Hello, my name is Anthony Graves and I've been incarcerated on Texas Death Row since 1994. Back in 1992, I was arrested and charged with an horrible crime that the facts prove I did not commit. Two and a half years later I was convicted and sentenced to death. Upon my arrival to this place I didn't know what to expect. You know it's funny, we always tend to develop these preconceived ideas about places like death row, along with the people that are housed in them. My first week in this hell was a very lonely and frightful experience, one filled with fear and uncertainly, I thought everyone around me were these mad, insane killers who only lived to kill and kill again. My friends, you see, I was one of the many who allowed our government, through the media to influence my opinion toward people I'd never met I was always told that people on death row were the worst of humanity and didn't deserve to breathe the same air as you or I. The politicians use to tell society that the only way we could feel safe in our homes were to lock these people up and kill them. In other words, we are going to kill our way to safety and security from these people. My first week on death row, I spent alone. I wouldn't go to recreation with the other guys or do anything that would put me in direct contact with these killers. A week later a guy who was housed several cells away called out to me and asked who I was and for me to come out to recreation later on that day. I didn't want anyone to think that I was a coward so I accepted his invitation, and hours later found myself in the company of men who society said should die. I was a little nervous at first, but it didn't take long for me to realize that my opinion about these men were wrong, in fact I immediately found myself enjoying the camaraderie between me and these people. When I finally went back into my cage, I sat down and reflected upon what had just taken place between the other inmates and myself. I realized that these men were not in the image that the media had portrayed them to be, but on the contrary, they were just normal people who had made a mistake in life and had been condemned to die for it. There are many factors that goes into a man receiving the death penalty; most of them society isn't really educated on because they would be exposed to flaws of such a system. I've been here a little over eight years and during this time I've come to develop some genuine friendships with several guys here. These friendships haven't been easy because I've also had to witness a lot of them being taken to the gurney and executed. I can't begin to describe the roller coaster of emotions that one deals within a system like this. I feel like I've died a thousand times in this place. Why would I want to tell such a story you might ask? Well, because my entire life I've been programmed to believe what I've heard through the news media about such people and it has dawned on me that our government though the media has been giving our society nothing but propaganda regarding the men on death row in order to attempt to justify their position on this whole death penalty system. I'm not writing this story to convince anyone that the men on death row are saints and should be looked at in such a way; It would be foolish to attempt to appeal to the public like that. I am writing this story to shed some light on the fact that in all walks of life there are good and bad people. The men on death row are not different from your good neighbor or your bad neighbor. It is simply my wish that as a society we stop judging such people without any personal knowledge of them, and instead of turning our backs on them, we would become more concerned about this whole death penalty situation, enough to get personally involved and find out for ourselves who these men really are. It doesn't take but a few minutes of your time and a little effort. I think that as a society if we are going to judge men in this position then we should at least feel obligated to find out who are the men we are judging. Peace and Blessing.