Anthony Graves Becomes 12^th Death Row Inmate Exonerated in Texas

Anthony Graves (pic­tured) was released from a Texas prison on October 27 after Washington-Burleson County District Attorney Bill Parham filed a motion to dis­miss all charges that had result­ed in Graves being sent to death row 16 years ago. Graves was con­vict­ed in 1994 of assist­ing Robert Carter in mul­ti­ple mur­ders in 1992. There was no phys­i­cal evi­dence link­ing Graves to the crime, and his con­vic­tion relied pri­mar­i­ly on Carter’s tes­ti­mo­ny that Graves was his accom­plice. Two weeks before Carter was sched­uled to be exe­cut­ed in 2000, he pro­vid­ed a state­ment say­ing he lied about Graves’s involve­ment in the crime. He repeat­ed that state­ment min­utes before his exe­cu­tion. In 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit over­turned Graves’s con­vic­tion and ordered a new tri­al after find­ing that pros­e­cu­tors elicit­ed false state­ments and with­held tes­ti­mo­ny that could have influ­enced the jurors. After D.A. Parham began to reassem­ble the case and review the evi­dence, he hired for­mer Harris County assis­tant dis­trict attor­ney Kelly Siegler as a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor. Siegler soon real­ized that mak­ing a case against Graves would be impos­si­ble: ​“After months of inves­ti­ga­tion and talk­ing to every wit­ness who’s ever been involved in this case, and peo­ple who’ve nev­er been talked to before, after look­ing under every rock we could find, we found not one piece of cred­i­ble evi­dence that links Anthony Graves to the com­mis­sion of this cap­i­tal mur­der. This is not a case where the evi­dence went south with time or wit­ness­es passed away or we just could­n’t make the case any­more. He is an inno­cent man,” Siegler said.

(B. Rogers, ​“Prisoner ordered free from Texas’ death row,” Houston Chronicle, October 28, 2010; pho­to by www​.antho​ny​graves​.org). Graves is the 12^th per­son to be exon­er­at­ed from Texas’s death row since 1973 and the 138^th such per­son in the coun­try. Only Florida and Illinois have had more exon­er­a­tions dur­ing this time. When Illinois had their 13^th exon­er­a­tion, the gov­er­nor declared a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions that con­tin­ues to this day. Click here for a full list of exonerees since 1973. See Innocence.