State rejects compensation for wrongly convicted man

[lostnfound]

Source: Houston Chronicle

GALVESTON — The Texas Comptroller’s Office has denied compensation to Anthony Graves, who spent 18 years on death row before a special prosecutor determined he was innocent and authorities dropped capital murder charges against him.

The state determined that Graves, 45, who could have received as much as $1.4 million had he been deemed eligible, should receive nothing because the words "actual innocence" didn’t appear in the document ordering his release, according to a letter the office sent to Graves’ attorney, Nicole Casarez.

...
A letter e-mailed to Casarez from the comptroller’s office said the order dismissing the charges must say explicitly that Graves is innocent. Casarez said the office should have taken her client’s unique circumstances into consideration.

..
In December, lawyers in the case discussed asking state District Judge Reva Towslee-Corbett, who signed the order freeing Graves, to change the wording of the order. This never happened, however, for reasons that could not be determined Monday.



Read more: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7426785.html

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Injury upon injury upon injury..

[FreakinDJ]

1. Texas Style "Justice" no doubt

[Journeyman]

2. All he's asking for is slightly more than minimum wage for his years in the pen. . .

It works out to about $8.89 an hour. And that's just straight time for the hours he spent behind bars. No overtime asked for or expected, though the State certainly expected him to be "on the job" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even if he'd worked at a McDonald's he'd have worked his way up from minimum wage to at least $9 an hour. And there's the possibility he'd have had vacations and sick days, too.

So the State denies him a piddling hourly wage after demanding he give everything to the State. I'm certain, if pressed, they'd fall back on that old "employment-at-will" canard. The bastards.

[lostnfound]

7. Careful: with that approach, they will offset it with room and board

and he will end up owing them money.. There's profit to be had in that there room and board and "free medical care" ..

[Journeyman]

9. How true. . .

[micraphone]

3. Towslee-Corbett sounds a real piece of work

(from 2007!) .... The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals – which had overturned Graves' 1994 capital murder conviction and death sentence in March, ruling that prosecutors withheld crucial exculpatory witness statements from Graves' defenders – on Dec. 18 handed down a second ruling, denying a state motion that sought to keep Graves in jail without bond pending any retrial. The court ordered the state to hold a bond hearing or to set Graves free by Jan. 4 on a $50,000 bond previously set by U.S. District Judge Samuel Kent.

In the habeas writ filed in state district court on Dec. 21, Graves' attorneys – Jeff Blackburn, David Mullin, and Nicole Casarez – argue that Towslee-Corbett thumbed her nose at the federal bench by setting the $1 million bond on her own without notifying the defense or holding an evidentiary hearing. The bond order "contains no facts, reasons, or conclusions about why the bond should be set at this amount," reads the petition. "It stands in flagrant defiance of the decisions of the federal courts."

http://policecrime.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=judges&action=print&thread=753

Some of the comments are enlightening too.

[IDemo]

4. I wish I could say the mind reels

But s#*t like this doesn't surprise me anymore.

[nyy1998]

5. I'll bet that Graves will file a lawsuit(rightfully so) quicker then you could say "Texas Two-Step"

Thanks Susan Combs for being an asshole(excuse my language)

[blackspade]

6. Texas makes KY seem like a liberal paradise!

[Vinca]

8. Graves is lucky they didn't charge him for room and board.