“There’s an awful lot about our criminal justice system that is dysfunctional. Everyone who sets foot in a criminal courtroom will see myriad ways the system is dysfunctional.”
—Chesa Boudin, San Francisco District Attorney
Ray was indicted by a grand jury on November 8, 1985. His face was in all the local newspapers, and the public decided he was guilty. Many were ready to shoot him outright and save the taxpayers some money. And this was all before he had even stepped foot in a courtroom. Before he had been appointed a public defender. And before he was even able to say, “Not guilty,” at an arraignment.
Ray’s case was assigned to a judge on November 13, 1985—his name was Judge James S. Garrett. When Ray met his court-appointed attorney, Sheldon Perhacs, he heard Perhacs mumble, “I didn’t go to law school to do pro bono work.”
Ray cleared his throat, and Perhacs looked him in the eye for the first time. Even though he was handcuffed and chained, Ray held out his hand for a shake.
“Would it make a difference if I told you I was innocent?” Ray asked.
“Listen,” said Perhacs, “all y’all always doing something and saying you’re innocent.”
Ray dropped his hand. He was pretty sure that when Perhacs said “all y’all,” he wasn’t talking about ex-cons or former coal miners or Geminis or even those accused of capital murder. “All y’all” meant Black people. And Black meant guilty.
Ray knew he wasn’t “all y’all,” and he wasn’t guilty. He was Anthony Ray Hinton. People called him Ray.
Ray let it slide. He had to, he needed Perhacs. He had to believe that Perhacs believed him. He had to believe that Perhacs would fight for him, like Rocky, in the movies. Perhacs was Rocky, and Ray was Apollo Creed—not like in the first movie but in later movies, like Rocky IV, even though Ray hadn’t seen the movie yet, just the trailer. But it looked like Rocky and Apollo were allies, friends even. Ray wanted to think of Perhacs training early in the morning, running up the courthouse steps, drinking raw eggs while he read through tall stacks of case files, and left no stone unturned in his investigation. It made Ray feel better to pretend that Perhacs truly believed he was in the fight of his life—fighting for Ray’s life.
It wasn’t until about ten years later that Ray actually got to see Rocky IV. Then he was glad that he hadn’t known that Apollo Creed died in that movie while Rocky stood by and watched.
The judge set a trial date of March 6, 1986.
“Give me a lie detector test,” Ray told Perhacs. “A truth serum. Hypnotize me. Whatever you have to give me that will show them I’m telling the truth. I don’t care what it is, I’ll take it, I’ll do it. This whole thing is a mistake. I’ll take any test they have to prove it.”
Perhacs just stared at Ray, and then he waved his hand in the air like he was swatting away a fly. “I’ll come see you at the jail soon. We’ll talk about your case. I promise.”
Ray held on to that promise like a drowning man hangs on to whatever he can grab that he thinks will save him. It was all he could do.
Ray took seven different tests.
CONCLUSION:
It is the opinion of this examiner that the subject told the truth during this polygraph examination.
Polygraph examiner, Clyde A. Wolfe
Ray knew he had passed the polygraph. He heard a female guard talking to the examiner while he waited to be brought back to C block.
“How’d he do?”
The examiner answered the guard. “If I could go by this test, he would walk out of here with me right now. He showed no signs of deception. He didn’t do it. He doesn’t know anything about these murders, I can tell you that for a fact.”
Ray heard her grunt in agreement. “You know, I’ve been doing this for twenty-seven years, and I’ve seen a lot of killers. He’s no killer.”
Ray went to sleep that night with new hope. Every day felt like being in the middle of a bad dream. He didn’t know how his mom had been able to come up with $350 for the polygraph test, but he knew that as soon as he was out and could get to work, he would earn enough money to pay it back. Ray kept thinking they would catch the person who really did it. It was like the police and the judge and the prosecutors and even his own attorney were in on some bad practical joke, and he was just waiting for them to tell him they had been punking him, that it was some big, horrible, unfunny joke.
When the guard next called him out for a legal visit, he thought Perhacs was finally there to tell him he could go. It was straight out of John 8:32—“And the truth shall set you free.” Perhacs had only visited Ray a couple of times in jail, but he had given Ray his phone number and said he could call him whenever he wanted. That was more than most guys in C block got from their court-appointed attorneys. Perhacs and Bob McGregor had made an agreement that whatever happened with the polygraph, whatever the results, either side could use the test to argue their case. If Ray failed, McGregor could use it to convict him, and if he passed, Perhacs could use it to prove his innocence and show them once and for all they had the wrong guy. Ray hadn’t worried about making that deal—he knew what the results would be.
Then Perhacs delivered the devastating news. “They’re not allowing the polygraph. Bob McGregor nicked on the deal.”
Ray watched as Perhacs’s mouth kept moving, but it sounded like a swarm of bees had gathered in his head. He couldn’t hear anything Perhacs was saying. Betrayal felt like ice under his skin; he went cold and numb. This was real fear. Ray thought back to the days of diving into the ditches with Lester when they walked home. He’d thought that was what fear felt like—his heart pounding and his breath going fast, but this was different. This was ice and steel and a thousand blades carving him up from the inside out. Ray couldn’t make sense of what was happening. They knew he didn’t do it, but they were still going to take him to trial? They were willing to let the real killer go and pin this on him?
Ray had Perhacs walk him through it all again, slowly.
“How could I be in two places at once?” Ray asked Perhacs. “What are they thinking? That’s not even possible. There was a guard. I had to check in and out!”
“They are going to say you snuck out. You drove to Quincy’s and you robbed him.” Perhacs rubbed his hand through his hair.
“That’s impossible. When we’re at trial, can we ask the judge to have the jury drive the route exactly at midnight and see that the time frame won’t work? It’s not even possible for me to clock in and get my assignment and get back to Bessemer in a few minutes. It takes at least twenty or twenty-five minutes to get there. Drive the route. Can you get an expert to drive it? Clock it? That’ll prove it.” Ray’s voice was getting louder than he wanted, but this didn’t make sense. “We can show them there’s a fifteen-foot fence I would have had to have climbed. And show them where the guards are at and how you have to log in and account for your time the whole shift.”
“So what, now I have a lawyer for a client?” Perhacs said this slowly, and Ray got the message loud and clear. Let him figure it out. Let him put on the defense. Ray was just supposed to sit back and be a good boy and not make trouble.
What choice did he have?
So Ray laughed it off, but he had to say just one more thing. “I’ve been reading the papers. You see that there’s been other holdups? Other managers getting robbed at closing? I definitely can’t be doing that when I’m locked in here.”
“Yeah, I’ll look into it,” replied Perhacs. “They’re only paying me $1,000 for this, and hell, I eat $1,000 for breakfast.” He laughed, but it wasn’t funny.
The other big obstacle was finding a ballistics expert. Ray needed someone to look at the gun and the bullets and get up there and testify. He knew the State was lying about the bullets and his mom’s gun, but it wasn’t like a judge or a jury was going to believe him. Perhacs had told Ray that the only thing keeping him from a good defense was money, and then he asked Ray if he had anyone who could pay him $15,000 to do the work. Nobody had that kind of money. Ray had been shocked his mom came up with the lie detector money. He told him that much, and then Ray pleaded with him.
“I promise you that once you prove that I didn’t do this and I get out, I’ll pay you. You have my word on it. If I have to work night and day and holidays and weekends, I will pay you. Please?” Ray knew he was begging, but it didn’t matter.
“Anthony, it just don’t work like that. What proof do I have you will pay me? You don’t have money to hire me, and besides, I was appointed this job by the court. You can’t pay me.”
Perhacs had been struggling over finding a ballistics expert. The court was only allowing him $500 for each capital case to hire an expert, and he couldn’t find anyone to do the work for $1,000. He had until August to find an expert, and it wasn’t looking good. It turned out that $15,000 was also the number that would get him a good expert.
Everything depended on those bullets, since they had no other evidence against Ray.
No fingerprints.
No DNA.
No witnesses.
Because Ray had no alibi for the nights of the murders—because he couldn’t account for where he was—that made him guilty.
That and the bullets. They weren’t even charging Ray for the Quincy’s case, only using it to prove he had done the other two because it was of similar plan and design. That was the magic phrase. “Similar plan and design.” Ray read the paper every day. There were robberies of similar plan and design happening every week in Birmingham.
Perhacs made it clear that Ray’s only shot was an expert who could counter the State’s experts. Ray didn’t want to do it, but he called his oldest brother, Willie, in Cleveland and asked him for the money.
“Can your attorney for sure get you off if you hire an expert?” he asked.
“I don’t think he can say for sure,” answered Ray.
“Well, I need to talk to him. I would need some assurance the money would put an end to this. I need him to give me a guarantee so I’m not wasting my money.”
His brother hadn’t said yes and he hadn’t said no, so … that was something. Ray tried not to dwell on the fact that if things were reversed … Ray would have given the money, no questions asked.
Perhacs couldn’t give him that guarantee. Who in their right mind could make any guarantee like that? His brother was raised like Ray—raised to trust the police, the lawyers, and the judges. He was an upright citizen, never had any trouble and never wanted any. Ultimately, he said no. Ray wanted to believe his brother didn’t help because he knew Ray didn’t do it, and he trusted the courts. Still, it broke Ray’s heart. Ray would have moved heaven and earth to help any of his siblings in the same situation. He believed that was just what family did. Did his brother, in some tiny place in the back of his mind, think that Ray was guilty?
It was like everything good was being taken away from him, one small chunk at a time. Belief. Family. Truth. Faith. Justice. Who would Ray be when this was all over? Would a jury really be fair and impartial? What if he was found guilty? Some days it felt like the whole world, except for Lester and his mom, was conspiring against him.
Ray’s life was in Perhacs’s hands, so he made sure to call Perhacs later that week just to tell him how much he appreciated him and how great he was doing. He was Ray’s only voice, and Ray needed him to show that jury the truth. Show them who Anthony Ray Hinton was—a boy who loved his mama, who grew up in a community that loved him, a man who had never had a violent moment in his life.
Not a man who would hide in the dark to take your money and your life.
Not a cold-blooded killer. Ray was not that man.
He was not that man.