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Former Williamson County DA John Bradley Surfaces in Palau (Suppressed Evidence in M. Morton Case)
Disgraced former Williamson County DA John Bradley has come up for air in Palau, Tossed from office, ex-Williamson DA lands job in sunny Palau.
The fall of John Bradley was swift and severe and justified.
The high-profile Texas prosecutor and native Houstonian lost the Republican primary for Williamson County district attorney in May 2012. It was a post he had held for a decade.
He lost because even in a blazing red county that demands tough-on-crime justice, truth is important.
And Bradley had stood in the way of truth in the case of Michael Morton, who spent nearly a quarter century in prison on a false conviction in the 1986 murder of his wife.
Although it was Bradley’s predecessor, Ken Anderson, who hid evidence to secure Morton’s life sentence, it was Bradley who belittled Morton’s claims of innocence and vehemently fought testing of DNA evidence that had the power to set Morton free. The evidence, a bloody bandana found near the crime scene, was only tested after an appeals court ordered it.
Bradley’s stonewalling prolonged an innocent man’s hell by 2,400 days. It also allowed the real killer, Mark Alan Norwood, to roam the streets.
Since losing elected office, Bradley has tried to find work. In 2012, I wrote about him applying to lead the state’s Special Prosecution Unit.
No one would take him. Until now. It seems Bradley has landed another prosecutor’s post. Not in Texas. Not in the United States. In the tiny Republic of Palau, where, according to several sources, Bradley has accepted a position in the attorney general’s office.
The former U.S. territory of about 20,000 people in Micronesia was granted independence in 1994, and now operates in “free association” with the United States.
Barry Scheck, co-founder and co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project, said he learned about Bradley’s new job in a mass email from Bradley’s wife.
(...)
Scheck, at the Innocence Project, echoed that sentiment.
“He’s certainly going quite a few thousand miles away in order to reinvent himself and we’re all in favor of second acts in American lives,” Scheck told me Tuesday.
Even Michael Morton maintained his graciousness when I asked what he thought about the prosecutor who wronged him returning to prosecuting.
“I don’t wake up every morning gnashing my teeth and shaking my fist at, you know, ‘where’s John Bradley?’ I’ve literally and figuratively moved on,” he said.
“At this stage of the game, I wish him well,” Morton said. “And, you know, adios.”
Morton’s Houston-based attorney John Raley, who worked the case for free, and fought Bradley at every turn as he tried to stymie Morton’s appeals, was a tad less gracious.
“I’m not aware of any evidence that he has learned the lessons of the Morton case,” Raley said of Bradley. “His actions in the future will answer that question.”
The high-profile Texas prosecutor and native Houstonian lost the Republican primary for Williamson County district attorney in May 2012. It was a post he had held for a decade.
He lost because even in a blazing red county that demands tough-on-crime justice, truth is important.
And Bradley had stood in the way of truth in the case of Michael Morton, who spent nearly a quarter century in prison on a false conviction in the 1986 murder of his wife.
Although it was Bradley’s predecessor, Ken Anderson, who hid evidence to secure Morton’s life sentence, it was Bradley who belittled Morton’s claims of innocence and vehemently fought testing of DNA evidence that had the power to set Morton free. The evidence, a bloody bandana found near the crime scene, was only tested after an appeals court ordered it.
Bradley’s stonewalling prolonged an innocent man’s hell by 2,400 days. It also allowed the real killer, Mark Alan Norwood, to roam the streets.
Since losing elected office, Bradley has tried to find work. In 2012, I wrote about him applying to lead the state’s Special Prosecution Unit.
No one would take him. Until now. It seems Bradley has landed another prosecutor’s post. Not in Texas. Not in the United States. In the tiny Republic of Palau, where, according to several sources, Bradley has accepted a position in the attorney general’s office.
The former U.S. territory of about 20,000 people in Micronesia was granted independence in 1994, and now operates in “free association” with the United States.
Barry Scheck, co-founder and co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project, said he learned about Bradley’s new job in a mass email from Bradley’s wife.
(...)
Scheck, at the Innocence Project, echoed that sentiment.
“He’s certainly going quite a few thousand miles away in order to reinvent himself and we’re all in favor of second acts in American lives,” Scheck told me Tuesday.
Even Michael Morton maintained his graciousness when I asked what he thought about the prosecutor who wronged him returning to prosecuting.
“I don’t wake up every morning gnashing my teeth and shaking my fist at, you know, ‘where’s John Bradley?’ I’ve literally and figuratively moved on,” he said.
“At this stage of the game, I wish him well,” Morton said. “And, you know, adios.”
Morton’s Houston-based attorney John Raley, who worked the case for free, and fought Bradley at every turn as he tried to stymie Morton’s appeals, was a tad less gracious.
“I’m not aware of any evidence that he has learned the lessons of the Morton case,” Raley said of Bradley. “His actions in the future will answer that question.”
Kuff says if pretty sums it up.
Other than one brief feint in the direction of acknowledging his responsibility in the Morton saga, John Bradley has never shown any indication that he thinks he did anything wrong. If it were up to him, Michael Morton would still be in jail, Ken Anderson would still be on the bench, and the evidence that exonerated Morton and ousted Bradley and Anderson would be in a box somewhere, if it hadn’t been destroyed. So count me in the tad-less-gracious group here. It’s fine by me if John Bradley wants to put his life back together, but he can do that outside the practice of law. Flip burgers, sell cars, groom dogs, dig ditches, paint houses – there’s tons of honest, dignified jobs John Bradley can hold that won’t put him in a position of power over someone’s freedom. If he truly wants redemption, he knows what he has to do to earn it. Grits, who is more gracious than I, has more..
The only thing I would add to that is the real killer would still be at large. And if you’re ever in Palau watch your back.
More at http://eyeonwilliamson.org/?p=13863
4 replies
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At least he is out of Texas though. 
