30 Years on Death Row for a Crime He Didn’t Commit | The Case of Anthony Ray Hinton — Transcript

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1. 0:06Anthony Ray Hinton woke up every morning
2. 0:09for nearly 30 years knowing that the
3. 0:12state of Alabama intended to kill him.
4. 0:18He was innocent.
5. 0:27There was no DNA evidence,
6. 0:31no fingerprints,
7. 0:33no confession,
8. 0:36only a single forensic claim that would
9. 0:40later collapse completely.
10. 0:44This is the story of how junk science,
11. 0:48racial bias, and a broken system nearly
12. 0:52executed an innocent black man. In the
13. 0:57mid 1980s,
14. 0:59Birmingham, Alabama was still shaped by
15. 1:03the legacy of segregation and racial
16. 1:06violence.
17. 1:08Anthony Ray Hinton was a quiet
18. 1:12workingass man living with his mother.
19. 1:16When two fast food restaurant managers
20. 1:19were murdered during robberies, police
21. 1:23were under intense pressure to make an
22. 1:26arrest.
23. 1:29They focused on Anthony,
24. 1:33not because of evidence,
25. 1:36but because he fit a profile.
26. 1:40Police arrested Anthony Ray Hinton
27. 1:43without physical evidence tying him to
28. 1:47either crime. The prosecution's case
29. 1:50rested on one claim that bullets from
30. 1:55both crime scenes matched a gun found in
31. 1:59Anony's home. The problem, the gun was
32. 2:04old, the testing was flawed,
33. 2:08and the expert was not qualified.
34. 2:13Anony's courtappointed lawyer had almost
35. 2:16no resources.
36. 2:19He could not afford a qualified
37. 2:21ballistics expert.
38. 2:24Instead, the defense relied on a man who
39. 2:28had never testified in a murder trial
40. 2:31and whose conclusions were deeply
41. 2:35unreliable.
42. 2:37The prosecution's expert claimed the
43. 2:40bullets matched.
44. 2:43The claim would later be proven false.
45. 2:48But in court, science sounded
46. 2:52convincing.
47. 2:54Anthony Ray Hinton was convicted and
48. 2:58sentenced to death.
49. 3:03Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to
50. 3:05death row. His sail measured roughly 6
51. 3:11by 9 ft.
52. 3:13For nearly three decades, he lived in
53. 3:17isolation,
54. 3:19waiting,
55. 3:21waiting for appeals,
56. 3:24waiting for execution dates,
57. 3:28waiting for the system to admit it was
58. 3:32wrong.
59. 3:34He maintained his innocence every day.
60. 3:39He survived by building relationships,
61. 3:43by mentoring others, and by refusing to
62. 3:48let hatred consume him.
63. 3:51Years later, independent forensic
64. 3:54experts re-examined the evidence.
65. 3:59Their conclusion was clear.
66. 4:03The bullets could not be matched to
67. 4:06Anony's gun.
68. 4:08The science used to convict him was
69. 4:12invalid.
70. 4:14After nearly 30 years on death row,
71. 4:18Anthony Ray Hinton was released in 2015.
72. 4:23Anthony Ray Hinton walked out of prison
73. 4:26a free man, but with no compensation,
74. 4:32no counseling,
75. 4:34and no apology.
76. 4:38He chose forgiveness over bitterness.
77. 4:43He became an advocate, a speaker, and a
78. 4:48living reminder of what happens when
79. 4:52justice is replaced by speed and
80. 4:56certainty.
81. 4:57Anony's case is not unique. Poor
82. 5:02defendants are more likely to be wrongly
83. 5:05convicted.
84. 5:07Black defendants are more likely to
85. 5:10receive harsher sentences
86. 5:14and unreliable forensic science remains
87. 5:18widely used in America's courts.
88. 5:22The system did not fail by accident.
89. 5:27It failed by design.
90. 5:30Anthony Ray Hinton survived.
91. 5:34Many others did not.
92. 5:37And until the system is forced to
93. 5:40confront its own failures,
94. 5:43justice will continue to fall along
95. 5:47racial lines.