Update 11:33 p. m.:
Challenger Jana Duty has unseated incumbent John Bradley, garnering 55% of the vote.
Original Post:
Early voting results are in for Williamson County, where the Republican primary race for District Attorney is arguably the one to watch.
Challenger Jana Duty has 53 percent of the vote compared to incumbent John Bradley’s 47 percent. Less than 700 votes separate the candidates. A little more than 1,500 votes were tallied in early voting.
Duty has made Bradley’s handling of the Michael Morton case a central plank of her campaign.
She told YNN last night: "The policies and procedures have to change because those procedures that was in place 25 years ago in the Michael Morton case, are still in place today,” Duty said. “We have to have an open discovery policy, we have to have fairness."
Morton was freed from jail after serving 25 years in a Texas prison, after being convicted of murdering his wife in 1987. It wasn’t until 2011 that DNA testing, proved the innocence he had maintained.
The Texas Tribune’s reporting on the race noted Morton’s “wrongful conviction is the central issue in the GOP primary fight between incumbent District Attorney John Bradley — who spent five years opposing DNA testing that ultimately exonerated Morton — and County Attorney Jana Duty.”
