Updated 9:00 a.m., Feb. 6:

Wednesday, the third day of the court of inquiry examining Judge Ken Anderson's role in the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton begins with the testimony of Williamson County Court at Law Judge Doug Arnold. Before becoming a judge, Arnold worked in the Williamson County district attorney's office from 1998 until 2010.

Arnold was deposed by Morton's lawyers in Nov. 2011. He is expected to testify today, as he did in his deposition, about Anderson's strategy in trial to not call an investigating officer. The strategy was to avoid the so-called "Gaskin" rule that requires prosecutors to turn over reports to the defense when they call a witness to testify. Morton's lawyers allege that Anderson deliberately did not call the lead investigator in his case to avoid giving the defense team reports that might have indicated his innocence.

Later today, we will hear testimony from Morton's trial lawyers in 1987, Bill Allison and Bill White, who have said Anderson failed to give them the critical evidence in the case.

Scroll to the bottom of this story to follow along with the liveblog of the continuing court action.

Updated 7:30 p.m., Feb. 5:

A former employee of Williamson County state district Judge Ken Anderson said Tuesday that in 1987, her boss, then the prosecutor, leaned up against a door jam in the historic Williamson County Courthouse, crossed his arms and said, "The kid thinks a monster killed his mother."

Kim Gardner, a former assistant district attorney who worked under Anderson, said she was shocked when she read in the newspaper that Michael Morton had been exonerated. She was also “blown away” by allegations that Anderson withheld evidence that indicated Morton’s 3-year-old son, Eric, saw a “monster” murder his mother. Anderson, she said, knew that Eric had said he saw a monster, not his father commit the murder, and had discussed a trial strategy to explain that what the little boy had seen was really his father dressed in a skin diving suit. "I was blown away when this article came out, absolutely blown away," she said.

Gardner’s testimony highlighted the second day of a rare court of inquiry that will determine whether Anderson should face criminal charges for his role in Morton’s wrongful conviction. Morton spent nearly 25 years wrongly imprisoned for his wife’s murder and was released in 2011 after DNA evidence cleared him.

Morton’s lawyers allege that Anderson deliberately withheld critical information that could have prevented the wrongful conviction and led to the real killer. The question before the court of inquiry is whether Anderson violated a judge’s order to turn over evidence in the case. Anderson’s lawyers argue that he did not violate the judge’s order and that the statute of limitations has expired on any alleged violations.

Most of Tuesday was taken up by the airing of an eight-hour deposition of Anderson that Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck conducted in October and November of 2011. The video of the often-testy exchange between Anderson and Scheck played on a screen in front of Tarrant County state district Judge Louis Sturns, who is overseeing the proceedings. In the courtroom, Anderson watched without expression, occasionally jotting notes on a yellow sticky pad and then putting the paper in his suit jacket pocket.

The video testimony of Anderson was a stark contrast with that of Gardner. In the deposition, Anderson says repeatedly that he has little recollection of what he did during Morton’s trial in 1987. “Well, I have no real memory of 25 years ago what my strategy was,” he said at one point.

Gardner, however, recalled that Anderson discussed a key piece of information that Morton’s lawyers say they never received. Morton’s lawyers, shortly before he was released from prison, discovered in the sheriff and district attorney files a transcript in which Morton’s mother-in-law tells a sheriff’s deputy that the couple’s 3-year-old son saw a monster kill his mother. The boy said his father wasn’t home.

Repeatedly during the deposition, Anderson said that he could not remember specific items of evidence like the transcript in his file. Scheck made several references to Anderson’s 1997 book, Crime in Texas, in which the former prosecutor wrote that he had to master hundreds of details and that he painstakingly pieced together cases with the sheriff. But Anderson said he had little memory of the high-profile murder trial.

Leaving the court for the day, Morton said he found Anderson’s deposition upsetting.

“There are a lot of good prosecutors out there. Ms. Gardner is one,” he said. “I still want answers.”

Gardner, who now lives on a ranch south of San Antonio, said the case stood out in her memory.

“It was a big deal,” she said. “Some nice woman had got her head beat in in a very nice neighborhood in Williamson County.”

She remembered a conversation before the trial in the district attorney’s office in which Anderson discussed that Eric saw a monster kill his mother.

Anderson, she said, speculated that Morton had worn his diving suit as a disguise during the murder and that's why there was no blood on his clothing.

"I recall thinking that this theory, a guy killing his wife in front of his 3-year-old son in a skin diving suit, was pretty strange," Gardner read from an affidavit she provided to the court.

Gardner said she liked Anderson and was unhappy about testifying in the case, because she was grateful to him. And she said Morton’s lawyers regularly came into Anderson’s office and spoke to him behind closed doors, where she would not have known what they discussed.

The point of Anderson’s conversation about Eric seeing the monster, Gardner said, was not to keep that information away from Morton’s lawyers but to determine whether the boy’s statements could be used at trial. He was too young to testify, and if his grandmother talked about what Eric said on the stand, it would be considered hearsay. She said the prosecutors in the office agreed the boy’s statements wouldn’t be admissible.

But during his videotaped deposition, Anderson said he had little memory of the evidence in response to questions from Scheck about the transcript and the skin diving suit and whether any of that should have been disclosed to Morton’s lawyers.

“I've tried to familiarize myself with the case, but I have no idea what the skin diving suit had to do with anything,” Anderson said.

The videotaped exchange between Scheck and Anderson focused on what evidence the prosecutor knew about, when he knew about it and why he didn’t turn over items to the judge or to Morton’s lawyers. Throughout, the veteran attorneys become agitated with one another.

Anderson becomes frustrated with allegations that he deliberately withheld information that should have been turned over because he wanted to win the case.

“I don’t think that’s what happened,” Anderson says in the deposition. He says that if he knew about information that would have been favorable to Morton, he would have told Morton’s lawyers. He says he gave the judge the limited evidence that he was ordered to turn over. And he says he was convinced of Morton’s guilt because the medical examiner placed Christine Morton’s time of death before her husband left for work combined with other circumstantial evidence.

Scheck becomes exasperated because he says that Anderson is not responding to questions, can’t remember seemingly basic events and won’t say whether legal precedents would have required him to turn over evidence to Morton’s lawyers.

As the deposition played, Anderson’s lawyers objected a handful of times, arguing that portions of the deposition were not relevant to the question at stake in the court of inquiry. Sturns overruled the objections.

The court of inquiry will resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday with testimony from Judge Doug Arnold, a former Williamson County prosecutor, and Bill Allison and Bill White, Morton's original trial lawyers.

Updated, Tues., Feb. 5, 8:15 a.m.: Day two of the court of inquiry that will detemine whether Williamson County state district Judge Ken Anderson faces criminal charges in the wrongful conviction of Michael Morton will begin with the airing of an eight-hour deposition of the former prosecutor that was taken last year by the Innocence Project.

In the deposition, the transcripts of which have been public for some time, Anderson repeatedly describes how he cannot recall much of what transpired during the Morton trial in 1987. He also says that he believes he would have told Morton's lawyers about evidence in the case that may have helped to prove his innocence initially and prevent the quarter-century the former grocery store manager spent in prison. In the video, Anderson sits behind a large three-ring binder and a stack of case documents. Behind him is a blue backdrop, and across from him are Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, and Morton, among others.

Here's a link to the Tribune story about the deposition, and PDFs of the transcript. Scroll to the bottom of this story to read the continuing liveblog of Tuesday's court action.

Original story: GEORGETOWN — On the first day of Williamson County state district Judge Ken Anderson's court of inquiry Monday, Michael Morton spent more than five hours on the witness stand, getting emotional at times as he hashed over the mistakes that led to his wrongful murder conviction and almost 25 years in prison.

“Going through all of that again was difficult, but necessary," Morton said before leaving the court. "I’m glad the process has finally started.”

Anderson, the former prosecutor who secured Morton’s conviction, is the subject of a rare court of inquiry that could lead to criminal charges. Morton and his lawyers allege that Anderson withheld critical information during the 1987 trial that sent him to prison for life for his wife’s murder. Anderson and his lawyers say that the prosecutor committed no wrongdoing in the case, that the judge in the case was ordered to only disclose a limited amount of information and that the statute of limitations on any alleged violations has expired.

Some of the most emotional testimony came early in the day when Hardin asked Morton about the nearly 25 years he spent in prison.

“Brutal," Morton said. "I always said that I never liked it, but after a couple of decades I got used to it."

Anderson appeared to stare straight ahead and not look at Morton.

"I got used to lack of privacy, restriction of movement, violence," Morton continued and teared up, "the lack of seeing my son, the million and one little things that you take for granted — that you can't imagine — clothes that are comfortable, people that are honest, food that tastes good, a bed to sleep in."

Rusty Hardin, the appointed attorney pro tem in the case, asked Morton what his reaction was when he learned that the district attorney may have withheld evidence that could have helped him avoid those years in prison.

"I was stunned. All those years, the primary thing that kept hitting me was why. What purpose?" Morton said. "What motivation?"

Anderson’s lawyers, including Eric Nichols and Mark Dietz, worked to establish that Morton’s lawyers with the Innocence Project were using the highly charged case to accomplish their own ends and that the evidence was not sufficient to show that Anderson deliberately withheld information that could have helped Morton’s case.

“You, of all people, have no interest in seeing someone prosecuted on insufficient evidence is that correct?" Nichols asked Morton, finishing his questions.

Much of Monday's testimony focused on two items of evidence that Morton and his lawyers allege were withheld from the former grocery store manager’s lawyers during his trial: a credit card and a check.

In the report to the court requesting the court of inquiry, Morton’s lawyers alleged that prosecutors withheld five critical items. Among them was a check made out to Christine Morton that they alleged had been cashed with her forged signature after her death. They also alleged that her credit card was used fraudulently at a jewelry store in San Antonio days after she was murdered. Since that time, Morton’s lawyers discovered that the check was deposited by Morton and that his wife’s purse with the credit cards in it was never stolen.

Hardin said that it doesn’t matter whether the information eventually turned out not to be helpful to Morton’s case. The information should have been turned over to his lawyers so they could have determined that themselves.

“The file is replete with stuff they should have let the defense attorneys have to decide whether they were things that were helpful to have," Hardin said. He also described three additional reports, which were previously unknown, that he said also should have been tendered to Morton’s lawyers. He said the documents show the defense had a practice of withholding items.

"The fox doesn’t get to guard the hen house, and that’s what I’m seeking to prove here," Hardin said.

Hardin asked why Morton was not consumed with bitterness.

"Grace of God. I don’t want revenge. I don’t want anything ill for Judge Anderson," he said, turning directly to Anderson. "I don’t. But I also realize that there are consequences for our actions, and there needs to be accountability, because without that every single thing falls apart."

Hardin asked Morton to tell Judge Louis Sturns, who was appointed to oversee the proceedings, what he wants from the court of inquiry.

Morton faced Sturns: "I ask that you do what needs to be done but at same time to be gentle with Judge Anderson."

The court of inquiry continues on Tuesday, when Hardin said he plans to play for the court an eight-hour deposition of Anderson.

For more details, see the liveblog below. And check back Tuesday for more highlights from the court of inquiry as it continues.

Liveblog

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