





Sebesta also failed to disclose that Carter had implicated his wife, Theresa, as an accomplice in the slayings of Bobbie Joyce Davis, 45; her 16-year-old daughter, Nicole; and four grandchildren between 4 and 9 years old.

They were shot, stabbed and beaten to death Aug. 18, 1992, and their house doused with gasoline and burned to cover the crime.

"If the two statements had been revealed, the defense's approach could have been much different and probably highly effective," Circuit Judge W. Eugene Davis wrote in the unanimous opinion for judges Jacques L. Wiener, Jr. and Emilio M. Garza.


That opinion said that Sebesta had erred by withholding the statements, but that the two statements would not have changed the guilty verdict.

'Stupendously shocked'

Graves' attorneys acknowledged that it may be some time before he gets a new trial.

The decision means that the Texas Attorney General's Office has 180 days to appeal the decision or schedule a new trial. Attorney General's Office spokesman Tom Kelley said the office had not yet reviewed the opinion.

Sebesta declined to comment. "I really need to take a look at it and see what they said," he said.

The former district attorney has never wavered in his belief that Graves is guilty.

One of Graves' attorneys, Roy Greenwood, said the state's chances of getting a rehearing were slim because of the quality of the opinion.

"This one is tight and fact-filled and there are not any questions of new law," Greenwood said."I wouldn't think in a million years they would review that."

"I am stupendously shocked," said Graves' other attorney, Jay Burnett. "We thought our last ditch effort would be in the Supreme Court of the United States."

Greenwood said that prison rules prevented him from speaking with Graves by phone late Friday, but that a prison official had promised to relay the information to him.

Mother 'overwhelmed'

Graves' mother, Doris Curry , 58, said, "I'm so overwhelmed. I just don't know. It's making my life so much better."

Curry said she had dreamed the night before that her son was about to be executed, but "the doctors walked away and wouldn't do it. That was my sign."

Students from professor Nicole Casarez's journalism class were celebrating the news in her office at the University of St. Thomas with a bottle of champagne. The students, participating in the University of Houston's Innocence Network, had amassed new information in the the last three years they say shows Graves is innocent.

Burnett said the state could ask for an en banc hearing, which is a hearing by the full 5th Circuit. If they failed there, they could go to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The bottom line celebration will be when it gets to state district court and they say we're not going to retry this case and it's dismissed," Greenwood said. "That's the true victory."