| (Newser) – A Texas man who spent nearly two decades in prison—12 of those years on death row, coming close to being executed twice—after being accused of setting a 1992 fire that killed six people was exonerated and freed in 2010, the victim of a wrongful conviction. But Anthony Graves didn't simply celebrate his freedom: He went after the prosecutor who put him behind bars, resulting in Charles Sebesta's disbarment by the state licensing board, Reuters reports. In response to Graves' original January 2014 complaint, the Texas State Bar had yanked Sebesta's law license last June, noting he had taken part in "prosecutorial misconduct," as the Dallas Morning News puts it. On Monday, a panel appointed by the Texas Supreme Court upheld that ruling, with the state Board of Disciplinary Appeals noting that Sebesta offered false testimony and hid evidence that could have helped free Graves. That misconduct included not revealing to Graves' defense team that another man also convicted for the murders (and eventually executed for them) had confessed to Sebesta he acted alone; Sebesta also reportedly made false statements in court that scared Graves' alibi witness out of testifying. Sebesta had appealed on the grounds that disciplinary procedures against lawyers had been modified and would affect his disbarment, the Texas Tribune notes. In a telephone interview, Sebesta—who noted he was "concerned about the process" that led to his being disbarred—told Reuters that "we presented the evidence we had and felt like it was sufficient." One of Graves' lawyers, however, sees it differently. "[The board] found that Charles Sebesta's misconduct was so egregious that they characterized him as having 'unclean hands,'" he says. "That certainly is a fitting description." The board's decision is final. (There were more exonerations in the US in 2015 than ever before.) |
