HUFF POST: Texas prosecutors agreed Monday to release an Austin man sentenced to life in prison in the 1986 beating death of his wife in 1986 after new DNA tests showed another man was likely responsible.
Michael Morton’s case will likely raise more questions about Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley, a Gov. Rick Perry appointee whose tenure on the Texas Forensic Science Commission has been controversial. Bradley has been critical of the commission’s investigation of the Cameron Todd Willingham case. Willingham was executed in 2004 after being convicted of arson in the deaths of his three children, but experts have concluded the forensic science in the case was faulty.
The Innocence Project, a New York-based organization that specializes in using DNA testing to overturn wrongful convictions, has accused Bradley of suppressing evidence that would have helped clear Morton… (more)
EDITOR: Theoretically prosecutors are to seek justice. Too often they are misguided by a quest for convictions. DNA testing has saved lives and released many from prison. But as big a lesson is that many have been put to death and served long or life sentences for deeds they did not do. Given all that we have learned about the imperfection of the criminal justice system (after all, we are but humans), capital punishment makes no sense.
