Justice Served After 30-Year Prison Sentence 

Birmingham, Alabama, 1985. Police arrest Anthony Ray Hinton—the man they believe committed three armed robberies that left two restaurant managers dead, and a third wounded.

“To be accused of murder, it—to me, it-it don’t get no worse than that,” says Anthony. Anthony, or Ray, still remembers the arresting officer’s chilling words...

“There are five things that gonna convict you. Number one, you’re Black. Number two, a white man is gonna say you shot him, whether you shot him or not, believe, me I don’t care,” says Ray. “He said, ‘Number three, you’re gonna have a white prosecutor. Number four, you’re gonna have a white judge. And number five, you’re gonna have an all-white jury.’”

On parole for petty theft, the 29-year-old was living with his mom and working as a day laborer. His claims of innocence would fall on deaf ears, including those of his court-appointed lawyer.

“What do you do when you tell a lawyer that you’re innocent and he looks at you and says, ‘The problem with that statement. All of y’all always doing something and the moment you get caught, you say you didn’t do it.’ What do you do with that?” asks Ray.

Despite Ray’s ironclad alibi for at least one of the robberies, and the lack of solid evidence, prosecutors pushed for a conviction. Their key piece of evidence—expert testimony claiming the ballistics report of the bullets pulled from the victims matched a handgun found in Ray’s home. An all-white jury would find Ray guilty of two counts of capital murder and sentence him to death by electric chair.

“It hurts so bad,” says Ray. “Why me? What did I do? I even asked God, ‘What did I do so bad?’”

Ray’s mother, Buhlar, and his best friend, Lester Bailey, were crushed by the outcome. “Your natural reaction was it-it's over. He-he-he's going to be executed,” says Lester.

At Holman Correctional Facility, Ray’s cell was a mere 30 feet from the execution chair they called “Yellow Mama”. Ray would spend his time fighting not only a legal system that would block every one of his appeals, but the bitterness in his heart.

“The first three years, I was in a stage of hating,” says Ray. “I hated those men that did this to me.”

Ray began to realize the person he had become wasn’t the one his mother had raised him to be—a man who loved God and followed the example of Jesus Christ.

“I asked God to remove this hatred,” says Ray. “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.

“If this is where God intends for me to be and die, this is where I die. But while I’m here, everything around me gonna live. I’m going to bring the best out of everybody that come in touch with me,” says Ray. One of those people was Henry Hays, a KKK member on death row for lynching a Black teenager.

“I truly believe God sent me to death row to meet Henry Francis Hays,” says Ray. “And to show him what real love felt like and real love had no color.”
During their unlikely friendship, Ray saw God change Henry from a man full of hatred, to one who knew God’s love and had found redemption in Jesus Christ. Ray still remembers one of their last conversations before Henry’s execution in 1997.

“I said, ‘Henry, I truly believe that you are going to Heaven,’” says Ray. “And Henry said, ‘Well, you know, Ray, I’ve been reading the Bible. And I have changed my views on so many things. I finally looked at you as a human being.’”

As for Ray, the courts would continue to block his appeals for a retrial. Then in 1998, the Equal Justice Initiative, or EJI, decided to take Ray’s case. Among their efforts for criminal justice reform, the non-profit provides legal aid to those who’ve been imprisoned unjustly.

EJI’s probe into Ray’s trial was disturbing; among their findings: witnesses had been manipulated, Ray’s defense counsel was inept, and the surviving victim’s initial description of the assailant bore little resemblance to Ray. But it would be a single piece of evidence that held the key to proving Ray’s innocence. EJI lawyer Charlotte Morrison explains.

“We hired three of the nation’s best firearms experts,” says Charlotte. “And looked at the evidence and they said this is, you know, there is no match here. The only evidence that the state ever had claimed, connected Mr. Hinton, did not exist.”

Despite the new evidence, the courts still refused to reopen Ray’s case. Then, another crushing setback. Ray’s mother, who’d visited him almost every week since his incarceration, died in 2002.

“I don’t think the society nor the men that did this to me realized what they took from me,” says Ray.

Then in 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear Ray’s case. By unanimous vote, the court ruled to grant Ray a new trial.

“I’ve always felt that I have the Supreme Lawyer,” says Ray. “I don’t believe the God that I serve is gonna let me die for a crime He knows I didn’t commit.”

In April 2015, the state of Alabama dismissed all charges when state ballistics experts were unable to match the bullets to the handgun. Two days later, after serving 30 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, Ray was released.

“Only by the grace of God,” says Ray. “I mean ONLY.”

“It was an overwhelming day, and it should never have taken that long,” says Charlotte.

For Ray, it was a bittersweet moment. “For your mom not to be here the day that you are released, to run into her arms and say, ‘I’m home, Mom’ is—I try my best to be the son that she brought me up to be,’” says Ray.

Now a Community Educator with EJI, Ray is doing what he can to bring reform to the justice system. He’s also written a book about his journey of forgiveness and redemption, hoping his story will inspire change and healing.

“Jesus didn’t say, ‘Hey, when an enemy come across you, I want you to hate him,’” says Ray. “That ain’t what He said. ‘Love your enemy.’ The only way that we will ever conquer hate is love.”