The House and Senate last week passed a bill with an amendment authored by Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, that allows Graves to collect the $80,000 per year allowed by law for each year of wrongful imprisonment. That would add up to $1.4 million for Graves.

Texas Comptroller Susan Combs in February denied him the compensation because the document ordering his release did not contain the words "actual innocence."

Graves said Tuesday that he won't count on getting compensation until Perry signs the legislation.

"I'm glad that they put together a piece of legislation that will allow them to compensate me for the wrongdoing," Graves said. "But as of right now nothing has been done. I'm optimistic it will be done. We'll just have to wait and see."

In the meantime, a lawsuit seeking to have the state attorney general declare Graves innocent will proceed, Graves' attorney Jeff Blackburn said. "Until he gets that, we are going to keep on pressing and sue whomever we need to sue," Blackburn said.

Blackburn said he has been in contact with the governor's office and expects Perry to sign the bill.

The governor is still waiting for the bill to cross his desk, spokeswoman Lucy Nashed said. "The governor looks forward to thoroughly reviewing this bill in its final form once it reaches his desk and he will make a decision once it's completed," Nashed said.

Perry in February called Graves' capital murder conviction "a great miscarriage of justice" and said he would help him gain state compensation.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2006 overturned Graves' 1994 conviction and ordered a new trial in the deaths of a grandmother and five children in Somerville, ruling that the prosecution hid evidence from the defense and elicited false statements.

Prosecutors dismissed charges against Graves in October, saying they were convinced of his innocence. Graves' lawyers in March sued Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott seeking a declaration of innocence. Abbott's office says he doesn't have the authority to make that declaration.

The first hearing in the case is scheduled for Thursday before a Travis County district judge.

"Anthony Graves still has a right to be declared innocent," Blackburn said. "That right is being blocked by the attorney general for a reason I can't understand."

Graves said, "You stole 18 years of my life. Just do the right thing."

Attorney General spokesman Jerry Strickland said Abbott cannot change the law. "No amount of badgering or belligerence by Mr. Graves' legal team will change the law or give this office additional authority," Strickland said.

Although Graves and the attorney general are locked in a lawsuit, both sides contributed to the bill ensuring Graves' compensation that passed the House on Saturday and is making its way to the governor's desk.

Blackburn says he helped with the language used in the law and Ellis said that the attorney general, state comptroller and governor's office helped write the bill.

"We have repeatedly agreed that Anthony Graves' experience is truly troubling and deeply compelling, which is why we worked with Sen. Ellis throughout his efforts to draft a new law that allows Mr. Graves to obtain compensation," Strickland said.

Ellis added language ensuring Graves' compensation to House Bill 417 introduced by Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas. Anchia's bill was intended to keep attorneys from collecting exorbitant fees from the unjustly imprisoned who apply for state compensation.

"I was disheartened by press accounts of him falling within this loophole, so I made some calls to find out why," Ellis said, explaining why he added the Graves provisions to the bill. The measure "finally provides justice to Anthony Graves, who has been denied justice because of bureaucratic hurdles and red tape," he said.

The bill, which passed the House 147-0, amends the Timothy Cole Compensation Act to say that a person is eligible for compensation for being wrongfully convicted if they have been "granted relief in accordance with a writ of habeas corpus (a demand to show evidence of a crime) and an affidavit from a prosecutor stating the dismissal was based on actual innocence."

Houston attorney Kelly Siegler, the special prosecutor in the Graves' case, has signed an affidavit attesting to his innocence.

harvey.rice@chron.com