Ex-inmate: $1.4M doesn't make up for lost time
Updated 01:19 p.m., Wednesday, June 22, 2011
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AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas man due to receive $1.4 million for being wrongfully imprisoned for 18 years says the money "doesn't even come close" to making up for the time he lost behind bars.
Anthony Graves said Wednesday he's grateful Gov. Rick Perry signed legislation allowing him to receive compensation that has been withheld because of the wording in the order exonerating him. But he says having the measure become law "wasn't like I hit the lottery."
A special prosecutor last year declared the 45-year-old Graves innocent in the 1992 deaths of a grandmother and five children in Somerville.
However, because his exoneration order lacked the phrase "actual innocence," he wasn't able to take advantage of a 2009 Texas law that gives exonerees $80,000 for every year they were wrongly imprisoned.
