In the first days after my release, my emotions—my despair, gratitude, and relief—were always right there with me, always ready to burst out and remind me of who I was and what had happened, and how much it hurt. Sometimes, darker emotions—the instinctual way I sensed a threat, the anger I had inside me—also came out. As I was leaving that same restaurant with Vicky, I saw another customer—a shady-looking guy—look my beautiful sister up and down, clearly exhibiting what we used to call in church “impure thoughts.” It felt like a violation of someone I loved. I quickly acted on prison instinct—glaring at him with murderous rage, like I was going to kill him.
In prison, we had a very crude term for this kind of violent way of staring at a person—but then we had a very crude term for everything. Basically, this prison glare boiled down to using your eyes to let someone know that crossing you was going to end up being painful, bloody, disfiguring. This was how we communicated inside—how we protected ourselves, protected each other, and warned off unwanted “special friends.” It was a kind of American Sign Language for the very angry and very often violent, and every message said the same thing: “I will hurt you very badly. Don’t be a fool.”
Oddly, out in the free world, I felt a little bit like a cop on the beat. When I looked around, I saw everybody as a perpetrator, a suspect, or an unindicted coconspirator. Over time I had to work hard to let that lingering suspicion go.
Still, there were moments that caught me by surprise. A few times, when I was in the yard raking leaves and I would hear a siren, that old fight-or-flight response kicked in. The police! My heart raced for a few seconds and I had to talk myself down. It told me that, while I’d made it out, I wasn’t fully home yet.
And I had to figure out what came next.
Part of that was answered for me by the direction the legal case took as a result of work John Raley, Nina Morrison, and the Innocence Project had done months before.
Even as they worked to free me through advances in DNA technology, they took steps to make sure I had other options, should the bandanna not hold the biological evidence I needed to prove my innocence.
While they were fighting to get the testing done, my team began to operate on a parallel track to win my release—by arguing that my right to due process had been violated. Any success they had there could win me a new trial—and they believed we could have effectively fought all the weaknesses in the case against me with new information, new arguments, and new expertise.
Building on that effort, Barry Scheck had told the current district attorney, John Bradley, that we wanted to depose a number of people in Williamson County law enforcement who had worked on my case. Bradley, ever the obstructionist, deployed as many procedural roadblocks as possible.
But when the DNA on the bandanna cleared me, named Mark Norwood as my wife’s murderer, and led to the discovery of another of Norwood’s victims, Bradley’s opposition evaporated—not immediately, but when it became clear the tide of public opinion had angrily turned against him, he came around.
My legal team was now able to push on with the depositions, but they had to be done in a terrifically compressed time frame. We had only thirty days to uncover information that had been hidden for twenty-five years—and it had to be pulled out of people who didn’t want to cooperate and didn’t want to admit to their own roles in my wrongful conviction.
Still, Barry Scheck and John Raley quickly began to take sworn statements from the people who had been most important in my conviction. I wasn’t involved in the day-to-day planning of their approach—I was still enjoying adjusting to air-conditioning, hot and cold water, and a world filled with good and decent people. I didn’t attend most of the depositions. But my lawyers filled me in on what they were finding.
I learned that Medical Examiner Roberto Bayardo took back virtually all of his testimony that Chris could have died before I went to work. He admitted that what he’d said during my trial had not been scientifically based—and protested that Ken Anderson had twisted his testimony words in an effort to convince the jury there was a “scientific” reason to believe I was guilty.
Mike Davis, the assistant attorney who helped Anderson convict me, claimed that he simply didn’t remember talking to the jury after my verdict or telling them that if they had seen the prosecutor’s entire investigative file—instead of just a portion of it—they might have found reason to question my guilt.
That old “I don’t recall” tactic would become all too familiar.
We did learn from Sergeant Don Wood, the chief investigator in my case, that he had expected to testify during my trial. He said he was waiting outside the courtroom to be called when Sheriff Boutwell stopped him and announced that he would be the law enforcement witness taking the stand. Wood, now savaged by strokes and in precarious health, said that the move had surprised him. He wasn’t sure why things had changed.
Doug Arnold, one of the assistant attorneys under Anderson, explained exactly why this had happened. He said that Ken Anderson had an ongoing strategy of not allowing the chief investigator to take the stand. If the investigator didn’t testify, Anderson was not required to turn over to defense attorneys all the notes, interviews, and information the investigator had compiled. So Anderson kept his opposing attorneys in the dark, orchestrating a questionable way around legal requirements and, in the process, giving himself an unfair advantage.
Finally, the last deposition was scheduled.
Ken Anderson himself would be sitting at the long, narrow table inside a jury deliberation room deep in the heart of the Williamson County courthouse. Barry Scheck would do his usual expert job of leading the questioning. John Raley would sit beside him, offering alternative ideas and lines of questioning. And they both wanted me to be there.
This would be the first time I had come face-to-face with Anderson since my release. I knew he was now a judge. I knew his friend and cohort John Bradley had done everything in his power as the new DA to delay or derail my release—and to keep Anderson from suffering any consequences for his behavior. I knew Anderson did not want to talk about my conviction or his role in it. But after twenty-five years in prison, as I was still trying so hard to rebuild my shattered relationship with my son and staggering around the real world trying to catch up on everything and everyone I had missed—I felt I deserved to know why this had happened to me.
After hours of questioning—sadly—we got no truth, no insight, and no understanding from Ken Anderson. We heard about how he couldn’t remember the details of my case, how he “thought” he would have handed over evidence but couldn’t remember actually having done it. We got explanations of how skillfully and fairly he had always run his office. We got speeches on the law and a whole lot of defensive posturing about his approach to trying a case and how he had honed his skills over the years. We got repeated testaments on what a good man he was and what good he had done for the community.
In other words, we got nothing.
I had been sitting patiently the whole time, all dressed up in my sports coat and tie—primed to sympathize with Anderson if he owned up in the least to shortcomings in how he’d handled my case. Human beings make mistakes—I understood that. He could have apologized, or said he wished he could go back and do things differently. He could have shown that he understood at least one iota of what I had been through—he could have been honest.
I am not and was not vengeful. I certainly didn’t wish him harm. I just wanted to know why. Why had he done this to me? What was his motive? Did he have any misgivings at the time? Did he think about his responsibility to my life at all?
He didn’t give us those answers. Instead, he revealed—sometimes inadvertently—that he still cared more about himself than about the law and that he still wanted to protect his own future more than actually consider what he had done to my life. After so many hours—and so many years—it became too much for me.
I
pushed away from the table and headed to the back of the room. I placed my hands on the walls and leaned in—trying hard to keep my anger from boiling over. I heard Anderson squeak to Barry and John, “Your client seems upset.”
It was clear he was afraid of me, worried that I would attack him in some “penitentiary” way. I had no plans to do anything like that, but I knew I was probably looking at him in a way that scared this soft man who’d been so hard on so many people—this guy who’d sent so many people to prison and rightly feared he wouldn’t last a day behind bars on his own.
Later, during a break in the deposition, John leaned over and told me that the look on my face had frightened Anderson, because it was the kind of look only someone who had been in prison for twenty-five years could master. I told him not to worry. “I’m fine,” I said. “He’s just a wuss.” Actually, I used the kind of word someone who had served twenty-five years in prison would choose.
The transcripts of the depositions and sworn statements were all bundled into an argument to the Texas state supreme court, requesting a special court of inquiry—an examination of whether Ken Anderson had broken the law or the ethics required of a prosecutor in Texas. It was a long-shot case.
But we won.
The Texas Supreme Court appointed Rusty Hardin—a Houston legal legend—as the special prosecutor. He would essentially be trying Anderson in front of a judge who would decide whether the case would go forward to a criminal court. Judge Louis Sturns, of Fort Worth, would be presiding. He was known for his even temperament and fair decisions
At the same time, the State Bar of Texas announced it would be launching its own investigation, to see if Anderson’s handling of my case warranted disbarment. That meant he could lose his position as a judge, his financial security, and his status. There was even a possibility he would face jail time.
I began to realize that this investigation was about much more than just me—or what had happened to me inside our flawed legal system. This was about fairness, about making certain that Texas prosecutors understood that their first priority should be the proverbial search for the truth—not a personal quest to rack up convictions, garner power, and move up the political ladder.
I did not want what had happened to me to happen to anyone else. The Innocence Project and attorneys like Barry Scheck, John Raley, and Nina Morrison were making a crucial difference in our system of justice. I wanted to do the same.
Even though I would have liked nothing better than to simply go home and begin rebuilding what was left of my life, I couldn’t walk away from my case or the glaring problems it exposed. If making a difference meant spending more time in courtrooms, if it meant speaking to state lawmakers—if it meant becoming more of a public person than I had ever intended to be—I had an obligation to do it. I had to show at least some measure of the commitment so many people had offered me back when I was stuck behind bars, without any legal hope. There were people just like me still in prison. If the system didn’t change, there would be more in the future.
With this court of inquiry, Ken Anderson would now learn what it was like to be on trial for his life—to have every statement, every action, and every decision pulled apart, examined for proof of his flaws, his failings, and his guilt.
But he would have something I did not—he would face a fair and honest prosecution, an unbiased judge, and a public interested in hearing both sides of the case.
Ken Anderson would get justice. That could be what he feared most of all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
In the twenty-six years since I’d first come to the Williamson County Courthouse seeking justice, the small-town Texas charm hadn’t changed—at least not on the surface. There were still tiny cafes in which to grab a cup of coffee or a piece of pie—or both. There were vintage shops around the town square that did a brisk business with tourists looking to take home a piece of the sweet long ago.
The historic buildings and the way neighbors still waved at each other from pickup to pickup lent the place a timelessness—a sense that here, things were the way they had always been.
Luckily, that was no longer true. Things here had changed profoundly—and what was about to happen in the county’s courthouse would ultimately spread that change throughout the state.
In February 2013, when I came back to Williamson County, I was seen not as the villain in a terrible murder but as the victim in a chilling case of wrongful prosecution.
Believe me, the view this time was better.
The court of inquiry about to be called to order was a one-of-a-kind event in Texas. This form of hearing was an obscure process designed to investigate wrongdoing, usually some kind of illegal or improper act committed by someone who had been serving in an official capacity. Throughout our country, and certainly in my home state, there were very few legal avenues for seeking accountability from the powers that be. Prosecutors, judges, investigators, police—the people who very much had the authority and influence to send you away for life—could not be sued, or brought up on criminal charges, or be made to pay personally or professionally for their “mistakes.” A court of inquiry was one of the few ways to demand accountability, but it had never been used against a prosecutor for his choices, methods, and actions in pursuing a murder case.
This was a test.
But it wasn’t only a test. It was a warning to the powerful that they should play fair with people’s lives, an example of how accountability had finally come to the courtroom—not just for the defendant but for the system itself. The fact that Ken Anderson was now a sitting judge made the event all the more shocking.
In an ironic twist, Anderson’s fate would be determined in a courtroom just down the hall from his own legal kingdom—the grand setting where he had served as a state district judge for years, ensconced behind his own high bench, draped in his own dark robe. It was terrifying to me that the man who had treated me so unfairly now sat every day in judgment of others.
As I approached the new Williamson County Courthouse on the morning the inquiry began, I felt no apprehension—no flashbacks, no fear. This time, no one was after me. I would not be found guilty. I would not end up in jail. And none of what happened in this hearing would gut my bank account or strip my parents of their savings.
On this day Ken Anderson would be the one weighing those kinds of worries. He would be just another nervous man sitting at a defense table, keeping his head down, hoping for mercy or luck, or what he probably believed he deserved—special treatment.
Rusty Hardin and his superlative staff were more than ready to press the case against Anderson. Hardin and I had met a couple of times in the days leading up to the hearing, and I felt confident in his mastery of the evidence and keen understanding of the case.
Judge Louis Sturns would be functioning essentially as a one-man grand jury. He’d been brought in to hear testimony and arguments and then decide whether there was probable cause to believe that my former prosecutor had broken the law. If Judge Sturns could be convinced of that, Anderson’s case would be headed for criminal court, and a warrant would be issued for the former prosecutor’s arrest. Anderson would be booked. He would have to make bail.
I knew I was going to be called as the first witness that morning, and the last time I’d testified in a Williamson County courtroom things had not gone well, to say the least. Intellectually, I knew everything was going to be different this time, but still I appreciated John Raley’s ardent coaching before we got to court. “Michael, do not be flippant on cross-examination. Don’t volunteer information. Simply tell your story, answer the questions, and always speak from your heart.”
I was certainly ready to do that.
We got to the courthouse before the doors were unlocked and stood outside, shivering and clutching our coats and shooting the breeze with some of the reporters who had been so important in illuminating my situation for the public.
> Brandi Grissom, from The Texas Tribune, had beaten all of us to the courthouse that chilly day—something that was entirely typical of her. I’d come to believe she had the kind of investigative chops, determination, and tenacity that might have led her to solve this whole thing if she had been on the story back in 1986.
Pam Colloff, a gifted writer and editor from Texas Monthly, was waiting with us, too. She had spent months working on my story. Then she wrote it with eloquence and heartrending detail in two expansive articles. It seemed the whole country had come to know, understand, and care about what had happened.
When we were finally allowed in, we slowly made our way through the airport-worthy security shakedown and headed toward the courtroom. My mother, who felt she had waited far too long for this day, basically bolted ahead of the rest of us to grab herself a premium seat.
She saved one for me as well. Thanks, Mom.
By the time we sat down, Rusty Hardin and his team were taking control of the room. They carried audiovisual equipment, boxes of notes, depositions, evidence, and God knew what else. It would soon become clear that this team’s greatest asset was hidden inside Rusty Hardin’s head. His brain is a legal computer with a unique understanding of the workings of the human heart. Hardin knows how to speak to real people. He is able to explain great pain or unfairness in a way that can easily be understood. He knew how to characterize honestly—and colorfully—the shenanigans that had gone on during my trial. He knew how to communicate the consequences of those actions for me and far too many others.
The Williamson County bailiffs at the front of the court—who had never before worked with Judge Sturns—nervously told everyone entering the room that the judge hated cell phones. They said that if the hearing were punctuated by bings, clicks, ring tones, rock songs, or any other digital distractions, there would be hell to pay. I checked my phone and my mother’s about ten times.
Getting Life Page 23