Anthony Charles Graves

Anthony Charles Graves (born August 29, 1965) is the 138th exonerated death row inmate in America. With no record of violence, He was awarded $1.4 million for the time he spent imprisoned, and the prosecutor who put him in prison, Charles Sebesta, was ultimately disbarred for concealing exculpatory evidence and using false testimony in the case.

Biography Graves grew up in Brenham and is the oldest among his four other siblings in his family. He is a father with three children.

Imprisonment As a death row inmate, he entered the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) system on November 7, 1994. Male death row inmates convicted under Texas law were held at Ellis Unit in Walker County until 1999, when they were moved to the Terrell Unit (now Allan B Polunsky Unit) in Polk County. During his time in prison, he was held in solitary confinement.

Following Graves' exoneration and release, he testified at a Senate subcommittee hearing about the conditions of his imprisonment at Polunsky, and following his testimony, Mother Jones declared the prison to be the second-worst in the United States.

Exoneration After 12 years on death row, Graves' conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court in 2006, yet he was not released until four years later. Following this, the prosecutor who had sent Graves to prison, Charles Sebesta, was disbarred on June 11, 2015, for withholding exculpatory evidence in Graves' case and for using false testimony to secure the conviction.

Philanthropy Following his release, Graves founded a scholarship, the Nicole B. Cásarez Endowed Scholarship In Law, in honor of his attorney. Graves also founded The Peer Navigator Project, a charity supporting formerly incarcerated individuals as they transition out of prison.