How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row

– A memoir by Anthony Ray Hinton with Lara Love Hardin –

In a case of mistaken identity, a twenty-nine-year-old Black man in Alabama was arrested and charged with two murders even though he was fifteen miles away when they were carried out and had an easily provable alibi.

Sound familiar?

What happened next beggars belief. It’s everyone’s worst nightmare. But it’s not just a nightmare if you’re poor and Black in the United States of America, it’s an all too common reality.

It was a steamy August day in 1985. Anthony Ray Hinton was mowing his mother’s lawn when two police officers turned up on her front porch. Hinton did what most of us would do after the policemen grabbed him and read him his rights. He went quietly and tried to find out what he was being arrested for.

The detectives in charge of the case didn’t even pretend to believe Hinton had actually carried out the murders of two restaurant managers, or an earlier attempted murder with a similar m.o. In one detective’s words, “You know, I don’t care whether you did it or didn’t do it. In fact, I believe you didn’t do it. But it doesn’t matter. If you didn’t do it, one of your brothers did. And you’re going to take the rap.”

The detective goes on to explain why Hinton’s conviction was going to be successful. “Number one, you’re Black. Number two, a white man gonna say you shot him. Number three, you’re gonna have a white district attorney. Number four, you’re gonna have a white judge. And number five, you’re gonna have an all-white jury.”

To witness this story through Hinton’s eyes is something we all should do if we want to have a real chance at stamping out racial inequality. Anthony Ray Hinton spent almost thirty years of his life locked up on death row for crimes he did not commit.

It’s obvious from page one that Hinton’s three decades of incarceration were brought about by a lazy, racist law enforcement and judicial system.

Woven into the grinding despair of his lost years, Hinton’s descriptions of daily life spent in a five by seven foot rodent-infested box are filled with deeply personal insights, creative coping skills, an amazing sense of humor, and strange but touching relationships.

It’s a compelling and beautifully told story and it was an honor to go on this journey with him.