Michael Morton

Morton's memoir, Getting Life: An Innocent Man's 25-Year Journey from Prison to Peace, was released on July 8, 2014.

Mark Alan Norwood, a Bastrop dishwasher who lived in Austin in the mid-1980s was charged, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on March 27, 2013, for the 1986 murder of Christine Morton. In September 2016, he was convicted in a separate case for the 1988 murder of Debra Masters Baker in her Austin home. Both women were beaten to death in their beds under similar circumstances.

On November 8, 2013, Anderson was found to be in contempt of court by 9th Judicial District Judge Kelly Moore. Anderson pled no contest to the charges as part of a plea bargain. He was sentenced to 10 days in county jail, and was ordered to report to jail no later than December 2, 2013. He received credit for one day he spent in jail in April 2013, when he was arrested following the court of inquiry. He was also fined $500, and ordered to perform 500 hours of community service. He agreed to give up his license to practice law in exchange for having the charges of evidence tampering dropped. He will be eligible to apply to have his law license reinstated after five years. On November 15, 2013, Anderson was released from jail after having served five days of his 10-day sentence; he was released early after receiving credit for good behavior.

On May 16, 2013, Governor of Texas Rick Perry signed Texas Senate Bill 1611, also called the Michael Morton Act, into law. The Act is designed to ensure a more open discovery process. The bill's open file policy removes barriers for accessing evidence. Morton was present for the signing of the bill, which became law on September 1, 2013.

In 2013, Morton married Cynthia May Chessman, who he met at his church.

The Morton case is also depicted in a 2013 documentary film, An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story, directed by Al Reinert. The film was featured on CNN Films December 8, 2013.

On February 20, 2012, Harle asked the Texas Supreme Court to convene a court of inquiry, finding that there was evidence to support Morton's contention that Anderson had tampered with evidence and should have been held in contempt of court for not complying with the trial judge's order to let him review all possible exculpatory evidence. The court of inquiry began on February 4, 2013. On April 19, 2013, the court of inquiry ordered Anderson to be arrested, saying "This court cannot think of a more intentionally harmful act than a prosecutor's conscious choice to hide mitigating evidence so as to create an uneven playing field for a defendant facing a murder charge and a life sentence." Anderson responded by claiming immunity from any prosecution under the expiry of applicable statutes of limitation. On September 23, 2013, Anderson resigned from his position as district court judge.

Morton's case was featured on CBS's 60 Minutes on March 25, 2012. It was also featured on "Katie", the Katie Couric show, on November 13, 2012.

A novel based on the case, entitled Depraved Prosecution, was published in July 2012 by Kurt Johnson, a writer living in Williamson County; in the novel the fictional location of "Wiyamsun County" is the setting.

Raley and Morrison relentlessly sought a court order for DNA testing in state and federal courts until the testing was finally achieved in June, 2011. Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley "tenaciously fought" against DNA testing for six years before a judge finally ordered the tests.

Morton was freed on October 4, 2011 (and formally acquitted by Bexar County District Judge Sid Harle on December 19, 2011) after DNA tests linked another man, Mark Alan Norwood, to Christine Morton's murder.

On November 16, 2011, Morton's original prosecutor, Ken Anderson, told reporters: "I want to formally apologize for the system's failure to Mr. Morton. In hindsight, the verdict was wrong." Baker's daughter said she was unmoved by Anderson's apology and held him partially responsible for her mother's death because he and investigators allowed a killer to escape detection by focusing so intently on Morton. "It is harder for me to hear him not holding himself accountable. He is not taking responsibility," she said.

Pro bono civil attorney John Raley of Houston, Texas, together with Nina Morrison of the New York-based Innocence Project, filed Morton's motion for DNA testing in February 2005. In 2010, Morton was offered parole if he expressed remorse over murdering his wife. Raley told the Texas Tribune about the conversation he had with Morton on the subject:

In 1976, while attending Stephen F. Austin State University, in Nacogdoches, Texas, Morton met Christine Kirkpatrick. They married in 1979 and had one child, Eric, in 1983. Eric had a congenital heart defect, which required open-heart surgery, which could not be safely attempted until he was three years old. In 1986, six weeks after their son's successful surgery, on August 12, 1986, Morton and his family celebrated his birthday. The next day, after Morton had left for work, Christine Morton was beaten to death in her bed while Eric was present.

On September 25, 1986, Morton was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife. He was convicted in 1987 and sentenced to life in prison.

Michael Morton (born August 12, 1954) is an American who was wrongfully convicted in 1987 in a Williamson County, Texas court of the 1986 murder of his wife Christine Morton. He spent nearly 25 years in prison before he was exonerated by DNA evidence which supported his claim of innocence and pointed to the crime being committed by another individual. Morton was released from prison on October 4, 2011, and another man, Mark Alan Norwood, was convicted of the murder in 2013. The prosecutor in the case, Ken Anderson, was convicted of contempt of court for withholding evidence after the judge had ordered its release to the defense.