GALVESTON -- Calling a $1 million state bond "excessive and oppressive," a federal judge here today nevertheless said he was powerless to interfere with the way a state court handles the retrial of former death-row inmate Anthony Graves.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Froeschner's refusal to interfere means that Graves will be returned to the Burleson County Jail in Caldwell to await his retrial on capital murder charges.

"I can agree with you that it sounds pretty excessive and pretty oppressive, but that's the business of the state court," Froeschner said.

Froeschner allowed Graves to post $5,000 in cash as security for a $50,000 bond, but said he could not order deputy U.S. marshals to release him until he had satisfied the $1 million state bond.

Jeff Blackburn of Amarillo, one of three Graves attorneys working for free because they believe he is innocent, said the $1 million bond set Dec. 20 by Burleson County District Judge Reva Towslee-Corbett was "a ridiculous amount designed to do nothing but keep him locked up."

Blackburn said Towslee-Corbett set the bond on her own initiative without holding a hearing.

Froeschner said that although the $1 million bond might be excessive and there probably should have been a hearing before bail was set, Towslee-Corbett had broken no law.

Towslee-Corbett on Thursday appointed Assistant Attorney General Julie Ann Stone as interim special prosecutor to retry Graves, whose capital murder conviction was overturned last year after a federal appeals court found that prosecutors withheld evidence and elicited false testimony.

The Texas Innocence Network believes Graves is innocent of charges that he participated in the slaying of a grandmother and five children in 1992. They were bludgeoned, stabbed and shot.The house was torched to cover the crime.

The case has gone without a prosecutor for more than two weeks following the request by Renee Mueller, district attorney for Burleson and Washington counties, to recuse her entire office.

Mueller recused her office after Towslee-Corbett ruled that Assistant District Attorney Joan Scroggins, part of the team that prosecuted Graves in 1994, could not participate in the prosecution.

The case was awaiting assignment of a prosecutor when Towslee-Corbett set Graves' bail at $1 million without a hearing.

In October, Froeschner recommended the $50,000 bond, with a $5,000 cash payment, because prosecutors had failed to retry Graves within 120 days and had not sought a bond hearing. U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent ordered the bond, which Graves' attorneys promptly paid.

The Texas Attorney General's Office appealed and 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Kent's authority to set the bond, but stayed Graves release until Jan. 4 to give prosecutors a chance to request a bond hearing in state court.

harvey.rice@chron.com

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