Column: Bias and Innocence

Houston Chronicle Columnist Rick Casey today excoriates a Texas prosecutor for delaying DNA testing in the case of Innocence Project client Michael Morton.

Morton has served 25 years in prison for a murder he says he didn’t commit. John Bradley, the District Attorney in Williamson County, fought to block the tests for six years. The state’s highest criminal court finally ordered the tests, and the Innocence Project announced last week that the results point to Morton’s innocence. We filed a motion asking a judge to recuse Bradley from the case, citing disagreements over this case and in Bradley’s role as former chairman of the Texas Forensic Science Commission.

Casey writes today:

(Bradley’s) behavior in the Morton case shows once again that he was hardly one who should be influencing the state’s approach to forensic science.

There is a good chance that his obstinacy in the Morton case not only kept an innocent man in prison five years longer than necessary, but also may have enabled the real murderer to do more harm during that time.

Read the full column here

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Read more about Morton’s case

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