That paid for the experts who got it wrong. Theres five things theyre going to convict you to, the officer told him. Mr. Hinton will speak at Notre Dame Law School about his wrongful conviction in 1985, his years on Alabama's death row, and the experience of freedom. It only takes the first two pages of the introduction by the authors equally remarkable lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, to make the reader appalled. The lecture began with Hinton recounting the day of his arrest in extreme detail. He-he-he's going to be executed, says Lester. [4], The prosecution's only evidence at the trial was a statement that ballistics tests showed four crime scene bullets matched Hinton's mother's gun, which was discovered at her house during the investigation. In the interview, Hinton described how issues of race permeated his case. You want to know why?, Number one, youre black. So I believe in the promise of hope alive, he said. Only by the grace of God, says Ray. (S. Pelley, Life After Death Row, 60 Minutes, January 10, 2016.) He was going to be convicted anyway. Number one, youre Black. By Christina Gould, SAL Patron Services Manager. That paid to keep him on death row for 30 years for a crime he didnt commit. Under the Fair Justice Act, I'd be dead. We conclude that they did not and hold that Hinton's trial attorney rendered constitutionally deficient performance. His book is a harrowing masterpiece. [emailprotected]. Hinton knew it was a case of mistaken identity and naively believed that the truth would prove his innocence and set him free. Have students pair/share with a partner. This lesson uses a video segment from PBS NewsHours Searching for Justice series. Hinton (portrayed in the movie by O'Shea Jackson Jr.) was arrested and convicted in Alabama in 1985 for the murders of two fast food restaurant managerswho worked at different places, and who were killed months apart that year, NBC News reports. When he was 29 . Introductions: Anthony Ray Hinton May 2, 2019. The sun does shine, he said as he was embraced by family and friends. It hurts so bad, says Ray. Hinton was 29 when was convicted and sentenced to die in the state's electric chair. 2023 The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc., A nonprofit 501 (c)(3) Charitable Organization. Hinton was freed in 2015 after spending 28 years on death row for two 1985 murders that occurred during separate robberies of fast-food restaurants in Birmingham. 0. [4], Hinton's initial appeals continued to be handled by his public defender, Sheldon C. Perhacs, who lost each of Hintons cases. [8] In June 1989, that judgment was affirmed by the unanimous Supreme Court of Alabama. The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] Firearms experts convened by an Equal Justice Initiative attorney testified in 2002 that the revolver was not the weapon used in the murders of the two fast-food managers. The judge finally dismissed the charges after prosecutors said that scientists at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences tested the evidence and confirmed that the crime bullets cannot be matched to the Hinton weapon. Davidson was still alive when an exterminator came to the restaurant and found him in the restaurant cooler . [18] He had previously spoken to the students of the Class of 2019, six months after his release, in 2015. Anthony Ray, then a 29-year-old warehouseman, was mowing his mum's lawn when his life was torn apart in July 1985. After a new round of analysis, prosecutors wrote, state experts found that they could not conclusively determine that any of the six bullets were or were not fired through the same firearm or that they were fired through the firearm recovered from the defendants home.. Deputies escort Mr. Hinton in the courthouse during his trial. by Anthony Ray Hinton with Lara Love Hardin The Sun Does Shine is a powerful examination of both our flawed justice system and of one man's personal resilience and faith. SUPPORTED BY VIEWERS LIKE YOU. The only potential evidence that proves Mr. Hinton committed the murders depends upon an absolute, conclusive determination that the bullets recovered from their bodies were in fact fired through the barrel of the firearm taken from the defendants home, prosecutors wrote in their court filing on Wednesday. What were the charges brought against Hinton? It was 1986. [citation needed] Hinton's mother died in 2002. God made it possible for you to know. Hintons public defender was roundly criticized for his work hetried to appeal his case and routinely failed, according to The Guardian. 2. Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to death and held in solitary confinement for 28 years on Alabama's death row before he was exonerated in 2015. Managers John Davidson and Thomas. He has become an inspirational speaker, traveling the country and the world. The 64-year-old, whose story was featured in the HBO documentary film True Justice, is one of thousands of formerly incarcerated Americans who are casting ballots amid a new movement to restore their reentry into society and a reckoning on criminal justice and racism in America. Mr. Hintons words were among the starkest reminders that, despite the joyous atmosphere surrounding his release, the case against him had spurred another reckoning for Alabama and a legal system that critics said appeared troubled by obstinacy and arrogance. Have your students watch the video and answer the questions below. This has everything to do with the way we treat those who are vulnerable in our criminal justice system.. By AFP Reporters Alabaman Anthony Ray Hinton, an African American spent 30 years on death row because, he says, he was "black and poor." His name finally cleared in Alabama, he now campaigns for justice which he says can only be achieved by beating Donald Trump at the ballot box. Bryan Stevenson, one of Mr. Hintons lawyers and the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, said Mr. Hintons right to justice had been limited as an impoverished black man. The only expert willing to testify at that price was a civil engineer with very little ballistics training and limited by having one eye; he admitted in court to having trouble in operating the microscope. What did I do? A Christian man was falsely convicted of murder for 30 years, but he spent his time sharing Jesus inside the cells. Fourteen months later, the district attorney in Alabama finally abandoned the case, and Hinton went free. And looked at the evidence and they said this is, you know, there is no match here. Gonna have a white D.A. Your natural reaction was it-it's over. Though a 29-year-old Anthony Hinton was working at a locked warehouse 15 miles away at the time of the second crime, and although there were no eyewitness accounts of the first incident, he was arrested one evening while cutting the grass outside of his mother's house . Please check your information and try again or call us at 1-800-759-0700. Anthony Ray Hinton Awarded Honorary Doctorate Degree, Alabama Man Freed After Decades on Death Row, Freed Death Row Inmate: Humor Saved Me from Satan, 122 Commerce Street Montgomery, AL 36104 An all-white jury would find Ray guilty of two counts of capital murder and sentence him to death by electric chair. During their unlikely friendship, Ray saw God change Henry from a man full of hatred, to one who knew Gods love and had found redemption in Jesus Christ. See Innocence and Race. Anthony Ray Hinton's story of being wrongfully convicted and serving almost thirty years on Death Row is one of gargantuan unfairness. "To be accused of murder, itto me, it-it don't get no worse than that," says Anthony. Anthony Ray Hinton leaves the Jefferson County jail in Birmingham, Alabama in April 2015, after nearly 30 years on death row. Police seized an old revolver belonging to Mr. Hinton's mother, and state firearm examiners said that was the gun used in all three crimes. Our tax dollars that paid for the judge and the prosecutor that prosecuted him. Mr. Hinton, during an interview in which he sometimes cried and buried his head in his hands, lashed out at the officials whose decisions he said had kept him wrongly imprisoned. In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital . Anthony, or Ray, still remembers the arresting officers chilling words There are five things that gonna convict you. Ray has a strong alibi for one of the incidents, and the supposed murder weapon, Ray's mom's gun, hasn't been fired in years, but the authorities refuse to consider this. The refusal of state prosecutors to re-examine this case despite persuasive and reliable evidence of innocence is disappointing and troubling.. Anthony Hinton, 29 years old with no history of violent crime, steadfastly maintained his innocence. When Ray was arrested for crimes he didn't commit, he remembers telling the police officers that he didn't do it. The reality is much worse as doctors find a large brain tumor behind Hes known as Johnny B. Badd from the World Wrestling Federation. But in order for me to be free, I had no choice but to pray for those men that did this to me. So, Ray made a decision. This isnt luck, this was a system, this was actually our justice system, it was our tax dollars who paid for the police officers who arrested Mr. Hinton. No one. But rather than pass reforms to prevent another innocent person from being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death, Mr. Hinton cautioned, Alabama is moving in the opposite direction. EJIs probe into Rays trial was disturbing; among their findings: witnesses had been manipulated, Rays defense counsel was inept, and the surviving victims initial description of the assailant bore little resemblance to Ray. March 22, 20185:57 AM. [4] Hinton was portrayed by O'Shea Jackson Jr. in the 2019 film Just Mercy. All the while, Mr. Hinton remained at a prison in south Alabama, awaiting his execution. He spent 30 years in prison until, with the help of. His peaceful morning was quickly interrupted when police officers - with a warrant for Hinton's arrest - taunted, handcuffed and arrested the teenage Hinton. Despite the new evidence, the courts still refused to reopen Rays case. What challenges do you think theyd face once home after a long prison stay? Instead, he retained a visually-impaired civil engineer with no expertise in firearms identification who admitted he could not operate the machinery necessary to examine the evidence. Number three, youre gonna have a white district attorney. They just didn't take me from my family and friends. Hinton was exonerated in 2015, when he was 59 years old, according to NBC News. Students will examine the challenges faced by individuals wrongfully convicted of felonies. Police arrived at the house near Birmingham, Alabama, and arrested him for. Their forensics experts were unable to match crime-scene bullets to Hinton's mother's gun. (You will need to make a copy of the document to edit it.). And you know why? I said, No. He said, You got a white man. But last year, the Supreme Court said that Mr. Hintons defense had been unacceptable, setting up a new trial and essentially forcing prosecutors to review the evidence for a case in which they acknowledged the forensic studies were paramount. That victim survived and then misidentified Hinton as his assailant; then the state completed this travesty by providing completely fake ballistic evidence to tie a gun found in Hintons mothers home to all three murders. But then, soon, he realized he became the person his mother didnt raise him to be. "If God hadn't intervened and sent me his best lawyer, within two years I would . 1. As my good friend Bryan Stevenson says, the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice but justice needs help., How I got 30 years on death row for someone else's crime, 'I went to death row for 28 years through no fault of my own', Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. Anthony Ray Hinton, an inmate on Alabama's death row, asks us to decide whether the Alabama courts correctly applied Strickland to his case. Moving forward, he chose to pray for those men who set him up instead. His claims of innocence would fall on deaf ears, including those of his court-appointed lawyer. Thirty years ago, Mr. Hinton was arrested and charged with two capital murders based solely on the assertion that a revolver taken from his mothers home was the gun used in both murders and in a third uncharged crime. Tennessee Lawmakers Lynching Comment Sparks Outrage, Compared to Neighboring Tennessee, Alabamas Execution Review Falls Short, Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Man Sentenced to Death in Arizona, Alabama Man Allegedly Held in Jail Freezer Dies of Hypothermia, 122 Commerce Street Montgomery, AL 36104 Published: Apr. Anthony Ray Hinton. Click here for more stories in the series and watch for more NewsHour EXTRA lesson content based on Searching for Justice stories. By unanimous vote, the court ruled to grant Ray a new trial. For your mom not to be here the day that you are released, to run into her arms and say, Im home, Mom isI try my best to be the son that she brought me up to be, says Ray. BIRMINGHAM, Ala. Nearly 30 years after the Alabama authorities relied on analyses of a handgun and bullets to send him to death row, Anthony Ray Hinton was freed on Friday after experts undermined the states case. We have a system that is compromised by racial bias, and his case proves it., Weve gotten into a culture, he said in a separate interview, where the pressure to convict and to achieve these outcomes is so great that owning up to mistakes is less frequent than youd like to imagine.. Winner of the 2019 Moore Prize Finalist, Dayton Peace Prize, 2019 "An amazing and heartwarming story, it restores our faith in the inherent goodness of humanity." - Archbishop Desmond Tutu A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, and justice. [12] On April 1, 2015 the Jefferson County district attorneys office moved to drop the case. In 1985 Hinton was charged with two counts of murder in the deaths of two fast-food restaurant managers in Birmingham, Ala., with the charges hinging on a revolver that had belonged to his. Since his release, Hinton has spoken in various venues about the injustices of the Alabama judicial system and other issues related to his conviction and imprisonment. Anthony Ray Hinton, who was on death row for nearly 30 years, had been charged and convicted in the 1985 murders of two Birmingham area fast-food managers. On February 24, 2014, the Supreme Court today unanimously granted relief to Anthony Hinton, finding that his trial lawyer was constitutionally deficient. Then Anthony spent the first three years in the prison full of bitterness in his heart. The Equal Justice Initiative assisted Hinton so that he could cast a ballot for Doug Jones in the 2017 special Senate election. Ray had a message, and he taught that message to his neighbor Henry, though they only had one thing in common. [4], After Hinton's arrest, his public defense attorney did not provide adequate counsel. BY DEBORAH McKEON | TELEGRAM STAFF. Anthony Ray Hinton attends "True Justice: Bryan Stevenson's Fight For Equality" New York Screening at SVA Theater on June 24, 2019. In recent days leading up to the vote, Hinton had been thinking more about his grandparents and his parents, who he said werent allowed to vote because of voter suppression such as literacy tests, polls taxes and intimidation. Biden enlists potential rivals as advisers ahead of 2024, Their toddler took a nap in an Airbnb and fentanyl killed her. Link your TV provider to stream full episodes and live TV. When Hinton convinces the prison warden about halfway through his three decades of imprisonment to allow him to receive books besides the Bible so that he can form a book club, the reader shares the exhilaration of Hinton and half a dozen of his fellow prisoners as they are finally able to travel outside the walls of the prison, through the words of James Baldwin and Harper Lee. I asked God to remove this hatred, says Ray. 5. Anthony Ray Hinton, an innocent man, spent 30 years on death row in Alabama because, he says, he was "black and poor." His name finally cleared, he now campaigns for justice -- which he says. This is my Yes to Papa God. For more than 15 years, EJI attorneys repeatedly asked state officials to re-examine the evidence in this case, but former Jefferson County District Attorney David Barber, and Attorneys General from Troy King to Luther Strange, all failed to do so. Adam Desiderio/ABC. Alabama inmate Anthony Ray Hinton walked out of prison Friday as a free man after 30 years on death row. This has nothing to do with luck. I finally looked at you as a human being.. Now a Community Educator with EJI, Ray is doing what he can to bring reform to the justice system. For a Google doc version of this lesson, click here. After every level of the Alabama court system had rejected Hintons appeals multiple times, his lawyer decided to take his case directly to the US supreme court. Mar 27, 2019 . I truly believe God sent me to death row to meet Henry Francis Hays, says Ray. Send a prayer request now, or call 18007007000. I have no respect for the prosecutors, the judges. Anthony Ray Hinton. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Mr. Hinton is the 152nd person exonerated from an American death row since 1973. But the book club is short-lived, after the prisoners who are left out of it convince the warden it is unfair to allow only some of them to become readers. Anthony Ray Hinton Exonerated After 30 Years on Death Row. Read this article and answer the following questions. And Anthony made a decision to accept the reality and still allow God to use him while in prison. Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more! In his book, The Awe of God, pastor and author, John Bevere describes the many ways having a genuine and holy fear of God enhances the good in one A man who makes a vow to the LORD or makes a pledge under oath must never break it. In the first two robberies, the managers were killed and there were no witnesses or physical evidence . Despite pleas by Mr. Hintons lawyers, who cited conclusions by newly enlisted specialists, the state refused for years to reconsider the evidence. [9], Hinton was sent to death row, where he was held in solitary confinement for nearly three decades. Get to know others seeking Gods guidance and wisdom for life. He said, Number three, youre gonna have a white prosecutor. Anthony, or Ray, still remembers the arresting officer's chilling words. In 1985 he was convicted of the murders of two restaurant workers in Birmingham, Ala. Thirty years later . Somehow, he's not enraged", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Anthony_Ray_Hinton&oldid=1136681327, Overturned convictions in the United States, 21st-century American non-fiction writers, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles lacking reliable references from June 2022, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from June 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from June 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 31 January 2023, at 16:12. The arresting officer told him chilling words he would never forget when authorities arrested him. Plus, two long lost cousins Hooked on drugs before he was a teen, a meth addict has only one goal in life. The court was unable to affirm the forensic evidence of a gun, which was the only evidence in the first trial. "I woke up like I do every morning I knew that my mother was cooking," Hinton recounted. If you didnt do it, one of your brothers did. He woke up at 5 a.m., showered, brewed himself some coffee and, not knowing how long he would have to wait, made himself breakfast that would stick to his ribs. Mr. Hinton, 29 then, was indigent, and the Supreme Court said last year that the lawyer appointed to represent him, Sheldon C. Perhacs, had mistakenly believed he had only $1,000 to hire an expert witness for the proceedings. Feb 24, 2017 Updated Feb 24, 2017. On February 25, 1985, and July 2, 1985, two fast food managers, John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason, were killed in separate incidents during armed robberies at their fast food restaurants in Birmingham. Stunned, He organized a book club that was allowed to meet in the prison's law library. Copyright 2022 GOD TV, Simco Media LLC. But it would all fall on deaf ears, including his court-appointed lawyer. [4] Hinton's book received extremely positive reviews. Anthony hated the men who did it to him. In 2014 the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously overturned his conviction on appeal, after which the state dropped all charges against him. Then in 1998, the Equal Justice Initiative, or EJI, decided to take Rays case. Still, even though Stevenson had new ballistics tests performed on Hintons behalf, the Alabama courts denied the appeal, after taking two years to deliberate. Using television and the Internet, CBN is proclaiming the Good News in 149 countries and territories, with programs and content in 67 languages. [4] Finally, Hinton was the last prisoner left on death row. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. American activist, writer, and author (born 1956), List of wrongful convictions in the United States, "Anthony Ray Hinton Spent Almost 30 Years on Death Row.
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