norwood back to the green van, the contents of Christine’s purse, or Michael’s .45 automatic, which was also stolen from the Morton home. It also remains to be seen whether the DNA hit in the Baker case will be admissible.
For Michael, the experience will be surreal. He will essentially be watching his original trial replayed, featuring evidence that his jury never heard, with another man sitting behind the defense table. In recent court appearances, Norwood has appeared unkempt, his dark, greasy hair pulled back into a ponytail, his expression blasé as he surveys the bank of TV cameras in the courtroom. (Because of publicity surrounding the case, the trial has been moved to San Angelo on a change of venue.) “I won’t do anything to jeopardize the trial, of course,” Michael told me, “but I’ve wondered if I will be able to control myself when I see him face-to-face.” Yet Michael has already shown Norwood mercy. At his request, as well as that of the entire Kirkpatrick family, Tanner will not seek a death sentence.
Eric’s memories of childhood begin with playing T-ball in the suburbs of Houston. He is five years old, a cheerful kid with blond hair and a wide, unclouded smile. Try as he might, he is incapable of drawing any earlier images to the surface; everything that took place before he was five is a blank. A photograph he has seen of himself with his mother, which was taken shortly after he underwent open-heart surgery when he was three, has evoked only a few unsatisfying details; he can recall the Hot Wheels set that he is playing with in the picture, but he has never been able to summon up an actual memory of the smiling woman with dark hair who is looking at him adoringly. His mother is lost to him.
The few recollections he has of his father start after Michael was already incarcerated. He can remember the lemon drops that Michael used to give him during their twice-a-year court-mandated visits at the Wynne Unit, in Huntsville. And he can remember the hand-drawn mazes that would arrive in the mail every so often, which his dad had carefully penciled onto graph paper before finishing in ink, each one more intricate than the last.
Those innocent details were overwhelmed, as Eric grew older, by the anguish of understanding why his father was in prison. That his father had been convicted of murdering his mother was a closely held family secret. Marylee had warned him not to tell his friends at school for fear that the stigma would rub off on him. “She and my grandmother wanted to protect me,” Eric told me. “Everything they did was to shield me from what had happened. Obviously I was told my dad had been found guilty, but it wasn’t something we talked about.” When they did have to confront the past by making the two-hour drive to see Michael, Marylee attempted to make each visit as positive an experience as possible; the day would begin with a stop at McDonald’s and a coloring book for Eric to fill in on the way to the prison. “I’m sure those visits were torture for her,” he told me, “but she always put on a good face for me.” Marylee was intent on moving forward, past the tragedy that had engulfed them, and Eric helped her, in his own way, by revising the family history. When friends asked about his mother, he said that she had died of cancer or that she had been killed in a car accident. He told people that his father had taken off not long after he was born and now lived in California.
And so for Eric, life moved on. He had a doting aunt and grandmother, a top education at a private Catholic school, friends from the many sports teams he played on, and a beloved mixed-breed collie named Shelby. “Everything was picture-perfect,” he told me. “It was Leave It to Beaver, only with a single mom.” When he was twelve, Marylee married a friend of hers from junior high school, and her new husband would play a large and positive role in Eric’s life; Eric would later take his name—Olson—when he was preparing to apply to college. His decision had less to do with cutting ties to Michael, he explained, than with wanting to become part of the Olson family, which by then included not only Marylee and her husband but the son they’d had three years earlier, whom Eric thought of as his little brother.
Eric went on to attend Texas State University, where he became the president of a small Catholic fraternity. When he returned home to Houston, he went to work in the campus ministry at his old high school. He met his future wife, Maggie, while volunteering at a local church. A year before they married, he told her on a drive through the Hill Country, as he stared straight ahead at the two-lane highway, that his father had killed his mother. He asked her not to tell anyone. “It wasn’t something that ate away at me or that I really dwelled on,” Eric told me. “I put it out of my mind so I didn’t have to deal with it. I just wanted to live a normal life.”
In June 2011, three months after he and Maggie married, Eric received an e-mail from John Raley. After trying fruitlessly for weeks to track Eric down, Raley’s wife, Kelly, who is also an attorney at Raley & Bowick, had finally come across his wedding announcement on the website of a small local newspaper; using the details that were provided, she had figured out where Eric worked, and she passed along his contact information to her husband. “I have called you a couple of times recently, and I want you to know who I am and why I called,” John Raley’s email explained. “I am part of a team of lawyers who, for many years, have been volunteering our time on behalf of your biological father.” Raley then laid out what had not yet been disclosed to the public: DNA testing had provided “powerful new evidence” of Michael’s innocence.
Eric did not respond for seven weeks. He was twenty-eight years old and had lived almost his entire life believing that his father had killed his mother. The e-mail rattled him so much that two days went by before he even mentioned it to his wife. “I wasn’t sure if it was real at first,” Eric told me. “There had never been any question that he did it, so this came totally out of the blue.” When Eric failed to answer, the Raleys enlisted their pastor to help, asking him to contact the priest who oversees the private school where Eric works. Only after he received a visit from the priest did Eric answer Raley’s e-mail, sending a curt note acknowledging that he had received it. By then the hit to Norwood had been made, and Raley replied with a more detailed accounting of the facts surrounding the case. “The most important thing I can tell you,” he wrote in conclusion, “is that your father loves you.”
The following day, Eric wrote back: “My family does not have any desire to reenter this discussion or to relive what happened 25 years ago. Please do not contact my place of work or my family again.”
Eric’s first instinct, he told me, was not to shut his father out but to protect the woman who had raised him and prevent her from ever having to dredge up her grief over her sister’s murder. He did not tell Marylee about his exchange with Raley until weeks later. When he did, he found that she remained extremely skeptical that Michael could be innocent, even though she had, by then, read media coverage of recent developments in the case. Based on her communications with the Williamson County DA’s office, which was still trying to discount the relevance of the bandana, she continued to trust that Michael was guilty. Still, Eric kept educating himself about his father’s case, of which he knew little. He had never even been aware of Michael’s long fight to have the bandana tested. Encouraged by Maggie, Eric began to form a different view of his father.
Marylee, however, did not do the same. As she had always done, she accepted the DA’s office’s view of the case—that the DNA results did not exonerate Michael. No one at the DA’s office informed her of the deal that Bradley had brokered with Scheck, so she was blindsided when she learned of Michael’s impending release. She found out when Austin American-Statesman reporter Chuck Lindell e-mailed her to ask for comment on the afternoon before Michael walked free.
Eric had, by then, come to accept that his father was likely innocent, but he fe
lt fiercely protective of Marylee, who was struggling to understand how everything she had been told was rapidly unraveling. And so, on October 4, the day of Michael’s release, Eric kept his distance. He was not present at the courthouse to hear Judge Harle’s apology or the crowd’s applause. When classes let out that afternoon, Eric closed the door to his office and sat down in front of his computer. On the website of an Austin TV news station, he was able to find a live-streaming video of the press conference that was being held nearly two hundred miles away in Georgetown. He leaned in closer, looking on in wonder as his father—older and grayer, wearing an exuberant grin—spoke to reporters. Eric did not have the urge to be there with him, but neither did he have the impulse to turn away.
Two days later, he wrote to Raley. “I want to begin by sharing my appreciation for your hard work,” he typed. “I hope that you continue the work you have done by pursuing the true murderer.” His family, he went on, was having “difficulty processing this new information.” He described the preceding weeks as “a bit uncomfortable.” Despite that tension, he wrote, “I feel the need to begin to reconcile the situation. I cannot imagine the pain everyone has felt, and I know that I was blessed with a childhood in which I was sheltered from most of that suffering. However, I would like to slowly establish contact again with my father.”
Immediately after his release, Michael returned to East Texas with his parents and settled into their spare bedroom. In time he would assume a high profile—speaking at universities about the lack of oversight for prosecutors, meeting with lawmakers to discuss legislative reforms—but in those early days, he was intensely private. He was unaccustomed to the everyday things he had once taken for granted: using metal silverware, or carrying a wallet, or being able to push open a door. The tactile experience of being touched by another human being was foreign to him, and he was taken aback whenever his mother or his sister threw their arms around him. Though the Innocence Project made sure that a social worker who had previously worked with exonerees was present on the day he was freed and available to help him in the months that followed, he did not seek out her counsel. “It was a blessed, easy transition,” he told me. “I had my family to help me and a roof over my head. Honestly, my return to the free world was not overwhelming compared to everything I’d been through up until then.” He delighted in mundane indulgences like taking off his shoes and walking barefoot across the carpet. Even doing the laundry, he told me, was its own pleasure. “Sorting socks and folding underwear may be work for some folks,” he said, “but you approach it from a radically different perspective if you haven’t been able to wear your own clothes for twenty-five years.”
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