Anthony Graves

Anthony Graves was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death eighteen years ago. Yesterday, after appeal and appeal and appeal, Bill Parham, the District Attorney for Washington and Brazos Counties of Texas, after many hours of investigating by his staff and the ex-Assistant Harris County District attorney, Kelly Seigler, declared Anthony an “innocent man”.

Anthony walked out of the jail at 5:30pm. A free man. The first thing he wanted to do was go to his mama. He had not had a hug from her in over eighteen years. He just wanted to see his mama. He has grandchildren he’s never touched.

Calvin Garvie and Lydia Clay-Jackson were his trial attorneys. Calvin is a hard working attorney. He is smart. He is diligent. Anthony’s case and one other, Rodney Reed’s case, has haunted Calvin and in fact, as great a capital trial lawyer as Calvin is, he stopped doing death penalty cases.

I thought of Paul being placed in prison – simply for preaching and teaching God’s word. Paul was stoned and placed into prison at least three times.

I am not comparing Anthony to Paul – but am using Paul’s false imprisonment as an analogy of what Anthony and others can learn. We can all ask, when put into bad situations, “how does this apply to me?” Paul, though persecuted, continued to preach and emphasize to study and practice God’s word. Paul believed in the power of prayer. And, in the end, Paul grew from the imprisonment. He grew in strength, knowledge, and wisdom and had a much stronger faith.

When we, like Anthony and Paul, are faced with tough times, we can grow from them. I believe that is when we have to read our Bible’s more, pray more and become listeners of God.

I’m proud to work for attorneys like Calvin Garvie. I’m proud to know that District Attorneys like Bill Parham have the courage to face the rebuttal of a decision to free and state the “man is innocent” a man who has spent eighteen years of his life in prison.

I hope we can all learn something from Paul and Anthony’s travesty of justice. And, in the end, when we all have our own injustices, we can become stronger than we ever were.