INNOCENCE: Anthony Ray Hinton Exonerated After 30 Years on Alabama’s Death Row

Anthony Ray Hinton (pictured, l.) has been exonerated after spending nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row. He will be released on April 3. Hinton was convicted of the 1985 murders of two fast-food restaurant managers based upon the testimony of a state forensic examiner that the bullets in the two murders came from a gun found in Hinton’s house. The prosecutor, who had a documented history of racial bias, said he could tell Hinton was guilty and “evil” just by looking at him. Hinton was arrested after a victim in a similar crime identified him in a photo lineup, even though Hinton had been working in a locked warehouse 15 miles away when that crime was committed. Hinton’s lawyer did not know the law and mistakenly believed that funding to hire a qualified firearms expert was not available. Instead, he hired an expert he knew to be inadequate, and as a result failed to present any credible evidence to rebut the state’s claim that the bullets were fired from Hinton’s gun. In 2002, three top firearms examiners testified that the bullets could not be matched to Hinton’s gun, and may not have come from the a single gun at all. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held that Hinton had been provided substandard representation and returned his case to the state courts for further proceedings. Prosecutors decided not to retry him after the state’s new experts said they could not link the bullets to Hinton’s gun. Bryan Stevenson (pictured, r.), Hinton’s lead attorney, said, “Race, poverty, inadequate legal assistance, and prosecutorial indifference to innocence conspired to create a textbook example of injustice. I can’t think of a case that more urgently dramatizes the need for reform than what has happened to Anthony Ray Hinton.” Hinton is the 152nd person exonerated from death row since 1973, the second in 2015, and the sixth in Alabama.

(W. Hester, “Alabama man to be freed after nearly 30 years on death row,” Reuters, April 2, 2015; Press Release, “Equal Justice Initiative Wins Release of Anthony Ray Hinton,” Equal Justice Initiative, April 2, 2015; Press Release, “ALABAMA EXONERATES MAN WHO SPENT 30 YEARS ON DEATH ROW FOR A CRIME HE DID NOT COMMIT; Anthony Ray Hinton is 152nd Person Added to the Death Penalty Information Center’s Innocence List; Sixth Person from Alabama”, DPIC, April 3, 2015.) See Innocence.