>>Willie Geist: Michael Morton spent 25 years in a prison in Texas serving for the murder
of his wife, a crime he did not commit.
In 2011, he was exonerated with help from people at the Innocence Project, from new
DNA evidence that came to light.
And now as you heard there, he's committed his life to making sure this doesn't happen
to anyone else.
Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Morton.
[ Applause ] >>Michael Morton: Hey, Willie.
>>Willie Geist: Michael, so -- I've dug into this case.
I've looked at it.
There was no physical evidence.
There was no credible alibi.
How did you get convicted?
>>Michael Morton: I think it was probably a combination of bad actors, bad luck, and
less than scrupulous officials honestly.
>>Willie Geist: And what do you think their motives were?
There's a prosecutor in this case that we'll talk about who has since been disciplined
and stripped of his power.
What motivated him?
What do you think he did this to an innocent man?
>>Michael Morton: I've wanted to ask him that, but I haven't had the opportunity.
But, you know, we gain things in our head a lot.
We think about why because most important question I think in all of our lives is why.
And I think it was partly ambition and hubris and a bit of moral corruption because it is
very easy, I think, to take that first small step to bend a rule or cut a corner, no matter
what field it is.
And the second time it is a little easier and a little easier.
And before you know it, you are in over your head.
>>Willie Geist: You've said you got home from work that day in 1986 and you felt almost
immediately that the sheriff and the people on the scene had made up their mind that you
committed this crime.
What's that feeling like?
>>Michael Morton: Oooh.
It's totally alien.
It is like stepping into a different country where they speak a different language and
the motives are different.
They have procedures you don't understand.
You're at their mercy.
And you may have allies on your side, but they have the power of the state.
And that can sometimes be almost limitless.
>>Willie Geist: So what is it like, Michael, to sit in that courtroom knowing you had nothing
to do with this crime.
You've lost your wife, by the way.
You're grieving through that.
And to hear this story being concocted out of whole cloth.
How do you sit there and process that?
>>Michael Morton: I think a little bit of it was the male attribute sometimes of compartmentalization.
You break your life into little bitty pieces and small things that are manageable that
you think you can do because on hold, it will crush you.
But I was like a naive high school kid right out of a civics class.
I thought this process would work out.
They would see that these were emotional pleas.
And, in short, I didn't think I would get convicted.
>>Willie Geist: And when that verdict comes down?
>>Michael Morton: It's a -- of course, it is an emotional blow, but it is also physical.
I mean, it was like I got punched in the gut.
I collapsed and I fell into the chair.
Just like you hear this ringing in your ears, and it's very much like being hit unexpectedly
right in the face.
You're numb.
You're not sure.
And you're just looking around trying to get your bearings.
>>Willie Geist: So in a relatively short space of time, you go from husband and father -- you
had a 3-year-old son at the time -- to inmate.
You walk into prison for the first day.
What's it like in there for you?
>>Michael Morton: I shouldn't smile.
But I got some really good advice from an old con when I was in county jail before we
went down.
And he said I was lucky in a weird sort of way because I was 32 years old.
That makes me a grown man.
I know who I am.
And he said, "At first keep your mouth shut and your eyes open" because it's a bizarre
subculture.
That stuff you see on TV, in the movies, nah, it is not like that.
It's grinding, repetitive, boring, frighteningly violent sometimes but usually just soul-crushing
with its repetition.
It is the grayness of the days and the years.
>>Willie Geist: Did the other inmates know who you were?
Had they been paying attention to this case?
>>Michael Morton: One or two did.
But not to put too fine a point on it but the so-called average prisoner is not that
well-informed.
>>Willie Geist: They wouldn't care who you were.
>>Michael Morton: No.
And it doesn't matter that I was innocent.
Every person that goes in there has to put up with the same stuff, the food, the clothes,
the people.
Your innocence or guilt is irrelevant.
The state's going to do what the state's going to do, whether you live or die, and you just
have to adapt.
>>Willie Geist: I know you continued to fight for a long time.
You knew you hadn't done this.
Was there a point, though, along that stretch of 25 years where you gave up hope and you
said, I have been here five years now.
I have been here ten years.
I have been here 20 years.
This isn't going to happen for me?
>>Michael Morton: I guess I'm a little bit of a slow learner.
It didn't happen until I was about 14 years in.
But I hit a low point when my son was legally adopted, legally changed his name; and that's
what broke me.
And that's when I figured this is -- this is it, it is the end.
>>Willie Geist: You said he came in at 12 years old before that and said, "Dad, I can't
come anymore.
I can't come see you."
That was the first low point.
And then when he tells you he's going to be adopted and change his last name, it broke
you.
>>Michael Morton: Yeah.
There were a lot of things in my life that hadn't broken me.
But whether it was cumulative or if that was just the very worst, a parent losing a child,
that's when I uncharacteristically just realized that I had nothing left and nowhere to go.
And unlike my normal self, I just cried out to God.
Because, you know -- I got nothing here.
Show me something.
And I figuratively and literally saw the light.
And everything didn't change like that.
I spent another decade inside.
But inside I started seeing everything differently, everything.
>>Willie Geist: Like what?
What do you mean?
>>Michael Morton: That my personal situation wasn't the most important thing in the world.
It was how I reacted to it.
It was how I saw the big picture of life.
What's important?
Is it that we're basically not good people or is it what are you going to do about it?
And once you change that inside of a person, everything else changes.
We can have all the programs in the world that will change outward behavior.
But until you try to change the inner person, everything else is superficial.
>>Willie Geist: So that light goes on inside you.
But if you are going to get out of that prison, you need some help.
>>Michael Morton: Oh, yes.
>>Willie Geist: From the outside.
Where did that lifeline come from?
>>Michael Morton: Amazingly one of my attorneys at trial -- And I had good attorneys.
They weren't state-appointed second-tier lawyers.
They were good.
But one of them just happened to be a friend of a guy named Barry Scheck.
Their wives knew each another.
They visited one another.
And Barry and his friend Peter started The Innocence Project.
And my attorney at trial asked if they would take my case.
And it wasn't an inside deal.
He didn't just take over my case.
He took my file and stuck it at the bottom of the stack.
And I had to work my way up like everybody else.
And The Innocence Project has a lot of people pleading for their assistance.
You have to not only be actually innocent, you have to be lucky enough to have the physical
evidence and the preserved record that will facilitate them jumping in and helping you.
>>Willie Geist: And there was a preserved record.
And that's one of the most shocking things about this case.
There was a very clear record that was not presented at trial, that the sheriff had,
that the prosecutor had.
>>Michael Morton: Mm-hmm.
>>Willie Geist: What was inside that record that would have helped you at trial?
>>Michael Morton: Amazingly, there were several things.
The most outlandish was what's been called the monster transcripts.
My son was in the house when my wife was murdered.
And, basically, it was a recitation of the crime scene and the actual murder from my
son's perspective.
And the only person he ever told was my mother-in-law.
I even took him to child psychologists hoping -- I was very, very afraid that something
might have happened to him in the house or he might have seen something.
But he didn't share anything like that with anyone except my mother-in-law, and she told
the police and it is in their files.
And they kept it from us.
And my attorneys always smelled a rat in the case, but they didn't know what the rat was.
They didn't have any mechanism to get it.
And the law states they're supposed to give up exculpatory evidence, things that make
you look good.
But at the time, there was no mechanism to force them to do it besides just being good
guys.
>>Willie Geist: It is a chilling transcript to read because here you have a 3-year-old
little boy talking to his grandmother saying, I saw a monster doing something to mommy.
What do you feel when you read that?
It gets me.
>>Michael Morton: Yeah.
Every parent should.
It was very literally chilling because I didn't read it until I was out.
>>Willie Geist: Oh, is that right?
>>Michael Morton: The Innocence Project, like any good lawyers, they were running a plan
B in case the DNA didn't work.
Nobody knows what's going to happen until they run the tests.
So they basically ran a Freedom of Information Act, and they got the files from the prosecutor
and the sheriff from '86 and '87.
And they found a lot of stuff in there.
Credit card being used after my wife's death, a check.
Neighbors saying they saw a guy casing our house, parking behind it, walking in the woods.
Just things we should have had.
>>Willie Geist: See, I'm listening to this.
What is the incentive for the prosecutor to ignore all that evidence?
I mean, he had a guy.
It just wasn't you.
Why?
I know that nags you, too.
And you probably don't have the right answer, but...
>>Michael Morton: Yeah, I can speculate.
And I have been willing to talk to the attorneys -- the prosecutor.
He's just not there, and he's not willing.
But you can sort of piece it together.
I've seen him in court.
I see the statements he's made.
And the "why"...
>>Willie Geist: Not only was he not disciplined after that, he moved up.
He became a judge in the State of Texas.
It was a high-profile case.
He was seen as having won a big conviction for himself, and he moved up the ladder.
Did that eat at you?
>>Michael Morton: While I was inside, he actually became -- he was awarded some plaque that
said "Prosecutor of the Year" and then he became a state district judge.
He was moving up while I was moving down.
Whether it was all or in part from my situation, we can debate that.
But he took a very different path than my life took, yeah.
>>Willie Geist: But since then, since your innocence has been proven, things have flipped.
You have gone up, and he's gone down.
>>Michael Morton: Yeah.
The bar, the attorneys in Texas are very angry at him and they've gone after him in a big
way on multiple levels.
They asked me what I wanted.
And I told them, I said, well, I understand about statute of limitations.
But my main concern is he's no longer practicing law and he's off the bench and he's not doing
this to anybody else.
And at the end of the day, what happened was he was removed from the bench.
He lost his law license.
He was given 500 hours community service, $500 fine, and he served about five days in
jail.
>>Willie Geist: Five days.
He was sentenced to ten and he served five.
Isn't that right?
>>Michael Morton: Yeah, yeah.
>>Willie Geist: There is -- We were talking about this back stage.
You have to go online and check it out.
There is a picture of Michael walking out of the courthouse.
I think it was October 4th, 2011.
>>Michael Morton: Bingo.
>>Willie Geist: That's an important day in your life, I know.
And it is just remarkable.
And it's you walking out with a big smile on your face and your eyes closed just feeling
that sun.
What was that moment like?
>>Michael Morton: It was like a physical manifestation of everything that was happening that day.
It was that little capsule in time.
As we went out the door, my attorney, become my friend, he gave me a little queue.
Basically, we were heading towards the door, walking out of the courthouse, he said "Michael,
breathe freedom" or something like that.
And it was one of those beautiful fall days with the sun shining.
And I just kind of leaned my head back and closed my eyes and felt the sun.
And it really felt different.
It was free sun.
[ Laughter ] >>Willie Geist: It is amazing how the same
sun can feel different on one side of the wall from the other, isn't it?
>>Michael Morton: Yes.
Everything is relative.
[ Laughter ] >>Willie Geist: Now, what strikes me is that
you took what could have been a situation that made you angry and resentful -- and I'm
sure that still lives inside you somewhere, but you decided I'm going to use this as a
positive now.
I need to make sure this doesn't happen to other people.
Where did you begin in that mission?
>>Michael Morton: It began when one of my attorneys told me something I already knew
and I had read it before.
He said, harboring this hatred and revenge, all this animus, he said it is akin to drinking
poison and then hoping that guy over there dies from it.
And that's apropos because when I consciously decided to forgive everybody that I felt was
responsible for my incarceration -- and I'm just human.
I had plotted their murders.
I was going to kill some people when I got out.
And when I let all that go, I felt lighter.
I felt cleansed.
I felt 20 or 30 pounds lighter in kind of a liberating way.
And it was -- it was just that conscious choice to forgive those guys.
>>Willie Geist: Did it take you a while to get there, thought?
They took a quarter century of the prime of your life and pried your 3-year-old out of
your hands.
>>Michael Morton: Yeah, it wasn't instantaneous.
It was kind of like -- [ Laughter ]
I mean, everything worthwhile is hard and takes a little bit of time.
This was worthwhile.
Because I have met some other exonerees and guys who have just been to prison, and so
many are bitter and angry.
And that's no way to live life.
Life's worth living.
Get out there and live it.
>>Willie Geist: Tell me now about the Michael Morton Act, signed in 2012 in the state of
Texas with Governor Rick Perry.
What does it change about the law?
>>Michael Morton: It gives what they call Brady teeth.
Brady was a case in the Supreme Court in 1963.
You're supposed to give over the stuff that makes you look innocent.
In Texas now, the prosecutors have to sign a form that goes into the court record.
They're going to give you exculpatory evidence before, during, and after the trial.
And all that does is make them personally liable, that if they do something like they
did to me, they will lose their law license, and they're looking at 15 years in prison.
And no thinking prosecutor, in my mind, would jeopardize his professional career and his
life over an iffy case.
That's going to stop what happened to me from happening to you.
>>Willie Geist: Was that a hard law to get through or did you have pretty good support?
I know there's been push-back on it.
>>Michael Morton: A little bit.
And we're going to be back in Austin this year or next year for the session.
There was some push-back.
But this was a situation -- it sailed through.
I didn't know any better.
I found out there were people who had been working on this for ten years.
When I got involved and looked the senators in the eye and asked them why, we got through
the senator and the House unanimously, and the governor brought that bill up at one of
the first sessions to sign it.
And some defense attorneys think I'm a rock star.
But I haven't done anything.
This is stuff that happened to me.
I didn't do it.
>>Willie Geist: A lot of people think you are a rock star.
I have to ask you before your time runs out here in just a second how your relationship
is with your son now.
>>Michael Morton: I have a lot of new relationships.
Since getting out, I've remarried, Cynthia, my wife.
>>Willie Geist: Here?
>>Michael Morton: Yes.
But the one that people ask about the most -- I have so many deep relationships -- was
my son.
And we went in the opposite direction for a good while.
He thought I was the monster who killed his mom.
And we're back, and we're normal now.
It was an organic process rather than a linear one.
And we're probably in that uncomfortable average zone now, where it's not perfect.
[ Laughter ] >>Willie Geist: Where all fathers and sons
should be -- >>Michael Morton: Absolutely.
>>Willie Geist: -- the uncomfortable average.
It means you're doing well.
>>Michael Morton: That's what they tell me.
[ Laughter ] >>Willie Geist: Well, it's such an honor to
have you here, thank you for the great work do you in turning what could be 25 years of
despair into hope for a lot of other people.
Michael Morton.
>>Michael Morton: Thank you.
>>Willie Geist: Thank you.
[ Applause ]