8 ms·

How inmate Michael Morton lost 25 years of his life

46 points by monsterix 13y ago

girvo 13y ago
The prosecutor should serve at least 25 years in jail for withholding key evidence and ruining this persons life. Christ these stories make me so upset. :/
- monsterix 13y ago
  I'm curious about what percentage of incarcerated population in the US is innocent. US holds roughly 2.3 MM inmates in its prisons, that's highest rate of incarceration[1] in the world. Wondering if there is a way to put a number, or guess the percentage of innocent civilians serving jail time at any given point of time. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    I'm also curious as to how many innocent americans are executed. Given the huge number of Prisoners who have been on death row and exonerated, there must have been quite a few in the past prior to technologies like DNA testing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution Note - this doesn't even include those who were innocent, but not provably so.
    - aestra 13y ago
      Not too too many. There aren't very many executions in the US, is is losing popularity in public opinion and not practiced in all states. However, it is legal for federal crimes and military courts. For example, New York had a death penalty in 1995 that was never used and declared unconstitutional in 2004. Since the death row has been disbanded by executive order and it is unlikely executions will ever take place in NY again. 43 immates were executed in 2012. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Uni...
      - ghshephard 13y ago
        The hope was that in recent history, far fewer people had been executed, particularly as technology, and better knowledge of what types of evidence stand up to scrutiny has improved. I was more pondering, how many people in the past have been executed wrongly by the united states. A quick google search suggests that 14,634 were executed in the period 1608-1987. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions.php http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions.php
- brazzy 13y ago
  Great. Now you know exactly how the jury felt when they ruined this persons life based on a complete lack of evidence that he committed a crime (never mind the withheld evidence against it). Quoth the article: "We all felt so strongly that this was justice for Christine and that we were doing the right thing," says Mark Landrum, who was the jury foreman. Righteous fury is the worst enemy of justice.
  - nate_meurer 13y ago
    I agree with your last sentence, but I think it's a bit out of place here. The OP didn't call for a disproportionate sentence. Prosecutor Ken Anderson deliberate falsified a case that cost Mr Morton 25 years of his life. A 25 year sentence for Ken Anderson would seem perfectly reasonable to me.
    - brazzy 13y ago
      The OP is calling for a disproportionate sentence. 25 years is more than many murderers get. It seems reasonable to you because you are in fact judging this case emotionally, not reasonably. Your empathy towards the victim causes you to want revenge, believing it to be justice.
      - girvo 13y ago
        People in power over the rest of us should be held to higher standards. That should be the trade-off. As it stands, it is not the case, and there are few consequences for actions like these. That should change. Oh, and by gunning for Mr Morton, the actual murderer went free, and killed someone else.
        brazzy 13y ago
        > Oh, and by gunning for Mr Morton, the actual murderer went free, and killed someone else. This is something that should be told again and again and again to the juries in murder trials. I think it's just as much a scandal that the jury convicted Morton without substantial evidence as that the prosecutor withheld potentially exonerating evidence.
- shin_lao 13y ago
  10 years in prison is a lot for a non-violent crime. He might have withheld evidence but in the end it's the jury who found him guilty.
  - girvo 13y ago
    The prosecutor got 10 days? Unless I'm reading your comment incorrectly. The jury system cannot handle them being liable for imprisoning the wrong people, unfortunately. That's why we have all these rules in place in our legal system. The prosecutor was the one who made the decision to willingly withhold important evidence and lie to the jury to get the conviction, so I personally think he is culpable. Oh, and by doing so, the actual killer went free, and murdered someone else. :(
  - scrumper 13y ago
    10 days.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    A non-violent crime? Are you kidding? If you were kidnapped and imprisoned by an entity other than the State, would that be a violent crime? False imprisonment is a violent crime. >He might have withheld evidence but in the end it's the jury who found him guilty. You need to seriously rethink that statement. How could a jury be expected reach a correct solution when exculpatory evidence was hidden from them?
marquis 13y ago
There is an excellent longform article on this. Heartbreaking. http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-one?fullpage=1 http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-one?full... http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-two?fullpage=1 http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-two?full...
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  > Their last meeting was so brief that Eric [Morton's son] and Marylee [Morton's wife's sister] barely sat down. Eric, who was fifteen, was unable to look Michael in the eye. “I don’t want to come here anymore,” he choked out. I remember going with my parents (I was in high school) to see my grandfather and deal with the hospital -- he had been hospitalized for a reason I don't recall and they found that his mind was damaged to the point that they couldn't overlook it. He said hello, tried to make small talk: how are things, do you have a girlfriend, any interesting developments in your life. Small talk is not one of my skills. I had nothing to say; I very often have nothing to say. And he turned and started admonishing my parents for forcing me to come: "He doesn't want to be here. We live in different worlds." It hurt, very badly. I was there because I wanted to be there. I can't imagine, even after twelve years, telling your father that visiting him twice a year is a waste of your time. What a staggering blow. No matter what Marylee believed (clearly, in this case, that Morton was guilty), the decent thing to do would have been to not discuss it with his son.
jwdunne 13y ago
Why is it possible for either side to withhold evidence? Why is all evidence not put on a table for both sides to dissect? Genuine questions. Currently it seems like a competition. This isn't competitive ground, as much as I see lawyers essentially competing over number of clears/convictions. This is about people's lives!
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  Evidence isn't conjured into existence by the judge and then withheld by lawyers. It's discovered by the lawyers. It's not a logical possibility to prevent them from failing to bring it to everyone else's attention.
  - jwdunne 13y ago
    I always thought the police gather evidence? I remember from my own interactions the police are always present. This is in the UK where processes may be much different...
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  It is possible because a prosecutor's incentives are to get convictions above all else, and because prosecutors are rarely (almost never) held to account for such crimes. Even when prosecutors deliberately obstruct efforts by the defense to obtain that evidence, going so far as to ignore an order from a higher court, the punishment is relatively small. Ken Andersen was allowed to resign as district judge, and also to resign from the Texas State Bar, he was given a 10-day sentence for a criminal contempt charge for which he served 5 days in jail. link http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2013/09/from-too-little-too-late-department.html http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2013/09/from-too-littl... another link http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/why-michael-morton%E2%80%99s-prosecutor-finally-resigned http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/why-michael-morton%E2%80%9...
csmuk 13y ago
Re proesecutor: "He also agreed to a $500 fine, 500 hours of community service, and the loss of his law license, according to the Innocence Project, a legal clinic affiliated with Yeshiva University's Cardozo Law School." Sorry not enough. This is one place that "an eye for an eye" should be used. Screw Ghandi's opinion on the subject. The guy was an asshole through and through who ruined two people's already ruined lives.
- brazzy 13y ago
  I bet there were people who campaigned for the innocent man to be executed based on exactly this state of mind.
  - wavefunction 13y ago
    I don't see the equivalency. The prosecutor abused his official position and the legal system to personally advance his career. If anything, we should hold our officials and authorities to even harsher standards to ensure equitable treatment under the law.
    - forktheif 13y ago
      If anything, we should fix the systems that allow miscarriages of justice like this to happen. Yet revenge seems to be the first motivation of most people. Making things worse instead of making things better.
      - wavefunction 13y ago
        We should, but part of fixing the system that allows these things to happen is penalizing "bad actors." The prosecutor hid evidence from the judge, not just the defense. In addition, a brutal murderer is still free among the populace. What if they've killed again in the interim?
        csmuk 13y ago
        In this case the prosecutor's witheld evidence did result in another murder by the real perpetraitor 2 years later so your point is especially valid. The prosecutor should have that on his shoulders as well.
sevenminaya 13y ago
Here's a perfect case where you would want Morton had become a mastermind in jail, to come out to frame the prosecutor for murder so he can go thru the same thing.
sevenminaya 13y ago
Here's a perfect case where you would want Morton had become a mastermind in jail, to come out to frame the prosecutor for murder so he can go thru the same thing.
wil421 13y ago
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" That was said in 1765, I think we are regressing. Power hungry police and prosecutors are getting worse. They only care about making arrests and getting convictions, innocence doesn't matter. I am surprised that the prosecutor was actually charged and then convicted.
- melling 13y ago
  You are offering an opinion that has no basis in fact. Innocent people going to jail isn't a modern problem. We must certainly try to solve the problem but complaining that "power hungry police and prosecutors are getting worse" adds no value or intelligence to the conversation, and you can't even prove that we are worse off today than 100 years ago, for example. Also, why would you be surprised that the prosecutor was charged and convicted? Wouldn't it stand by your reasoning that the other "power hungry prosecutors who only caring about making arrests and getting convictions" would jump at the chance to convict him?
  - girvo 13y ago
    The OP itself says that the prosecutor (now Judge) being convicted was a huge change in procedure. It never happens. Based on your posts here, I'm getting the feeling that you are okay with the criminal justice system in the USA. You ask a lot of questions, I want to know what your stance is (honestly, I do!).
    - melling 13y ago
      I don't have a stance. Like most people, it's not something that I really give much thought to. I'm trying to cut through the storm of complaining so I can get to the facts. What problems are you trying to solve beyond the fact that we never want someone who is innocent to go to jail?
      - girvo 13y ago
        Personally, my opinion is that prosecutors have incentives that don't align with the good of society (if we take "Innocent people should not go to jail" as a good thing, and a worthy goal). Their incentives are to convict as many people as possible; this case we're discussing is a good example of that effect. If you take a look at this[0], you can see that per capita incarceration in the US has grown a lot, especially over the past 30 years. So its not a baseless accusation we're talking about here. There is something driving it, and if you do a bit more research on the topic (I studied Law, so this interests me a lot), you'll find a lot more backing it up as well. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1...
brianbreslin 13y ago
Slightly (only slightly) off-topic: what is it going to take for us to see a complete or at least large overhaul of the justice system in the US? We're incarcerating too many people for minor crimes and it is causing a ripple effect on poverty and economic growth (not to mention ruining TONS of people's lives).
- lobo_tuerto 13y ago
  And not to mention enriching some people through wrong means.
- melling 13y ago
  Can you be more specific? What minor crimes are you talking about? What's the breakdown of crimes for the the current prison population? Have any references to articles that have a deeper discussion so we can come up to speed?
  - girvo 13y ago
    Frankly, if you've got the highest per capita incarceration rate in the entire world, and is nearly 7X that of countries that are other first-world democracies (Canada, Australia, etc)... something tells me there is an issue, somewhere.
    - melling 13y ago
      That in itself doesn't mean that we have a problem. Maybe we are better at catching criminals? Maybe we have more criminals? I'm trying to go through what little material that has been provided here. Here's one example as to why we have a higher rate. We have longer sentencing. Do you think we should reduce the length of our sentences for burglary, for instance? "To give an example, the average burglary sentence in the United States is 16 months, compared to 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...
      - 13y ago
kenshiro_o 13y ago
very sad story. I still can't believe the prosecuter only served 5 days in jail and paid a minor fine. These injustices are crushing my heart. I do really want to believe in fairness and Justice but after reading such a piece I cannot maintain those illusions. What can we do as individuals and as a society to improve the Justice system and help rehabilitate former criminals? This is an area where we should also have start-ups looking to make a better tomorrow. Isn't that also part of "Changing The World"?
josu 13y ago
These things scare me more than terrorism
middleclick 13y ago
> Morton was freed in October 2011. He was 57 years old. "I thank God this wasn't a capital case," he said. I don't mean to turn this into an atheism debate, but personally, as someone who is an atheist, I find it fascinating how people still manage to have faith in God after such a case even after they spent 25 years of their life for a crime they did not commit. Don't get me wrong - the faith people have really amazes me and in a way, it helps keep them sane but it is fascinating nevertheless.
- girvo 13y ago
  From my experience (am an atheist, was raised as a devout Catholic), it's a coping mechanism. Turn it into a "trial" handed to you to test your faith, and you can make sense of it. Easier to deal with for some people, rather than accepting the inherent randomness that exists in life.
- brazzy 13y ago
  According to the article, Morton only became religious while he was in prison. I guess starting to believe that there's something more important than the real world is one way of coping with a staggering injustice suffered in it.
  - fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
    In Texas prisons, religious ministries are allowed time and facilities to preach to inmates. The chapel in Texas prisons is often one of the only air-conditioned spaces (other than the library). Consequently, (I suspect) religious participation among inmates is higher than it might otherwise be. source: I was a correctional officer in Texas for a couple of years.
jessaustin 13y ago
I'm not sure about heaven, but American prosecuting attorneys are one reason I believe in hell.

46 points by monsterix 13y ago

girvo 13y ago

The prosecutor should serve at least 25 years in jail for withholding key evidence and ruining this persons life. Christ these stories make me so upset. :/

monsterix 13y ago
I'm curious about what percentage of incarcerated population in the US is innocent. US holds roughly 2.3 MM inmates in its prisons, that's highest rate of incarceration[1] in the world. Wondering if there is a way to put a number, or guess the percentage of innocent civilians serving jail time at any given point of time. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...
- ghshephard 13y ago
  I'm also curious as to how many innocent americans are executed. Given the huge number of Prisoners who have been on death row and exonerated, there must have been quite a few in the past prior to technologies like DNA testing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrongful_execution Note - this doesn't even include those who were innocent, but not provably so.
  - aestra 13y ago
    Not too too many. There aren't very many executions in the US, is is losing popularity in public opinion and not practiced in all states. However, it is legal for federal crimes and military courts. For example, New York had a death penalty in 1995 that was never used and declared unconstitutional in 2004. Since the death row has been disbanded by executive order and it is unlikely executions will ever take place in NY again. 43 immates were executed in 2012. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_United_States http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the_Uni...
    - ghshephard 13y ago
      The hope was that in recent history, far fewer people had been executed, particularly as technology, and better knowledge of what types of evidence stand up to scrutiny has improved. I was more pondering, how many people in the past have been executed wrongly by the united states. A quick google search suggests that 14,634 were executed in the period 1608-1987. http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions.php http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions.php
brazzy 13y ago
Great. Now you know exactly how the jury felt when they ruined this persons life based on a complete lack of evidence that he committed a crime (never mind the withheld evidence against it). Quoth the article: "We all felt so strongly that this was justice for Christine and that we were doing the right thing," says Mark Landrum, who was the jury foreman. Righteous fury is the worst enemy of justice.
- nate_meurer 13y ago
  I agree with your last sentence, but I think it's a bit out of place here. The OP didn't call for a disproportionate sentence. Prosecutor Ken Anderson deliberate falsified a case that cost Mr Morton 25 years of his life. A 25 year sentence for Ken Anderson would seem perfectly reasonable to me.
  - brazzy 13y ago
    The OP is calling for a disproportionate sentence. 25 years is more than many murderers get. It seems reasonable to you because you are in fact judging this case emotionally, not reasonably. Your empathy towards the victim causes you to want revenge, believing it to be justice.
    - girvo 13y ago
      People in power over the rest of us should be held to higher standards. That should be the trade-off. As it stands, it is not the case, and there are few consequences for actions like these. That should change. Oh, and by gunning for Mr Morton, the actual murderer went free, and killed someone else.
      - brazzy 13y ago
        > Oh, and by gunning for Mr Morton, the actual murderer went free, and killed someone else. This is something that should be told again and again and again to the juries in murder trials. I think it's just as much a scandal that the jury convicted Morton without substantial evidence as that the prosecutor withheld potentially exonerating evidence.
shin_lao 13y ago
10 years in prison is a lot for a non-violent crime. He might have withheld evidence but in the end it's the jury who found him guilty.
- girvo 13y ago
  The prosecutor got 10 days? Unless I'm reading your comment incorrectly. The jury system cannot handle them being liable for imprisoning the wrong people, unfortunately. That's why we have all these rules in place in our legal system. The prosecutor was the one who made the decision to willingly withhold important evidence and lie to the jury to get the conviction, so I personally think he is culpable. Oh, and by doing so, the actual killer went free, and murdered someone else. :(
- scrumper 13y ago
  10 days.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  A non-violent crime? Are you kidding? If you were kidnapped and imprisoned by an entity other than the State, would that be a violent crime? False imprisonment is a violent crime. >He might have withheld evidence but in the end it's the jury who found him guilty. You need to seriously rethink that statement. How could a jury be expected reach a correct solution when exculpatory evidence was hidden from them?

marquis 13y ago

There is an excellent longform article on this. Heartbreaking. http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-one?fullpage=1 http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-one?full... http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-two?fullpage=1 http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/innocent-man-part-two?full...

thaumasiotes 13y ago
> Their last meeting was so brief that Eric [Morton's son] and Marylee [Morton's wife's sister] barely sat down. Eric, who was fifteen, was unable to look Michael in the eye. “I don’t want to come here anymore,” he choked out. I remember going with my parents (I was in high school) to see my grandfather and deal with the hospital -- he had been hospitalized for a reason I don't recall and they found that his mind was damaged to the point that they couldn't overlook it. He said hello, tried to make small talk: how are things, do you have a girlfriend, any interesting developments in your life. Small talk is not one of my skills. I had nothing to say; I very often have nothing to say. And he turned and started admonishing my parents for forcing me to come: "He doesn't want to be here. We live in different worlds." It hurt, very badly. I was there because I wanted to be there. I can't imagine, even after twelve years, telling your father that visiting him twice a year is a waste of your time. What a staggering blow. No matter what Marylee believed (clearly, in this case, that Morton was guilty), the decent thing to do would have been to not discuss it with his son.

jwdunne 13y ago

Why is it possible for either side to withhold evidence? Why is all evidence not put on a table for both sides to dissect? Genuine questions. Currently it seems like a competition. This isn't competitive ground, as much as I see lawyers essentially competing over number of clears/convictions. This is about people's lives!

thaumasiotes 13y ago
Evidence isn't conjured into existence by the judge and then withheld by lawyers. It's discovered by the lawyers. It's not a logical possibility to prevent them from failing to bring it to everyone else's attention.
- jwdunne 13y ago
  I always thought the police gather evidence? I remember from my own interactions the police are always present. This is in the UK where processes may be much different...
fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
It is possible because a prosecutor's incentives are to get convictions above all else, and because prosecutors are rarely (almost never) held to account for such crimes. Even when prosecutors deliberately obstruct efforts by the defense to obtain that evidence, going so far as to ignore an order from a higher court, the punishment is relatively small. Ken Andersen was allowed to resign as district judge, and also to resign from the Texas State Bar, he was given a 10-day sentence for a criminal contempt charge for which he served 5 days in jail. link http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2013/09/from-too-little-too-late-department.html http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2013/09/from-too-littl... another link http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/why-michael-morton%E2%80%99s-prosecutor-finally-resigned http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/why-michael-morton%E2%80%9...

csmuk 13y ago

Re proesecutor: "He also agreed to a $500 fine, 500 hours of community service, and the loss of his law license, according to the Innocence Project, a legal clinic affiliated with Yeshiva University's Cardozo Law School." Sorry not enough. This is one place that "an eye for an eye" should be used. Screw Ghandi's opinion on the subject. The guy was an asshole through and through who ruined two people's already ruined lives.

brazzy 13y ago
I bet there were people who campaigned for the innocent man to be executed based on exactly this state of mind.
- wavefunction 13y ago
  I don't see the equivalency. The prosecutor abused his official position and the legal system to personally advance his career. If anything, we should hold our officials and authorities to even harsher standards to ensure equitable treatment under the law.
  - forktheif 13y ago
    If anything, we should fix the systems that allow miscarriages of justice like this to happen. Yet revenge seems to be the first motivation of most people. Making things worse instead of making things better.
    - wavefunction 13y ago
      We should, but part of fixing the system that allows these things to happen is penalizing "bad actors." The prosecutor hid evidence from the judge, not just the defense. In addition, a brutal murderer is still free among the populace. What if they've killed again in the interim?
      - csmuk 13y ago
        In this case the prosecutor's witheld evidence did result in another murder by the real perpetraitor 2 years later so your point is especially valid. The prosecutor should have that on his shoulders as well.

sevenminaya 13y ago

Here's a perfect case where you would want Morton had become a mastermind in jail, to come out to frame the prosecutor for murder so he can go thru the same thing.

sevenminaya 13y ago

Here's a perfect case where you would want Morton had become a mastermind in jail, to come out to frame the prosecutor for murder so he can go thru the same thing.

wil421 13y ago

"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" That was said in 1765, I think we are regressing. Power hungry police and prosecutors are getting worse. They only care about making arrests and getting convictions, innocence doesn't matter. I am surprised that the prosecutor was actually charged and then convicted.

melling 13y ago
You are offering an opinion that has no basis in fact. Innocent people going to jail isn't a modern problem. We must certainly try to solve the problem but complaining that "power hungry police and prosecutors are getting worse" adds no value or intelligence to the conversation, and you can't even prove that we are worse off today than 100 years ago, for example. Also, why would you be surprised that the prosecutor was charged and convicted? Wouldn't it stand by your reasoning that the other "power hungry prosecutors who only caring about making arrests and getting convictions" would jump at the chance to convict him?
- girvo 13y ago
  The OP itself says that the prosecutor (now Judge) being convicted was a huge change in procedure. It never happens. Based on your posts here, I'm getting the feeling that you are okay with the criminal justice system in the USA. You ask a lot of questions, I want to know what your stance is (honestly, I do!).
  - melling 13y ago
    I don't have a stance. Like most people, it's not something that I really give much thought to. I'm trying to cut through the storm of complaining so I can get to the facts. What problems are you trying to solve beyond the fact that we never want someone who is innocent to go to jail?
    - girvo 13y ago
      Personally, my opinion is that prosecutors have incentives that don't align with the good of society (if we take "Innocent people should not go to jail" as a good thing, and a worthy goal). Their incentives are to convict as many people as possible; this case we're discussing is a good example of that effect. If you take a look at this[0], you can see that per capita incarceration in the US has grown a lot, especially over the past 30 years. So its not a baseless accusation we're talking about here. There is something driving it, and if you do a bit more research on the topic (I studied Law, so this interests me a lot), you'll find a lot more backing it up as well. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1...

brianbreslin 13y ago

Slightly (only slightly) off-topic: what is it going to take for us to see a complete or at least large overhaul of the justice system in the US? We're incarcerating too many people for minor crimes and it is causing a ripple effect on poverty and economic growth (not to mention ruining TONS of people's lives).

lobo_tuerto 13y ago
And not to mention enriching some people through wrong means.
melling 13y ago
Can you be more specific? What minor crimes are you talking about? What's the breakdown of crimes for the the current prison population? Have any references to articles that have a deeper discussion so we can come up to speed?
- girvo 13y ago
  Frankly, if you've got the highest per capita incarceration rate in the entire world, and is nearly 7X that of countries that are other first-world democracies (Canada, Australia, etc)... something tells me there is an issue, somewhere.
  - melling 13y ago
    That in itself doesn't mean that we have a problem. Maybe we are better at catching criminals? Maybe we have more criminals? I'm trying to go through what little material that has been provided here. Here's one example as to why we have a higher rate. We have longer sentencing. Do you think we should reduce the length of our sentences for burglary, for instance? "To give an example, the average burglary sentence in the United States is 16 months, compared to 5 months in Canada and 7 months in England" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_incarceration_rat...
    - 13y ago

kenshiro_o 13y ago

very sad story. I still can't believe the prosecuter only served 5 days in jail and paid a minor fine. These injustices are crushing my heart. I do really want to believe in fairness and Justice but after reading such a piece I cannot maintain those illusions. What can we do as individuals and as a society to improve the Justice system and help rehabilitate former criminals? This is an area where we should also have start-ups looking to make a better tomorrow. Isn't that also part of "Changing The World"?

josu 13y ago

These things scare me more than terrorism

middleclick 13y ago

> Morton was freed in October 2011. He was 57 years old. "I thank God this wasn't a capital case," he said. I don't mean to turn this into an atheism debate, but personally, as someone who is an atheist, I find it fascinating how people still manage to have faith in God after such a case even after they spent 25 years of their life for a crime they did not commit. Don't get me wrong - the faith people have really amazes me and in a way, it helps keep them sane but it is fascinating nevertheless.

girvo 13y ago
From my experience (am an atheist, was raised as a devout Catholic), it's a coping mechanism. Turn it into a "trial" handed to you to test your faith, and you can make sense of it. Easier to deal with for some people, rather than accepting the inherent randomness that exists in life.
brazzy 13y ago
According to the article, Morton only became religious while he was in prison. I guess starting to believe that there's something more important than the real world is one way of coping with a staggering injustice suffered in it.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  In Texas prisons, religious ministries are allowed time and facilities to preach to inmates. The chapel in Texas prisons is often one of the only air-conditioned spaces (other than the library). Consequently, (I suspect) religious participation among inmates is higher than it might otherwise be. source: I was a correctional officer in Texas for a couple of years.

jessaustin 13y ago

I'm not sure about heaven, but American prosecuting attorneys are one reason I believe in hell.