Alabama man off death row after 28 years to jailers: "you will answer to God"
Posted: 04 Apr 2015, 20:14
Alabama man off death row after 28 years to jailers: "you will answer to God"
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/a ... ray-hilton
Anthony Ray Hinton, 58, spent half his life on Alabama's death row, sentenced to die for two 1985 murders that for decades he insisted he did not commit. Over 28 years, the outside world changed while Hinton spent his days largely in a 5ft by 8ft prison cell. Children grew up. His mother died. His hair turned gray. Inmates he knew were escorted off to the electric chair or the lethal-injection gurney. He was set free on Friday after new ballistics tests contradicted the only evidence – an analysis of crime-scene bullets – that connected Hinton to the slayings.
As he left the jail, Hinton said he would pray for the victims' families as he has done for the past 30 years. They have suffered a "miscarriage of justice" as well, he said. He had less kind words for those involved in his conviction.
"When you think you are high and mighty and you are above the law, you don't have to answer to nobody. But I got news for them, everybody who played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God", Hinton said.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Hinton is the 152nd person exonerated from death row since 1973 and the sixth in Alabama.
"They had every intention of executing me for something I didn't do", Hinton said outside the Jefferson County jail in Birmingham.
Source: The Guardian