---
title: "Death-Row Exoneree's Foundation Fights Wrongful Convictions, Provides Post-Release Health Care"
description: 'When Anthony Graves (pictured) was exonerated from death row in Texas in 2010, he decided that he would use his personal experience as a catalyst for…'
canonical: 'https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row-exonerees-foundation-fights-wrongful-convictions-provides-post-release-health-care'
section: news
date: '2017-12-27T15:58:33-05:00'
updated: '2025-03-14T14:49:55-04:00'
source: 'Death Penalty Information Center'
---

! When **Anthony Graves** (pictured) was **[exonerated from death row in Texas in 2010](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/anthony-graves-becomes-12th-death-row-inmate-exonerated-in-texas)**, he decided that he would use his personal experience as a catalyst for redressing the "[**injustice of the justice system**](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/death-row-exoneree-anthony-graves-seeks-to-right-the-injustice-of-the-justice-system)." After receiving $1.45 million as compensation for the 18 years he was wrongly incarcerated, including twelve years on death row, the nation's 138th death-row exoneree created the **Anthony Graves Foundation**. Over the past two years, Graves has personally contributed more than $150,000 of his compensation funds as part of the fledgling nonprofit's expenditures towards freeing other innocent prisoners and providing health-care services to recently released prisoners who lack the means to pay for medical treatment. Graves was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death as a result of what the Texas State Bar described as [**"egregious" prosecutorial misconduct**](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/texas-board-confirms-disbarment-of-prosecutor-for-misconduct-in-anthony-graves-case). Now disbarred for his actions, prosecutor **Charles Sebesta** presented false testimony from a witness implicating Graves in the murder while at the same time withholding from the defense a confession that the prosecution's witness had actually committed the murder. As in most death-row exonerations, there was no DNA evidence in Graves's case. Upon his release, Graves helped in the exoneration of [**Alfred Dewayne Brown**](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/innocence-alfred-dewayne-brown-is-released-from-texas-death-row-nations-154th-death-row-exoneration), another no-DNA case, in which prosecutors suppressed a phone record that showed Brown could not have been at the scene of the crime when the murder occurred. The Graves Foundation then started **The Humane Investigation Project**, focusing on labor intensive non-DNA cases that Innocence Projects rarely take. “A lot of guys fall through the cracks because of the criteria of these projects,” Graves said. “I’d be dead today, because I had no DNA in my case.” Among other cases, Graves is currently working to exonerate still-incarcerated former Texas death-row prisoner **Nanon Williams**. When Graves was freed, doctors told him his arteries were clogged, the result of poor diet and health care. Because of his compensation settlement, however, he had money to see a doctor—a rarity for most people recently released from prison. Recognizing the severity of the health crisis faced by released prisoners, the Graves Foundation opened a small health clinic in March 2016 to provide low-cost and free care to those recently freed and to their families. Paul Cates, spokesman for the New York-based Innocence Project, said many exonerees feel like Graves, compelled to fight for change in a criminal justice system that wrecked their lives. “It doesn’t destroy their souls, and almost all of them somehow find a way to get beyond what happened,” Cates said. The prospect of helping those whose shoes he's been in continues to motivate Graves. “I always stay positive,” he said. “That’s how I came home.” It is a worldview summed up in the title of Graves's new book, *Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement, and 12 Years on Death Row Failed to Kill My Soul*, scheduled for release on January 16, 2018.

(B. Grissom, "[**Freed from death row, Anthony Graves uses compensation to help other inmates -- including his best friend**](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2016/03/18/freed-from-death-row-anthony-graves-uses-compensation-to-help-other-inmates-including-his-best-friend)," Dallas News, March 3, 2016; A. Graves, "[Infinite Hope: How Wrongful Conviction, Solitary Confinement, and 12 Years on Death Row Failed to Kill My Soul](http://www.beacon.org/Infinite-Hope-P1347.aspx)", Beacon Press (2018).) Read more about the [Anthony Graves Foundation](http://www.anthonygravesfoundation.org/). See [**Books**](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/resources/publications-and-testimony/books) and [**Innocence**](https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/policy/innocence).