“Few people familiar with the state of race relations in the United States today would deny that there is a risk of racial prejudice influencing the sentencing decision in the typical capital case: an African-American facing the death penalty for the murder of a prominent white person who is prosecuted by a white prosecutor before a white judge and an all-white or predominantly white jury.”
—Stephen B. Bright1
JEFFERSON COUNTY JAIL, DECEMBER 10, 1986
Ray’s mom always dressed for jail like she was going to church. All decked out in her ivory gloves, green-and-blue-flowered dress, and her wide blue hat rimmed in white lace, she might have seemed ridiculous to some. The prison couldn’t have been further from soft organ music and dark, shiny pews. But, like many Black people, Ray’s mom knew that a nice outfit and impeccable manners could be defense weapons and a sort of protection. And the more dressed up she was, the more people better watch out: The bigger her hat, the more she meant business. And sitting across from Ray, dressed to impress and separated from her son by the prison glass, she was armed to the teeth and ready for battle.
Buhlar Hinton never stopped believing in her son. When they spoke, they didn’t speak about the fact that he was one court date away from the death chamber. Ray wondered if they were both pretending, or if they were both just so caught up in terror of this nightmare that neither could face what had happened.
“When are you coming home, baby? When are they going to let you come home?”
His mom always asked when “they” were going to let him come home. Ray was the baby of the family—her baby. Up until his arrest, they were together every single day. They went to church together. Ate their meals together. Laughed together. Prayed together. Ray’s mom had been by his side, cheering him on, for every big moment of his life—baseball games, school exams, dances. She got up early to make him breakfast and pack his lunch when he was going to work in the coal mines, and was there waiting to hug him when he got home, no matter how dusty and dirty he was.
They were everything to each other.
“When are you coming home, baby? When are they going to let you come home?”
At first, from Ray’s arrest a year and a half earlier, then during the trial, and even on visiting days, she’d looked kind of dazed and confused by it all. Three months later, she still couldn’t understand. How could she? Three months earlier, twelve people had decided that her baby’s life was worthless, that the world would be a better place if Ray wasn’t in it. That the best thing to do would be to murder him, or, “recommend that he be sentenced to death,” which was the nice way of saying something so ugly Ray couldn’t even imagine it.
Even though he was living it.
JEFFERSON COUNTY COURTHOUSE, DECEMBER 15, 1986
The Birmingham press had judged Ray guilty from the moment he had been arrested. So had the police detectives, the experts, the prosecutor. And the judge. Ray watched him huff and puff and make a big show out of everything, but yeah, it was just a show. For almost two weeks, the prosecution paraded out witnesses and experts, talked about exhibits A to Z, and pretended that they all hadn’t already decided that Ray was guilty. Even his own court-appointed defense attorney believed that Ray, born Black, poor, one of ten children, and robbed of his father for much of his life, was born guilty. Alabama justice wasn’t blind. It saw what it wanted to see. Ray didn’t have much, but at twenty-nine, he had enough knowledge and experience to understand exactly what kind of justice was being served at his trial. Maybe the good old boys had traded in their white robes for black robes, but the racist, unjust system was the same.
The prosecution was finished. “Your Honor, the State rests.”
“All right,” said the judge. “Any witnesses for the defense?”
In the prosecution’s case, the bailiff had just lied about him under oath, saying that Ray, who had not spoken to anyone but his lawyer about his case for almost two years, had just blurted out a “confession” outside of the courtroom—about cheating on his polygraph test. Supposedly, Ray had gamed the same polygraph test that was not allowed to be used as evidence and, surprise, surprise, proved Ray’s innocence. What?! Nothing made sense to Ray anymore.
To Ray’s shock, his attorney declined to question the bailiff. Instead, Perhacs turned to him: “Do you want to testify?”
They were about to sentence Ray to death, and nobody was speaking up on his behalf. Did he want to testify?
He was shackled and in leg irons, facing the worst, but there was truth to be told. There were things that needed to go on the record. He wasn’t a murderer. Never had been, never would be. Did he want to testify? Ray had spent a good many years testifying for God in church, and now it was time to testify for himself.
His attorney finally showed a little fight and asked if Ray’s handcuffs could be removed. It was clear to Ray that he was just another file in a big stack of Perhacs’s files. After two years of working on the case, this man didn’t know Ray. But Ray had to be polite and respectful, because this man held his life in his hands. His own lawyer probably thought he was guilty, or maybe he didn’t care either way. But Ray needed him. They both knew that. Ray had been doing his homework, and if this day went the way he expected it to, he was going to keep needing his lawyer. He was going to keep fighting, and hope that his lawyer would get on board and fight too.
Every day since they had arrested him, he had thought: Today will be the day. They’ll know I was at work. They’ll find the guy that really did it. Somebody will believe me.
It was all some bad dream that he couldn’t wake up from.
Ray could feel his heart tighten as he looked at his mom sitting in the courtroom. On her last visit, he’d told her that he’d be home soon to have one of her Sunday afternoon cakes. Sometimes late at night in his cell, Ray would close his eyes and see her red velvet cake with buttercream frosting so clearly in his mind, he swore he could actually smell all that butter and sugar. He’d always had a big imagination. It had helped him get through some rough times growing up, but it had also gotten him into some trouble. Nothing like the trouble he was in now.
Ray smiled at his mom even though he was scared to death. He didn’t want to die. But on the outside, he had to be strong. For his mom. For his friends. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.” So when Judge McGregor tried to stare him down, Ray sat straight up and stared right back. Ray wasn’t going to make it easy for them to murder him.
Ray took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and said the same prayer he had prayed in his head a thousand times.
Dear God, let them know the truth of things. Let them see into my mind and my heart and find the truth. Bless the judge. Bless the DA. Bless the victims’ families who are in pain. Dear God, let there be justice. Real justice.
Then he began to testify: “First of all, I did not kill anybody. It is important to me that the families know this. Believe this. I wouldn’t want anyone to take the life of someone I loved. I couldn’t even imagine that pain. I know what it is like not to have a father, to be brought up with that missing in your life, and I wouldn’t cause it to happen for anyone. There is a man up above who knows I didn’t do it, and one day, I may not be here, but he’s going to show you that I didn’t do it. I wouldn’t dare ever think about killing, because I can’t give a life and, therefore, I don’t have a right to take a life.”
Ray’s voice shook.
“And if you … if the family’s satisfied that they’ve got the right man, I’m sorry, but if you really want your husband’s killer to be brought to justice, get on your knees and pray to God about it, because I didn’t do it.”
Ray looked right at Judge Garrett.
“Do with me what seems good to you, but as sure as you put me to death, you bring blood upon yourself and upon your hands. I love all people. I’ve never been prejudiced in this life. I went to school and got along with everybody, never been in a fight. I’m not a violent person.
“You all sent an innocent man to prison. You kept an innocent man locked up for two years, and I begged, I pleaded with you to give me anything that you believe in. Truth serum, hypnosis, anything. I have nothing to hide.”
Now Ray looked right at the prosecutor: McGregor.
“I’m praying that God will forgive you all for what you have done, and I hope that you have enough wisdom to ask God to forgive you. You’re going to die just like I’m going to die. My death may be in the electric chair, but you’re going to die too. But one thing—after my death, I’m going to heaven. Where are you going?”
He looked at the judge and the bailiffs and the district attorney and the police detectives and he asked again.
“Where are you going?”
He spoke to the family of the murdered man.
“If I had killed somebody, you wouldn’t have found me in my mama’s backyard cutting grass. I had nothing to hide, and I didn’t know anything about these murders.”
Ray was going to get it all out. He didn’t know when he’d have another opportunity like this again.
“Since I been in jail, I’ve read the paper every day, and hardly a day goes by where people haven’t been forced in a cooler, and you going to read about it again. Somebody’s going to get killed. Maybe by then, you’re going to realize you got the wrong man. But I pray to God it don’t happen that way. I just pray that the man that really did it—I just hope the Lord will put enough burden on their heart where they can just come and tell you. But then, I’m not convinced you going to want to believe them. But when God is in the plan, I ain’t worried about what you believe. I don’t want to be electrocuted, but whatever way the Lord have me go, I’m ready to go. And you know I looked and I’ve seen prejudice in this courtroom. You people don’t want the truth. You people don’t want the right person. All you wanted was a conviction.”
He looked directly into McGregor’s eyes.
“I’m just one Black man, and that don’t mean nothing to you. I don’t know what color God is, but I can tell you he loves me just like he loves you. You might think you’re superior in this world, but you’re not. I had a life just like everybody else had a life, and I don’t hate you. Mr. McGregor, I don’t hate you. But for a slight moment during the trial, I was beginning to hate you, I really was, but I thank God that it came to me that I can’t make it into heaven hating nobody.”
Ray knew who he was and how he was raised. He knew right from wrong. And this, this was all wrong.
Ray looked at all of those people who seemed as though they’d enjoyed doing all this wrong … and he told them he loved them. They had prosecuted him and were working to kill him, but Ray said:
“I love you.”
They were trying to take his life, but they could not steal his heart.
“Might sound crazy, but I got joy—even with leg irons on me. The joy I got—the world didn’t give it to me, and the world can’t take it away. That’s a fact. Your Honor, I thank you for letting me have my say. Mr. McGregor, I’m praying for you real hard.”
He went on: “Wherever they send me, God can hear my prayers. Now, what would really make me worried is if you could isolate me from God, but you can’t do that. You took me from my family, but you can’t take me from God.”
Ray knew that, as a Black man, the deck had been stacked against him from the start. Justice wasn’t for people like him. “It’s sad when a police officer that is supposed to uphold the law tells you you’re going to be convicted because you’re Black, and you got a white jury and you got a white DA. You know, that’s sad. It’s sad—real sad. If you talk to Lieutenant Doug Acker, tell him I’m praying for him also.”
Ray paused and took one more deep breath. Someday they would know he didn’t do it. And then what? What would they all say then? Ray knew what he was going to do now. He sat up as straight as he could. He wasn’t going to beg for his life.
“I’m not worried about that death chair,” he said. “You can sentence me to it, but you can’t take my life. It don’t belong to you. My soul, you can’t touch it.”
After a brief recess, just three hours, it was time.
The judge banged his gavel. Cleared his throat. “It is the judgment of the court that the defendant, Anthony Ray Hinton, in each of these cases is guilty of the capital offense in accordance with the verdict of the jury in each of these cases. And it is the judgment of the court and the sentence of the court that the defendant, Anthony Ray Hinton, suffer death by electrocution on a date to be set by the Alabama Supreme Court pursuant to Alabama Rules of Appellate Procedure 8-D (1).”
Electrocution.
“The sheriff of Jefferson County, Alabama, is directed to deliver the defendant, the said Anthony Ray Hinton, into the custody of the director of the Department of Corrections and Institutions at Montgomery, Alabama, and the designated electrocution shall, at the proper place for the electrocution of one sentenced to suffer death by electrocution, cause a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death and the application and continuance of such current to pass through the body of said Anthony Ray Hinton until the said Anthony Ray Hinton is dead.”
Until he was dead.
Ray heard his mother cry out; he tried to go to her, but the bailiffs held him tight. There was no way for him to comfort his mama. They would kill him right there if they could, and Ray couldn’t let them. He needed to survive to get back to his mother. He was her baby, and he was innocent.
They had just decided to kill him. It was all too much for Ray to bear so he prayed to himself.
Dear God, please let the truth be known.
Dear God, do not let me die this way.
Dear God, I am innocent.
Dear God, protect my mom. I am innocent.
I am innocent.
It took the jury two hours to find Ray guilty.
It took them forty-five minutes to determine his punishment.
Death. State-sanctioned killing.
Anthony Ray Hinton was sentenced to die.
In that moment, Ray felt his whole life shatter into a million jagged pieces. The world was fractured and broken, and everything good in him broke with it.
He was Anthony Ray Hinton. People called him Ray.
HALLS OF INJUSTICE
“Race still influences who is sentenced to death and executed in America today … In capital trials, the accused is often the only person of color in the courtroom. Illegal racial discrimination in jury selection is widespread, especially in the South and in capital cases—thousands of Black people called for jury service have been illegally excluded from juries.”2
The state of Alabama wanted to murder Ray because they’d decided he had murdered two people and tried to murder a third.
Only they had the wrong guy.
Ray knew they had the wrong guy. His mother knew they had the wrong guy. Lester, who had been his best friend since Ray was six and Lester was four—Lester knew they had the wrong guy.
Some of them even said they knew they had the wrong guy.
But it didn’t seem to matter. Ray had been born Black and poor in the state of Alabama, and it seemed like his very existence was a crime.
The trial had been like drowning in an overwhelming sea of wood and white faces. Sitting in that courtroom day after day, Ray felt like an uninvited guest in a rich man’s library. Even though he knew he was innocent, he felt shame, like he was coated in something dirty and evil. It felt like the whole world thought he was bad, and that made it hard to hang on to his goodness. He was trying, though. The Lord knew how hard he was trying.
He had gone on trial for a crime that he couldn’t even fathom, his heart breaking because his mom was there in the courtroom in her best dress and big heart, smiling because she believed in her son. Always had, always would. Even though a jury had found Ray guilty of murder, she still believed in him. She and Lester didn’t care that the press made Ray out to be some kind of monster. They knew the truth: Ray was innocent.
Every week, Lester was the first in line on visiting day, stopping in on his way to work to say hello to Ray and leave some money in his account so Ray had the essentials—toilet paper, toothpaste. Every single week, for a year and a half. No matter what. He really was the best, best friend a guy could have.
Ray vowed that he would come home someday, and he knew Lester would help his mom hold on to that homecoming hope. He didn’t want his mom to lose her hope. There was no sadder place to be in the world than a place where there’s no hope. After a year and a half in that jail, and now that he had been “sentenced to death,” Ray knew that.
It was almost too much for Ray, an innocent man sentenced to death, just thinking about the fact that those two people never doubted him for a second, that they loved him so hard and so long—it made a lump form in his throat. Ray knew that even if he were guilty, even if he had murdered those two people in cold blood for a little cash, his mom and Lester would have still loved and believed in him.
They loved him that much.
“When are you coming home, baby?”
“Soon, Mama,” Ray always said. “They’re working on it. I plan to be home soon.”
Ray prayed, and he would pray again. Pray for the truth. Pray for the victims. He prayed for his mom and for Lester. And he prayed that the nightmare he had been living for almost two years would end somehow. He would still pray for a miracle and try not to criticize it if the miracle didn’t look like what he expected.
That’s what his mama had always taught him.
Now, Ray knew that the best chance for his life was to be sentenced to death. Every poor person tangled up in the legal system knew this. By sentencing him to death, they were giving Ray the only shot he had at proving his innocence. Now that he was sentenced to die, he would be guaranteed an appeal and guaranteed some representation by his attorney. The law said that if he had been sentenced to life in prison, he would have had to hire an attorney to appeal. Ray had no money to prove his innocence.
So he was headed to Holman Prison. The House of Pain. Dead Man Land. The Slaughter Pen of the South. It had a lot of names. He was terrified, but ready to fight. He knew the only way to fight this injustice would be from inside.
God have mercy on my soul.