A Texas Court of Inquiry is set to review alle­ga­tions of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct by for­mer District Attorney Kenneth Anderson, who with­held crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion in a first-degree mur­der case in Williamson County. Although pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct has played a role in many wrong­ful con­vic­tions, includ­ing death penal­ty cas­es, such an over­sight hear­ing is unusu­al. Sam Millsap, the for­mer District Attorney of Bexar County, Texas, said, ​“I’d love to be able to tell you I am the only for­mer elect­ed pros­e­cu­tor in the coun­try who finds him­self in the posi­tion of hav­ing to admit an error in judg­ment that may have led to the exe­cu­tion of an inno­cent man, but I know I am not.” If the Court finds that Anderson’s alleged mis­con­duct ris­es to the lev­el of a crime, the case may be referred to a grand jury. Anderson, who is now a Texas judge, presided over the pros­e­cu­tion of Michael Morton (pic­tured), who was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to life for his wife’s mur­der in 1987. Evidence sug­gest­ing Morton’s inno­cence, includ­ing a bloody ban­dana found near the crime scene, was kept from the defense. DNA test­ing of the ban­dana led to Morton’s exon­er­a­tion in 2011, and impli­cat­ed anoth­er man who is also sus­pect­ed of sub­se­quent­ly mur­der­ing anoth­er woman. Anderson’s suc­ces­sor as D.A., John Bradley, who fought against allow­ing DNA test­ing in Morton’s case, has said he now believes he was wrong, adding, ​“We shouldn’t set up bar­ri­ers to the intro­duc­tion of new evidence.” 

The hear­ing will begin on December 10.

(J. Nocera, ​“A Texas Prosecutor Faces Justice,” New York Times, op-ed, November 12, 2012). See Arbitrariness, Prosecutorial Misconduct, and Innocence.

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