Opinion

Stop the prosecutorial misconduct

This year we have read story after story of egregious prosecutorial misconduct in Texas. Prosecutors have repeatedly robbed innocent men of their liberty. Texas must act to stop those in power from abusing that power.

In Burleson County, Anthony Graves' capital murder conviction was thrown out after he spent 18 years in prison. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that Graves' prosecutor obtained the conviction in part by eliciting false statements from two witnesses and by withholding statements that might have helped Graves.

The current Burleson County District Attorney investigated and concluded Graves was an "innocent man." A special prosecutor concurred that there was no evidence linking Graves to the crime.

In Williamson County, Michael Morton's conviction for murdering his wife was recently overturned. Morton spent 25 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. DNA evidence cleared him and identified the likely actual perpetrator.

Morton's prosecutor appears to have withheld critical evidence from the defense. The defense was never told that Morton's child said, Morton was away when a "monster" committed the murder. Nor was the defense ever told that neighbors saw a stranger casing the house or that his wife's credit card was used in San Antonio days after her death.

Graves and Morton are now proven to be innocent men. These two men are our fellow Texans. They spent 43 years in Texas prisons for crimes they did not commit. As Texans, we must be outraged.

Our family members and our fellow Texans have paid in blood so that we may all be free. As Texans, we have fought too hard to now silently let anyone rob us or our neighbor of our God-given liberty.

It is past time for us to draw another line in the sand. Too many innocent men and women have had their liberty stolen by some puffed-up bureaucrat with a law degree. It's time to fight back and demand accountability.

What has become of the men who prosecuted Graves and Morton? What is their punishment for apparently fabricating and withholding evidence?

Have they been sent to jail, disbarred or hounded from our midst? No. Nothing has happened to them.

There is no punishment for them. Their lives go on unfettered. There is no accounting for their apparent raw inhumanity. None.

This needs to change. When a prosecutor willfully withholds exculpatory evidence in a murder case, he must be held to answer. When a prosecutor willfully fabricates evidence in a murder case, he must be held to account. Prosecutors who willfully falsify evidence to rob innocent men of their liberty must be held to answer under the law.

The next time the state Legislature meets we must demand accountability. The Legislature must enact stiff laws to punish those prosecutors who willfully break the law to rob men of their liberty. Nothing less is acceptable.

We dishonor the memory of those who paid the ultimate price for our liberty if we demand anything less to preserve that liberty.

Fickman is a Houston criminal defense attorney.