Selasa, 03 Januari 2012

As predicted: State bar dismisses grievance against John Bradley from Morton case

Grits is shocked, shocked I tell you that the state bar announced it has dismissed the ethics complaint filed against Williamson County DA John Bradley stemming from alleged prosecutorial misconduct in Michael Morton's false conviction, a development the Austin Statesman reported today. Except ... oh yeah ... Grits predicted earlier the state bar "almost certainly" wouldn't do anything. As pointed out then, "The State Bar didn't even discipline a [former] DA or judge from Collin County after the prosecutor admitted in a deposition they'd been sleeping together during a capital murder trial." If that won't get a prosecutor sanctioned, how could one expect action stemming from the Michael Morton exoneration?

I'm not a lawyer, but to me Bradley calling in all the prosecutors involved for a meeting to review evidence before their depositions (unbeknownst at the time to Morton's attorneys) struck me as straight up evidence tampering, giving the alleged perpetrators an opportunity to get on the same page and get their story straight while muddying independent recollections. The state bar, though, apparently said that was okay by them.

Granted, the complaint against Judge Ken Anderson may be stronger on the merits, if potentially hindered by a statute of limitations, but Bradley's politically convenient, belated, and half-hearted mea culpa doesn't mitigate the fact that he fought for years to keep Judge Anderson's misconduct from being exposed, mocking Mr. Morton's innocence claims while obstructing every possible avenue for proving them. If that wasn't technically unethical according to state bar rules, it certainly was heartless and fundamentally antithetical to the prosecutor's oath to seek justice, not convictions.

Examples like this have convinced your correspondent that the Legislature must find some way to beef up sanctions for prosecutorial misconduct and/or implement preventive procedures, e.g., mandating open prosecution files. The courts won't do it, and it's wholly evident the legal profession is incapable of policing itself on questions of prosecutorial misconduct.

See related Grits posts:
 And more generally on the subject of prosecutorial misconduct:
See also the report (pdf) by Morton's attorneys on proseuctorial misconduct in the case and a deposition (pdf) of Bradley former appellate chief who worked on the Morton case, current Williamson County Court at Law Judge Doug Arnold.

MORE: From Simple Justice where, reacting to this case, Scott Greenfield accused the Texas state bar and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas of "horseradish vision."

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