In 1985, a ‘legal lynching’ led to Anthony Ray Hinton being wrongfully convicted of two murders and spending nearly 30 years on death row. He now dedicates his time to preventing others experiencing the same fate
The cloying stench of scorched flesh hung in the air as Anthony Ray Hinton was led to his cell on death row, barely 30 yards from the execution chamber.
“The smell of someone literally being set on fire – that alone is cruel and unusual punishment,” he says. “I was not prepared for that smell, and I’d be lying if I said I ever got used to it.”
Eighteen months earlier, on a hot summer’s day in 1985, a 29-year-old Hinton had been mowing his mother’s lawn in rural Birmingham, Alabama, when he was interrupted by two police detectives.
They accused Hinton of robbing a restaurant. It didn’t matter that he had an alibi, they tied the crime, along with two, unsolved shootings to his mother’s dusty, old .38 revolver. Hinton was saddled with an incompetent public defender. An all-white jury fell for the prosecution’s shoddy ballistics evidence, found him guilty of two counts of murder, and condemned him to death.
“The system knew from day one that I had not committed the crime, but I was made an example of: that when you’re born black and poor in the state of Alabama, they can come and get you any time they want,” says Hinton, who will mark a decade of freedom in April.
“There are some people who would have you believe that the system is broken. The system is not broken – it’s working exactly as it was designed to work.”
Hinton spent the next 28 years in a windowless, 5 by 7ft cell. He grew grateful to see the sky once every three months. He studied, and started a book club. He clung to his faith and found solace in flights of imagination: taking tea with the Queen and hitting home runs for the New York Yankees. The world outside moved on. His beloved mother, Buhlar, passed away.
The system is not broken – it’s working exactly as it was designed to work
“I never got the chance to say goodbye,” he says. “Until then, arriving on death row had been the lowest point in my life. My mom was my very foundation. Nothing can prepare you for a loss like that.”
On death row, Hinton watched 54 fellow inmates walk past his cell to their deaths in the electric chair, or by lethal injection.
One of them – Henry Hays – had become the most unlikely of best friends in Alabama’s Holman Correctional Facility. Unlikely because Hays was a prominent Ku Klux Klansman convicted of lynching a black man, Michael Donald. Having renounced hate, Hays spent his final few hours in Hinton’s company.
“I didn’t want Henry to think about what was coming at 12 o’clock that night. My task was to make sure he laughed all day, and I think I did a great job,” Hinton recalls. “That’s one thing I loved about the row: even on the most difficult days, we found a reason, and a ‘why’, to laugh.”
‘The system knew from day one that I had not committed the crime, but I was made an example of,’ said Hinton. Photography: Rob Liggins
Without the help of Alabama’s Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), Hinton would almost certainly have met the same fate as his friend.
His wrongful conviction was taken up by EJI lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who fought for 15 years to win Hinton a retrial on the grounds that his original defence had been “constitutionally deficient”. The case was ultimately dropped altogether when forensic experts confirmed the crime scene bullets could not be matched to Buhlar’s gun. Hinton walked free on 3 April 2015 after spending half his life on death row.
His first words on release – “the sun does shine” – would go on to become the title of his bestselling memoir, but in the meantime Hinton got straight to work with the EJI as their community educator, campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty and speaking out against what he sees as Alabama’s racist judicial system.
That’s one thing I loved about the row: even on the most difficult days, we found a reason, and a ‘why’, to laugh
“I think it would be selfish to spend that much time inside for something you didn’t do, and then when you get out just go home and lay down,” he says.
“I need the world to hear my story, and I need the world to realise that this was planned. It didn’t happen by accident, and until we fix this system, only God can help us.”
Astonishingly, Hinton has never received an apology – let alone a single cent in compensation – for the three decades he spent inside. And yet he refuses to succumb to anger.
“They didn’t even give me a bus ticket to get home,” says Hinton. “But if I was angry, I’d be giving them too much satisfaction that they broke me. They didn’t break me: they motivated me. I will not allow my emotion to get caught up with what needs to be done, and what needs to be said. I’m going to do that until the day I die.”
Main image: Rob Liggins
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