The eye-opening 60 Minutes segment Sunday on the exoneration of Michael Morton in Texas rightly highlighted the role of DNA testing, the Innocence Project and Morton’s dedicated attorneys in freeing him. But as Kenneth F. Bunting points out here, the unsung hero in Morton’s exoneration was the public-records law through which Morton’s defense team first learned that the victim’s 3-year-old son told his grandmother that he had seen a strange man killing his mother.
It was also through a public-records request that the defense learned that the victim’s credit card had been used in another city after her murder, that a check made out to her was cashed with a forged signature nine days after the murder and that neighbors had seen a strange man in a green van in the area right before the victim was killed. These records were never made known to Morton’s defense team, in violation of the law and ethics rules.
Typically, the prosecutor’s and sheriff’s offices strongly resisted disclosure of these crucial records that ultimately helped lead to Morton’s exoneration. Law enforcement officials don’t like having their mistakes exposed in public, and they are trying mightily in many states to resist records requests and to neuter the laws that force the disclosure of embarrassing documents.
In Virginia, for example, officials are dragging their feet on requests for access to records concerning DNA tests of old cases that reportedly might prove that more than 70 people were convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. (Slate.com has an excellent article on the state of Virginia’s ongoing cover-up here.)
The trend toward restricting access to investigative records in Ohio is typical of what is occurring in many states. The first blow came in 1994, when the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that police investigative records are exempt from disclosure until all proceeding have been completed. Later, it ruled that proceedings are not concluded as long as there is a possibility that they could occur.
For several years, most police departments interpreted these rulings to mean that records don’t have to be released until all appeals have been exhausted. In 2000, however, a Cleveland appeals court ruled that since there is always a potential for proceeding as long a defendant is alive, investigative records on their case don’t become public until he dies. A lot of good it does him then.
As word of this ruling has spread to police departments across the state, a growing number of them have started denying access to the investigative records of old cases as long as the defendant is alive or at least as long as he is incarcerated.
James Madison, the principal author of the U.S. Constitution, warned that, “A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, of perhaps both.” We are facing more farces and tragedies like the Michael Morton case in the United States and other countries if government officials are allowed to hide evidence with impunity.
Wrongful Convictions Blog 
Excellent post! Thank you for raising awareness of this issue and the ongoing increasing threat to case information access through public-records requests. Without access to this information many of the exonerations in the U.S. would not have occurred.
Martin,
Now you’ve got me all riled up again. The rulings on police records are UNBELIEVABLE!
Can these be challenged as a denial of “due process”???
Micheal Morton got it right when he said, “It’s all about accountability.”
Reblogged this on arkansastruthseeker.
I could be wrong, but I am quite involved in the Morton case. It was the DNA evidence from my wife’s murder in 1988 that exonerated Mike. The information you cite was not obtained by any public records act, but under the rules of discovery. When Mike was released from prison and was awaiting the ruling of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, Judge Harle, as appointed trial judge, granted a motion by Morton’s lawyers for a period of discovery, to investigate what had happened in preparation for asking for a court of inquiry to be ordered. . The judge granted this discovery time -until the TCCA ruled, plus the month always required for the ruling to be made official. It was during this period that Barry Scheck – What a hero!!- and John Raley – Morton’s lawyer who had worked for him gratis for 7 years – That there should be more like him!- found the killer (living all this time close by), found the full contents of the sheriff’s investigator’s files, discovered a report somebody had tried to use Christine Morton’s credit card (purse stolen when she was killed), and a transcript of a conversation between Mike’s mother-in-law and his 3yo son, Eric. Eric witnessed the killing and told his grandmother that a “monster” with a big mustache and red gloves had been hitting his mother and she was screaming, then stopped. Asked if his daddy was home, Eric said “No, daddy wasn’t here.” John Bradley, the current DA who fought DNA testing for almost 7 years, said he did so on the advice of his mentor and predecessor, Ken Anderson, now Judge Anderson. He also never disclosed reports from neighbors at the time of seeing a green van on several occasions park out behind the Morton house and the driver walking about looking over the Morton house.
The point is that this is the first time an exonerated man has been able to come back at the DA who hid Brady material and try to hold him accountable. That same judge granted the motion for a court of inquiry, which will begin in June. Mark Norwood, the alleged killer of both Christine Morton and Debra Masters Baker and possibly involved in 2 others cases as well, goes on trial after the first of the year.
Sorry this is so long, but the many corruptions uncovered in this case bring doubt upon the entire criminal justice system in Texas from top to bottom. Local TV station KXAN is now running a series of segments from an extended interview with Mike. It can be found on YouTube.
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