Anderson 'upset' by sheriff's Morton investigationBy ANDREW McLEMORE In his second deposition, Williamson County Judge Ken Anderson said he was “upset” that some evidence from the Michael Morton case was never fully investigated or turned over to defense attorneys. Judge Anderson, who prosecuted Mr. Morton as district attorney in 1987, said it is “highly troublesome” that an innocent man was convicted and served 25 years in prison. Mr. Morton’s attorneys questioned the former prosecutor for nine hours on October 31 and for another three hours on November 11. Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, which represents Mr. Morton, posed increasingly pointed questions to Judge Anderson about evidence of Mr. Morton’s innocence that his original attorneys never saw at trial. The judge suggested near the end of the second deposition that he was frustrated by Mr. Scheck’s questions. “You know, Mr. Scheck, you make these statements and these accusations, and you are acting like I have done something wrong, and it just — you know, I am upset about an innocent man being convicted,” he said. “I don’t know how to convey that in the form of a deposition.” Judge Anderson also continued to deny any memory of what evidence he reviewed before trial. In the first deposition, he said Sheriff Jim Boutwell would have had access to all the evidence and didn’t always tell him about every detail of his investigation. When asked by Mr. Scheck about another police report never seen by Mr. Morton’s attorneys, Mr. Anderson, who said he doesn’t remember ever seeing that evidence, suggested the sheriff was to blame. SCHECK: Would you not agree that this report concerning the observations of the green van being behind the Morton residence prior to the murder on several occasions and an individual walking around that wooded area off the road, that this report, especially if there was no follow-up done on this report, would be information that should have been disclosed to the defense? At Mr. Morton’s trial, his defense attorneys repeatedly requested that all reports from Sgt. Don Wood, the case’s chief investigator, be turned over to them. They believed that some evidence relevant to their defense of Mr. Morton had not been turned over. Mr. Scheck asked the judge what his obligation was to tell the trial judge, William Lott, that Sgt. Wood had additional evidence that the court hadn’t seen. “I don’t know what I thought my obligations were 25 years ago,” Mr. Anderson said. Judge Anderson also said he was upset by the way investigators seemed to handle certain evidence that support Mr. Morton’s innocence, including a check made out to Christine Morton than was cashed nine days after her murder. An unsigned sheriff’s office memo about the check seemed to suggest it wasn’t worth investigating. “They seem to think that Chris' purse was stolen, course, we know better,” the memo said. That statement was “the most unprofessional statement I can recall ever seeing in a police report,” Judge Anderson said, driving him “absolutely crazy.” “I’m sick about it,” he said. SCHECK: Now, could part of your bad feelings about what happened in this case arise from the fact that looking at this record you now realize that you did not turn over to Judge Lott or the defense a whole series of reports from Sergeant Wood that were exculpatory and might have led to Michael Morton’s acquittal? |