Five weeks ago, Michael Morton was released to the free world after DNA evidence made it clear that he hadn’t killed his wife, Christine, twenty-five years ago.  Now Williamson County police have arrested Mark Alan Norwood, a man linked to the killing by the same DNA evidence that cleared Morton.

Tests in 1986 could only confirm the presence of human blood on the bandanna. But forensic testing in June identified the blood and an attached hair as Christine Morton’s.

The lab also found cells that were soon matched to Norwood because his DNA profile was listed in a national felony database after his 2008 arrest in California for possessing narcotics, resisting arrest and possessing a dangerous weapon.

As Melanie Wilmoth noted in a recent post, this is a classic case of prosecutorial tunnel vision.  Convinced they had the right man, the district attorney withheld important evidence from defense counsel. 

Mark Osler’s excellent op-ed on the Hank Skinner case could easily be applied to the injustice perpetrated against Michael Morton.  Prosecutors live in an echo chamber.  Surrounded by people who share their zeal for justice and sealed off from meaningful contact with the defendant, district attorneys and AUSAs have their view of the world reinforced at every turn.  The thought that they may have everything wrong never occurs to them.  

It doesn’t help that the powers of the prosecutor have been growing steadily over the past thirty years while judicial discretion and the influence of jurors has receded.  DAs are widely seen as representatives of the people, and so they are.  But when the people are blinded by fear and ignorance, prosecutor must keep their wits about them.  Do these men and women who wield such incredible power understand the dynamics of tunnel vision well enough to safeguard themselves against it?  I have my doubts.

Man arrested in 1986 Morton slaying has long criminal history

By Chuck Lindell and Patrick George

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

GEORGETOWN — A former carpet layer now working as a dishwasher in Bastrop was arrested Wednesday in the brutal 1986 beating death of Christine Morton, a Williamson County mother whose husband was wrongly convicted of her murder.

Mark Alan Norwood, 57, was arrested without incident at his Bastrop duplex, Williamson County Sheriff James Wilson said. Charged with capital murder, Norwood was being held at the Williamson County Jail on $750,000 bail.

Norwood also is a suspect in an unsolved Austin murder, the 1988 bludgeoning death of Debra Masters Baker in her home. Like Morton, Baker was repeatedly hit in the head with a blunt object as she lay in her bed.

Records show Norwood lived at 1405 Justin Lane starting in 1985 – about two blocks from Baker’s house on Dwyce Drive – and Wilson said Norwood worked as a carpet layer in the Austin area in 1986. He lived in several Bastrop County locations in the 1990s and also spent time in Tennessee and California, according to arrest records in those states.

Michael Morton, freed Oct. 4 after spending almost 25 years in prison, has been living with his parents in Northeast Texas as he tries to rebuild his life. That’s where lawyer John Raley reached him Wednesday to convey the news.

“He was quiet for a while as he absorbed it. He has known for some time that this day would come,” Raley said. “He felt relief. He was happy. But this comes to him at the end of a long, twisted path, and it’s still not over. This has cost him dearly.”

Morton, his lawyers and Baker’s family have been waiting for word of Norwood’s arrest since July, when his DNA was linked to the slayings of both women.

Investigators interviewed Norwood in August and took a fresh DNA sample as inquiries proceeded – largely outside of public view – by law agencies in Travis and Williamson counties. The state attorney general’s office also took the lead in the reinvestigation of the Morton killing.

Caitlin Baker, who was 3 when her mother was killed, was encouraged by news of Wednesday’s arrest.

“We’re just unbelievably thankful and very, very happy,” she said. “It’s not our case, it’s Michael Morton’s case, but we’re happy either way. We’re just sort of watching it happen in Williamson County. I have no idea how it will affect us.”

Austin police declined to comment on Norwood’s arrest, saying only that the Baker investigation is continuing.

Morton’s freedom came after his lawyers waged a six-year fight with Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley for the opportunity to conduct DNA tests on a blood-stained bandanna. The cloth had been collected a day after the murder from a construction site about 100 yards behind the Morton house in southwestern Williamson County.

Tests in 1986 could only confirm the presence of human blood on the bandanna. But forensic testing in June identified the blood and an attached hair as Christine Morton’s.

The lab also found cells that were soon matched to Norwood because his DNA profile was listed in a national felony database after his 2008 arrest in California for possessing narcotics, resisting arrest and possessing a dangerous weapon.

Michael Morton’s lawyers, noting similarities between the Morton and Baker murders, informed Travis County officials about Norwood and provided his DNA profile. Subsequent tests on a hair found in Baker’s bedroom also confirmed that it belonged to Norwood, court records show.

Austin investigators have found no evidence that Baker knew Norwood, negating “an innocent explanation for the presence of (his) pubic hair at the scene of the crime,” according to October court filings in the Morton case. The filings identified Norwood as “John Doe” because he had not yet been arrested.

Wilson said Williamson sheriff’s investigators also found “no innocent explanation for why his DNA would be on a bandanna outside Christine Morton’s residence with her hair and blood on it.”

Norwood worked for the past two years as a dishwasher at Maxine’s on Main, a downtown Bastrop restaurant. He lived with his elderly mother in a rundown neighborhood in the northern part of the city, where neighbors described him as a friendly man who would stop to talk but kept largely to himself.

Bastrop County Jail records show he was booked in October 2010 on assault charges after fighting with a neighbor, police said. He was released the same day.

Records also show Norwood was arrested in Texas in 1975 for marijuana possession, receiving one year of probation, and in 1987 for burglary of an auto and three counts of theft, receiving a four-year prison sentence that began in January 1989.

Nashville, Tenn., police said Norwood was charged in the early ’80s with receiving stolen property, arson, malicious destruction of property, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and aggravated assault, according to KXAN News.

A woman who worked with Norwood until recently described him as a gentle man who “took beautiful care” of his mother and often asked younger restaurant employees about their school grades and encouraged them to study harder.

Mindi Morris, a former manager at Maxine’s on Main, said Norwood mentioned several months ago that police had been asking him about the murder case. “I said to myself, `This has got to be the world’s biggest mistake,'” she said. “I knew he had a history, but I’d bet my life he wasn’t a killer.”

Morris said Norwood looked her in the eye and said, “I have not been a good boy in my life, but I am not a murderer.”

Norwood’s lawyer could not be reached for comment Wednesday night.

Raley and Morton’s lawyers with the Innocence Project in New York are leading a separate investigation into whether Morton’s prosecutors, particularly former District Attorney Ken Anderson, deliberately hid evidence to secure his conviction in 1987.

Anderson, now a district judge in Georgetown who has denied the allegations, was asked questions under oath Oct. 31 and will continue his deposition Friday. A transcript of the questioning may be released next week.