AUSTIN, Texas — A man wrongly imprisoned in Texas for nearly two decades over slayings he didn't commit will be paid $1.4 million.
Gov. Rick Perry has signed a bill authorizing payments for Anthony Graves for 18 years, the amount of time he was behind bars. A 2009 law says exonerees can receive $80,000 for every year they were imprisoned.
The Houston Chronicle reports a federal appeals court overturned the conviction in 2006 and ordered a new trial for Graves over the 1992 deaths of a grandmother and five children in Somerville.
Graves was later declared innocent by a special prosecutor.
Comptroller Susan Combs in February denied compensation because the exoneration document for Graves lacked the words "actual innocence."
Perry signed the bill Friday and supported compensation efforts for Graves.