The
Wrongful Conviction of Anthony Graves
By
John Albert E-Mail
Sometime during the night of August 17th,1992, Robert Earl Carter decided to kill his former girlfriend, Lisa Davis, and Jason, Lisa and his 4-year-old son. He armed himself with a .22 caliber pistol, a knife and a hammer and drove to her home in Somerville, Texas. Lisa lived with her mother and sisters but that night, she was not at home. Her mother, Bobby Joyce Davis, was there with her other daughter, Nicole, her grandchildren, Brittany and Lea'Erin and Lisa's two children, Jason and D'Nitra. He killed them all.
Bobby was in the living room, on the couch watching television. After chatting with her a few minutes, he beat her unconscious with the hammer then fatally stabbed her with the knife. He then went into Bobby's bedroom where Jason was laying on the bed wide awake. He stabbed Jason. Robert next went to 16-year-old Nicole's bed room. She awakened as he came in so he shot her. Nine year old D'Nitra was also there. She was stabbed to death. Brittany, who was 6 years old, followed by Lea'Erin, 5, came into the room from the hallway so he stabbed both of them. He searched the house for Lisa but she was not to be found.
In an effort to cover his tracks he went back to his car, got a jerry-can of gasoline and set fire to the house. He was careless spreading the gasoline around and got himself severely burned. Four days later he decided to attend the funeral. At the services the police noticed his recent burns and bandages and took him to the station for questioning.
Robert Carter was under pressure from Lisa to increase the child support for their son, Jason. He was already supporting his wife, Theresa, their son, Ryan, as well as the child support for Jason. He was a 27-year-old prison guard, employed at the Texas Department of Corrections on a low but adequate wage. Anger over being asked to increase the child support payment does not qualify as sufficient explanation for what happened, but it is the only motive that has been suggested.
By the accounts of people who knew him, Robert was a kind, gentle, pleasant man. He was quiet and somewhat withdrawn but a generous and loving husband and father. He was deeply religious and had aspired to become a preacher. He was a humble man, perhaps a bit weak and susceptible to influence and pressure but there is no reason to believe he would have resented having to increase the support for his son, Jason.
There was evidence of bludgeoning, knife wounds and gunshot wounds, that is, three weapons, so the police believed that there must have been two or more killers. In their questioning of Robert, they pressured him to disclose the name of his accomplice and they asked many questions about his wife, Theresa's possible involvement. Theresa was a very tenderhearted, sweet and emotional woman who would not harm a fly. He desperately wanted to shield her from any charges in these murders. He insisted that she was entirely innocent of any involvement. The police told him that if he gave up the name of his accomplice they would let him go and they would not pursue his wife. So finally Robert gave them the name of a distant cousin of his wife, Anthony Graves, as his accomplice. He barely knew Anthony. They had met 3 or 4 times over the last few years since his marriage but never had come to know each other. Anthony Graves was 27 years old at that time. He barely remembered having met Robert and he did not know any of the victims.
By the time that Anthony's grand jury hearing came around, three weeks later, Robert realized that they were not going to let him go under any circumstances. He had confessed and the police had no reason to believe that his wife was involved. So he testified to the truth, that his previous statement to the police was false and that Anthony was not at all involved in this crime. He, Robert, was the sole murderer.
Twenty-two year old, Yolanda Mathis, who was Anthony's girlfriend, testified that Anthony had been with her and his brother and sister, at his mother's home that entire night. Anthony's 22-year-old brother, Arthur, and his sister, Dietrich, 24, also knew that Anthony was home all night with them but they were not called to testify. There was no physical evidence and no testimony against Anthony. The only imputation against him was Robert Carter's earlier statement to the police which he now recanted under oath. All of the testimony proved his innocence. Nevertheless, the District Attorney, Charles Sebesta, persuaded the grand jury to disbelieve all the evidence and indict Anthony Graves for capital murder.
Robert Carter was indicted at the same time. Then the District Attorney obtained an indictment against Robert's wife and had her arrested. We do not know what happened in her Grand Jury hearing but there was absolutely no evidence against her and no testimony to implicate her. She was finally released from jail two months later. The only purpose of indicting her was to hold that indictment over Robert Carter's head in order to secure his testimony against Anthony Graves.
Over two years later, in October of 1994, on the night before Anthony's trial, the district attorney visited Robert Carter in his cell. Robert had by then been convicted and sentenced to death. Sebesta told Robert that he was intending to prosecute his wife, Theresa, as an accomplice. However, he said that if Robert gave incriminating testimony against Anthony Graves he would not pursue Theresa. Robert was concerned solely about protecting his wife, so he agreed. He believed that if the district attorney would go to such lengths to frame an innocent man, Anthony Graves, then he was fully capable of framing Theresa. So he did testify that Graves was his accomplice in the murders. After the trial he recanted that testimony and has, since then, stuck to his statement that Anthony Graves was not involved in any way.
The district attorney, having pressured, coerced and blackmailed Robert into giving false testimony about Graves twice, now makes the claim that Robert has changed his story so many times that he cannot be believed. Nothing he says is to be believed. Except, of course, according to the district attorney, we should believe his unsubstantiated testimony incriminating Graves.
At Anthony Graves trial there was no evidence of any kind connecting Anthony to the crime other than Robert Carter's testimony. Anthony had three witnesses to prove that he was at home all of that night. The district attorney, Sebesta, had questioned Yolanda Mathis at the grand jury hearing and he knew that she would testify to Anthony's alibi. So immediately before she was to take the stand he stood up in court and said publicly that she was a suspect and that if she chose to testify to what she knew about this case, the state intended to indict her for capital murder as a co-conspirator. He had asked the judge to excuse the jury so that he could make this threat in open court, out of the jury's hearing.
Anthony's defense attorney, Calvin Garvey, was so shocked by this statement that he immediately left the courtroom to tell Yolanda. As soon as she heard this, Yolanda fled the building in fear and did not testify. Garvey's entire defense strategy depended upon this alibi testimony which had now fallen apart. He never recovered from this loss. The defense attorney should have made a motion for a mistrial based upon the district attorney's action. No judge should have allowed such blatant intimidation of a witness in his courtroom. Later, Sebesta actually had the gall to say to the jury in closing, "Where is this alibi witness that Mr. Graves claims to have been with? Why wasn't she here to testify?"
Arthur testified to the fact that Anthony was at home with him that night but the district attorney discounted that, saying that his brother would lie for him. Their sister, Dietrich, who also knew Anthony was home with her, Arthur and Yolanda, was not called to testify.
Charles Sebesta was an imposing figure; tall, standing 6'-2", in his early fifties and lean, with a big, commanding voice and an aggressive, military presence. By contrast Garvey was 5'-7", fat, about 250 lbs., and bald, with a light, weak sounding voice. He dressed very shabbily, in ill fitting clothes and when he addressed the jury in summation, he read from his notes rather than look them in the face. Garvey is a black man, as is his client, Anthony Graves, and there was one black man among the otherwise all-white jury. That black jurist slept on and off throughout the trial but neither the defense attorney nor the judge raised any objection.
Calvin Garvey was a young, inexperienced attorney. This was his first capital murder trial. He was no match for the highly experienced district attorney, Charles Sebesta. When Yolanda was threatened and fled the courtroom Garvey could have introduced Yolanda's grand jury testimony to support the alibi. Or he could have subpoenaed her and he could have protected her from the D.A.'s threats but he did not know how to do any of those things. In order to exonerate his client he only needed to prove that Anthony was somewhere else and he had the three witnesses necessary to do that, but he failed. He could have readily impeached Robert Carter's testimony with his previous grand jury testimony, but he failed to do that. There was not enough valid evidence to convict Anthony, but he made no effort to make that clear to the jury.
There were a few minor issues introduced at the trial which were not actually inculpatory but which the defense attorney was unable to deal with. The prosecution claimed that Anthony's motive was bitterness over his mother having lost a promotion at her work, three years before, to Bobby Davis. This was wholly false. His mother had never applied for that promotion and she and Bobby were good friends and co-workers and there had never been any resentment between them.
In an effort to provide corroboration for Carter's testimony, the prosecutor claimed that Anthony had owned a knife which matched the wounds. The police had never actually found the knife used in the murders and they never found any knife belonging to Anthony. So instead the prosecutor produced a knife in court and claimed it was a match for the actual weapon and then proved that Anthony had once owned one like it. This was another irrelevant claim which does not incriminate Anthony.
The evidence of a knife matching the wounds was given by the state's witness, Travis County Medical Examiner, Bayardo. He testified that the "twin knife" that Anthony had owned, exactly fit the knife wounds. This was a major part of the state's case and the only physical evidence presented at the trial. But this was false testimony. Knife wounds do not show distinctive patterns which identify the particular knife used. The Deputy Medical Examiner from San Antonio, testified that almost any knife would fit those wounds. One of the country's leading forensic anthropologists, Dr. Gill-King, from North Texas University, testified (at the later habeas hearing) that Bayardo's testimony was totally unreliable as to the knife wound evidence.
Anthony Graves was convicted on November 1, 1994 and sentenced to die. The evidence against him was not credible and the evidence of his innocence was not allowed to be heard. His trial was a travesty of justice. A tough, clever district attorney together with the help of an incompetent defense attorney and a biased judge contrived to abuse the legal justice system to kill an innocent man.
It is difficult to understand the animus which motivated Robert Carter to slaughter those innocent victims. It is similarly difficult to make any distinction between that and the animus which motivated District Attorney, Charles Sebesta, to conspire to send an innocent Anthony Graves to the death chamber in Texas.
| P O E M S for A N T H O N Y | A COLLECTION OF POEMS BY PRISONERS |
| Dedicated to Anthony Graves | 54 Poems by 19 Prisoners / Authors |
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