Latest / Wrongful Conviction / #009 Jason Flom with Michael Morton

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#009 Jason Flom with Michael Morton · Wrongful Conviction

0:01
Speaker 1: I came from a beautiful neighborhood.
0:04
Speaker 2: I had a beautiful life.
0:07
Speaker 1: I went to sleep because September seventh was the first
0:09
Speaker 1: day of my high school year. I was going to
0:11
Speaker 1: be a senior. At twenty two, I was set to
0:14
Speaker 1: start college. I woke up and my life was never
0:17
Speaker 1: the same again. Cops came out with guns drawn, and
0:21
Speaker 1: I never saw freedom ever since after that.
0:24
Speaker 2: It's like roach mode town once you get in and
0:27
Speaker 2: I can't now. This is Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm.
0:51
Speaker 3: Welcome back to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flamm today. I'm
0:55
Speaker 3: extremely pleased and honored to have someone I considered to
0:58
Speaker 3: be I guess, for lack of a better word, innocence royalty.
1:02
Speaker 3: Michael Morton, Michael, welcome to the show.
1:04
Speaker 2: Thank you, Jason.
1:05
Speaker 1: It's good to be here.
1:06
Speaker 3: So Michael is an extraordinary person in so many ways.
1:10
Speaker 3: His case is extraordinary, his life post exoneration is extraordinary.
1:15
Speaker 3: I didn't know him before this all happened, because that's
1:17
Speaker 3: a long long time ago. But what he's been able
1:20
Speaker 3: to accomplish, both inside prison and outside, is the stuff
1:24
Speaker 3: of legend.
1:26
Speaker 2: But let's go back. Michael.
1:28
Speaker 3: You served twenty four years and seven months to the
1:31
Speaker 3: day in Texas Penitentiary for a crime he didn't commit.
1:36
Speaker 1: The day that I walked in the penitentiary was on
1:40
Speaker 1: March fourth. Day that I walked out was October fourth.
1:43
Speaker 3: So you were in prison twenty four to seven. Yeah,
1:46
Speaker 3: that's that for twenty four years and seven months. But first,
1:49
Speaker 3: I just want to give the audience a sense of,
1:51
Speaker 3: you know, what kind of a person you were before
1:54
Speaker 3: all this stuff happened.
1:57
Speaker 2: I like to say that.
2:00
Speaker 1: I was the statistical bid point in the American demographic
2:03
Speaker 1: and that I was incredibly average. I went to SFA
2:07
Speaker 1: Stephen at Foston State University in Acadocia, since where I
2:09
Speaker 1: met my future wife, right and Christine. Yes, I met
2:13
Speaker 1: Christine there. It began as some romances. Do you see
2:21
Speaker 1: somebody across the room, you know, and it catches your
2:26
Speaker 1: eye or she does in my case, make a long
2:30
Speaker 1: story short, the whole deal, married, had a child, thinking
2:34
Speaker 1: about getting another child on the way here. You know, mortgage, suburbia, cars,
2:40
Speaker 1: credit cards.
2:41
Speaker 2: All that stuff sounds pretty good.
2:43
Speaker 1: It's the average. And that's why I call myself the
2:46
Speaker 1: statistical midpoint in American demographic because there was nothing unusual
2:50
Speaker 1: about my life. We had moved into our second home.
2:54
Speaker 1: We sold our first, made a nice little piece of that.
2:56
Speaker 1: We were doing well and moving up. That was the idea.
3:01
Speaker 1: And it's my thirty second birthday. And the next day,
3:06
Speaker 1: when I went to pick up my son from the sitters,
3:08
Speaker 1: which was part of my routine, the babysitter looked at
3:11
Speaker 1: me in a very odd way. What are you doing here?
3:15
Speaker 1: She said that my son wasn't there, that my wife
3:19
Speaker 1: hadn't bought him in, which was very unusual for our routine.
3:21
Speaker 1: Every family has a rhythm that they live in. And
3:25
Speaker 1: the fact that I had not received any phone call
3:27
Speaker 1: from my wife, she hadn't bought him with the sitters,
3:30
Speaker 1: it was very bizarre. So I just snatched the sitter's
3:33
Speaker 1: phone off the wall and called home, and to my surprise,
3:37
Speaker 1: a man answered and identified himself as the sheriff. And
3:41
Speaker 1: he wouldn't tell me anything except I needed to come
3:43
Speaker 1: home right away, and.
3:47
Speaker 2: Your heart is now gone a million miles a minute. Yeah.
3:52
Speaker 1: I literally ran to my truck and it's about a
3:57
Speaker 1: five minute drive home from there, and five minutes doesn't
4:01
Speaker 1: sound much time. I mean, even though you're breaking the
4:06
Speaker 1: speed limit and run the stop signs to get home,
4:08
Speaker 1: because the sheriff just answered, you're you know, you're running
4:11
Speaker 1: a mental inventory. What in the world could have happened,
4:15
Speaker 1: and you know you run through well, k could have
4:18
Speaker 1: been a fire, could have been a burglary, the wife
4:22
Speaker 1: may have been attacked, could be rape, and oh my god,
4:25
Speaker 1: could be murdered too. And I knew something had happened
4:30
Speaker 1: to my wife. And as I literally slid up to
4:34
Speaker 1: my house, there were police cars all around the house,
4:37
Speaker 1: a very large yellow crime scene ribbon had been wrapped
4:40
Speaker 1: all the way around the yard. And saw a couple
4:43
Speaker 1: of cops in the front yard, uniform cops. And there
4:47
Speaker 1: were neighbors, you know, people I knew, were on the
4:49
Speaker 1: sidewalks across the street, little clusters, and as I slipped
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Speaker 1: the curb, you know, they all took note of me.
4:57
Speaker 1: It's almost a priferl awareness, you know, because oh my god,
5:00
Speaker 1: what's here happening at my house? But you also see
5:03
Speaker 1: the things going on around you, or you sense them.
5:06
Speaker 1: And I ducked under the crime and seeing ribbon, and
5:09
Speaker 1: I was hanging to the front door when the police
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Speaker 1: stopped me because they didn't know who I was. And
5:14
Speaker 1: the sheriff showed up very quickly when they stopped me
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Speaker 1: out in the front yard, and he identified himself and
5:21
Speaker 1: he asked me to identify myself. The first words out
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Speaker 1: of my mouth were actually about my son, and the
5:30
Speaker 1: sheriff told me that he was fine. He was at
5:31
Speaker 1: a neighbor's house shoot doors down, and when I asked
5:35
Speaker 1: about my wife, he informed me in an almost matter of
5:38
Speaker 1: fact fashion, that she was dead, and because the house
5:43
Speaker 1: appeared to look intact, it hadn't been burned. I asked
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Speaker 1: if it was murder, and he said it was yes.
5:50
Speaker 3: So when did you start to get the sense that
5:52
Speaker 3: they felt that you were a suspect.
5:55
Speaker 1: Initially I did not. They were asking some very odd questions,
6:01
Speaker 1: and I was intellectualizing, Okay, they have to ask these
6:06
Speaker 1: rather pointed, uncomfortable questions because they're trying to piece everything together,
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Speaker 1: and you know, they have to eliminate me as a suspect.
6:12
Speaker 1: I get that, you know, after all, I've watched TV.
6:15
Speaker 1: I know how this works. TV and reality don't always mesh.
6:20
Speaker 1: But I got that. It wasn't until a few days later,
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Speaker 1: when I was interviewed by the police again and again
6:27
Speaker 1: that I was quite frustrated with their line of questioning,
6:33
Speaker 1: and I was also frustrated with what I perceived to
6:35
Speaker 1: be their inability or unwillingness to do this, to do
6:41
Speaker 1: this investigation property and professionally. And in a moment of frustration,
6:44
Speaker 1: I volunteered for a polygraph test. I said, look, if
6:47
Speaker 1: I take a polygraph test, will you believe me? And
6:50
Speaker 1: they lit up like very very happy children. And very
6:56
Speaker 1: shortly after that is when one of my neighbors, an attorney,
7:00
Speaker 1: suggested that I retain counsel. That he had a couple
7:05
Speaker 1: of friends who were very good criminal defense attorneys, Bill
7:08
Speaker 1: White and Bill Allison in Austin, Texas, and I went
7:12
Speaker 1: to see them, and it was shortly before that that
7:18
Speaker 1: everything went south. They were gunning for me that, for
7:23
Speaker 1: whatever reason, they looked around the crime scene, before any interviews,
7:27
Speaker 1: before any lab tests, before a single thing had happened,
7:31
Speaker 1: as far as in an investigative sense, they decided that
7:35
Speaker 1: I was the guy I had done it.
7:38
Speaker 2: So ultimately, how long was it before you were arrested
7:43
Speaker 2: and charged?
7:44
Speaker 1: It's about six weeks, pardon me. Six weeks after my
7:49
Speaker 1: wife's death, I was home with my son, just the
7:53
Speaker 1: two of us, in fact, we were making as much
7:56
Speaker 1: as he could help. We're making dinner and we're in
7:59
Speaker 1: the kitchen and the knock at the door, and I
8:02
Speaker 1: picked up my son because you know, you leave him
8:04
Speaker 1: in the kitchen with all the you know, hot water
8:06
Speaker 1: boil and all that kind of stuff. This hot went
8:08
Speaker 1: to answer the door, and to my utter shock, it
8:12
Speaker 1: was the sheriff and number of deputies there to arrest me,
8:19
Speaker 1: and I was flabbergasted. I did not expect them to
8:23
Speaker 1: do this. And as bad as being arrested is the
8:29
Speaker 1: worst part was having my son torn up from my
8:34
Speaker 1: arms because I tried to think about what was he
8:37
Speaker 1: going through. Basically got him there on my hip and
8:41
Speaker 1: they're wanting to handcuff me. And the last time my
8:47
Speaker 1: son has seen the police had been a really bad day,
8:50
Speaker 1: as the day as mother is.
8:51
Speaker 2: Killed and or imaginable Africa.
8:55
Speaker 1: And suddenly the police were back and I could feel
8:59
Speaker 1: me wrapped his legs around my waist and he didn't
9:01
Speaker 1: want to let go, but they, you know, they peel
9:03
Speaker 1: him loose. I was trying to comfort him and he's
9:05
Speaker 1: calling for me, and that was the worst part. As
9:08
Speaker 1: bad as being arrested is, as much worse seeing what
9:12
Speaker 1: I was doing to my son, Because any any parent
9:15
Speaker 1: knows that before you have a child, you are the
9:18
Speaker 1: center of your own universe, and then after you have
9:21
Speaker 1: that child, your perspective changes.
9:25
Speaker 3: Now comes to trial, so you're in now in this
9:31
Speaker 3: bizarre dream NightWare world of the criminal justice system sort
9:38
Speaker 3: of working exactly the way it's not supposed to and this, uh,
9:43
Speaker 3: these prosecutors are up there painting you as a murderer
9:46
Speaker 3: and saying all sorts of.
9:49
Speaker 1: Being on trial for murder. It's not what you think
9:55
Speaker 1: you know. Most everybody has their perspective of the way
10:00
Speaker 1: these things go because of TV and movies and books.
10:03
Speaker 2: You read about it.
10:04
Speaker 1: You think you know about it, but it's a completely
10:09
Speaker 1: separate world. It's a different universe. It's a subculture you're
10:12
Speaker 1: not familiar with. They have their own language and they
10:15
Speaker 1: have customs and they have rituals that you don't know
10:18
Speaker 1: anything about. And the only thing you can do is
10:22
Speaker 1: listen to your attorneys. I mean, they're supposed to know
10:25
Speaker 1: what's going on. They've done it before, they know the
10:27
Speaker 1: way the system works. And you're torn between taking their
10:32
Speaker 1: advice from these experts you've hired as opposed to the
10:36
Speaker 1: way you feel about what you should do. And when
10:41
Speaker 1: you're torn like that between those two worlds, between what
10:43
Speaker 1: you think and what you feel, it's always a battle
10:49
Speaker 1: of what's in control. I mean, is it your head
10:51
Speaker 1: or is it your heart?
10:53
Speaker 2: You have an example of that, Okay.
10:56
Speaker 1: One of the purely fabricated issues in my trial was
11:02
Speaker 1: that the prosecutor came up with this idea that because
11:05
Speaker 1: there was a semen stained on our bed on the sheets,
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Speaker 1: that in his mind that meant that I had masturbated
11:14
Speaker 1: with my wife's dead hand.
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Speaker 2: Wow.
11:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I didn't know where that came from. And
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Speaker 1: you want to jump up and scream and you know,
11:23
Speaker 1: deny it, maybe calling names or just you know that
11:26
Speaker 1: kind of insult. You almost want to jump on somebody.
11:29
Speaker 1: And yet you know that this is a sort of
11:32
Speaker 1: a binary adversarial kind of Okay, you'll get your turn,
11:36
Speaker 1: sit down, you know, be cool, don't make the jury
11:40
Speaker 1: think you're some kind of nut, and you know, we'll
11:44
Speaker 1: clean this up. And so that's the kind of thing
11:46
Speaker 1: that you're torn between. Is you know that you should
11:49
Speaker 1: take your attorney's advice because of the stuff that said,
11:53
Speaker 1: steak here your very life and yet you have this
11:59
Speaker 1: visceral response to some of these accusations that are just bloney.
12:03
Speaker 2: You know, where did this come from.
12:05
Speaker 3: Let's talk for a second about the exculpatory evidence that
12:09
Speaker 3: was withheld.
12:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the great things that the Innocence Project
12:13
Speaker 1: does is their DNA exonerations. But you never know what
12:19
Speaker 1: a DNA test is going to reveal until you run
12:21
Speaker 1: the DNA test. And so before the tests were actually done,
12:25
Speaker 1: they had a parallel legal attack on my case, and
12:28
Speaker 1: one of them was a Texas Open Records Act, which
12:31
Speaker 1: is very very similar to the Freedom Information Act at
12:34
Speaker 1: the federal level. And so we actually got access to
12:38
Speaker 1: the prosecutor and the sheriff's files from eighty six and
12:42
Speaker 1: eighty seven, and at this time, you know, we're in
12:44
Speaker 1: the twenty first century looking back in this is the
12:46
Speaker 1: appellate thing. And in those files we found out that,
12:50
Speaker 1: despite the request by my attorneys and a direct order
12:54
Speaker 1: from the judge, the prosecution and the shriff's department suppressed
13:00
Speaker 1: key pieces of evidence that would have pointed to my
13:03
Speaker 1: innocence and would have helped immensely at our trial. And
13:07
Speaker 1: my attorneys were begging for this kind of stuff, but
13:09
Speaker 1: they had no mechanism to get to it because the
13:12
Speaker 1: prosecutor was between us and the evidence. And one of
13:16
Speaker 1: the things was a check that had been cash after
13:18
Speaker 1: my wife's death, a instance of her credit card being used,
13:23
Speaker 1: supposedly down in San Antonio few days after her death.
13:26
Speaker 1: And the biggie was this transcript of a phone call.
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Speaker 1: My son, unbeknownst to me, had apparently witnessed my wife's murder.
13:38
Speaker 1: Remember now, he was three at the time, and everybody,
13:41
Speaker 1: I mean even the police, were concerned about my son.
13:44
Speaker 1: And in the time between my wife's murder and my incarceration,
13:50
Speaker 1: I had taken him to several child psychologists and some
13:55
Speaker 1: he got along with some he didn't. But the gist
13:56
Speaker 1: of it all was that they all told me, look,
13:59
Speaker 1: he is obviously so offering from what you might call
14:01
Speaker 1: separation anxiety because his mother's gone. But we don't believe
14:05
Speaker 1: that he has witnessed anything horrible, or more importantly, nothing
14:08
Speaker 1: horribly been done to him, and so that was a
14:11
Speaker 1: bit of release, but relief.
14:13
Speaker 2: Rather.
14:14
Speaker 1: However, unbeknownst to me, he had told my mother in law,
14:19
Speaker 1: his grandmother, that he mentioned a lot of things about
14:22
Speaker 1: my wife being murdered, to her, and he mentioned some
14:26
Speaker 1: very physical, distinct things about the crime scene that police
14:29
Speaker 1: had withheld from the media that only they knew, which
14:32
Speaker 1: is part of procedure because if somebody wants to come
14:34
Speaker 1: up and confess, they have to kind of prove that
14:36
Speaker 1: they did it, or they also want to be able
14:38
Speaker 1: to prove or catch somebody who's being interrogated. So, you know,
14:45
Speaker 1: here's this transcript of my son's admissions about witnessing my
14:50
Speaker 1: wife's murder, which would have been huge because he talked
14:53
Speaker 1: about a man with a big mustache and red gloves
14:57
Speaker 1: and having to hit mommy and think, goodness, my mother
15:00
Speaker 1: law had asked him where why I was? You know,
15:04
Speaker 1: was Daddy there? And my son very distinctly said no,
15:07
Speaker 1: And so that would have been a wild wonderful thing
15:11
Speaker 1: to have a trial.
15:12
Speaker 2: Well, it would have led to your exoneration.
15:14
Speaker 3: So the jury is requestered the argument, the closing arguments
15:20
Speaker 3: have been done.
15:22
Speaker 2: The jury goes out, how long were they out for?
15:27
Speaker 1: I think it was about ninety minutes, but that doesn't
15:31
Speaker 1: mean they deliberated for ninety minutes because they also had lunch, so.
15:34
Speaker 2: It could have been forty five minutes.
15:36
Speaker 1: It could have been thirty. Yeah, it depending how fast
15:38
Speaker 1: you eat.
15:38
Speaker 2: So they didn't deliberate it very long, not very long
15:40
Speaker 2: at all.
15:40
Speaker 1: There wasn't how long was the trial. It was ten days,
15:44
Speaker 1: two weeks.
15:45
Speaker 2: Right, so they were ready to go home. Oh yeah.
15:47
Speaker 1: And while actually they weren't sequestered, they are instructed, as
15:51
Speaker 1: in all criminal cases, you cannot talk to anybody about this,
15:53
Speaker 1: don't watch TV, don't read newspapers, don't go in the internet,
15:56
Speaker 1: even though there wasn'tn internet back then for most of us.
15:59
Speaker 1: And so that was a really quick thing. They were
16:02
Speaker 1: back in no time, and you got to stand up
16:06
Speaker 1: when they read the verdict. And in my mind anyway,
16:12
Speaker 1: I was expecting a not guilty verdict because everything that
16:15
Speaker 1: they had brought forward, for the most part, had been
16:18
Speaker 1: emotional pleased without any hard data, no irrefutable science. We
16:25
Speaker 1: had countered everything they threw out there.
16:27
Speaker 2: It was purely circumstantial.
16:29
Speaker 1: Yes, that courtroom there was standing room only. And here's
16:35
Speaker 1: the weird thing. When you're in these really intense, emotional,
16:40
Speaker 1: weighty situations, you're focused on the judge and the jury,
16:49
Speaker 1: and for just a moment you're not aware of the
16:52
Speaker 1: closest people to you being right behind you. You're not
16:56
Speaker 1: aware that there are a line of cops very nearby
16:58
Speaker 1: ready to seize you. You're not aware of the sounds,
17:03
Speaker 1: you're not aware of the temperature. You're very, very focused
17:06
Speaker 1: on the people that are going to decide your fate
17:09
Speaker 1: for the rest of your life, right here and right now.
17:12
Speaker 1: And I had more than an expectation of being found
17:17
Speaker 1: not guilty. And when they said guilty, it knocked the
17:23
Speaker 1: wind out of me. And I didn't collapse on the ground,
17:28
Speaker 1: but my knees buckled and I sat down in my chair,
17:32
Speaker 1: and it was an involuntary act. If the chair had
17:34
Speaker 1: not been in there, i'd have fallen to the floor.
17:36
Speaker 1: And I did hear the wails of my mother. I
17:41
Speaker 1: think some people were surprised, some people were glad. It
17:45
Speaker 1: was a real mixed bag. But once the di verdict
17:48
Speaker 1: was in, then you become the murderous perv, the boogeyman,
17:52
Speaker 1: the guy there that everybody hates.
18:06
Speaker 3: So now you're found guilty and you're sent to Texas prison?
18:10
Speaker 2: Right? Is it as bad as it sounds. Prison?
18:16
Speaker 1: It's not what you think it is. It's a subculture.
18:21
Speaker 1: It's very insular. It's not like the outside world. And
18:25
Speaker 1: when you get there. I got some great advice while
18:28
Speaker 1: I was in County jail. There was an old guy
18:30
Speaker 1: in County jail before I went down to the penitentiary,
18:34
Speaker 1: and he told me. He said, you'll be okay. You know,
18:39
Speaker 1: you're a grown man. You're thirty two. You're not going
18:41
Speaker 1: down there at nineteen. But he said, in the beginning,
18:45
Speaker 1: keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. And I
18:50
Speaker 1: found that to be some of the best advice I
18:51
Speaker 1: ever received. The penitentiary is a violent place, in terminal
19:00
Speaker 1: boredom and then absolute horror, and that's kind of what
19:05
Speaker 1: it's like. But after a while inside you become desensitized
19:10
Speaker 1: to the violence.
19:11
Speaker 2: I've heard you talk about the noise.
19:14
Speaker 1: Do you remember inside there's a constant din or roar.
19:21
Speaker 1: Gates are slamming, PA systems blaring, a lot of people
19:27
Speaker 1: talking at the same time. In the mornings, the TV's
19:30
Speaker 1: come on in the day room, and late at night
19:34
Speaker 1: they're turned off. In between, they're on different channels and
19:37
Speaker 1: they're on full blast, and you're in a concrete and
19:41
Speaker 1: steel room and the sounds bouncing off and people are
19:44
Speaker 1: slamming dominoes on metal tables and yelling at each other,
19:48
Speaker 1: and it's like Dante's Inferno. What keeps you going is
19:54
Speaker 1: what keeps you going. My first year down there, because
19:57
Speaker 1: of a similar schedule, I started seeing one guy down
20:00
Speaker 1: at the gym whenever I would go to the gym,
20:03
Speaker 1: and just by convenience sake proximity, we started talking. Then
20:08
Speaker 1: I found out that he had already been there twenty
20:10
Speaker 1: years when I just drove up. And our personalities we're
20:13
Speaker 1: close enough where we formed something of a friendship to acquaintances.
20:17
Speaker 1: And one weekend, somebody on our cell block hanged himself,
20:24
Speaker 1: died right there, and for a while that was the
20:27
Speaker 1: talk of the cell block. You know, so and so
20:29
Speaker 1: killed himself. And my new friend, Lonnie, had been there
20:34
Speaker 1: a while, he'd seen this happen quite a few times.
20:39
Speaker 1: And I mentioned it to him and he said, oh yeah.
20:42
Speaker 1: The guy didn't have anything to look forward to. And
20:45
Speaker 1: he told me, he said, you have to have hope.
20:49
Speaker 1: It can be remodeling an old house, restoring an old marriage,
20:55
Speaker 1: that doesn't matter what it is. You have to have
20:57
Speaker 1: something look forward to. And in a very offhanded way,
21:00
Speaker 1: he said, like you, it's your son, And that's kind
21:02
Speaker 1: of surprised me. I didn't realize that I was being
21:03
Speaker 1: that transparent. But he said, without hope, without something to
21:07
Speaker 1: look forward to, no matter what it is, you won't
21:12
Speaker 1: want to get out of bed in the morning. You
21:14
Speaker 1: won't want to live in that place or the rest
21:15
Speaker 1: of your life. You'll either hang yourself or cut your
21:19
Speaker 1: own throat, or jump off the third tier. And I've
21:22
Speaker 1: seen guys do all three.
21:24
Speaker 2: Wow, So your son would visit and he was your hope.
21:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is one of those wonderful, strange, I thank
21:37
Speaker 1: God moments, the kind of thing where you have something
21:41
Speaker 1: precious and wonderful that you're projecting onto and you're hoping for.
21:46
Speaker 1: And I got to see him about every six months,
21:50
Speaker 1: and then that changed. While that was a wonderful thing,
21:56
Speaker 1: at a certain point, my son reached early puberty, early
21:59
Speaker 1: team and he's getting tired of coming down there to
22:02
Speaker 1: see his dad, and the people raising him aren't saying
22:04
Speaker 1: good things about me, and he wants to end the
22:07
Speaker 1: visits and he does. And I made him come down
22:12
Speaker 1: there and tell me that, and your schedule for to
22:18
Speaker 1: our visits in Texas depending on how far away you are.
22:22
Speaker 1: And when they came to see me the last time,
22:26
Speaker 1: got right to it. And asked him if it was
22:28
Speaker 1: our last visit, and he told me it was. And
22:32
Speaker 1: I turned to my sister in law, the lady raising him.
22:36
Speaker 1: I told him, told her to take good care of
22:38
Speaker 1: my son. And I told my son that he always
22:40
Speaker 1: knew where to find me.
22:41
Speaker 2: And I walked to the visiting room.
22:44
Speaker 1: That scheduled to our visit last about two minutes. And
22:49
Speaker 1: it's one of you hear that kind of news, You
22:52
Speaker 1: go through that kind of thing. And I'd been inside
22:54
Speaker 1: a while, and I'd already had something of that shell
22:57
Speaker 1: around me, that tough guy persona, but I still felt
23:01
Speaker 1: as if I'd been kicked in the face. I was numb.
23:06
Speaker 1: I was kind of walking through a haze. I knew
23:08
Speaker 1: the real pain would come later, just like being kicked
23:11
Speaker 1: in the face. But it's the last time I saw
23:15
Speaker 1: him while I was inside, and I still had another
23:19
Speaker 1: Oh by then another twelve or fourteen years ago.
23:26
Speaker 3: So now you your hope is gone. But you didn't
23:30
Speaker 3: take the let's call it the easy way out. You
23:33
Speaker 3: saw guys hanging themselves, jumping off tears, slitting their own throats.
23:39
Speaker 2: What did what happened?
23:42
Speaker 1: Well, I did something that was very uncharacteristic for me
23:44
Speaker 1: at the time, I was completely emotionally, utterly just empty, gutted, wounded,
23:52
Speaker 1: and I didn't know what to do or where to go,
23:54
Speaker 1: which way to turn. And the uncharacteristic thing that I
23:57
Speaker 1: did is I cried out to God, you know, show
24:00
Speaker 1: me something. I got nothing here.
24:01
Speaker 2: But you are't a religious guy at the time.
24:03
Speaker 1: Nah, nah, nah, and get I got nothing. You know,
24:08
Speaker 1: I didn't hear this voice from above, you know, Michael,
24:11
Speaker 1: it's gonna rain.
24:11
Speaker 2: Build a boat.
24:13
Speaker 1: It was absolutely nothing. And you know what, in all
24:16
Speaker 1: candor that not getting a response was sort of what
24:21
Speaker 1: I expected because things had been going so badly for
24:25
Speaker 1: so long. Yeah, why is it going to change in
24:28
Speaker 1: a heartbeat like this? You know, just because I'm suffering?
24:31
Speaker 2: Boo hoo.
24:33
Speaker 1: And then about a week or so later, completely normal day,
24:39
Speaker 1: nothing special, work, jim eat, sleep. It's late at nights,
24:45
Speaker 1: my usual bedtime. My cell partners on the bottom bunk,
24:50
Speaker 1: he's already sleep. I decided to kill the light and
24:53
Speaker 1: turn on the radio, go down the dial a few times,
24:56
Speaker 1: and call it a night. With your headphones, yes, with
24:58
Speaker 1: my headphones on. That was that was my routine. I
25:01
Speaker 1: had done this thousands of nights Before this, this was
25:04
Speaker 1: just what you do in the penitentiary, and every indicator
25:07
Speaker 1: a pellet and otherwise is I was going to be
25:09
Speaker 1: doing this for thousands of more nights. This was my life,
25:13
Speaker 1: and so I did this. At the time, I was
25:15
Speaker 1: in a penitential a little south of Houston, and I
25:17
Speaker 1: picked up a classical station out of Houston, and there's
25:20
Speaker 1: a what sounded to me like a lady playing a harp.
25:25
Speaker 1: You know, you might have been a guy, but in
25:27
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm listening to this lady playing a harp.
25:29
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but you don't hear
25:31
Speaker 1: too much harp music on the radio. It's just.
25:36
Speaker 2: Or in prison, especially in prison.
25:39
Speaker 1: And so I listened to him for a moment because
25:41
Speaker 1: that's something of a novelty. And now it's comically apropos
25:48
Speaker 1: But after listening to that for just a moment, with
25:51
Speaker 1: no warning whatsoever, just boom like that, I found myself
25:57
Speaker 1: bathed in golden light, inexplicable, wonderful, beautiful, reassuring golden light.
26:04
Speaker 1: And I could see nothing but this golden light. And
26:07
Speaker 1: I heard this roaring in my ears, and I felt wonderful.
26:10
Speaker 1: I don't know if I was, but I felt like
26:11
Speaker 1: I might have been floating on my buck I don't know.
26:13
Speaker 1: I just this wonderful, fantastic, beautiful sensation, and I was sure,
26:18
Speaker 1: without having to be having it explained to me, it
26:21
Speaker 1: was self evident that I was in the presence of God.
26:26
Speaker 1: And I felt this reassurance and this undeniable, limitless focus
26:32
Speaker 1: of love aimed right at me. And it was profound
26:38
Speaker 1: and wonderful and reassuring and a fantastic and it changed
26:46
Speaker 1: everything about me and my perspective and my life. And
26:53
Speaker 1: then I heard my alarm going off, and I reflexively
26:56
Speaker 1: just turned it off, like I did every morning, and
26:59
Speaker 1: I sat up in my bunk and I thought, WHOA,
27:03
Speaker 1: I'm not accustomed supernatural experiences. I don't have a psychistory.
27:07
Speaker 1: I don't you know all the stuff. And I'm going
27:10
Speaker 1: I knew what that was. But like all profound things
27:14
Speaker 1: in your life, I think why. It's probably the most
27:19
Speaker 1: important question you can ask. And I didn't have a clue.
27:24
Speaker 1: Why did this happen to me? Here I am some
27:26
Speaker 1: guy just sitting the penitentiary. And I spent probably months
27:32
Speaker 1: chewing on this, thinking, reading, talking to people, giving a
27:36
Speaker 1: little praying about you know what's going on here. And
27:39
Speaker 1: the simplest thing is what you might call Ockham's razor,
27:44
Speaker 1: that philosophical notion that the simplest explanation, until proven wrong,
27:49
Speaker 1: is probably the best. And it hit me that the
27:53
Speaker 1: only thing that had happened is I had asked, you know,
27:57
Speaker 1: help God, please show me something. I got nothing here.
28:01
Speaker 2: You literally had nothing.
28:02
Speaker 1: I nowhere to go. And he said, okay, look, And
28:08
Speaker 1: I knew this is real because it changed me inside.
28:13
Speaker 1: This wasn't some sort of, you know, intellectual conclusion I
28:17
Speaker 1: reached after, you know, some kind of investigation. This this
28:20
Speaker 1: is something that happened to me. And the reason I
28:22
Speaker 1: know that it's real and almost irrational but genuine, is
28:27
Speaker 1: that I'm different. After this happened to me, I wanted
28:33
Speaker 1: different things, and I disliked other things. In fact, my
28:36
Speaker 1: life did a point eighty. The things that I had
28:38
Speaker 1: hated now I was loving them. The things that I
28:41
Speaker 1: had loved, now I was hating them, and the whole,
28:43
Speaker 1: the good, bad, the right and wrong dynamic. There the
28:47
Speaker 1: conundmum we all wrestle with was suddenly plain to me.
28:51
Speaker 1: It made sense, and things did get better.
29:08
Speaker 3: It took a long time from there, right, But then
29:12
Speaker 3: the Innocence Project. Let's talk about the Innocence Project. You are, yeah,
29:16
Speaker 3: you're a big fan, you can say that. Yeah, what
29:20
Speaker 3: happened was early on.
29:23
Speaker 1: DNA was just in its infancy when I got convicted,
29:26
Speaker 1: and as things started evolving, you started seeing these things
29:28
Speaker 1: in the newspaper, were on TV. And not only did
29:32
Speaker 1: I write a letter, but my parents did, my aunt did,
29:35
Speaker 1: my sister did. Thence to the Instance Project asking for
29:39
Speaker 1: you know, hey, look at my case. The Instance Project
29:42
Speaker 1: is very above board, very transparent.
29:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no jumping the line, so to speak, except
29:48
Speaker 3: for death penalty cases, which of course those have to
29:51
Speaker 3: go to the front because otherwise it's too late and
29:53
Speaker 3: there's no reversing that.
29:55
Speaker 2: But so, but your case did make it to the
29:57
Speaker 2: top of the to the top of the pile.
30:00
Speaker 1: Case got resolved because in essence of DNA evidence, there
30:07
Speaker 1: were lots of questions. We talked about that accusation of
30:10
Speaker 1: being the murderous perv with my wife's the dead hand.
30:13
Speaker 1: Well there was a stain on the bed sheet, there
30:16
Speaker 1: are you know, there was an autopsy. So we start
30:19
Speaker 1: slowly getting incremental successes in court about okay, well, test
30:23
Speaker 1: that stain test, some of the the swaps from the autopsy,
30:29
Speaker 1: and we're and there's also like there's this bandana that
30:32
Speaker 1: was found behind our house that had human blood on it.
30:36
Speaker 1: But that's as far as they ever went because, you know,
30:38
Speaker 1: eighty six eighty seven, there was no advanced scientific way
30:43
Speaker 1: of finding out what was what. So we're starting to
30:46
Speaker 1: get these tests done and the courts being I don't
30:51
Speaker 1: want to say biased, but you know, the the Pellet
30:53
Speaker 1: court seemed to lean towards the prosecution. You have, you know,
30:56
Speaker 1: you have a conviction here, and you're upsetting the apple a.
31:00
Speaker 2: Bit, a perfectly good conviction.
31:02
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, Well what are you trying to
31:04
Speaker 1: do here? You're trying to undermine the process. And so
31:07
Speaker 1: these things are being tested, but they're coming back either
31:10
Speaker 1: negative or inconclusive. For instance, like the stain on the
31:13
Speaker 1: sheet that came about with the whole murder's perv accusation,
31:17
Speaker 1: we'll come to find out that wasn't what they called
31:20
Speaker 1: a neat stain. That was what's in every marriage bed.
31:23
Speaker 1: It's what they called a mixed stain of both male
31:27
Speaker 1: and female fluids. It's in every marriage bed. And so
31:30
Speaker 1: that kind of completely blew that whole pervert aspect of
31:35
Speaker 1: that accusation. But then also the swaps from the autopsy
31:39
Speaker 1: those came back negative, negative, negative, And so it's looking
31:41
Speaker 1: like there's less and less to happen here. Things just
31:43
Speaker 1: aren't looking good. In fact, I even sent a letter
31:46
Speaker 1: to the Instance Project that you know, I understand you've
31:50
Speaker 1: been moving head on earth here, but it looks like
31:51
Speaker 1: we're not getting much results here and if you have
31:54
Speaker 1: to step away, I understand because the Instance Project has
31:56
Speaker 1: limited resources and they can't just throw good money after
31:58
Speaker 1: bad on an unwin case. And the last piece of
32:02
Speaker 1: evidence that they fought, fought and fought and finally got
32:04
Speaker 1: access to was this blue bandana that was found behind
32:08
Speaker 1: my house that had some blood on it, and they
32:13
Speaker 1: finally got it tested and in a almost a supernatural revelation,
32:19
Speaker 1: the the are some project aways. Has to have an
32:22
Speaker 1: attorney of record from the state where they're where they're
32:25
Speaker 1: carrying out this appeal, and this one was John Rayley.
32:29
Speaker 1: He was a pro bono lawyer out of Houston. He's
32:31
Speaker 1: a civil attorney, never done a criminal case in his life,
32:35
Speaker 1: but he and Nina Morrison with the Instant the Project
32:38
Speaker 1: did a lot of the underlying work of this and
32:42
Speaker 1: if the hearing before this blue bandana was tested, John
32:45
Speaker 1: really says something I was reading the record about it,
32:49
Speaker 1: that this bandana, he said, we should test it, your honor,
32:52
Speaker 1: because it might have the victims DNA on it, it
32:56
Speaker 1: might have the assailants DNA on it. It might have
33:00
Speaker 1: the key to turning to turning this whole case around.
33:04
Speaker 1: But unless you test it or allow us to test it,
33:07
Speaker 1: we'll never know. And the Answers Project is willing to
33:09
Speaker 1: pay for everything, the lap test that transports everything. Just
33:12
Speaker 1: just let us do it and we will either confirm
33:15
Speaker 1: your conviction and make it unassailable or will free an
33:18
Speaker 1: innocent man. And in a wildly weirdly profought prophetic sort
33:24
Speaker 1: of statement, that's what was said in court. And that's
33:26
Speaker 1: exactly what happened. Is that bandana had my wife's DNA
33:32
Speaker 1: on it, and it also had co mingled DNA with
33:37
Speaker 1: hers on that bandana belonging to a male, not me,
33:42
Speaker 1: And that's wonderful, But that wasn't a get out of
33:46
Speaker 1: JEO free card.
33:48
Speaker 3: But there was another break in the case, which is
33:50
Speaker 3: that the actual killer who And this is tragic, another.
33:57
Speaker 2: Tragic aspect of this, There.
34:01
Speaker 3: Was a very similar murder nearby in the months after
34:05
Speaker 3: your wife's murder.
34:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was inside the penitential about seventeen months when
34:11
Speaker 1: another murder was committed in Austin. What's bizarre is in
34:18
Speaker 1: a very creepy way. The victim of this murder was
34:23
Speaker 1: a woman named Deborah Baker. I like my wife. She
34:27
Speaker 1: was a woman in her early thirties, long dark hair,
34:34
Speaker 1: young child was home alone at the time. There was
34:38
Speaker 1: no forced entry at either home. They were both beaten
34:46
Speaker 1: to death about the head and very violent deaths. The
34:51
Speaker 1: houses were ransacked a bit, some things were taken, some
34:54
Speaker 1: things were left behind. It was very unusual. And this
34:58
Speaker 1: it all had happened on the thirteenth of the month.
35:02
Speaker 2: And it's a lot of coincidence.
35:05
Speaker 1: When the DNA from that bandana was run through Cotis,
35:11
Speaker 1: I actually got news of it on my birthday, a
35:15
Speaker 1: few months after the DNA was first found, and there
35:20
Speaker 1: was a hit on Cotis and this guy named Mark
35:23
Speaker 1: Norwood was on the bandana and my attorney friend, John
35:33
Speaker 1: Rayley's wife and a an legal paralegal and RN had
35:43
Speaker 1: gotten together and they were on the Internet and they
35:44
Speaker 1: were looking up cold cases in Austin, and they found
35:47
Speaker 1: this woman's case that paralleled, if not mirrored, my own,
35:54
Speaker 1: and they brought it to the Austin Police department and
35:57
Speaker 1: they said, look, we've got this case and the almost identical.
36:01
Speaker 1: We've got your perpetrator who in one case we think
36:04
Speaker 1: he's good for the other one. And here's his name,
36:07
Speaker 1: here's his DNA profile, and here's his address. We think
36:11
Speaker 1: he might want to look at him. And they did,
36:14
Speaker 1: and they did the great credit. Oh absolutely, this was
36:17
Speaker 1: a different police department than had come after me, and
36:21
Speaker 1: they were gung ho and they match it up immediately,
36:24
Speaker 1: and within weeks they had after my release, they arrested
36:28
Speaker 1: this guy. And these two murders were frighteningly similar. And
36:34
Speaker 1: that was the impetus to make the prosecutor who was
36:38
Speaker 1: handling the Pellet situation for the county, agreed to let
36:42
Speaker 1: me out because there was another murder.
36:45
Speaker 3: You're freed out into the sunshine twenty four years and
36:49
Speaker 3: seven days, twenty four hours a day. And then things
36:52
Speaker 3: take another interesting turn, right, which is that it's it's
36:58
Speaker 3: a crazy thing that in this country, no prosecutor has
37:05
Speaker 3: ever gone to jail until your case for a wrongful
37:10
Speaker 3: conviction resulting in incarceration. But Ken Anderson was now a judge, right,
37:15
Speaker 3: he had been promoted, And that's that's a crazy thing too, Right,
37:18
Speaker 3: he won District Attorney of the Year after he wrongly
37:22
Speaker 3: convicted you and ralful convicted you, and it was ultimately
37:28
Speaker 3: became Ultimately he became a judge.
37:30
Speaker 2: And so.
37:32
Speaker 3: The prosecutor from misconduct was uncovered. Right, the fact that
37:38
Speaker 3: he had in fact had access and was aware of
37:42
Speaker 3: these pieces of evidence.
37:44
Speaker 1: After I got out, they had a quarter of inquiry
37:46
Speaker 1: in Texas to determine whether or not anything had happened.
37:48
Speaker 1: Didn't rely on his memory, didn't rely on what other
37:51
Speaker 1: people said. There was a record of these things being requested.
37:56
Speaker 1: I mean when the judge asked to prosecutor straight up,
37:59
Speaker 1: do you have anything else, and they say no, that's
38:03
Speaker 1: against the law, that violates Brady. And what happened to
38:09
Speaker 1: Ken Anderson was here's this sitting judge and the state
38:13
Speaker 1: bar in the state of Texas. They're coming after him.
38:16
Speaker 1: And at the end of it all, there were there
38:18
Speaker 1: were some issues with you know, statue limitations, some other things,
38:21
Speaker 1: but the bottom line was there was a plea. At
38:23
Speaker 1: the end of it all. He was removed from the bench,
38:28
Speaker 1: which was a great thing because he can no longer
38:30
Speaker 1: do to me what he did other folks. He also
38:32
Speaker 1: had his law license taken away. He had I think
38:36
Speaker 1: it was a five hundred dollar of fine, five hundred
38:38
Speaker 1: hours community service. And for all the lawyers are telling
38:43
Speaker 1: me that, for the first time that anybody knows of
38:45
Speaker 1: in America, he was a judge was acted well, a
38:48
Speaker 1: prosecutor was sent to jail for misconduct and murder trial.
38:53
Speaker 1: And if you know anybody in the criminal justice world
38:56
Speaker 1: talks to the lawyers, this sent ripples all across the country.
39:00
Speaker 1: This hadn't happened before. And I was amazed at the
39:06
Speaker 1: the way that the other lawyers were incensed. Not just
39:12
Speaker 1: the defense bar, but the prosecutors hated this too, because
39:15
Speaker 1: it's like when there's a bad cop revealed, the other
39:22
Speaker 1: cops dislike it because it makes them look bad. It
39:24
Speaker 1: makes their job more difficult, because when people don't trust
39:26
Speaker 1: the criminal justice system, they'll just opt out. And so
39:30
Speaker 1: this was a huge deal. This judge, the sitting judge,
39:33
Speaker 1: was held accountable for something he had done, you know,
39:35
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago, and took a huge chunk of
39:39
Speaker 1: my life. And the family of the other victim, Deborah Baker,
39:45
Speaker 1: they were heartbroken and incensed at the same time because
39:49
Speaker 1: had this judge, who used to be a prosecutor, had
39:52
Speaker 1: he done a job properly, had he not gone after
39:54
Speaker 1: me by suppressing evidence, their mother, wife's sister, that family
39:59
Speaker 1: Mamber deb A Baker might be a life today.
40:02
Speaker 2: She likely would be.
40:03
Speaker 3: And it's really a terrible another terrible outcome of this
40:07
Speaker 3: whole situation, this whole crooked situation. There's one more wonderful
40:12
Speaker 3: aspect of this, right, which is that you've gone well,
40:18
Speaker 3: aside from being on sixty Minutes and having a movie
40:21
Speaker 3: made about you and getting remarried and re establishing your
40:26
Speaker 3: relationship with your son and a book then book is
40:29
Speaker 3: called Getting Life, Getting Life. But on top of that,
40:33
Speaker 3: I think the thing that is really going to be
40:38
Speaker 3: a big part of your legacy it is the Michael
40:41
Speaker 3: Morton Act.
40:43
Speaker 2: And let's talk about that.
40:44
Speaker 1: This is a model law that Canaan should be used
40:49
Speaker 1: as a template across the country in each state because
40:52
Speaker 1: each state is ConTroll of it. O criminalisis system. The
40:55
Speaker 1: bulk of or the essence of it is that if
40:59
Speaker 1: you're a charge with the crime. God forbid that the
41:02
Speaker 1: state should and is required to turn over to the
41:07
Speaker 1: citizen the evidence they have against you at trial. They
41:10
Speaker 1: just can't make it up. They have to actually have
41:13
Speaker 1: hard evidence, and they have to share it with you,
41:15
Speaker 1: just like it happens in a civil trial. That the
41:17
Speaker 1: criminal justice side of it should be like the civil
41:20
Speaker 1: justice side of it, and so sharing of files isn't
41:24
Speaker 1: undermining the prosecutor side. I've talked to a lot of
41:29
Speaker 1: prosecutors and prosecutor groups since I've been out. This actually
41:34
Speaker 1: protects them from certain appellate review. It makes their cases
41:40
Speaker 1: stronger if they can prove, as a byproduct of the
41:43
Speaker 1: process that they've been transparent and they've shared everything, that
41:47
Speaker 1: they've been above board and it's been a legitimate prosecution.
41:52
Speaker 1: That they just share their files, the police reports, the
41:55
Speaker 1: lab reports. You know, if it shows that the time
41:58
Speaker 1: of death was something that would clear the defendant, that
42:03
Speaker 1: should be known. Or if that time of death really
42:06
Speaker 1: nails the guy, that should be shown too. Because we're
42:08
Speaker 1: having public trials. And I did not name it, but
42:13
Speaker 1: the Michael Mortnack in Texas does that. It codifies Brady
42:18
Speaker 1: and it forces them to do what's right. I like
42:21
Speaker 1: using the analogy of you're playing cards and you're playing
42:25
Speaker 1: for money. The prosecutor gets to deal the cards. Well,
42:29
Speaker 1: it used to be that he would also or she
42:32
Speaker 1: would not just deal you the cards, but look at
42:34
Speaker 1: the cards beforehand and decide whether or not you should
42:36
Speaker 1: get them. And that's not a level of playing field.
42:39
Speaker 1: They shouldn't be able to do that. Number one, it's
42:42
Speaker 1: not fair, but it also puts an unfair burden on
42:46
Speaker 1: the prosecutors that temptation to tilt the field towards them.
42:55
Speaker 4: Don't forget to give us a fantastic review wherever you
42:58
Speaker 4: get your podcasts. It really else And I'm a proud
43:02
Speaker 4: donor to the Innocence Project, and I really hope you'll
43:04
Speaker 4: join me in supporting this very important cause and helping
43:08
Speaker 4: to prevent future wrongful convictions. Go to Innocenceproject dot org
43:12
Speaker 4: to learn how to donate and get involved. I'd like
43:15
Speaker 4: to thank our production team, Connor Hall and Kevin Wartis.
43:18
Speaker 4: The music in the show is by three time OSCAR
43:20
Speaker 4: nominated composer Jay Ralph.
43:22
Speaker 2: Be sure to.
43:23
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