I found out after the execution that Richardson wasn’t alone. A young attorney named Bryan Stevenson had sat with him all day and stayed with him through the end, even as he tried to get the execution stayed. I heard the other inmates talking about it. I wondered again who this guy was and what it must be like for him to have to watch his clients die.
I spent my days waiting to hear when they would come to give me my death date and my nights reliving every moment of my trial. I played things I could have said. Witnesses Perhacs could have called. Why didn’t he bring up my family to tell the jury why I shouldn’t be killed? Why not bring up Lester? The people from church? My neighbors? I thought about McGregor, but some of my hate had dulled to a kind of listless apathy. He was the devil, but who was I to do anything about the devil? My Bible had been under my bed for almost three years. I hadn’t spoken to anyone. I hadn’t gotten to know the guards or any other inmates except for what I overheard. I was completely alone. Even the miserable Perhacs was gone. I was going to die an innocent man, and nobody would know but me, Lester, and my mom.
“Hinton!” The guard yelled my name and startled me up out of the bed.
I heard the door open. Was this it? Were they giving me a death date? Taking me to the holding cell? Was it my time to be killed?
I clenched my fists. I wasn’t going to willingly walk to my death. I was innocent. I didn’t deserve to be electrocuted. No one did. No one deserved to die like this. We were all children of God. I wanted to reach my hand under the bed and pull out my Bible. Why had I left God? Why had I turned my back on his comfort? I needed him now. I was going to have my head shaved and a bag thrown over my face, and I wasn’t going to be able to look anyone in the eyes so they could see that I faced my death an innocent man.
I stood up. It was time to fight. I would grab his gun. I would make a run for it. I wanted to die a free man. I wanted to die on my terms. My head was racing, and my heart was pounding. Adrenaline shot through my veins. I had to make my move. It was time. I couldn’t be led like a lamb to slaughter. I couldn’t. This was not God’s will for me. This was not why I was born into this life. This was wrong, and I was going to fight my death to the end. I wanted to go home. I needed to go home. I just wanted to go home.
“Hinton! Legal visit!” The guard stood staring at me, his hand on his gun. What had he seen in my face? I had been seconds away from lunging at him.
I followed him up to the visiting area. There were no other inmates in the room. A solitary white woman, about my age, with short brown hair, sat at one of the tables.
She stood up and gave me a huge smile. Then she held out her hand for me to shake.
I just stared at her.
“Mr. Hinton, I’m Santha Sonenberg from Washington, D.C. I’m your new attorney.”
I shook her hand, but I must have still looked a little skeptical or confused.
She cocked her head to the side and gave me another smile.
“Mr. Hinton, please sit down.”
I sat.
“I’m going to file your writ of certiorari petition in the U.S. Supreme Court.”
“I don’t have any money.”
She looked at me sharply. “I’m not asking you for money. No one expects you to pay any money.”
“But my attorney wanted $15,000 to file this writ thing. He wanted my mom to mortgage her house. That’s not going to happen. I will die first.”
Santha inhaled and exhaled loudly. “Okay. Let’s take it one step at a time. There’s no money involved. I will file the petition, and honestly, it’s not likely that the U.S. Supreme Court is going to do anything; they typically don’t. The certiorari petition is basically asking the Supreme Court to review the lower court’s ruling. They don’t grant a review all that often. But the actual petition asking them to review is not a big deal to prepare. We’re going to handle it in the time frame needed. Then we’re going to investigate and do what’s called a Rule 32 petition back in the circuit court in Jefferson County.”
I kept staring at her. I didn’t understand much of what she was saying, but she was here. She was going to investigate. She was going to file some new stuff.
“I want you to know I’m innocent. I didn’t kill anyone. I hope you can believe me.”
“I believe you.” She took a deep breath.
“In my transcripts, you’ll see that Perhacs got a phone call from someone who claimed he was the real killer. My mom got a call too. You have to find a way to trace that number. Nobody found him. He gave a fake name. We need to find him. You need to find him.”
Santha nodded like she knew all about it. “We’re going to investigate everything. But first I’m going to ask you a lot of questions—about your life, your family, what it was like growing up, the trial, your relationships, everything that matters. I’m going to review the trial transcript and Perhacs’s records. I’m going to look at all the evidence, and we’re going to see what we can do, okay? I want you to stay strong. Are you doing okay here?”
“Can they put me to death while you are investigating and we’re appealing?” I held my breath.
“No, Mr. Hinton. They can’t put you to death while your case is in the courts.”
I put my head down on the table and took a few breaths. When I lifted my head back up, I knew I had tears in my eyes, but Santha didn’t say anything about that.
“I’m going to need your help. We’re going to have to work together on this. Do I have your permission to represent you?” She was staring at me intently. “Mr. Hinton, are you going to be okay?”
I smiled at her. “Yes, you have my permission, but call me Ray.”
“Okay, Ray. Let’s get to work.”
“Just one more thing,” I asked. “How did you become my attorney? Did Lester call you?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t know who Lester is.”
“How are you here?” I asked. “How did you know about me?”
Santha Sonenberg smiled at me. “Bryan Stevenson sent me. He knows about everyone.”
11
WAITING TO DIE
I have no ill feeling and hold nothing against anyone.
—HERBERT RICHARDSON, LAST WORDS
The U.S. Supreme Court denied my petition on November 13, 1989. There was no opinion.
Four days later, Arthur Julius was executed.
I banged on the bars of my cell with the others until about ten minutes after midnight, and then the guards came through and angrily told us to quiet down. “He heard you,” one of them said. “Everyone heard you.”
Arthur Julius was convicted of raping and murdering his cousin. He had been out on a prison pass when the rape and murder happened. I didn’t know what he had done when he was alive—what had been so beyond repair inside his heart that he thought it was okay to rape and to murder. I didn’t know him or if he had done it or not, but I assumed he had. I was under no illusion that everyone on death row was innocent, but I also knew that not everyone was guilty. I didn’t think that I was the only one who had been unjustly sent to his death by a bunch of white men, some of them wearing robes.
I knew Santha was working on my case, but I still wasn’t speaking to anyone, and even though I didn’t think they were going to come for me in the night and strap me to that yellow chair, I still had fear and anxiety that never went away. Apart from my visits with Lester and the moms, my time was spent lying on my bunk staring at the ceiling. It was like a black cloud had settled over me and I could find no energy to eat, talk, or even clean my cell. What was the point? I didn’t want to make a home out of hell. I didn’t want to make it okay that they had put me here. I couldn’t stop seeing McGregor’s face or hearing his words. He had called me Mr. Sneak. Mr. Robber. Mr. Executioner. I thought about the year and a half I’d spent in jail before my trial. Every preliminary hearing before the judge during that year and a half, McGregor had just sat in that courtroom glaring at me while his cocounsel handled business. Why me? Why had he decided I wa
s so evil he had to make it his personal mission to bend and twist the truth in ways that defied logic and common sense? I wanted to ask him. Why me? Or could it have been any black man? Every second of my arrest and my trial ran like a loop in my head. I couldn’t control it. I couldn’t stop it. I worried that I would go crazy before my next appeal even got started. McGregor was everything he accused me of being. He was the executioner. He was the liar and the sneak and the robber, because he had robbed me of my life. His exact words to the jury played over and over in my head. “Look at the evidence, take the time to,” he had said to them, “and I’m going to ask you to find the truth. Find the truth in this case. Look at the evidence. Remember the testimony. You find the truth, and you do justice.”
Those sentences played in an endless loop, like a song that just keeps starting over from the beginning. There was something in those words that seemed important to me, but lying awake in the middle of the night, with the unholy sounds of men who were as good as dead bouncing off the walls—I didn’t know what it meant. McGregor deserved to die, not me. He was the guilty one. He was the murderer. He should be the one who felt afraid every time he walked to the shower, or went outside with killers, or smelled the burning flesh of dying men. He should be condemned. He was not innocent.
* * *
It had to be well after midnight when I heard the first sob. There were always men yelling and moaning and crying—every single night. But it had been strangely quiet for about twenty minutes, so when I heard the noise, it jolted me. I had gotten used to tuning out the endless sounds of pain on death row. It was just background noise and not any of my business.
But then I heard that first sob.
It was a sound low and guttural, almost more growl than cry. Then a guard walked past my cell door. I could see the silhouette of his legs from the light in the corridor. There was another sob and a catch, like someone was trying to hold it in. The sound was close to me. It had to be the guy next to me or one cell over. I couldn’t tell. The sobbing got a bit louder, and I tried to tune it out, go back to McGregor and Reggie and Perhacs and Judge Garrett. They should have tried harder to find the guy who called Perhacs to say he was the killer. It was all too much work to investigate the real killer, so let’s just make it so this guy did it, and we can say good night to these cases and the victims’ families will feel better. Who was that guy who called in? Was he really the killer or just some weirdo who wanted to get into the action on a trial that was in all the papers? He had called my mom also, and Perhacs’s home and office. It seemed like a lot of effort for a guy who wasn’t serious. I’ll bet he was surprised when no one seemed to care that they had the wrong guy. I’ll bet he felt bad for me. I thought of him coming to the prison or going to the media—to confess and take my place on death row. He would want to save his soul. I started playing out the whole scenario in my head—the guy finding God and needing to confess and repent—maybe he would call McGregor next time or the judge …
“Oh my God … please help me. I can’t take it. I just can’t take it anymore.”
I snapped out of my imaginings and listened to the man crying. He didn’t say anything else, but the sobbing was deeper. Heavier. Did he really believe God was going to help him? There was no God in this place. There was no choice but to take it until you couldn’t take it anymore or they killed you. God may sit high, but he wasn’t looking low. He didn’t see us here. There was no light in this dark place, so there was no God and no help and no hope.
I said all this in my head, but I couldn’t drown out the sound of his crying. I tried going back to McGregor, but the man’s crying was so low and deep it seemed to pound inside my chest like when someone has the bass turned way up on their stereo. It wasn’t my problem. It was every man for themselves on the row, and I didn’t trust anyone. I would never trust anyone again. People lied. People sold you for money. People didn’t care about the truth, so I didn’t care about people. The only people for me were the ones who showed up every week to visit.
I sat up out of bed and began pacing the few feet I had room to walk around in in my cage. It was steps from my toilet to my cell door.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
I counted them out in my head and then turned around and counted them again as I walked to the back of my cell. Then turned around again. Eventually, he would stop crying and I would go back to my bed, but I couldn’t lie there while he sobbed like an animal who had his foot caught in a trap.
“God help me. Oh God. I can’t take it. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…” The man was crying and moaning, and I could do nothing but count and walk and turn and count and walk and turn. Over and over again.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
I thought about my mom. I had called her earlier that day, and we had gotten to talk for a few minutes. She was cooking up a big dinner for Lester when I called. They were having a celebration dinner.
“What are you celebrating?” I had asked.
“Lester’s getting married.”
“Mama, you’re crazy.” I had laughed at her. If Lester was getting married, he would have told me himself. I mean unless he’d just met the girl since last week when he was here for a visit. Nobody had said anything.
“It’s true,” she’d said. “He’s getting married to Sylvia—you know, that good girl from church whose husband died in a fire.”
“Mama, you got to stop gossiping. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” I’d laughed. It couldn’t be true. Lester would have told me.
“Boy, I know what I’m talking about. Lester and Phoebe and Sylvia are coming over here tonight to have dinner. You think I’m fool enough to make a celebration dinner when there’s no celebration? You’re crazy.” She’d laughed, and I’d changed the subject to our next visit.
“Now you try to sneak me some pie up in here. Bring some extra for the guards. Try to bribe them with some peach pie.” She’d just laughed every time I’d said that. My mom would no sooner break the law than she would grow two heads. “Now, I’m going to hang up because these collect calls are expensive. I’ll see you Friday. I love you.”
“I love you too, baby.”
I had hung up the phone and put Lester getting married out of my mind. But now, with nothing to do but pace and listen to the sorrow of another man, I had to admit it hurt. It hurt that he didn’t tell me himself, but I understood why he didn’t mention it. I understood why he wouldn’t want to talk to me about dating and falling in love and getting married while I was stuck on death row. What really hurt was the stabbing sensation I felt at the idea that I might die before I got the chance to date again, or fall in love, or get married. I thought about my Sylvia, who I’d had to leave behind. And now Lester had a Sylvia. Lester’s life was moving forward. That’s what a life was meant to do. Things were supposed to change. Life was not supposed to be exactly the same every day—breakfast at 3:00, lunch at 10:00, dinner at 2:00. You weren’t supposed to spend every single day in a small box doing exactly the same thing as you did the day before and that you would do tomorrow. I knew why Lester didn’t tell me he was getting married—he didn’t want me to think about what I was missing.
He didn’t want me to hurt any more than I was already hurting.
No one can understand what freedom means until they don’t have it. It’s like being wrapped in a straightjacket all day every day. You can’t make a choice about how to live. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a choice to make—any choice. I think I’ll go for a walk rather than go to bed right now. I think I’ll have chicken for dinner. I think I’d like to take a drive and just see where I end up. I didn’t begrudge Lester his life and his choices. I was happy for him. I wanted nothing more than for him to be happy. I would be sorry to miss the wedding and sad not to be able to stand next to him and be his best man. I had to get out of this place
. I thought about the children I would never have if I didn’t get off death row. I wanted a son. I wanted to play baseball with a son someday. And basketball. I wanted to take him to Auburn games so he knew there was only one team in Alabama that mattered. I wanted to show him the woods, and the river, and the quiet beauty of a night spent in the country. I wanted to show him how to fish and teach him how to drive. I wanted to show him that anything was possible in this world if you only had faith.
My breath caught, and I stopped pacing.
Faith. How could I teach anyone about faith when I didn’t have it?
“Oh God. Help me, God…” The crying was intermittent now, and I realized I was holding my breath when it stopped and waiting for it to start again. I didn’t know which was worse—the crying or the silence. Men killed themselves all the time in this prison. I went back to pacing. This wasn’t any of my business.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
I was happy for Lester, but I would wait for him to tell me about his getting married. I didn’t want to make him feel bad for making me feel bad. That’s what real friendship was all about. Or any relationship, for that matter. You wanted the other person’s happiness as much as, or more, than your own. Lester deserved love. Hell, everyone deserved love.
The man started crying again, and I realized that I was crying too. I sat down on the edge of the bed, and I wept silently for a man I didn’t even know, who was most likely a killer, but who also wept in the dark, all alone, in a cage, in Atmore, Alabama. You didn’t have to be on death row to feel all alone, and I knew there were people all over the world, at this exact moment, sitting on the edge of their beds and crying. Most days it seemed like there was more sadness than sense in the world. I sat there for a few more minutes, listening to the other man crying.
The Sun Does Shine Page 13