On October 27, 2010, I learned the stunning news that the state had dropped all charges against me.
It was over. I was finally going home.
I would later learn more about how this decision came to be. Kelly Siegler had called in all her investigators one by one to see what they were thinking of my case. Each one she talked with told her that I was innocent. She met with District Attorney Parham, the newly elected Burleson DA who had hired her, to tell him that I was innocent.
I had been incarcerated since the week before my twenty-seventh birthday. I had lived behind prison walls for eighteen and a half years. I witnessed some of the worst inhumanity imaginable. I watched the state put men to death for crimes they might or might not have committed. I saw officers working behind those bars being treated hardly any differently than the inmates. I saw young boys grow into tired men. I observed families piling up in the visitation room to support a family member they knew would never come back home. I aged as our criminal justice system played politics with my life and the lives of hundreds of young men.
What I never witnessed during my eighteen and a half years in prison was justice. But finally, after surviving 6,640 days and two scheduled execution dates, and after witnessing hundreds of men executed around me, I was suddenly on my way home, without any preparation for a successful transition. I was scared out of my wits, but I was happy to be free.
As Nicole, Jimmy, and I drove out of the parking lot of the prison, Nicole’s cell phone rang, and that alone took some time to get used to. Such a thing as a cell phone didn’t exist when I went inside nearly two decades before, and now the person in the car with me driving me home from death row was able to receive a phone call as we pulled away, right there in her hand! On the phone was my old attorney Jeff Blackburn. He wanted to know if I would let him represent me in a civil lawsuit based on the wrongful conviction finding, which was basically an effort to get some money for all the horrible wrongs that the state had done to me.
I thought about it for a moment and decided that if anyone could get me some measure of financial compensation to stand in for real justice, it would be Jeff. He was a smart and aggressive attorney, and I knew that I would benefit from having him on my team in this capacity.
I told Nicole to tell him yes. But another legal proceeding was the last thing I wanted to be thinking about in that moment. Jimmy continued driving while I just looked out the window at a world that had changed on me. The houses seemed to be placed closer than I remembered, as though the world had grown and become crowded during those years. Cars looked different. Jimmy’s car even talked to him! I could not have imagined that the last time I went for a ride, all those years ago.
It took us twenty minutes to reach my mom’s house. As we pulled up, I noticed my cousins were standing in the front yard. They spotted me in the front seat and, in all their anticipation, made a mad dash to the car. I opened the door to big, warm, encompassing hugs, shrieks of joy, and lots of laughter. It was the raw kind of emotion that you could only experience; you couldn’t really prepare for it, and it’s difficult to describe it now in words. But you can imagine a bit of it, the most joyous basic expression of pure relief, happiness, and letting go that I had ever encountered, or probably ever will.
It felt good, but also strange. I hadn’t been hugged by others like this, even family, in so long. I was looking around for my mom, but I didn’t see her. Everyone was trying to catch my attention, handing me their cell phones in an effort to get me to speak to an old friend or acquaintance. I did my best to cope with it all, but it was overwhelming and hard to manage both inside and out.
My eldest son appeared. I had seen him grow up from behind bars, but it didn’t really hit me how much I had lost until I was there hugging this grown man, who was also my own little boy. We embraced and I just held him, and the moment, as closely as I could.
All of a sudden, I heard someone say that my mother was there. She had left the house to tell my brother that I was on my way home, and now that she was back and excited to see me, she jumped out of the truck without putting it in gear to run over and give me a huge hug. Someone had to tell her that the car was rolling.
I can’t begin to explain what it felt like to hug my mother after all those years. The state had put me and my entire family on death row, and now I was finally able to hug my mom and tell her that we were finally free of it; we were free. It was not easy to process more than eighteen years of a nightmare in those few moments of coming home. I knew I was OK now; I knew the feeling of relief. I began to try to let down my guard, but nearly two decades of living in intense survival mode left me unprepared for the transition. I was a bit lost, and while I coped with it, this was not really a celebration as much as me trying to deal with the massive overload of this grand moment.
An hour later, the entire yard was filled with people from the neighborhood. Friends that I had grown up with, family members, and others who just wanted to be a part of this feel-good moment. Nicole and Jimmy, and also Rick Ojeda, the investigator from my case who had worked so closely with the entire legal team, were becoming concerned about the crowd of people and the effect it might have been having on me, kind of like when a starved person is suddenly presented with too much food. It could be hard to take, even though it was a good thing that was happening.
They all wanted me to go somewhere that was a little quieter, to help get my feet under myself and to pace this experience out a little bit. I asked my family to come inside so that I could tell them I was calling it a night and leaving with Rick, who had offered to take me to his house. Of course, I would be back the next day to continue this reunion.
We all hugged good-bye, and then Rick and I drove down Highway 290 toward his home in Williamson County. I felt good, and I knew it was the right call to separate from the group for a bit on this first night. I was smiling as we drove down the highway. I was finally home, in the larger sense anyway. I didn’t really know exactly where “home” was anymore, but I knew I was OK now, and in that sense, I had arrived.
Rick interrupted my thoughts and said that he was pulling into this convenience store to purchase something right quick. I watched as Rick got out of the truck and went into the store. Several people had walked in and out of the store before Rick came back out. He opened the door of the truck and handed me a bag. “You remember when I told you the first thing I wanted to do when you got out?” Rick asked me. He’d said he wanted to be the first one to buy me a beer and to say, Welcome home, my friend. I looked into the bag to see a cold six-pack inside.
I could tell that Rick was a little emotional but quickly got himself back together. I told him that I would wait until we got to his home before I opened up a bottle of beer. Forty-five minutes later, we parked in front of Rick’s house. When we walked in I could tell that someone was cooking inside. It was Rick’s wife, Anya. She was preparing a meal of a roast and potatoes for us. Rick and I walked outside and sat on his patio. I could not believe I was sitting out under the night stars as a free man. Rick came out with two beers. We toasted and celebrated my release. We stayed up for several hours until it was time to go to bed.
There was going to be a big press conference in Houston the next day, and we had to get up early to make the three-hour drive to the big city. Rick showed me to a bedroom where I would be sleeping. It was a big queen-size bed with soft pillows and fresh sheets on it, something so common and so foreign to me at the same time, it was a little surreal. There was actual furniture in the room that I could sit on or lay on, and that was strange too, even though it wouldn’t be to just about anyone else.
While it may have seemed the thing to do to stay at my mom’s that first night out, for me, I just needed somewhere that I could go, a place that was away from all the stimulation. I had been on my own or with cellmates on death row for so long, that it was just overwhelming for me to suddenly enter a new world, as commonplace as it was for most other people. I needed a tiny bit of transition, and
Rick’s offer to stay with him provided that. It allowed me to catch my breath and my thoughts, while I tried to process the whirlwind that was happening to me.
Rick had left a fully charged cell phone with me to use for the night. I could make any call I wanted without asking, something of a novelty to a man in my position. He gave me a tour of the entire house including the bathroom where I could take a shower alone, for the first time in so very long. I was smiling from ear to ear the whole time because this was so far removed from the life that I had been living for two decades.
I finally got into bed to get some rest for the next day. I found it very hard to sleep. The bed was too soft and everything was too normal for me to doze off. I ended up calling my brothers and sisters on that cell phone laughing and talking for I don’t know how long. I knew that they were all sleepy, but they were willing to stay up all night for me.
Finally, at about five in the morning, my body started to feel tired. I felt myself drifting off to sleep, but before closing my eyes, I thanked God for giving my life back to me.
EPILOGUE
ON JANUARY 20, 2014, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, three years after my exoneration, I held a press conference to announce that I would be filing a grievance against Charles Sebesta, the Texas prosecutor whose gross prosecutorial misconduct had led to my wrongful conviction. I’d been unable to file such a claim when I first got out of prison because of the statute of limitations. The time to file was seven years from the day of conviction, and I had spent eighteen and a half years in prison before the misconduct was ruled upon by the state.
However, thanks to Texas state senator Rodney Ellis and state representative Senfronia Thompson, the state passed a new law that would allow a grievance to be filed against a prosecutor within four years of a wrongfully imprisoned person’s release. This was a much-needed reform indeed. I became the first exoneree to use this law in the State of Texas.
In May 2015, there was a hearing set for the misconduct grievance that I had filed with the Texas state Bar Association. They found probable cause to move forward. I hadn’t seen Charles Sebesta in person since my late twenties, when he railroaded me out of my freedom. Now I was a forty-nine-year-old man.
Lydia Clay Jackson, one of my original trial attorneys, had been summoned to testify at this hearing. She and I were out in the hallway talking when Sebesta walked up to her. He had aged. He was no longer the man that I was angry at for stealing my life. He was an old man who walked halfway bent over. How could I want to punish this elderly man? I started feeling that this might not be the right thing to do. It appeared that this case had beaten him down. There had been numerous articles and documentaries throughout the years on my case, and they did not show Sebesta in the best light. After all, he did try to have an innocent man executed. When Sebesta walked up to speak with Lydia, I interrupted to address him for the first time.
“Mr. Sebesta,” I said. “I just want to say, no hard feelings,” as I stuck my hand out for him to shake it. He looked at me as if I had surprised him, and he responded with a handshake so strong that I felt in my heart that it was the only apology he could offer. In that moment, Charles Sebesta had given me closure.
Thirty days later, in June 2015, the State of Texas disbarred Sebesta, prohibiting him from practicing law in Texas ever again.
I was finally free to move on.
My experience as a wrongfully convicted man has given me a perspective and insight few people will ever have about our criminal justice system and its need for reform. I met men like Nanon Williams, Anthony Pierce, Tony Ford, Arthur Brown, Rodney Reed, Howard Guidry, and others that I felt had compelling cases of innocence, but they remain in custody fighting for their lives, just as I had to do. I knew after my long stint on death row that I would go out into the free world and tell my story, with my face attached to it, to let people know why we need criminal justice reform.
I met men who were mentally disabled, kids who’d never even had sex yet on death row at seventeen. I left death row very concerned about the whole application of the death penalty. I didn’t want to come out and challenge people’s beliefs on the issue. I think they are entitled to feel about it whatever they want to and shouldn’t be judged because of their position. The question I have is, Does the death penalty work?
I started the Anthony Graves Foundation to help inmates who have been wrongfully convicted or over-sentenced. My goal is to help find them lawyers who are willing to come on board and represent them pro bono. I get letters from inmates across our nation, and we can never have enough lawyers willing to take on this great work. My foundation also focuses on reentry work for men and women coming back home from prison. We partner with other organizations to outsource resources available in the area to those inmates reaching out to us who are trying to restart their lives.
I travel the globe sharing my story in front of thousands of people, organizations and businesses in hopes of bringing more awareness to the grave problems within our criminal justice system. It is my wish that Infinite Hope will inspire and encourage others always to know that this too shall pass and better days are always ahead for all of us.
MAY 2015
I sat in a Washington, DC, hotel room preparing for something I could never have imagined twenty years prior. I’d been asked by the ACLU to testify in front of Congress about the dangers of death row and the shadows of solitary confinement. When I took my seat in front of the microphone the next day, I worried about my back. The years of sleeping on metal cots had left permanent pains.
I spoke about finding glass in my food, and about the unthinkable madness that gripped some of the men who stayed too long. I stopped occasionally to collect myself. The memories of death row never left, but speaking about them gave the visions more heft. “Thank you for doing this,” Illinois senator Dick Durbin said. “Together we’re going to do something about this.” It had been Senator Durbin who called the congressional hearing in the first place, to examine the use of solitary confinement. When he asked me to testify about my experience in solitary, and how I dealt with it, I agreed to come in and give my testimony, and now here was a United States senator thanking me for talking about those painful days.
That moment wasn’t the start of my mission, but it steeled my desire to use my freedom for something bigger. Things have changed a lot since I walked out of jail in October 2010. The state paid out a sum of money designed to compensate me for the lost years. I’ve used that money to launch the Anthony Graves Foundation, where I continue my work to this day.
Together with a community of supporters, we worked to free Alfred Dwayne Brown, who’d been sentenced to death for a murder he didn’t commit. In my travels and speaking engagements, I’m often asked what kept me alive on death row. Through faith, I found purpose and preparation. I couldn’t control much about the process. The lies told on the stand might have sent me away, but they couldn’t follow my mind into the interior of my cell. True faith inspires purpose and leads to preparation.
As I watched men go out of their minds on death row, and as I learned their stories, I saw broken little boys who’d once dreamed of stealing second base. I learned to view them in terms of their pain, knowing that, for the vast majority, all the pain they’d caused to victims could be traced to childhood trauma and a history of abuse, as well as a lack of any real opportunity or support. I came to see my fellow inmates as the abandoned few, left behind by their schools, families, and communities. Surely some were innocent, but even the men who weren’t had at some point been redeemable. My faith told me that I’d be getting out eventually, and even if I didn’t, my story could inspire people to care about a system that lays waste to the lives of victims and defendants alike. My purpose was clear. I’d fight to tell the stories of the innocents left behind, and of the young boys abandoned before they ever reached death row. I would fight to reform a criminal justice system that had turned criminal against its own citizens. I would use my voice to bring attention to the inhumane
treatment behind prison bars where men are treated as though they no longer have rights in this country. I would bring attention to the mental illness issues that run rampant behind those walls. My purpose became promoting fairness and effecting reform throughout the criminal justice system. I would use my story to help enlighten the rest of the world.
In my faith in God, I found preparation. I remember receiving my first execution date at Ellis Unit. I had been lying on my bunk reading Paulo Coelho’s Veronika Decides to Die, when two officers approached my cell door. They’d been instructed to bring me to the major’s office. I stood up, stripped naked, and went through the dehumanizing process of a strip search. I was asked to hand them my boxers, socks, shoes, and white jumpsuit with the black letters on the back that said DEATH ROW. After going through the search, I was handed back my clothes and asked to get dressed. I raised my boxers up just high enough so that when I shook them out the wind would blow toward the officer’s nose. It was one of our ways of protesting the strip search. I put my clothes on. I was then asked to turn around and put my hands through the bean slot in the center of the door. I was then handcuffed, stood up straight, turned around to face the officers as they called out to the picket officer to roll my door (“Roll one, row 15 cell!”). The picket officer hit the button and my door rolled open. I walked out with my wrists handcuffed behind my back, and two officers with batons escorted me to the major’s office. The major entered, took a seat across the desk from me, and informed me that the State of Texas had set an execution date.
The state could set multiple execution dates for me, but no jailer could stop me from refining a message of faith and perseverance to be used on the outside. I practiced night after night, planning what I might say to young men and women who strayed off the straight and narrow. I didn’t know when I’d get an opportunity to speak as a free man, but I continued to prepare for when that time came. If death row had taught me anything, it was the value of time. Attorneys often came right down to the wire seeking stays for their clients. Minutes and hours meant life and death. I knew then there was no time to lose. Preparedness doesn’t depend on circumstances. Even the condemned man with an actual death sentence can prepare for the future. It was through faith that I knew my practice was not a wasted effort.
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