"Murder conviction chock full of holes," is the title of an editorial in today's Dallas Morning News.
For anyone with an interest in prosecutorial misconduct and capital punishment, the October issue of Texas Monthly contains required reading – a chilling account alleging deceit and abuse in pursuit of a murder conviction. The article, available today, should make even ardent supporters of the death penalty shudder to consider how an egregiously flimsy and unproven case nearly ended the life of Anthony Graves before a federal appeals court intervened and ended his 18-year residence on death row.
Even more troubling is that Graves, 45, still sits in jail awaiting a new trial in a 1992 murder case in which six people, including a teenager and four children, were shot, bludgeoned and stabbed to death and their house set afire in Sommerville, near Bryan. Robert Carter, absentee father of one of the victims, emerged as a key suspect after he appeared at their funeral with bandages covering burns on his face. Various investigative blunders led to Graves' identification as a second suspect, though he had no association with the victims and no motive. No evidence linked him to the slayings, while substantial evidence and motives pointed to Carter's guilt.
And:
This newspaper has examined numerous questionable cases over the years, and evidence of prosecutorial malfeasance, among other important factors, convinces us that this state's use of the death penalty is too error-prone, and the result too permanent, to be justifiable.
Anthony Graves defied the odds and had an ill-gotten conviction thrown out, but his ongoing ordeal reminds us how extremely fallible our justice system can be.
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