Homily

Many of you drive, and as we all know sometimes we may not always obey the laws about driving. Have you ever run a red light, gone over the speed limit, or maybe not come to a complete stop at a stop sign? If so whether you did it on purpose or by accident, did you then go to the police station and tell them that you broke the law? Maybe you're not old enough to drive. Did you every sneak and take cookies or food you weren't supposed to eat? Did you ever take things that didn't belong to you? And every time you did those things did you tell your mom or dad after you did them? We'll come back to this later.

I saw a very fine documentary recently about a man who was in prison for almost 25 years for a crime he did not commit. The man's name is Michael Morton (no connection to anyone we know.) He and his wife Christine lived in Texas and they had a three-year-old boy who had just finished recovering from surgery to repair a congenital heart problem. It was August 12th, 1986, and the three of them went out to dinner to celebrate Michael's 32nd birthday. The following morning he left for work, but when he came back home, police cars were at his house. There, to his horror, he discovered that his wife had been murdered, although his son was safe. Some days later the police arrested Michael for the murder of his wife. He was the only suspect the police ever looked at.

During the trial the two main reasons the prosecutor, Ken Anderson, gave the jury to explain why Michael killed his wife was a note of complaint he had left her that day before going to work, and the testimony of the medical examiner who said that, based on testing stomach contents, Christine had died about 1:30 a.m., long before Michael left for work. The defense offered the opinion of other experts who said that it was impossible to fix the time of death using only stomach contents. But in the end, the jury found Michael Morton guilty of the murder of his wife and he was sentenced to life in prison. The little boy, Eric, would be raised by his mother's sister and her husband. Michael only saw him twice a year, when the aunt brought him to prison by court order. Eventually, when he was a teenager, he asked his dad to stop forcing him to visit him in prison. He believed his father had killed his mother. So Michael lost his son now, as well as his wife.

But Mr. Morton's attorney, Bill Anderson, never believed that he was guilty. And he was so convinced that Michael was innocent, that even after the trial he kept looking for some way to get him freed from prison. Finally he learned of a non-profit group called "The Innocence Project." Their purpose was to try and help people they believed had been wrongly imprisoned. They listened to Michael's attorney, who had kept on the case without being paid for some years, and they believed in his innocence. It was known at the time of the trial that Christine Morton's brother had found a bloody bandana 100 feet away from the house several days after the murder, but the police never referred to this at the trial. The attorneys at the Innocence Project petitioned the court to have the bandana tested for DNA in 2005, 18 years after the trial had ended.

Now, in the meantime the original district attorney, Ken Anderson, who had prosecuted the case against Morton had gone on to become a state judge, and his assistant, Don Bradley was now the D.A. Don Bradley refused to allow the DNA testing of the bandana, and he told the non-profit's lawyers not to "muddy the waters." He stonewalled this for three years until finally, in 2008, the Federal Court ordered the DNA testing. The result of the test was that the blood of the murder victim was found on the bandana mixed in with the DNA of a man who was not Michael Morton. Later on, under the Freedom of Information Act, the attorneys asked to see the sheriff's file on the Morton murder case. There they discovered that there was an interview given the police by Christine Morton's own mother, who told them what the little boy, Eric, said he saw in the house, including the murderer who was not his daddy. There was a report of a suspicious man in the neighborhood driving a green van several days before. Family said Christine's purse was missing. Police knew that Christine's credit card had been used at a local store after the murder. The police also found a forged check that was cashed after the death. All of this evidence was kept hidden by the district attorney for all those many years.

Even worse, the DNA testing gave up the identity of the real murderer, and it was later tied to his having committed another murder after the Morton case. That victim's family blames the prosecution in the Morton case for hiding evidence that might have led to the arrest of the real killer of Christine Morton, and if the police had been told to pursue it, perhaps he may have been caught, and their beloved wife and mother might still be alive.

The court ordered Michael Morton to be freed from prison in 2011, and he was declared innocent of all charges.

Now while Morton was in prison, although he had ever been an active Christian, there came a time when he was so depressed by his situation that he called out to God to help him. About two weeks later he was in bed ready to sleep when suddenly he saw or experienced a golden light all around him, and a great feeling of peace. He says, "From that point on I knew three things: 1) God exists, 2) He is wiser than we are and 3) He loves me." He also said, "In the courtroom, my life was changed, but that night in prison my world changed." There is just so much here to tell and so little time to tell it. But the documentary is called, "An Unreal Dream: The Michael Morton Story." It's on Netflix or you can just Google "Michael Morton" and you'll find information. But I think it's a very moving and thought-provoking film and worthwhile to watch.

Why? Because it made me think about justice and injustice, faith versus secular living, and the power of grace that can transform our lives.

Now back to my original questions—why don't we turn ourselves in to the police to get a traffic ticket every time we break a traffic law? Why don't we tell our parents about every time we do something wrong? And now are we ever able to think of a time when we wanted to see justice done, to see the guilty punished, to demand that those who break the law should have to pay for it? Do we ever demand that other people, like our parents maybe punish the guilty, who happen to be our brothers and sisters, but not us? What do we really think about guilt, punishment and mercy? Michael received unjust punishment, and yet God showed Him mercy, and other people gave him physical freedom from prison, and justice was also served.

Here with Christ crucified we find no justice. Indeed we are all guilty. And yet here we find mercy first, even before justice. Friends, don't get me wrong. God is indeed just and we shall all be judged on the last day. But here clearly before us we see that we are offered mercy before that judgment takes place, by He who suffered unjustly on our behalf. It's very easy and understandable that there are times when we want others to pay for their sins. It's also very understandable that we may think because our sins seem smaller to us, that other people are the ones who ought to pay for their sins. And yes, we must struggle to find justice, we will always need courts and jails so that the guilty are punished and society is protected from the evils of men and women. But at the same time, let us also remember that human justice is always imperfect, even if it is our own sense of justice. And let us also remember that the Cross is a great symbol of the love of Christ for us, just as it was for Michael Morton. We have been shown the greatest of mercies. May we allow the depth, the richness, the magnificent, generous, awesome power of that mercy to sink more deeply into our souls so that we may live in gratitude and thankfulness to the One unjustly accused and sacrificed; to Christ our Blessed Lord.