Prosecutor who sent innocent man to death row is disbarred

Anthony Graves

A former prosecutor who used false testimony and withheld evidence to send a now-exonerated man to Texas' death row has lost an appeal to overturn his disbarment.

The Dallas Morning News reports that the Board of Disciplinary Appeals on Monday upheld the decision of the State Bar of Texas to disbar Charles Sebesta. The board's decision is final.

The bar revoked the Burleson County district attorney's law license in June, finding he had engaged in prosecutorial misconduct in the case of Anthony Graves.
Graves was sentenced to death in 1994 in the slayings of six people in South Texas two years earlier. A federal appeals court reversed his conviction in 2006.

Graves spent 18 years in prison, including 12 on death row. He filed a complaint in January 2014.