Why should you care about Anthony Graves?

ANTHONY GRAVES AND THE RULE OF LAW

The murders took place in the small town of Somerville, Texas, in 1992. The victims were: Bobbie Davis, 45 years old, Nicole Davis, 16, and four little children: D’Nitra, 9, Brittany, 6, Lea Erin, 5, and Jason, 4. Three weapons were used: a knife, a hammer and a .22 calibre gun. To cover up the killings the house was set on fire.

Soon afterwards one Robert Carter, father of one of the victims, was arrested. He confessed to having taken part in the killings. In a trial in 1994 he was sentenced to death.
 
The trial of Anthony Graves also took place in 1994. The main witness for the prosecution was Carter, who named Graves as his accomplice. The jury gave Graves the death penalty.
 
But after the trial Carter took back his testimony, and said that he had lied about Graves, under pressure from the prosecutor. Carter kept on saying this up till his last statement, before he was executed on May 31, 2000: “Anthony Graves had nothing to do with it. I lied on him in court.”

And during the years more and more people – lawyers, reporters, law students and judges – have begun to realize that there might be something very wrong in the case against Anthony Graves. A father of three, a man with no violent past, and with no discernible motive for taking part in these murders.

There was definitely something very wrong with the trial in 1994 where Graves was sentenced to death. After it was established that the prosecutor kept vital facts from the defense team, the federal 5th Circuit Court decided on March 3, 2006 to award Anthony Graves a new trial.

This trial is set to begin in February 2011, in Graves’ hometown Brenham, in Washington County, Texas. It ought to attract the attention of a lot of people. It is an important trial not only for Anthony Graves but also for Texas, and indeed for the United States. In fact it concerns  everybody, regardless of nationality, ethnicity or political convictions, that wants to see the rule of law upheld. 
 
We behind this website and its material are friends, both from the United States and from Europe, of Anthony Graves and his family.

We are not telling you that Anthony Graves is innocent. All we ask you is to have a look at the facts that are collected in this material and then ask yourself how you would judge the case. Are there any doubts about the guilt of Anthony Graves? Are you concerned about the outcome of the trial in Brenham in 2011?

Those are the fundamental questions.