Michael Morton not only lost his wife in an act of senseless violence in 1987, but he was wrongly persecuted for the crime and spent 25 years behind bars.

Morton was convicted of murdering his wife, Christine, in a 1987 trial. There was just one small problem with that conviction: he didn’t do it, and there was plenty of evidence to prove it. Unfortunately, none of that evidence surfaced during the trial.

Ken Anderson, a former Texas prosecutor, won the conviction by withholding important evidence that ultimately sent Morton to prison. Anderson agreed to serve ten days in jail and complete 500 hours of community service.

Ten days for 25 years delivers a statement, but not justice.  

Many headlines read: “Justice has been served.” However, forcing Anderson to spend ten days in jail for robbing an innocent man decades of his life hardly seems like equal punishment.

Among the evidence that Morton’s attorneys claim was undisclosed were statements from Morton’s then three-year-old son, who witnessed the murder and claimed the assailant was a monster, noting his father was not home at the time. There were also interviews with neighbors who told authorities they saw a man park a green van close the Morton home and walk into a nearby wooded area before the slaying, according to an article by The Huffington Post. Any reasonable juror would have doubted Morton’s guilt based on these pieces of evidence alone.

However, Anderson claimed Morton killed his wife in a fit of rage and arranged the scene to make it look like a burglary. Anderson made the claim despite an absence of witnesses or forensic evidence.

While Anderson has ‘apologized,’ he denies any wrongdoing. He insists that he did not know about the statement of Morton’s son, according to The Huffington Post. It is curious that Anderson’s preparation for the case did not include reading the account of the eyewitness.

Morton was released from prison in 2011 when new DNA evidence proved his innocence. Anderson lost his license and spent a more than a week in jail, and he faced up to ten years in prison if convicted of tampering with evidence. However, the charge was dropped, according to an article by The Guardian. Ten years was traded for ten days.

This is the first time in the country’s history that a prosecutor has been found guilty of criminal contempt, will go to jail, and be stripped of their law license, according to an article by NBC News.

Many are celebrating this rare occasion where a corrupt prosecutor is facing any punishment at all. However, others are cringing at the ridiculously light sentence.

Anderson robbed an innocent man of 25 years of freedom and forced a child to grow up without his only surviving parent. As punishment, he enjoyed a fruitful 25-year career, had his license taken away near retirement, and was given a ten day jail sentence.

While this is a step in the right direction by disrupting the idea of an assured exemption from the law, something most lawyers believe they are rightfully granted, it is a very small one. Anderson should have received a significantly harsher punishment for the crime he committed.

The fact that people are even celebrating that a corrupt lawyer lost his license and was sent to prison for ten days as a punishment for ruining a man’s life reveals the ineffective and dissolute structure of the United States justice system. It is a broken system that serves a small, elite population and fails to deliver any real form of justice to the rest of us.

-Ashley Lynn Fisher is a junior English major from Gig Harbor. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this Column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of Student Publications.