A former prosecutor in the US state of Texas has been sentenced to jail for his role in the wrongful conviction of an innocent man 26 years ago. Ken Anderson agreed a plea deal that will see him serve 10 days in jail, perform 500 hours of community service and be disbarred. He was charged with tampering with evidence in the 1987 murder trial of Michael Morton. Morton spent 25 years in prison only to be exonerated by DNA evidence. Anderson, also a former state judge, agreed a deal on Friday in the same Texas courthouse in which he used to preside. He faced criminal charges and a civil lawsuit for allegedly withholding key evidence and making false statements to the court during Morton's trial in the beating death of his wife, Christine. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24876145 Since being freed from prison, Morton has become a visible embodiment of problems in the legal system in Texas, which leads the nation in prisoners set free by DNA testing 117 in the last 25 years. Earlier this year, the former Republican chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court urged lawmakers to act on the issue. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/08/texas-prosecutor-ken-anderson-michael-morton-trial The ppl who fight against the death penalty in Texas got a new trump. There is a certain percentage of miscarriages of justice, the consequences of which are particularly tragic when they pass a capital sentence.
10 days in jail? His evidence tampering cost that man 25 years of his life. That former prosecutor should get 25 years.
Texas had the most exonerations... Record number of US exonerations includes homicide cases Feb. 3, 2016 A new report says a record 149 people falsely convicted of crimes were exonerated last year in the U.S.
Why that is such a frightening number is they only do this for THE most serious of cases, which are THE most scrutinized. It means there are thousands upon thousands of innocent people in prison for less than 1st degree felonies.
Bittersweet. At least his misconduct has finally been recognized by the court after all these years and the man declared a criminal. But only 10 days. And the man got to be a judge for many years after that. One wonders how many other innocent people this unethical prosecutor got convicted over the years.
This just proves how totally corrupt the legal system has become. I no longer call it the justice system because there is no longer any justice associated with it. District Attorneys, Judges, and Police are all as corrupt as people come. The vast majority of them belong in prisons not just the piece of excrement in this example. Defenders of the system will try to spin this to say it was just one bad apple but the truth is we have and entire barrel of bad apples and need to throw them all out.
