Inmate is free after 30 years on Alabama’s death row for murders he says he didn’t commit
Alabama death row inmate Anthony Ray Hinton, 58, and his lawyers stood outside the county jail in Birmingham, as he took his first steps as a free man since 1985. He spoke during a press conference of unjustly losing three decades of his life with the fear of execution as his fate, for something he didn’t do.
All they had to do was to test the gun, but when you think you’re high and mighty and you’re above the law, you don’t have to answer to nobody. But I’ve got news for you…everybody that played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God.”
Hinton was convicted of murder in the 1985 deaths of two Birmingham, fast-food restaurant managers, John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason. Hinton was 29 at the time of the killings and had always maintained his innocence, said the Equal Justice Initiative, a group that helped win his release.
Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Laura Petro had ordered Hinton be released after granting the state’s motion to dismiss charges against him. A new trial was ordered in 2014 after firearms experts testified 12 years earlier that the revolver Hinton was said to have used in the crimes could not be matched to evidence in either case, and the two killings couldn’t be linked to each other. The state then declined to re-prosecute the case.
For all of us that say that we believe in justice, this is the case to start showing, because I shouldn’t have (sat) on death row for 30 years.”
Hinton spent this weekend with family and friends. He will meet with his attorneys Monday to start planning for his immediate needs, such as obtaining identification, getting a health checkup, and the full re-adjustment process back into society.
-Infinite Wiz (@InfiniteWiz)
