Networked Knowledge Media Report Networked Knowledge Prosecution Reports This page set up by Dr Robert N Moles [Underlining where it occurs is for editorial emphasis] Anthony Graves is appointed to the Board of the Houston Forensic Science Service On 12 June 2015 Brian Rogers of the Houston Chronicle reported Prosecutor in Graves case disbarred in rare move Exoneree: 'Worm has finally turned' toward justice after disbarment Anthony Graves sat on death row for more than a dozen years and told anyone who would listen that the prosecutor in his 1994 capital murder trial withheld evidence, presented false testimony and lied to the judge. At the time, few people believed the stunning allegations against Burleson County District Attorney Charles Sebesta. On Friday, State Bar of Texas officials told Graves he was right and had disbarred Sebesta for prosecutorial misconduct, an exceptionally rare punishment for an elected district attorney. Graves, who faced two execution dates and spent more than 18 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, has become one of the signature exoneree cases in Texas during the last decade. He said the ruling against Sebesta was vindication and quoted Shakespeare. "The worm has finally turned," he said. "And it's pointing toward justice now. It's a good day." Graves learned of the decision during a conference call with his attorneys and State Bar officials. He said the ruling bodes well, not just for him but for others seeking justice. "This is a great start, by disbarring a prosecutor who attempted murder on my life," he said. "We should rejoice that today a man received justice in the criminal justice system, and the state itself helped me to achieve that." Sebesta's sanction was an astonishing fall for a prosecutor who went to great lengths for years to insist he did nothing wrong, including maintaining a "Setting The Record Straight" website where he offers a nearly 5,000-word manifesto titled, "What 'Really' Happened in Anthony Graves Case." The State Bar's disciplinary panel said in a six-page ruling issued Thursday that Sebesta failed to provide several items of exculpatory evidence to the defense during Graves' trial, presented false testimony to the jury, made a false statement of material fact to the trial judge and engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation. Sebesta did not return repeated calls for comment Friday. He is entitled to appeal the decision and has maintained in past interviews that he believes Graves is guilty. Neither Graves nor his attorneys would say whether they plan to file a lawsuit against Sebesta or file grievances against other prosecutors in the case. Lawyers for the exoneree said they have been focused on seeing Sebesta disciplined and now will consider whether they should pursue other avenues, like criminal charges or a court of inquiry. "I'll be interested in seeing how the justice system reacts to this," said one of Graves' attorney, Kathryn Kase, executive director of the Texas Defender Service. "The wrongful conviction and death sentence of Anthony is of such magnitude, you have to ask yourself, 'Doesn't this deserve extra scrutiny?' " Sebesta's wrongdoings
In their decision, State Bar officials laid out the details of Sebesta's wrongdoing that came to light during a four-day hearing in May, which included withholding a co-defendant's statement that he acted alone in the brutal deaths of six people, four of them children, on Aug. 23, 1992. That codefendant, Robert Carter, was executed in 2000. It also showed that Sebesta thwarted testimony from Graves' alibi witness, his girlfriend, by saying in open court that she was a suspect in the murders. Because she was afraid of being accused of capital murder, she did not appear in court, the panel found. As part of announcing the action, the State Bar also offered a statement on the egregiousness of Sebesta's behavior. "Mr. Sebesta's disbarment cannot begin to make up for what happened to Anthony Graves, but we hope it can bring him some sense of justice," Laura Popps, deputy counsel for the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, said in a news release. In 2007, Sebesta escaped scrutiny because of the statute of limitations on filing a State Bar complaint, writing on his website: "The State Bar cleared Sebesta of any wrongdoing in the case." Because of his actions in the Graves case, however, legislators changed the law and a new complaint was filed last year. Graves was freed from prison five years ago for the 1992 murder of six Burleson County residents. On two occasions, he was scheduled to be executed. Graves' story became an important exoneree case because, supporters say, it offers a cautionary tale into almost all of the ways prosecutions can go wrong. "It has so many of the problems that we see in the criminal justice system," said Nicole Casarez, an attorney and journalism professor at the University of St. Thomas who was among the first to work toward Graves' exoneration. "Besides prosecutorial misconduct, it has tunnel vision by law enforcement, it has jailhouse snitch testimony, wrong eyewitness identification procedures, bad lineup procedures, it has bad forensics." 'Monumental' decision Casarez applauded the decision by the State Bar and said it was "monumental." "This sends a message to prosecutors and it may make a difference to some prosecutor in the future who understands that if you don't do the right thing, there are consequences," she said. After a lengthy appeals process, Graves was granted a retrial in 2006 when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned his conviction. Sebesta had retired in 2000 after serving as district attorney for 25 years. The new district attorney for Washington and Burleson counties hired former Harris County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Siegler as a special prosecutor. In 2010, the hard-nosed prosecutor shocked the state's criminal justice system by declaring that her investigation showed Graves was innocent. She also blasted Sebesta. "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," Siegler said. "He is an innocent man." Other exonerees A year after Graves was cleared, a second Texas convicted killer, Michael Morton, was declared innocent and released from prison. Morton spent 25 years in prison for the 1986 beating death of
his wife in Williamson County. DNA testing revealed his innocence, pointing to another man, who later was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 2013, a court of inquiry found the prosecutor in Morton's case, former Williamson County District Attorney Ken Anderson, guilty of contempt of court for failing to release exculpatory evidence to the defense. Anderson was sentenced to 10 days in jail, fined and ordered to perform community service. He was not disbarred, State Bar officials noted, because he resigned from the practice of law in lieu of facing discipline. Graves' case is similar to the plight of Alfred Dewayne Brown, a former death row inmate who was granted a new trial because the prosecutor was found to have withheld exculpatory evidence. On Monday, Brown was freed after Harris County District Attorney Devon Anderson dismissed charges against him instead of going to trial again. http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/prosecutor-in-graves-casedisbarred-in-rare-move-6324701.php?t=c03f57c04729c86149&cmpid=twitter-premium [See formal finding below]
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