
Students say prosecutor
made Graves mistake
Group
says evidence never
linked him to the 1992 slayings
Houston Chronicle By Harvey Rice
January 10, 2005
Condemned inmate Anthony Graves is waiting to find out whether he will
get a new trial. If he does, students at the Texas Innocence Network
who investigated his case are convinced he will be acquitted.
The college students say they uncovered new evidence, never presented
at trial, that proves Graves was not involved in the Aug. 18, 1992,
slayings of six people.
"Rather than pursue justice, however, the state engaged in a pattern of
hiding relevant and exculpatory evidence from Graves' defense counsel
in its desire to win at all costs," a draft report of the group's
findings reads.
The report collects all evidence supporting Graves' innocence claim,
including the new information. The students say the most important of
that is their potential debunking of the motive prosecutors proposed in
persuading jurors to convict Graves 10 years ago.
But whether the new evidence will ever be heard in court depends on
U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent of Galveston, who is reviewing a
recommendation that he deny Graves, 38, a new trial.
U.S. Magistrate Judge John Froeschner concluded in November that
Charles Sebesta, who was the district attorney for Washington and
Burleson counties during Graves' trial, was guilty of prosecutorial
misconduct because he withheld from the defense a statement that Graves
was innocent.
But Froeschner also said the statement by Robert Earl Carter, who later
was executed for the slayings, would not have changed the verdict had
jurors been aware of it.
In a rebuttal filed last week, Graves' attorney, Roy Greenwood, said it
was improper for Froeschner to speculate on how the jury might have
ruled.
One juror, Jim Hahn of Manvel, told the Chronicle last year that the
case was weak and he regretted voting to convict Graves. He gave the
Innocence Network a sworn statement to that effect.
Knife
never found
The
conviction was based almost entirely on Carter's testimony. The knife
Graves was accused of using was never found, and no forensic evidence
linked him to the murders.
Carter retracted his trial testimony in a 2000 deposition in which he
accused Sebesta of threatening to prosecute Carter's wife, Theresa
"Cookie" Carter, to force him to testify against Graves. Carter again
professed Graves' innocence in his final statement before his execution
on May 31, 2000.
In making his decision, Kent can consider only the trial record. He
cannot take into account the two-year investigation by journalism
students from the University of St. Thomas in Houston, who are part of
the University of Houston-based Texas Innocence Network.
Sebesta said the students took information out of context.
"What these kids are telling you is not what the record says," he said.
"You've got to look at the totality of the evidence."
Support from inmate
Journalism professor Nicole Casarez, who advises the students, said
their investigation points overwhelmingly toward innocence.
"Nothing we've found says he's guilty," she said.
The Innocence Network warns convicts before taking their cases that if
evidence of guilt is found, it could be used against them.
Graves also has support from former death row inmate Kerry Max Cook,
who eventually was cleared and is portrayed in the play The Exonerated.
In an interview, Cook said that Carter admitted to him while both were
on death row that Graves is innocent.
"I speak for the innocent, but I am very selective," Cook said.
"Anthony, I really believe, is innocent. I'm stunned that an
innocent person is this close to execution."
Graves, who has not been given an execution date, was condemned for the
slaying of Bobbie Davis, 45; her 16-year-old daughter, Nicole; and four
grandchildren ages 4 to 9 in Somerville. They were shot, stabbed and
beaten before the house was set ablaze to conceal the crime.
Casarez has written a 17-page draft of a report that says Carter made
an extraordinary effort to exonerate Graves, professing Graves'
innocence to other death row inmates and a series of attorneys
representing him during his lengthy appeals, as well as writing to
Graves' appellate attorneys.
The Innocence Network students said they discovered a letter Carter
wrote from prison dated Jan. 14, 1998, to a woman he called his "second
mother."
"I lied on an innocent man to keep my family safe," Carter wrote. "I
even told the D.A. this before I testify (sic) against Graves, but he
didn't want to hear it."
Sebesta denied that Carter had made such a statement in 1994. In 2000,
however, he acknowledged to a television reporter that Carter did make
the statement.
A crucial TV interview
Based partly on allegations stemming from the TV interview, the 5th
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case to Froeschner, the
magistrate judge, to determine whether there was prosecutorial
misconduct, which normally is grounds for a new trial.
Sebesta now acknowledges that Carter told him that he alone had
committed the murders.
But, Sebesta added, it was an obvious lie.
"I said, 'Robert, there is no way you could have done it yourself,' "
Sebesta said. "He abandoned that."
The students also said Sebesta never informed the defense that Carter
had said his wife assisted him in the slayings. Sebesta said he would
have prosecuted Carter's wife but lacked evidence.
The Innocence Network report says a polygraph exam and telephone
records that could have supported Graves' defense have never been given
to his attorneys.
A wife's testimony
Moreover, the Innocence Network discovered during an October hearing
before Froeschner that it had a copy of grand jury testimony by
Carter's wife that neither the judge nor Graves' attorneys had. The
document showed that Cookie Carter told the grand jury that her husband
had falsely implicated Graves.
The students also cast doubt on Graves' alleged motive. Prosecutors
argued that Graves killed Bobbie Davis because she had obtained a
promotion at the Brenham State School that his mother wanted.
The school's supervisor told the students, however, that Davis' mother
had not applied for the position and was not jealous of the promotion.
Prosecutors alleged that Graves used a knife given to him by his
employer, Roy Allen Rueter, who had an identical knife. Rueter agreed
to testify after an assistant district attorney told him that "without
any doubt," Rueter's knife matched the victims' wounds perfectly, the
report says.
Rueter told the Chronicle he later learned that expert testimony
revealed that other knives could have made the wounds.
"The way they embellished this back in 1992," he said, "that's the
part, I mean, I just feel violated."
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