In The Late 1990s, Erin Moriarty received letters from a man named Kevin Cooper, who had been sentenced to death in 1985 for the murders of four people. Sitting on death row in San Quentin State Prison (now San Quentin Rehablitation Center), Cooper claimed he was innocent and that DNA testing would prove it.
“He’s a brilliant man. He had done so much research on DNA,” recalls Moriarty, 71.
Intrigued, she and her team at “48 Hours,” an investigative news feature show covering crime and justice stories, did a story on Cooper in 2001 which resulted in his being the first death row inmate in California to get post-conviction DNA testing. While his story is complicated, Moriarty says, and he remains on death row, it ignited a fire in her to cover similar cases.
“I was one of the first at CBS and at ‘48 Hours’ to start doing stories on wrongful convictions. They’re really common now, but back then, they were not,” Moriarty admits. “It became my passion. It was perfect for me because I had a legal background.”
That’s because Moriarty began her career path as a lawyer.
Photo By Craig Blankenhorn/CBS
Childhood Dream
Born in Cincinnati and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Moriarty wanted to be a lawyer from the time she was a little girl.
“My dad was a lawyer; I watched ‘Perry Mason,’ and being one was completely the track I was on from childhood through law school,” she recalls.
After earning her law degree at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University, Moriarty passed the bar and began working for a small law firm, where she had previously interned.
She knew that if she could just land a big client, she would be set. While practicing law and hoping to catch her proverbial “big fish,” Moriarty read an article about a syndicated TV program starting in Columbus. They needed someone who was familiar with the town, which she was.
“I thought, ‘I’m going to audition for this and get my name out. People are going to know who I am, and I’m going to be able to get legal work.’ At the time, it seemed to make sense,” recalls Moriarty, with a laugh.
She auditioned and got the gig working at “PM Magazine,” while also continuing to work at the law firm. But something unexpected happened.
“I fell in love with storytelling,” Moriarty says.
While working at both, life was good for a while. But then, a client her law firm represented — and who was running for governor of Ohio at the time — sued the TV station where Moriarty was working.
“The general manager came to me, and he said, ‘You’re going to have to make a decision. You’re either working for this law firm or you’re working for us,’” she says. “I decided to stay on the show.”
Moriarty had no idea at the time that this one decision would lead her on a career path which would eventually result in winning nine Emmy Awards for her work.
Reporting from Trento, Italy in 2019
Getting To The Big Apple
From the time she began working at “PM Magazine,” Moriarty says that she never had to look for another job again — instead, they were offered to her.
After “PM Magazine,” she worked in Baltimore at WJZ-TV as the consumer/legal reporter, where she would cover five stories a week. From Baltimore, she took a job in Cleveland as the local CBS staff attorney, covering trials and legal issues (it was also where her then-boyfriend, now-husband, retired lawyer James E. Musurca, was working at the time).
Next, Moriarty worked in Chicago at Channel 4, the local NBC station, as the consumer reporter. She was so good at her job that when Eric Ober, then the GM of the CBS Station in Chicago, moved to New York City as the President of CBS News, he offered her a position.
“I worked for the competitor, and he still took me with him,” she recalls.
When Moriarty went to CBS in New York in 1986, she was introduced to Charles Kuralt, an iconic TV journalist known for his “On the Road” segments, which appeared on The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite as well as his stories on “CBS News Sunday Morning.” Next, she met Charles Osgood, who is most recognized for having hosted “CBS Sunday Morning” for more than 20 years.
“They had me at hello,” Moriarty recalls while laughing. “I didn’t even know what they were going to pay me. I just had to work where Charles Kuralt and Charlie Osgood worked. Dan Rather was there and Leslie Stahl. How could I not?”
At the start, she worked at “CBS Morning News,” now called “CBS Mornings,” as the consumer reporter and covering legal issues. When CBS decided to start a new show, then called “48 Hours on Crack Street” about drug problems in the nation, the show was mostly comprised of male correspondents, but they asked Moriarty to work part time. She agreed.
“I loved the journalism. I loved the technology. I loved the traveling,” she says. “In 1990, when they asked me to go full time, I did.”
Over the years, the show has changed — and even changed names — but Moriarty still cherishes it and the work. “It turned out to be just perfect for me,” she says.
In addition, Moriarty hosts a podcast called “My Life of Crime.” The way in which it differs from her work on “48 Hours” is that she can cover stories in more depth — like in six episodes or longer. She tells true crime stories, updates stories she’s done on “48 Hours” or does variations like an episode she recorded with her son, Nick Musurca, now a Hollywood horror writer and producer — called “The Family Business.”
Covering the JonBenet Ramsey case in 2002
Wrongful Convictions
After doing the story on Cooper, Moriarty and her team began covering stories on other incarcerated people in which there were questions about their guilt. They did stories about Ryan Ferguson, who was convicted at age 17 of a murder in his hometown of Columbia, Mo.
“If we had not covered that trial, he’d still be in prison today,” says Moriarty. In fact, when she began doing stories about Ferguson, new evidence came out, and lawyer Kathleen Zellner took on his appellate case pro bono.
“Ten years later, we were there when he walked out of prison. How could you not want to cover these stories? When you spotlight a case, often new evidence comes out or you just get people so interested,” Moriarty says.
Over the years, Moriarty estimates that she’s seen about a dozen people leave jail for many reasons — from parole to exoneration. Every time, it’s thrilling. “There’s nothing more exciting than watching someone walk out of prison free,” she says.
In many cases, Moriarty still communicates with the people she’s covered — whether they’re still in prison or have been freed.
“These people are in my life because you can’t work on a story that long and not get to know them,” she says. “I stay in touch with them. They’re part of my life.”
At the Grand Canyon in 1993
Giving Back
Moriarty has always appreciated her alma mater, Ohio State University, because she wasn’t laden with exorbitant debt years after graduating law school and she received a great education. So, in 2010, when they approached her about donating to the school, she knew she wanted to affect students directly and be able to have an impact on them.
Together, Moriarty and the school found the perfect way for her to give back: she annually funds an internship for a second-year law student at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University to work at the Ohio Public Defender’s Office in the Wrongful Conviction Project (WCP). The mission of the WCP is to both free those who are wrongly convicted in the state of Ohio, but also to prevent future injustice by helping to change the legal system. The student works part time during the school year and then the entire summer after.
Moriarty says that the WCP only works on cases that don’t involve DNA evidence. “Those are the hardest cases there are,” she says.
She also likes that the WCP introduces students to appellate law, which is the process of appealing a verdict from a trial to different, higher courts, with the intent of ending up with a different resolution. Moriarty believes that it’s important to provide exposure to this form of law because it’s not generally taught in law schools, and as she has covered in many stories, it can greatly change people’s lives — especially for those convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.
Every single intern to date, she says, now works in public interest law and some work at the WCP.
“They’re doing good,” says Moriarty. “They’re changing people’s lives.”
And by covering wrongful conviction stories on “48 Hours” and “My Life of Crime,” as well as funding the internship, Moriarty, in her own way, is also helping to balance the scales of justice.