ANTHONY GRAVES/SNITCH TESTIMONY

NPR/ALL THINGS CONSIDERED

AIR DATE: SEPTEMBER 4, 2002


LYDEN: From NPR News, I’m Jackie Lyden.

SEIGEL: And I’m Robert Seigel. In Texas, a criminal case has many  people questioning the use of what is called "snitch testimony." Snitch  testimony is when someone in jail testifies against a defendant after  making a deal with prosecutors. The case in question is from 1994.  That’s when Anthony Graves was convicted of murder after another man  named Graves as his accomplice. The man who named him was in prison at  the time. He was the jailhouse informant or the snitch. But the snitch  has since recanted. Graves remains on death row. From Austin, Texas,  Janet Heimlich reports.

HEIMLICH: It was a horrific crime that took place in the small town of  Somerville, 95 miles east of Austin. On August 18, 1992, a family of  six – including four children -- was shot, stabbed and bludgeoned to  death. The bodies were then set on fire to cover up the crime. Police  first picked up Robert Carter. He was the father of one of the victims  and had burns on him. Carter confessed and named his wife’s cousin,  Anthony Graves, as his accomplice. When police arrested Graves he  denied having anything to do with the murders. He says he couldn’t  believe that Carter had accused him of such a crime.

GRAVES: I kind of laughed because I’m thinking this is just a big  misunderstanding. I say, ‘that dude don’t know me!’

HEIMLICH: It was not a laughing matter. Graves was charged with capital  murder. In February of 1994, Carter was sentenced to death for the  crimes. Then Graves was tried in the fall of that year. Charles Sebesta  was the District Attorney who prosecuted Graves. Sebesta says he  presented circumstantial evidence but that’s not what convinced the  jury to find Graves guilty and sentence him to death.

SEBESTA: I think the most significant aspect of that trial was was  Robert Earl Carter’s testimony at trial.

HEIMLICH: Carter was Sebesta’s key witness. After taking the stand,  Carter said he killed one of the victims and Graves killed the rest.

HANSON: That was you know the biggest factor for me. His his testimony.  Carter’s testimony.

HEIMLICH: Vicki Hanson sat on the jury.

HANSON: He was just really convincing you know he just said that he  felt that he had to do this because you know he was involved in the  killing of his own son and he just wanted to make things right.

HEIMLICH: But Hanson says she doesn’t remember an important piece of  information prosecutors shared with the jury. They had made a deal with  Carter. In exchange for his testimony against Graves, prosecutors  agreed not to ask Carter questions about his wife’s possible  involvement…Carter is what many in the legal profession call a "snitch"  -- someone who’s in trouble with the law and makes a deal with  prosecutors in exchange for testifying against a defendant. Rob Warden  is the Executive Director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at  Chicago’s Northwestern University School of Law. Warden says snitch  testimony is highly unreliable and should be banned from the courtroom.

WARDEN: No media outlet in this country for all of the faults of the  media would ever publish a story or air a story based on the kind of  information that snitches use with impunity in the courtroom and yet  our government is using this sort of unfounded information to send  people to the execution chamber.

HEIMLICH: The Center on Wrongful Convictions recently finished a study  that shows that, in the more than one hundred cases where death row  inmates have been exonerated, nearly forty percent involved snitch  testimony. When the Illinois General Assembly meets in November it is  expected to take up a bill that aims to reduce snitch testimony in  death penalty cases. The bill would require judges to hold pre-trial  hearings to verify the credibility of snitches before they testify.

KEPPLE: That’s not a good idea.

HEIMLICH: Rob Kepple is General Counsel for the Texas District and  County Attorneys Association. Kepple says prosecutors should not be  limited to how they use snitches. He points out that, by law, juries  must be told of any deals. Kepple says snitch testimony is often  necessary to convict criminals.

KEPPLE: As a prosecutor I’ll take my evidence wherever I can get it and  if someone calls me from the jail and says ‘hey my roommate just told  me that he really did rape this woman that he was gonna pretend to be  insane to try to get out of it’ which by the way is a real case you bet  I’m gonna use that witness if I can verify that and let the jury let  the jury judge that credibility.

HEIMLICH: In the Graves case, the snitch’s testimony IS being  questioned. A couple years after the trial, Carter began telling other  death row inmates that he lied on the witness stand and committed the  murders alone. He said he accused Graves to prevent prosecutors from  charging Carter’s wife as an accomplice. One of the first people to  hear Carter’s recantations was Kerry Cook. Cook was in prison with  Carter and Graves before he was exonerated. Cook says he first talked  to Graves and heard his story. Then he asked Carter: Did he really  frame Graves for a crime he didn’t do?

COOK: And he said ‘yes.’ And it took me a few seconds to recuperate  from that shock because this meant everything Anthony Graves had been  telling me was in fact true.

HEIMLICH: Carter signed affidavits, appeared in videotapes and gave  depositions trying to clear Graves’ name. Before he was executed in  2000, Carter said in his final statement: "It was me and me alone.  Anthony Graves had nothing to do with it. I lied on him in court."  Juror Vicki Hanson says during the trial, she felt "a hundred percent"  sure Graves was guilty. But after hearing about Carter’s recantations,  she wonders whether the jury did the right thing.

HANSON: I’d hate to see that we you know that we did make a mistake  that big.

HEIMLICH: Yet Prosecutor Charles Sebesta has fought Graves’ efforts to  get a new trial. He says he doesn’t believe the recantations. Sebesta  says, while he can’t prove it, he thinks Carter’s wife Cookie was a  third accomplice and Carter was trying to prevent her from ever being  prosecuted.

SEBESTA: Carter was afraid that after he was executed that Graves would  come back in and say ‘look I’ll make a deal with you. You commute me to  life. I’ll give you Cookie.’

HEIMLICH: But Graves – who continues to proclaim his innocence --  accuses Sebesta of putting politics above justice.

GRAVES: It’s all about a conviction and that’s what basically the  system has boiled down to. Going into the court and winning at all  costs regardless. It’s not about innocence anymore.

HEIMLICH: Graves’ efforts to appeal his case have not been successful.  The Texas Court of Criminal appeals discounted Carter’s recantations  saying one of his statements conflicts with other evidence presented at  trial. The case is now in federal court.

For NPR News, I’m Janet Heimlich in Austin.