medias

Burleson County Tribune
January 19, 2006

St.Thomas students continue investigation into Graves case

Professor says evidence flawed: Sebesta disagrees

Students from St. Thomas University in Houston are continuing their investigation into the Anthony Graves capital murder conviction, challenging the evidence used and insisting that there are alibi witnesses placing Graves elsewhere at the time of the murder.
However, former district attorney Charles Sebesta, who prosecuted the case, on Monday Jan. 16, differed with those conclusions and rebutted them point by point.
Nicole Casarez, a communications professor at St. Thomas, said she believes Graves is innocent based on the students' research. The students are working with the Texas Innocence Network at the University of Houston.
She hopes the students' findings will help lead to a new trial for Graves.
The case has drawn nationwide attention and was recently featured on the PBS documentary program "Now." Dateline NBC and other major news media have also covered the story, and the case also attracted the attention of Amnesty International. Some major news media believe Graves is innocent and say the case is an example of why the Texas death penalty statute should be overturned.
Graves and Robert Carter were convicted in 1994 for the Aug. 18, 1992 murders of Bobbie Davis, her 16-year-old granddaughter and four other grandchildren in Somerville. One of the children was Carter's 4-year-old son. They suffered a total of 66 stab wounds. Davis was clubbed nine times on the head, and Nicole was shot five times and also hit three times with a blunt device, prosecutors said. After the crime, the odies were doused with gasoline, and the house was set on fire. Prosecutors believe a gun, a hammer and a knife were used.
Sebesta has long insisted that Graves was involved and has steadfastly defended the state's evidence. Sebesta also objects to a defense claim that he withheld key evidence by not revealing that co-defendant Robert Carter, executed for the crimes on May 31, 2000, told him and Texas Rangers the night before he testified that he did it all alone. Carter was the state's witness against Graves.
U.S. Magistrate John Froeschner of Galveston in his recent report to the U.S. District Court concurred with Sebesta that Carter's statement was not material evidence, since physical evidence provided by Texas Ranger Ray Coffman and his undisputed testimony proved at least three people were involved, according to the report. According to Brady v. Maryland, prosecutors are required to reveal any evidence that might be favorable to defendants. However, the evidence must be material, Sebesta said. In this case, Carter's statement was not material, since Coffman's physical evidence showed multiple parties involved, according to the report.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to rule on Graves points of objection sometime early this year.
Casarez said the state's case was primarily built on Carter's testimony and evidence presented about a knife and a conversation sheriff's deputies say they overheard between Graves and Carter over the jail intercom.
Regarding Carter, Casarez said the students looked beyond just Carter recanting his original testimony implicating Graves. Instead, the students also talked to other witnesses who talked to Carter, where he also recanted and said Graves was not involved.
At one point, Carter wrote a letter to his high school English teacher and told her the same thing, she said.
"He admitted his own guilt but said Graves was not involved," Casarez said.
That indicates Carter was not just sharing that story with prosecutors, she said.
However, Sebesta said that is not conclusive.
In addition, the students continue to look into possible alibi witnesses--Graves' brother Arthur Curry, a Brenham woman they believe talked to Graves on the phone at his brother's home at about the time of
the murders, and Curry's next-door neighbor.
Curry testified for Graves at the trial, saying Graves was at his home when the murders occurred.
Sebesta said Curry is already on record as a witness for Graves, but jurors, for whatever reason, still chose to convict despite his testimony.
Any other witnesses should have come forward at the trial, and it is questionable why they would do so a dozen years later, he said.
As previously reported, the students also are looking into an affidavit from Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin, who briefly represented Graves shortly after his arrest, who said a Brenham woman recalled talking to Graves on the phone that night at an apartment he and Curry shared.
However, Casarez said the woman would not cooperate with the students and has denied telling DeGuerin that. In addition, Graves' attorney Roy Greenwood said previously that the woman would not cooperate with his investigators.
However, Sebesta said the woman could be subpoenaed by the defense if necessary.

"If there is a smoking gun and a witness, why not subpoena and follow up?"
If she is subpoenaed and insists Graves has an alibie, the defense could use that on appeal. If subpoenaed and she still insists the story is not true, that does not help the defense, Sebesta said.
The students also found a man living nearby who said he went to Curry's home at about 11:30 p.m. to use the phone and was kept waiting for about 45 minutes while Curry talked on the phone with a woman, Casarez said. The neighbor told the students that he saw Graves at the house, she said.
But Sebesta said that is probably not significant, since the crime happened later, closer to 2 a.m. Also, Graves could have easily driven from Brenham to Somerville in just 20 minutes, he said.
And again, Sebesta questions why the man did not testify and why he has waited this many years--leaving Graves in jeopardy on Death Row.
Regarding the knife testimony, a state witness testified that he provided Graves with a switchblade knife identical to the one he owned. Though the actual knife used in the murders was never found, the man's identical knife fit perfectly into the victims' skull caps, testimony and evidence showed.
But Casarez said the man made the knives from a kit and told her they were of poor quality--not capable of doing the damage done by the murder weapon.
Casarez said Graves considered the knife "junky" and just tossed it aside as a souvenir and forgot about it when it was given to him.
"He (the man) told me it would have broken apart before it would have broken a skull cap," she said.
Also, she said a forensic anthropologist testified on a later appeal that the identical knife was scientifically invalid.
"There are many, many knives with the same size blade," she said.
Sebesta strongly disagrees. The knife produced was a durable switchblade more than capabel of damaging a human skull, he said. The man testified he had the knives shipped to him in parts and assembled them. It had to be shipped in parts because the weapon is dangerous, and it is a violation of federal law to ship an entire switchblade by mail, he said.
"There was no doubt that that knife fit," Sebesta said. "And the ranger (Texas Ranger Ray Coffman) showed the jury (by placing the knife into the childrens' skull caps.)"
Regarding the intercom testimony, the state produced four witnesses who testified hearing Graves discussing the case with Carter and admitting his involvement as they faced each other in adjoining cells.
Two, a deputy and a friend of then sheriff Ron Urbanovsky, overheard the conversation over the jail intercom, Sebesta said. Also, an inmate overheard another conversation.
But Casarez said the students discovered the intercom system was faulty and difficult to hear. Also, a fan and a television set were running in the jail at the time, she said.
Regarding the two witnesses who overheard the conversation on the intercom, Casarez said they are now dead so students cannot question them further. A third witness, a jail inamte, they did question, she said.
"He said he thought he was helping Graves and never though he was incriminating him," she said. "We also talked to several other inmates who said they never heard Graves say anything incriminating."
But Sebesta insisted that all four testified to the same thing.

"Just because some of them are dead does not change what they said," Sebesta said. "That testimony is perpetuated forever because it is subject to cross examination."
Regarding the prisoner's testimony, his intentions are not the issue, only the testimony, he said. And his testimony corroborated the others' testimony, he said.
Casarez also addressed antoher possible alibi witness, a woman who was prepared to testify that she was with Graves when the murders occurred.
That woman said she was watching videos with Graves and remembered reading the VCR clock at 3 a.m. when the last video concluded, Casarez said.
Greenwood has long maintained that she was prepared to testify for Graves but was frightened into not doing so when Sebesta said she should be informed of her rights before testifying, saying she too could be indicted.
Greenwood said previously that Sebesta can do that only in special circumstances, which did not apply in this case.
Sebesta has countered that he asked District Judge Harold (Bob) Towslee in open court that she be informed of her rights--but not to intimidate her into not testifying. Sebesta said he wanted to ensure that any key evidence obtained during cross examination could not be later overturned on appeal because she was not informed of her rights.
In actual court testimony, Sebesta says to Towslee: "She is a suspect in these murders, and it's quite possible, at some point in the future, she might be indicted. I don't know. And I feel outside the presence of the jury that it would be propoer to warn her of her rights."
Towslee replies: "I think that is good advice."
Casarez said the woman now wishes she had testified.
"She said she was 19 years old and terrified," Casarez said. "She said she felt that if she told the truth, she shouldn't have to worry. But her boyfriend had already been in jail for two years for something that he
didn't do."
Casarez said the woman, now remarried and living elsewhere, has no reason to lie for him now.
"I would hope that the court would give Graves a new trial. I think all of the evidence ought to be there for a court and jury," Casarez said. "A man has been sent to death, and I think there are still a lot of questions."
For Sebesta, he believes much of the defense's appeal is based on Carter recanting his original story implicating Graves. He has always believed Carter did so to protect his wife, Cookie Carter, who was originally indicted in the case, he said. The charges against her were later dropped.
"Our thinking was that Carter was concerned about his own execution date and that Graves would cut a deal (by implicating Cookie Carter)," Sebesta said. "We suspect he found himself in a corner and by saying this (that he acted alone and Graves was not involved) he would keep Graves from giving her up in exchange for a deal."