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Bryan-College Station Eagle Updated mars 28, 2007 10:02 PM
A gag order issued in the case of former death row inmate Anthony Graves soon will be discarded by a higher court if the presiding judge doesn't do a better job of showing why one is necessary. Caldwell-based 21st District Judge Reva Towslee-Corbett has one week to amend her decision to make it legal, according to a ruling handed down March 21 in a split decision by the 10th Court of Appeals in Waco. Towslee-Corbett issued the gag order late last year after noting that Graves' case had received local and national media attention. The order -which Graves' attorneys vigorously challenged - bars lawyers, witnesses and public officials from talking about the case with the media. "It was the media itself that basically caught the state being crooked, and that's what got us here to begin with," Amarillo-based defense attorney Jeff Blackburn said in court in October. "Isn't it ironic, not to mention wrong, that now we try to stop the very thing that is allowing some justice to happen in this case ... [by] shining light on it?" Graves was convicted in 1994 of shooting and stabbing 45-year-old Bobbie Joyce Davis, her teenage daughter and four grandchildren at Davis' Somerville home. The house was then set on fire in an attempt to hide the murders, prosecutors contended. But Graves' co-defendant - Robert Carter, who testified against him during the capital murder trial - recanted parts of his story moments before his own execution in 2000. "It was me and me alone," Carter said. "I lied on him in court. ... Anthony Graves don't even know anything about it." Last April, a federal court ruled that Graves' trial - which was presided over by Judge Towslee-Corbett's predecessor, her father - was invalid because of false testimony and withheld witness statements. Since then, he has been awaiting a retrial while in custody at the Burleson County Jail, unable to post the $1 million bond set by Towslee-Corbett. "[The judge] committed a clear abuse of discretion by issuing a gag order without making sufficiently specific findings to support a prior restraint on Graves' right to free expression under ... the Texas Constitution," Justice Felipe Reyna wrote in the appeals court's ruling. "Had she given Graves [an opportunity to be heard], a record could have been made documenting the nature and extent of the pretrial publicity in Graves' case and the impact such publicity would have on the right to a fair trial by an impartial jury," Reyna wrote in another section of the ruling. Prior to the appeals court ruling, Towslee-Corbett argued in a two-page response that the gag order was "necessary and appropriate" to prevent "imminent and irreparable harm [that] could taint the jury pool." Prosecutors did not file an argument backing her decision but said they had no opposition to the gag order. While Towslee-Corbett's contention may be true, there is no evidence on the record to support it, the ruling stated. Dissenting Justice Tom Grey, however, said giving Towslee-Corbett "so restrictive of a schedule" to correct the matter could put Graves' chances of having a fair trial in jeopardy. He said the ruling caused him to question the "motives and reasoning" of his colleagues on the appeals court. In other matters last week, special prosecutor Patrick Batchelor filed paperwork stating his intentions to seek the death penalty during the retrial, according to reports. Batchelor was selected to try the case alongside Assistant Attorney General Julie Stone after Burleson County District Attorney Renee Mueller asked that her entire office be recused. • Craig Kapitan's e-mail address is craig.kapitan@theeagle.com. Printed from: http://www.theeagle.com/stories/032807/local_20070328057.php |