How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row | Anthony Ray Hinton — Transcript

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1. 0:00in 1985 Anthony Rea Hinton was convicted
2. 0:03of murdering two men in Alabama and
3. 0:04sentenced to death he was put on death
4. 0:06row and spent nearly three decades in a
5. 0:085x8 cell all the while he claimed
6. 0:11himself innocent On February 25th 1985
7. 0:15John Davidson the 25 year old assistant
8. 0:19manager but miss whiners Fried Chicken
9. 0:20in South Birmingham was taken to the
10. 0:23restaurant cooler and murdered by
11. 0:24getting shot twice in the head then on
12. 0:27July 1st 1985
13. 0:29Thomas Wayne vaison the assistant
14. 0:31manager of Captain D's in eastern
15. 0:33Birmingham was also shot and killed in
16. 0:35the restaurant cooler both incidents
17. 0:37were robbery homicides there was no sign
18. 0:39of forced entry and miss whiners and no
19. 0:41evidence was left they identified the
20. 0:44bullets in Davidson's head to be 38
21. 0:46caliber bullets in the Captain D's there
22. 0:49was also no evidence of forced entry and
23. 0:51the only evidence was a smudged
24. 0:52fingerprint in basin's autopsy two 38
25. 0:56caliber bullets removed from the body
26. 0:58lastly on July 25th 1985 a third robbery
27. 1:02was attempted at Quincy's family
28. 1:03Steakhouse the night manager Sidney
29. 1:06Smotherman was a victim and was asked to
30. 1:08pick a man out of a lineup of suspects
31. 1:10he determined the culprit to be Anthony
32. 1:12rayhan no other eyewitness was at the
33. 1:15scene and hidden could not be traced
34. 1:16back to any of the crimes Hinton's alibi
35. 1:19was that he was working a night shift at
36. 1:20a warehouse the only link to Henson and
37. 1:23the crime was a set of bullets found on
38. 1:25the scene and a gun found in Hinton's
39. 1:27mother's home 30 minutes upstate of
40. 1:29Birmingham Hinton was put on death row
41. 1:32on December of 1986 after a year and a
42. 1:35half of waiting in jail for his trial he
43. 1:37spent 30 years in his cell on death row
44. 1:39Hinton described his time there saying
45. 1:41when you smelled the smell it makes here
46. 1:44under the toilet and throw up this smell
47. 1:46gets in your nostrils and you couldn't
48. 1:48get it out torture was it sitting there
49. 1:5130 feet away from dust chamber knowing
50. 1:54that one day that's going to be me
51. 1:56while on death row he became close to
52. 1:58the nearby cellmates though they can
53. 2:01never see each other eye to eye
54. 2:02banging on the bars was our way of
55. 2:05letting the condemned know we are still
56. 2:06here with you until the very end he said
57. 2:08explaining how close two other inmates
58. 2:10on death row got to each other thousand
59. 2:13fifteen new ballistic analysts
60. 2:15determined there was no link between the
61. 2:17gun found in his mother's home and the
62. 2:19bullets found on the scene without more
63. 2:22evidence linking him to the crime and
64. 2:24for the claims of the deficient
65. 2:26representation they exonerated him and
66. 2:28he walked out on Friday April 3rd 2015
67. 2:32Hinton was robbed from 30 years of his
68. 2:34life he said 30 years ago a judge
69. 2:37proudly stood up and said I sentence you
70. 2:40to die
71. 2:4030 years later no one had the decency to
72. 2:43say mr. Hinton we're sorry for sorry for
73. 2:47what took place no one has said it he is
74. 2:50considering applying for compensation
75. 2:52from the state although out of 41 claims
76. 2:55Alabama has rewarded compensation to
77. 2:58only one person so his chances are
78. 3:00unlikely in efforts to bring awareness
79. 3:03to the flawed criminal justice system he
80. 3:05wrote a book titled the Sun does shine
81. 3:07how I found life and freedom on death
82. 3:09row the sad reality is that him is the
83. 3:13150 second person exonerated from death
84. 3:16row since 1983 and there are so many
85. 3:18people who have been wrongly convicted
86. 3:20often targeted for race and economic
87. 3:22status Henson calls out the corruption
88. 3:26saying I call the death penalty to this
89. 3:29day a form of lynching it's not where
90. 3:31they run to your house and burn you up
91. 3:33without justification now they do it in
92. 3:36the name of the law I was a victim of
93. 3:38that and almost lost my life because
94. 3:40they have that much power
95. 3:49you