Shortly before Thanksgiving, Texas Moratorium Network delivered $3,000 to Anthony Graves that we had raised from our supporters and friends. Since then we have received additional donations for Anthony, so the new grand total of donations we have raised for him is $3,573, which includes the latest donation of $150 that we received yesterday.

Anthony has still not received any compensation from the State of Texas, but his lawyers continue to work to get him what he is owed from Texas for the 18 years he spent on Texas death row for a crime he did not commit.

Below is an an article from the Brenham Banner Press from Dec 31 with the latest news about the effort to get him compensated from Texas. At least during his time of need, generous individual people stepped forward and donated to help after his release. Thank you to everyone who has donated.

From the Brenham Banner Press:

The attorney for Anthony Graves says District Attorney Bill Parham has sabotaged attempts by Graves to receive reparations for 18 years of wrongful imprisonment.

Katherine Scardino said she is incensed that Parham refused to sign a request to change the wording on Graves’ dismissal to include the words “actual innocence,” a declaration vital to Graves’ reparation attempts.

“All he (Parham) has got to do to get this man the money he deserves is sign it,” said Scardino.

A state statute enacted last year provides $80,000 for each year of wrongful imprisonment. Graves, if his request is approved, would be eligible for more than $1.4 million.

But an obviously angry Scardino said Parham has in essence squashed Graves’ claim by refusing to amend the dismissal order signed in November by District Judge Reva Towslee Corbett.

“The real reason lies at the feet of Bill Parham and nobody else,” she said. “She (Corbett) will sign the order if Bill Parham will. It’s all his fault.”

Scardino said Parham’s refusal greatly hinders Graves’ reparation request.

“Of course it does. It’s a very simple procedure. There’s a form you fill out, a few other things that the statute requires you to submit. And if it complies with the statute, you get compensation,” she said.

Scardino said Graves’ attorneys didn’t press to include “actual innocence” on the original order because “we didn’t want to risk having the dismissal withdrawn.”

“I didn’t want him (Parham) coming back and doing something really stupid,” said Scardino.

Scardino also downplayed Parham’s role in Graves’ release, instead crediting former Harris County Assistant District Attorney Kelly Seigler, who was hired by Parham to investigate the case; and Otto Hanak, a former Texas Ranger who is now an investigator with the district attorney’s office.

Scardino said Seigler at a press conference held the day after Graves’ release used the words “actual innocence” and is willing to sign an affidavit to that effect.

Without a declaration of “innocent” in the order dismissing the case against Graves, the reparation filing “is probably going to be denied,” said Scardino.

The next step would be to ask Gov. Rick Perry to issue a full pardon for Graves, she said.

But Scardino also had harsh words for Perry, who after Graves’ release said it showed that the system “works.”

“Yeah, after 18 years it works just great,” Scardino said sarcastically. “Gov. Perry made that idiotic statement … if we go to him for a pardon, let’s just see how well he believes that.”

Parham said Thursday that he would not sign an agreement to change the wording because there is “no definition” of actual innocence.

He also said his office is not involved in any efforts by Graves to receive reparations.

“I have nothing to do with that,” said Parham.

Several organizations have set up Internet sites in which donations can be to Graves. The Texas Moratorium Network, an organization pushing for a moratorium on capital punishment, last month delivered a $3,000 donation to Graves.

The Texas Forensic Science Commission will hear from four fire investigation experts Friday as it continues to examine the science used to convict and execute Cameron Todd Willingham.

The special meeting in Austin, postponed from November, was sought by the commission’s scientists to help them answer two key questions:

1. What was the state of fire science, and what were fire investigators expected to know, in 1991 and 1992? That’s when two investigators used now-discredited techniques to conclude that Willingham intentionally set fire to his Corsicana home, killing his three young children.
2. What responsibility did the state fire marshal’s office have to reopen its Willingham investigation, and similar arson cases, once the agency realized scientific advancements had vastly improved the practice of arson investigation?

According to the commission, these invited experts have committed to appear Friday:

• Assistant State Fire Marshal Ed Salazar, second in command at the office that helps investigate suspicious fires statewide. One of the office’s investigators was instrumental in the 1992 conviction of Willingham, and the office recently stood by that investigation despite criticism from every modern, outside fire investigator to re-examine its conclusions.
• John DeHaan, one of the nation’s leading fire experts who has spent more than 35 years investigating fires. DeHaan wrote five editions of “Kirk’s Fire Investigation,” the most widely used textbook in the field, and co-wrote a companion text, “Forensic Fire Scene Reconstruction.” He is a frequent expert witness at arson trials, often testifying for the prosecution.
• Craig Beyler, president of the International Association of Fire Safety Science, is also one of the nation’s top fire investigators. Beyler was hired by the commission to analyze the Willingham fire and wrote a 2009 report that disputed every conclusion used to rule the fire an arson.
• Thomas Wood, a senior investigator with the Houston Fire Department. In a 2010 letter to the science commission, Wood said Willingham investigators could not be considered negligent because their arson conclusions were based on investigative standards common to that era.

The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. in Room 402 of the Central Services Building, 1711 San Jacinto Blvd.

The Innocence Project will show the meeting live on its website.

The New York-based organization today criticized the commission’s decision not to invite two noted experts, Austin chemist Gerald Hurst and fire investigator John Lentini. Both men conducted outside examinations of the Willingham case and concluded that investigators based their arson finding on faulty science.

Hurst and Lentini testified during an October hearing before now-retired Austin District Judge Charlie Baird, who led an inquiry into whether Willingham was wrongfully executed. An appeals court halted the inquiry before Baird could issue a finding.

From Reprieve, Jan 6, 2011:

One man is already dead, and many more to come, as a result of pharmaceutical company Dream Pharma’s pursuit of profit; Reprieve proposes a ‘Hippocratic Oath’ for ethical pharmacies.

Dream Pharma is exposed today as the UK source of all three drugs used to execute prisoners in the US. Reprieve releases documentary proof that the Acton-based company sold the drugs to Arizona that were used in the execution of Jeffrey Landrigan on October 26th, 2010, and that will send many other prisoners to their deaths. 

Dream Pharma Ltd, of 176 Horn Lane, London W3 6PJ, is a pharmaceutical company run by Matt Alavi. It operates out of the back of a driving instructor’s office, Elgone Driving Academy, pictured right.  

Mr Alavi sold 150 vials of sodium thiopental, 180 vials of potassium chloride, and 450 vials of pancuronium bromide to the Arizona State Prison on September 28th, 2010. This was sufficient to execute at least ten prisoners, and one has already died as a result. The sodium thiopental was sold for £1,180.50, a mark-up of roughly 1000% over the normal price in the US. The State of Arizona sought permission from the state supreme court on December 28th to go forward with the next prisoners in line for execution. 

Reprieve can also reveal today that before Arizona, the State of Arkansas bought drugs from the UK, though the precise quantity is not yet known. Furthermore, as of two days ago, an additional 1,042 vials of sodium thiopental (sufficient to execute 85 prisoners) were released to California by the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), after importation from the UK. This is all thought to have been sourced from Dream Pharma, although the company has declined to confirm the fact, or produce the invoices. Various other states’ recent purchases of execution drugs from the UK remain secret. 

Reprieve has written to Dream Pharma twice, and met with Alavi once; Dream Pharma has refused all cooperation with Reprieve’s efforts to mitigate the damage caused by these sales.

Meanwhile, the government has acted with unacceptable sloth. A month after Reprieve’s original request, and only when pressed by litigation, Business Innovation and Skills Secretary Vince Cable banned the export of sodium thiopental in late November. Reprieve gave Cable notice on December 16th that a UK company had exported two other execution drugs (pancuronium bromide and potassium chloride) to the US, and called on him to impose an immediate export ban on them as well. The BIS has yet to act. Neither did the BIS apparently act on Reprieve’s request – made on December 7th – to intervene to ensure that the British drugs were not released to California by the US FDA. The FDA announcement on January 4th reveals that any intervention by Cable will now be too late.

Meanwhile, Reprieve has called upon various pharmaceutical companies to assist in the task of preventing their drugs from being used to kill people. Thus far, the response has been anaemic, suggesting that the companies’ commercial interests override any legal or ethical obligations. Hameln has been the only exception, taking urgent action to ensure that its drugs would not be used for executions. In sharp contrast, Hospira has specifically stated its opposition to a ban, and has refused any assistance from Reprieve in repairing the damage done by the exportation of these drugs.

Reprieve condemns the irresponsible attitude taken by most pharmaceutical companies and calls upon them to voluntarily establish an industry Hippocratic code asserting that their drugs should be used only for the benefit of patients, not for executions.

Reprieve’s Director Clive Stafford Smith said:

“It is shocking that Britain has allowed a fly-by-night company in the back of a driving academy to export sufficient drugs to take many lives. The manner in which dangerous pharmaceuticals have been shuffled around without any controls points to a far deeper problem.

“Dream Pharma has sadly chosen a rather inappropriate name, unless it refers to Hamlet: ‘for in that sleep of death what dreams may come?’

“Our purpose is not to persecute Dream Pharma, but to ensure that they help us repair the damage that they have caused. This they resolutely refuse to do. Dream Pharma asserts that selling these drugs was no different from selling a hammer in a hardware shop. The analogy is apposite only if we include one fact: the customer told the salesman that he planned to bludgeon someone to death with it outside the store.

“Dream Pharma’s tentative assertion to the media that they did not know the drugs were to be used for executions is simply false. The three drugs they sold to the Arizona State Prison are the three drugs used for lethal injection, and the emails back and forth make it clear that they knew precisely what they were doing. Indeed, Mr Alavi made it clear to Reprieve that he favoured capital punishment. Sadly, the profit was blood money, pure and simple.

“Vince Cable has been sitting on his hands on this issue. If he is really against the death penalty, his office needs to read urgent requests for help in less than the two weeks it took here, and then act with urgency.”

The Houston Chronicle has endorsed abolishing the death penalty in a January 1, 2011 editorial, joining other Texas newspapers such as the Dallas Morning News and Austin American-Statesman in advocating for an end to the death penalty in Texas.

From the Houston Chronicle:

The death penalty in Texas is fraught with demonstrable error, and the people of the state seem more willing to deal with that fact than their leaders.

Events of the past year have convinced us that defendants have been executed on the basis of invalid evidence. They may or may not have been guilty, but the fact that we have convicted people based on faulty evidence leads inexorably to a horrible likelihood — that we have executed innocent people. The high number of death row prisoners eventually exonerated makes a strong case that other innocent but less fortunate prisoners have been wrongfully put to death.

We don’t lose sleep over the execution of guilty murderers. But the possible or probable execution of the innocent should trouble every Texan.

The freeing of Anthony Graves after 18 years in prison, many on death row, for a false murder conviction is only the most recent example of how badly the system is broken. His ordeal underlines how long the victims of wrongful death sentences must suffer in the cases where the errors are discovered before execution.

Two men, Cameron Todd Willingham, convicted of murder by arson, and Claude Jones, convicted of murder during a robbery, were executed on the basis of evidence later shown to be questionable or false.

We are heartened by figures showing that Texas and Harris County juries are sending fewer defendants to death row. Once known as the death penalty capital of the United States, Harris County has relinquished that grim title in recent years. If Texas were a nation, it would have been among the top state executioners in the world in past decades, in the company of judicial pariahs like China and Iran.

Since executions resumed in 1976, 464 have been carried out in Huntsville. Texas still led the nation in 2010 with 17 executions, more than twice the number of runner-up Ohio. This past year juries in Texas sentenced only eight people to die, while Harris County has had only two capital punishment sentences handed down.

Legal experts attribute the drop in death judgments to the availability of a life-without-parole statute passed by the Texas Legislature in 2005, and to the escalating costs to counties of the appeals process involving capital sentences. The exoneration of 11 Texas death row residents has undoubtedly made the public – and potential jury pools – more aware of the possibility that a death sentence could be an irreversible mistake.

Still, even as Texas juries show increased restraint in utilizing capital punishment, Texas elected officials – including most jurists – seem equally determined not to examine its flaws. When District Judge Kevin Fine attempted to conduct a hearing on the constitutionality of the death penalty as practiced in Texas, Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos first ordered her prosecutors to stand mute in court and then successfully appealed to theTexas Court of Criminal Appeals to halt the hearing. More than 60 people, including former Texas Gov. Mark White, have filed a brief with the high court in support of allowing the death penalty hearing to go forward.

When the state Forensic Science Commission attempted to investigate whether Willingham was executed for the murder of his three children based on faulty arson evidence, Gov. Rick Perry replaced the commission chairman and several board members. A protracted and inconclusive investigation followed. An attempt by an Austin judge to conduct a hearing on the Willingham case has also been stymied by an appeals judge, who ruled that the jurist should have recused himself.

The accumulating evidence indicates that the current application of the death penalty in Texas involves an unacceptably high risk of killing innocent people. Yet even as the evidence of false convictions and wrongful executions piles up, only the participants at the base of the Texas criminal justice system, jury members, seem to be waking up to the reality of this evil.

Some opponents have called for a moratorium on executions in Texas until new, unspecified safeguards are in place to protect the innocent. Yet it’s difficult to imagine a fail-safe route to execution.

Besides, we already have the ultimate safeguard on the books: the sentence of life without parole. Spending the rest of one’s days in prison is as terrifying a deterrent to most people as quick execution. By ending state-sanctioned killing, in the future when a jury makes a mistake, resurrection won’t be required to remedy it.

The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board has named a moratorium on executions and a study commission one of their major goals of 2011. We welcome their help. A moratorium on executions is the best strategy for stopping executions in Texas.

From the DMN Editorial:

Editorial: Our agenda for 2011

01:22 PM CST on Thursday, December 30, 2010

Texas legislators gather in Austin in nine days. If ever there were a year for progress on some of this newspaper’s goals for our city, region and state, this is it. We warned last year that the price continues to grow for the state and city as our leaders keep kicking major problems down the road. Texas and Dallas have a chance to find solutions this year. In fact, 2011 is the year for our leaders (and wannabes) to stand and deliver. You may recall the 1980s movie by that title, the one about crusading school principal Jaime Escalante. We see no reason the same couldn’t be said for our legislators, council members and school trustees – and their constituents. Enough kicking the can. Stand and deliver.

Get it right on criminal justice

The goals

• Revamp rules for eyewitness evidence.

• Require digital recording of interrogations.

• Examine the appeals and pardons procedures.

• Create a reliable forensic science commission.

• Halt executions and appoint a panel to recommend changes to Texas’ use of the death penalty.

The plan

Some of the sensible reforms that could have kept innocent people out of prison failed in the 2009 session to procedural motions. But after a year in which human error was exposed in the high-profile Anthony Graves case – on top of a foundation of doubt from years of DNA exonerations – the need for justice reform is too big to ignore.

That’s why we will call on legislators to revamp and make uniform rules for dealing with eyewitness evidence. This most unreliable form of evidence cannot be left to the shaky methods of untrained investigators. We also will keep pushing the Legislature to mandate digital recording and archiving of interrogations. Likewise, legislators need to require that even confessions are verified by other evidence.

As they pursue those goals, lawmakers must examine the appeals and pardons process so the truth has a chance of coming to light. Texas’ appeals process is myopically focused on legal maneuvers, leaving little room for claims of actual innocence.

Austin also needs to create a post-conviction forensic science commission with a sense of public purpose, unlike the current one, which is prone to political hijacking.

Finally, we will press legislators to halt executions in Texas and create a blue-ribbon panel of experts to make recommendations about the future of the nation’s busiest death chamber.

Where other states have acted boldly, Texas has averted its eyes. That should change in 2011.