The Sun Does Shine

by Anthony Ray Hinton

  “I’ll get you home, Ray. I promise you.”

  February 10, 2002

  Anthony Ray Hinton, Z-468

  Holman State Prison

  Holman, 3700

  Atmore, Alabama 36503-3700

  Dear Ray:

  I wanted to keep you posted on things. I’ve spoken with the chief deputy district attorney in Jefferson County and provided him with the attached memorandum. He has been appropriate in my conversations with him and knows that we are credible when we say there is a problem with a case. He is meeting with McGregor and I will be talking with him again this week. We are trying to see if they will join the motion to vacate your conviction and sentence pending before Judge Garrett. If Jefferson County concedes that mistaken ballistics evidence means that you are innocent, we would probably then agree to have the weapon tested by some government agency, perhaps the ATF or the FBI. Assuming those test results come back the right way, we would then ask for a declaration of innocence.

  The odds are still not high that they will be agreeable to this, but our early conversations have gone well. You should keep praying about this because if we can work this thing by some consensus, I think you could be released sometime soon. It will be a longer process otherwise.

  The hearing is scheduled for March 11–13. You are supposed to be moved to the Jefferson County jail on March 8. The attorney general’s office is acting sort of crazy, not really dealing with the evidence and just arguing procedural issues.

  I will be down to see you either the week of February 18 or the week of February 25. I have made contact with an excellent producer at 60 Minutes. We are meeting in New York on Wednesday. If the State does not agree to a non-adversarial resolution, we will probably get them started right around the time of the hearing.

  Anyway, things are going well for the case. Keep your head up, something may be soon to break. I’m enclosing some money to help you out. Let me know if you need anything else. I’ll see you soon, my friend.

  Sincerely,

  Bryan Stevenson

  I read the letter and the attached memo that Bryan sent with it. The memo began in bold type:

  THE ANTHONY RAY HINTON CASE

  Anthony Ray Hinton has been on Alabama’s death row for 16 years for crimes he did not commit.

  It went on to detail the newly discovered ballistics findings and my confirmed alibi of being at work at Bruno’s; it listed the mistaken previous ballistics evidence; and it recounted how the police had pressured other employees at Food World to say they saw me there that night, and how they had refused and said they didn’t see me there. Only Clark Hayes, the grocery clerk, said he saw me there, and he was pressured just like the others. It also brought up my polygraph. The polygraph nobody wanted to look at.

  I held up the money order Bryan had sent with his letter. I was still amazed at how selfless Bryan was. Not only didn’t he shake me down, he sent me cards and notes and money for my commissary purchases. The hearing was scheduled for March, and I went to bed thinking about that hearing. They would have to let me go, then. I was innocent. The FBI expert had even said so. The more Bryan uncovered, though, the more it seemed like this wasn’t just an innocent mistake. To let me go, Alabama was going to have to admit they purposely sent me to death row. The police had coerced witnesses into saying I was at Food World. The detectives had given my name to Smotherman before he identified me from a photo that had my initials on it. I could feel the rage building again—the white-hot hate of anger at how much they had stolen of my life. Sixteen years. How much more could a man take? How did Reggie sleep at night, knowing he had sent me to my death because of two sisters from so long ago it hardly seemed like it could matter? Every day, I had to keep reminding myself that I still mattered.

  Alabama had made a mistake.

  I was innocent.

  We could prove it.

  I read Bryan’s letter and the memo over and over again, and that night, I prayed harder than I had ever prayed before. The truth was shining a light so big that they couldn’t ignore it. I prayed for Judge Garrett and for McGregor and for Higgins and Yates. I prayed for Perhacs. Bryan told me that Perhacs and McGregor were friends. He also told me that Bob McGregor had a history of racial bias and was twice found guilty of illegally discriminating against African Americans in jury selections, once in Mobile and another time in Jefferson County.

  I hadn’t known any of this, but I forgave Perhacs for not telling me he was friends with McGregor. I was young and stupid and so trusting of a system that was rigged against me from the start, so I also prayed I could forgive myself as well.

  I prayed for Bryan’s voice to be the voice of reason, and for fairness and justice. But I never forgot that Bryan was a black man like me. And he was up against the same ignorance I was up against. He was smarter than them all, though. And God was on his side.

  That much I knew.

  My mama had taught me well.

  God had a plan, and God was always on the side of justice. God could do everything but fail. I had to believe. Sixteen long years. I was ready for God’s justice. I was ready for mercy. My freedom was so close I could taste it and feel it, and sometimes at night, I would be back in my mama’s yard on a hot day in July, cutting the grass and thinking about going to church. I would look around and realize this had all been a bad dream. I was only dreaming. I had not spent sixteen years of my life on death row. It was 1985, and I was twenty-nine years old and my whole life stretched out in front of me, full of sweet possibility. In my dream, I’d walk into the kitchen and I’d lay my head on my mama’s shoulder, and she would pat my back like she always did when I had a bad dream.

  It wasn’t real.

  I had my whole life in front of me, and my mama was there telling me everything was going to be okay. I was okay. There were no bad men trying to take me away.

  It was only a nightmare.

  It wasn’t real.

  How could any of it have been real?

  19

  EMPTY CHAIRS

  Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.

  —HARPER LEE, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

  It took until June 2002 to finally have my Rule 32 hearing. In March, right before we were supposed to have the hearing, the State’s Attorney General Office filed a writ of mandamus to force the lower court to dismiss my petition altogether. Basically, they didn’t want the lower court to look at the evidence of my innocence. Their motion to dismiss said that they were not required to listen to or defend any of my innocence claims or look at the new ballistics tests because too much time had passed, or the evidence was cumulative rather than new. It was crazy. They said it was a waste of time. A stay was granted one day before my hearing, and the attorney general said in his brief that I should be blocked from establishing my innocence because it would “waste three days or two days of taxpayer money.” They weren’t even willing to hear me out. To look at the new evidence. To see what Perhacs had failed to show them in 1986. It hurt all over again. What kind of a world was it where an innocent man can lose sixteen years of his life and it’s a waste of time to let him prove he’s innocent? My sixteen years was less important than two or three days of the attorney general’s time.

  Bryan sent me a letter explaining everything and offering encouragement. He was always there to make sure my spirits never dropped too low at every legal twist and turn.

  March 12, 2002

  Anthony Ray Hinton, Z-468

  Holman State Prison

  Holman, 3700

  Atmore, Alabama 36503

  Dear Ray:

  I just wanted to touch base with you after what seems like a very strange five days. I spoke with Judge Garrett on Monday morning to try and block your transfer to Birmingham and to confirm that we would not litigate this case piecemeal. The judge is very angry at the State. I think he is even more suspicious of their desperation to keep us from presenting this evidence than I had hoped. The State may have ma
de a serious mistake in antagonizing the court this way. The State waited until the day before the hearing to file a stay motion, which is pretty bad form, if nothing else.

  We will file a response to the State’s papers in the next two weeks. The State is essentially arguing that our evidence will be the same as what was presented at trial and therefore we have no right to present it. We are saying that they can’t know what the evidence is until we present it and if it’s unpersuasive then they have nothing to fear. The appeal likely means that it will be May before we can schedule another hearing date.

  We had a very good week last week and had organized a pretty compelling case. I’ll talk to you about some recent developments, new witnesses we found, when I see you next at the prison. I will try to get down as soon as I can.

  I know it’s upsetting to have the hearing postponed like this. I was pretty furious all day on Saturday. We had spent lots of money on nonrefundable plane tickets for witnesses, rented computer equipment for audiovisual presentations for the courtroom, and done a lot of stuff to prepare for this hearing. Most importantly, however, it’s just wrong for you to spend more days and weeks on death row for something you did not do. However, our day will come. Don’t be too discouraged, the race is not given to the quick but to the one who endures. I’m more hopeful than ever that we will prevail and you will go home.

  Enclosed is the State’s motion, our initial response, and the court’s order. I’m trying to schedule a time to see you sometime in the next few weeks. Hang in there, my friend.

  Sincerely,

  Bryan Stevenson

  I wasn’t surprised that the State was doing its best to keep me locked away and quiet. It was what the court had done from the beginning. It was still a lynching. It was taking decades to get the noose wrapped just right. I also wasn’t naïve. The State was unwilling to admit it had made a mistake. Alabama would rather stay wrong than admit that it had been wrong; rather accept injustice than admit that it had been unjust.

  I knew that there were men before me and men after me who would abuse the system, who would be guilty but exhaust every claim to try to keep from getting killed. I didn’t blame them. I couldn’t blame them. Who wouldn’t fight for their survival? For their right to live? And yes, the victims didn’t have a chance to fight for their right to live. I understood that. What I didn’t understand was how any killing could be justified. Man didn’t have the right to take a life. The State didn’t have the right to take a life either. They were killing us on behalf of the people, and I wondered what the people really believed. Yes, there were brutal, unremorseful, coldhearted, sociopathic, danger-to-society killers on death row. I knew this for a fact. I walked next to them on the yard. I showered with them. I talked to them. I knew some of them would kill me in a heartbeat if they could—not that they hated me, but killing was what they did. Some had the intellect of a child, and others had the intellect of a genius. But I still didn’t believe any person or any institution had a right to take their life, no matter what they had done. The people was such a general term that I wondered what would happen if the prison asked the real people. “Jo Martin, we are going to kill Anthony Ray Hinton today, and we’re going to do it in your name. We’re going to say that we are killing you on behalf of Jo Martin. Is that okay?” Or Sarah Paulson, or Angela Ruiz, or Victor Wilson, or insert any name. The people were made up of real people, and so were the condemned men on the row. Life is brutal, tragic, unbearable, and inhumane at times. The pain one man can cause another is limitless, but I didn’t see—I couldn’t see—how creating more pain made anything better. When you took a life, it didn’t bring back a life. It didn’t undo what was done. It wasn’t logical. We were just creating an endless chain of death and killing, every link connected to the next. It was barbaric. No baby is born a murderer. No toddler dreams of being on death row someday. Every killer on death row was taught to be a killer—by parents, by a system, by the brutality of another brutalized person—but no one was born a killer. My friend Henry wasn’t born to hate. He was taught to hate, and to hate so much that killing was justified. No one was born to this one precious life to be locked in a cell and murdered. Not the innocent like me, but not the guilty either. Life was a gift given by God. I believed it should and could only be taken by God as well. Or whatever a man believed in. It didn’t matter to me. But God never gave the guards, or the warden, or the judges, or the State of Alabama, or the federal government, or the people the right to take a life.

  Nobody had that right.

  I was afraid every single day on death row. And I also found a way to find joy every single day. I learned that fear and joy are both a choice. And every morning when I opened my eyes at 3:00 A.M. and saw the cement and the mesh wire and the sadness and filth of my tiny cell, I had a choice. Would I choose fear, or would I choose love? Would I choose a prison, or would I choose a home? It wasn’t always easy. On the days that I chose a home, I could laugh with the guards, listen to the other guys, talk about our cases, talk about books and ideas and what we might do when we walked out of this hell. But on the days when I opened my eyes and felt nothing but terror, when every corner of that cell looked like a black-and-white horror film with an ax-wielding psycho killer just waiting to jump out at me and hack me to pieces, I would close my eyes again and I would leave.

  I had to divorce Halle Berry for Sandra Bullock. I had seen the movie Speed, and I thought Sandra would be good to have in case I ever busted out of death row and needed a getaway driver. Halle didn’t take it well, but I think it was for the best. Sandra and I were able to laugh together in a way that Halle and I just couldn’t. Sandra had a passion for social justice. I watched her on my little television in the movie A Time to Kill, based on a John Grisham novel that I had read. I knew that if I had her by my side, she would fight for me. Demand justice. Not be afraid of the Alabama attorney general or Judge Garrett or McGregor. She would stand up to them all, and in my mind, she—along with Bryan—was my voice out in the world. Sandra and I settled into a beautiful home not far from my mama’s house. Lester lived next door. We would all get together for barbecue, and while not many people knew this, Sandra Bullock could really sing. She could sing so well, birds used to gather round her to learn a thing or two. She would sing the saddest songs I had ever heard—in a voice that could crack a man’s heart wide open. She used to look in my eyes and sing just for me. We loved each other, and I was grateful to be loved by a good woman. I was grateful she stayed by my side.

  I never did have children—not with Halle or with Sandra. I couldn’t bear the thought of being separated from them. There were times when I had to leave Sandra, leave my mom, leave my professional baseball career, and travel back to death row and be there for a while. I didn’t want to do that to a child. I knew how hard it was for me to be apart from my mom, and I wouldn’t wish that pain on anyone, especially not a child.

  The guys on the row who had children bore a pain that was almost too much to witness. They ached and they cried and they missed all the things that other parents take for granted. And they also knew how much their children suffered—no child wanted to brag about his or her dad on death row. I knew there were women on death row, a couple of hours away at Tutwiler Prison. I couldn’t imagine the guards putting a woman to death. Especially a woman with children. One of the guys on death row was a guy named George Sibley. He and his wife, Lynda, had both been sent to death row, and they had a nine-year-old son with them when they killed a police officer in 1993.

  Lynda was executed before George. What must it be like for a man to be locked in a cell and have his wife about to be murdered and not be able to do a thing about it? I didn’t spend a lot of time with George, but I knew his story. And through listening to him talk, I felt like I knew his wife. On May 10, 2002, they brought her to Holman. They walked her through the row. A woman on death row. She wore white like the rest of us. She held her head up and looked straight ahead. I don’t know if she and George got to see ea
ch other. He never spoke of that day. When she was executed, we banged on the bars. We made some noise. For her. For George. For their son who was now eighteen years old. They shaved her head just like they shaved a man’s head. They put a hood over her face and left her in the dark as they electrocuted her. I couldn’t imagine the kind of pain George Sibley was in. I felt physically ill even trying to put myself in his shoes. How helpless does a man feel when his wife is being killed and he can do nothing to stop it?

  I knew he wished he had gone first.

  The guards who strapped her to the chair and then put her dead body on a gurney would finish those tasks and then hand George his breakfast a few hours later. They would smile and ask him how he was doing, but they would never be able to look him in the eye again.

  How could they? How could they look any of us in the eye after they executed someone?

  It was enough to make you insane.

  Lynda was the last person to be electrocuted in Yellow Mama. After her execution, the prison began remodeling the death chamber and getting ready for a new way to kill us.

  It was called lethal injection.

  It was how they planned to kill the rest of us.

  * * *

  I walked into the Rule 32 hearing hopeful. Perhacs took the stand and admitted Payne as an expert had been a failure on his part. He told the court how he didn’t have enough money to mount a defense or to pay for a qualified expert. The three new experts took the stand. They stated that there was no proof the bullets matched my mom’s gun.

  It was good to see Lester outside of the visiting yard. And my mom too. She looked frail and sick, and her hair was gone from places on her head. She looked at me and smiled, but it was a tired smile. I wanted to run to her and hold her in my arms, but I had to take a deep breath and be grateful to see her at all. Our phone calls were few and far between, and it was often too confusing for her to talk on the phone and understand who she was talking to. Phoebe, Lester’s mom, sat at her side, and I soaked up her warm smile and reassuring nod. Perhacs barely acknowledged my presence in the hearing. He had talked to Bryan over the phone quite a bit, but when Bryan and another attorney went to meet with him in person prior to the hearing, he had taken one look at Bryan and said, “I didn’t know you had a tan.”