USA - Texas. Charles Sebesta, the ex-DA who sent exoneree Anthony Graves to death row is disbarred.

Charles Sebesta, the ex-DA who sent exoneree Anthony Graves to death row is disbarred.
Sebesta has been stripped of his law license after a panel of the State Bar in Houston determined he withheld evidence and used false testimony to win a capital murder conviction against Anthony Graves, a now-exonerated death row inmate. A three-member evidentiary panel Thursday ordered the disbarment of Sebesta, who spent 25 years as district attorney in Burleson and Washington counties, after finding he committed professional misconduct in his prosecution of Graves. Graves was convicted and sent to Texas death row for the 1992 slayings of six people. A federal appeals court reversed his conviction in 2006. He was released from prison four years later, after eighteen and a half years in prison, sixteen of those in solitary confinement, twelve on Texas Death Row. Even after Graves walked free on Oct. 27, 2010 and was formally exonerated in 2011, Sebesta continued to impugn his character—telling Texas newspapers as recently as last January that Graves was guilty of murder. Until the bar’s ruling, he did so with impunity. Then, last summer—twenty years after Graves’ wrongful conviction—the bar’s chief disciplinary counsel determined that there was “just cause” to believe that the former prosecutor had engaged in misconduct. This finding followed a lengthy investigation, which the bar conducted after Graves brought a grievance against Sebesta in January 2014. The legal proceeding that followed was conducted this May behind closed doors, as per Sebesta’s request. (Attorneys who are accused of misconduct may elect to have a district court proceeding, which is open to the public, or a private evidentiary panel hearing.) The trial spanned four days, and included testimony from Kelly Siegler, the special prosecutor who pronounced Graves an innocent man after re-investigating the case in 2010. Sebesta retained the formidable trial attorney Steve McConnico to defend him. But McConnico was up against the bar’s Laura Popps and Beth Stevens, who had prosecuted the professional misconduct matter of former Williamson County DA Ken Anderson, resulting in his disbarment and jail time in 2013 for his conduct in the Michael Morton case. In a sweeping ruling released this morning, the bar found that Sebesta had violated no fewer than five tenets of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, including: “A lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal.” “A lawyer shall not knowingly offer or use evidence that the lawyer knows to be false.” “A prosecutor in a criminal case shall make timely disclosure to the defense of all evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense…” “A lawyer shall not violate these rules, knowingly assist or induce another to do so, or do so through the acts of another…” “A lawyer shall not engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation”. When reached in Houston this morning, Graves expressed his gratitude to the bar for ensuring that Sebesta had finally faced consequences for his actions. “I never thought that a young, African-American man from the projects could file a grievance against a powerful, white DA in Texas and win,” he said. But he cautioned that a victory in his case alone was not enough. “I think this is a great first step,” he said. “But a lot of people in Washington and Burleson counties were prosecuted and convicted by Charles Sebesta, and some of them are still behind bars. All of those cases need to be examined, too.” Was disbarment a sufficient punishment for the man who had sent him to death row, a journalist asked? “I think he should be brought before a court of law to answer to charges of attempted murder,” Graves said. With the $1.45 million he was awarded in 2011 by the Texas Legislature for his wrongful incarceration, Graves set up the Anthony Graves Foundation, with “One Core Mission, To Promote Fairness And Effect Reform In The Criminal Justice System”. The Anthony Graves Foundation pledges “to give children left behind by the criminal justice system, a choice and a chance to live happy, productive lives, and become the powerful, new foundation of our communities”. A CBS documentary "Grave Injustice" won the 2012 Emmy Award.