Getting Life - Morton

Title: Getting Life: An Innocent Man's 25-Year Journey From Prison to Peace, A Memoir

Author: Michael Morton

Published: Genre: Non-Fiction
Rating: 4/5- Great. Push it on your friends and family.

Book Source: This book was sent to me free from Simon & Schuster for an honest review. All comments in this review are the honest opinion of the blogger.

Recommended if you like: Memoirs, Stories about beating the odds, Memoirs about prison life

What Its About:  
When Michael Morton left for work one summer afternoon in 1986, he didn't know his life would change forever in a few short hours.  When Morton stopped at his babysitter's on the way home from work to pick up his three-year old son, he was surprised to learn his always-dependable wife had never dropped their son off that morning. This worried him greatly. A quick phone call home proved something had happened, something bad. 

Morton hurried home and was faced by a group of police officers who were none to friendly.  He learned that his wife was dead, having been bludgeoned to death in their bed. It didn't take long for the small-town cops to decide that he was the killer.  Sadly, despite the lack of proof linking him to the murder, the prosecution agreed and a few short weeks later the jury considered the limited information they were given and sent him to prison for the rest of his life.

Only after years of struggle, with the assistance of an amazing group of caring lawyers and an organization called Project Innocence, was he able to uncover the truth and prove his innocence. Not only had Morton not killed his wife, but the prosecution illegally withheld documents and information that would have enabled Morton's defense attorneys to make a fair case, possibly changing the course of events and his life.

Sadly, it took them 25-years to clear Morton's name and finally see him released from the Texas State Department of Corrections.  During that time, Morton's young son was raised by his late wife's sister with minimal contact with Morton.  After his release, his lawyers continued his  battle pro-Bono and initiated legal proceedings against the prosecutor who had broken the law by withholding information in efforts to build his own career. 

Despite those horrible and unforgivable events, Morton has learned to move on with forgiveness in his heart and has focused his efforts on changing and strengthening the law to ensure such horrors don't happen again.

The Bottom Line:

Told with complete honesty and straightforwardness, this story will break you heart and give you hope all in one reading.  

This book is exceptionally well written. With the breath of information and the period of time covered, the real possibility existed to get bogged down and boring. This never occurs, while you also never feel like you missed anything. Thorough in all the right places and never boring!

Seriously, read this!