30 Years on death row for someone else’s crime: Anthony Ray Hinton’s story — Transcript

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1. 0:00Anthony Ray Hinton is one of the longest
2. 0:02serving death row prisoners in Alabama
3. 0:04history
4. 0:05he was on death row for 30 years for a
5. 0:07crime he didn't commit in 1985 there was
6. 0:11a wave of violent robberies in fast food
7. 0:13restaurants of the Birmingham area
8. 0:15two restaurant managers John Davidson
9. 0:17and Thomas Wayne vassen were fatally
10. 0:19shot in separate robberies
11. 0:21there were no eyewitnesses to the
12. 0:23murders or fingerprints found at the
13. 0:25scenes
14. 0:26on July 25 1985 the third robbery
15. 0:29happened at Quincy's Family Steakhouse
16. 0:31in Bessemer and 55 year old Sydney
17. 0:33Smotherman who was a night manager at
18. 0:35the restaurant was shot but not
19. 0:37seriously wounded and he picked Hinton
20. 0:39out of a photo lineup identifying him as
21. 0:42the shooter police also seized an old
22. 0:45revolver belonging to hinton's Mother
23. 0:46Hinton was arrested even though he had
24. 0:49no criminal record successfully passed a
25. 0:51polygraph test and had an alibi for the
26. 0:53night of the third assault
27. 0:55his boss and fellow workers said that he
28. 0:57was working in a locked Warehouse 15
29. 0:59miles away at the time of the crime when
30. 1:01he asked the detective why he was being
31. 1:03arrested the detective said I don't care
32. 1:06whether you did it or didn't do it he
33. 1:08said but I'm going to make sure you
34. 1:10found guilt of it I said for a crime I
35. 1:12didn't commit
36. 1:13he said you must have a hearing problem
37. 1:15didn't I tell you I don't care whether
38. 1:17you did it or didn't do it
39. 1:19he said there's five things that are
40. 1:22going to convict you he said number one
41. 1:24you're black number two a white man is
42. 1:26gonna say you shot him whether you shot
43. 1:28him or not I do not care he said number
44. 1:32three you're gonna have a white
45. 1:33prosecutor number four you're gonna have
46. 1:35a white judge and number five you're
47. 1:38gonna have an all-white jewelry and he
48. 1:40said do you know what that spell and he
49. 1:43repeated the word conviction conviction
50. 1:46conviction conviction conviction
51. 1:49even though there was no other physical
52. 1:51evidence tying him to any of the crimes
53. 1:53the state firearms experts testified
54. 1:56that the bullets from all three crimes
55. 1:57had been fired from hinton's Mother's
56. 1:59gun the trial court authorized hinton's
57. 2:02attorney to spend one thousand dollars
58. 2:04to retain a ballistics expert the
59. 2:06attorney couldn't get a qualified expert
60. 2:08for only one thousand dollars so instead
61. 2:11of requesting more money the lawyer
62. 2:13hired a retired civil engineer whose
63. 2:15experience was confined to working with
64. 2:16heavy artillery in World War II the
65. 2:19defense expert had no training or
66. 2:21experience in Firearms identification he
67. 2:23did not know how to use a microscope to
68. 2:25examine bullets he did not test fire the
69. 2:28weapon and he admitted during
70. 2:29cross-examination that he was visually
71. 2:31impaired he only had one eye he
72. 2:34testified that the results of his
73. 2:35examination were inconclusive in 1986
74. 2:38Hinton was convicted of double murder
75. 2:40and sentenced to death
76. 2:42for the first three years he served as a
77. 2:44prisoner on death row Anthony Ray Hinton
78. 2:47did not speak a single word until one
79. 2:49day he woke up to the sound of an inmate
80. 2:51crying as he had just got word that his
81. 2:53mother had passed away at that moment
82. 2:56Hinton realized that his mother was
83. 2:58still alive and he needed to cope with
84. 2:59the reality and fight to prove his
85. 3:01innocence
86. 3:02Hinton wrote to Brian Stevenson a
87. 3:05Harvard educated lawyer who founded the
88. 3:06Equal justice initiative a civil rights
89. 3:09organization in Montgomery Alabama that
90. 3:11provides legal representation for poor
91. 3:13prisoners and those who may have been
92. 3:14wrongly convicted or denied a fair trial
93. 3:16and in 1998 Stevenson began representing
94. 3:20Hinton when his mother died in 2002 he
95. 3:23was blindsided by grief and even
96. 3:25considered hanging himself with his bed
97. 3:27sheet there was no hope or love nothing
98. 3:29left inside him to keep him going
99. 3:32but he heard his mother's voice telling
100. 3:34him he must prove to them that my baby
101. 3:35is no killer and that helped him
102. 3:37continue his fight to prove he was
103. 3:39innocent Hinton asked Stevenson to find
104. 3:41the best ballistic experts
105. 3:44I said Mr Stevenson is have to be
106. 3:47a white Southern male
107. 3:50the state of Alabama only recognized
108. 3:54one of their own
109. 3:56and I said Mr Stevenson
110. 3:59I need this white man to be
111. 4:04The Best of the Best
112. 4:06I need him to believe in the death
113. 4:08penalty
114. 4:09but above all of that
115. 4:11I need him to just tell the truth in
116. 4:142002 all three experts examined the
117. 4:17physical evidence and testified that
118. 4:19they could not conclude that any of the
119. 4:20Six Bullets had been fired from the
120. 4:22revolver yet the Alabama courts
121. 4:24persistently refused to overturn his
122. 4:26conviction or Grant a new trial in
123. 4:29February 2014 the U.S Supreme Court
124. 4:32vacated hinton's conviction and death
125. 4:34sentence and ordered a new trial
126. 4:36the Court ruled that hinton's trial
127. 4:38lawyer had provided a constitutionally
128. 4:40inadequate legal defense by failing to
129. 4:42seek more money to obtain a qualified
130. 4:44ballistics expert
131. 4:45the court also held that the trial judge
132. 4:47had been mistaken when he said the
133. 4:49defense was entitled to only one
134. 4:51thousand dollars for an expert the
135. 4:53statute relating to such expenses which
136. 4:55at one time had a one thousand dollars
137. 4:57cap had been amended prior to hinton's
138. 4:59trial to allow for any expenses
139. 5:01reasonably incurred as long as the
140. 5:03expenses were approved in advance by the
141. 5:05trial judge subsequently in preparation
142. 5:08for a retrial the prosecution had new
143. 5:10experts re-examine the bullets and gun
144. 5:13the prosecution experts also concluded
145. 5:15that they could not link the bullets
146. 5:17from the victims to the gun found in
147. 5:19hinton's home on April 2nd 2015 a judge
148. 5:22granted the motion by the Jefferson
149. 5:24County district attorney to dismiss the
150. 5:26charges and Hinton was released
151. 5:28the case's dismissal only came 13 years
152. 5:31after hinton's attorneys presented
153. 5:32testimony from ballistics experts that
154. 5:34determined the revolver from his
155. 5:36mother's home could not be matched to
156. 5:37the crimes Hinton was the 152nd person
157. 5:41exonerated from Death Row since 1983.
158. 5:43the eji said in the statement that they
159. 5:46believe hinton's wrongful conviction was
160. 5:48the result of the prosecutor's racial
161. 5:50bias
162. 5:51race poverty inadequate legal assistance
163. 5:54and prosecutorial indifference to
164. 5:56innocence conspired to create a textbook
165. 5:58example of Injustice Stevenson said I
166. 6:01can't think of a case that more urgently
167. 6:03dramatizes the need for reform than what
168. 6:05has happened to Anthony Ray Hinton it
169. 6:07took Stevenson and his team 16 years to
170. 6:10have hinton's sentence overturned and
171. 6:12all charges dropped statistics from the
172. 6:14eji show that one in every three
173. 6:16African-American boys born in the U.S
174. 6:18will likely serve time in prison
175. 6:21in America you are guilty the moment you
176. 6:23were born black and male Hinton says if
177. 6:26you're poor and you're black the chance
178. 6:28of you getting True Justice is slim to
179. 6:30none
180. 6:31had it not been for God putting Brian
181. 6:33Stevenson in my life I would have been
182. 6:35executed but there's just not enough
183. 6:37Brian Stevenson to go around Hinton has
184. 6:40turned his experiences into a memoir of
185. 6:42his own his book The Sun does shine how
186. 6:45I found life and freedom on death row
187. 6:47was published in 2018. in his book
188. 6:50Hinton conveys all the horror of his
189. 6:52years in solitary confinement barely
190. 6:54able to breathe in summer heat eating
191. 6:56food that tasted like dust
192. 6:58but something deep inside his character
193. 7:00made it possible for him to make friends
194. 7:02of everyone near him from the white man
195. 7:04next to him on death row who had lynched
196. 7:06a black teenager to almost every single
197. 7:08prison guard who met him the sun does
198. 7:10shine as both a cautionary tale for all
199. 7:13who think that a great nation can easily
200. 7:14forget its past an inspiring proof of
201. 7:16the inability to condemn a man's
202. 7:18capacity for hope love and joy
203. 7:22thank you
204. 7:25[Music]