The Sun Does Shine

The Sun Does Shine Plot Summary

Introduction

In the heart of Alabama, a story of extraordinary resilience unfolded that would eventually shake the foundations of America's justice system. Anthony Ray Hinton spent nearly three decades on death row for crimes he did not commit, becoming a living testament to both the profound flaws in our criminal justice system and the indomitable nature of the human spirit. His journey from wrongful conviction to freedom represents one of the most compelling cases of injustice and redemption in modern American history. What makes Hinton's story particularly remarkable is not just the grave injustice he endured, but how he responded to it. In the face of unimaginable adversity, he maintained his dignity, developed profound compassion for others, and cultivated an extraordinary capacity for forgiveness. Through his experience, we gain powerful insights into the resilience of the human mind, the critical importance of legal representation for the marginalized, and the transformative power of hope even in the darkest circumstances. His voice emerged from the shadows of death row to become one of the most important in the ongoing conversation about justice reform in America.

Chapter 1: Wrongful Conviction: The Arrest and Trial

In the summer of 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton's life changed forever when police officers arrived at his mother's home in Alabama. He was cutting grass when two white officers approached him, asked for identification, and promptly arrested him. Despite his protests of innocence, Hinton was charged with the murders of two restaurant managers and the attempted murder of a third - crimes he did not commit. The evidence against Hinton was remarkably thin. The prosecution's case hinged on ballistics tests that supposedly matched bullets from the crime scenes to a revolver found at his mother's house - a gun that hadn't been fired in decades. The surviving victim identified Hinton as his attacker, though Hinton had a solid alibi. He had been working in a locked warehouse miles away when one of the crimes occurred, with a security guard who recorded his presence throughout the night. During his arrest, Detective Doug Acker made a chilling statement that would prove prophetic: "I don't care whether you did or didn't do it. In fact, I believe you didn't do it. But it doesn't matter." The detective then counted off five reasons why Hinton would be convicted: he was Black, a white man would testify against him, and he would face a white district attorney, judge, and jury. This stark assessment of how race would determine Hinton's fate revealed the systemic bias that would drive his case. The trial proceeded exactly as Acker had predicted. Hinton was appointed an attorney who showed little interest in his case and remarked that he "ate $1,000 for breakfast" when told of his meager fee. The court denied adequate funding for a proper ballistics expert, forcing Hinton's defense to hire a visually-impaired civil engineer with limited firearms experience. This expert was easily discredited on the stand, leaving Hinton without effective representation against the state's claims. Throughout the trial, Hinton maintained his innocence. He passed a polygraph test, but the prosecution refused to allow this evidence to be presented to the jury. After just two hours of deliberation, the all-white jury found Hinton guilty. It took them only forty-five minutes to determine his punishment: death. As he was led away in chains, Hinton still proclaimed his innocence, telling the court, "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."

Chapter 2: Surviving Death Row: Mental Escape Through Imagination

Anthony Ray Hinton arrived at Holman Prison, known as the "Slaughter Pen of the South," in December 1986. His new home was a five-by-seven-foot cell on death row, just thirty feet from the execution chamber where Alabama's electric chair—nicknamed "Yellow Mama"—waited. For a man who had always loved open spaces and freedom, the confinement was immediately suffocating. The daily routine on death row was designed to dehumanize. Meals came at bizarre hours, the food was nearly inedible, and Hinton was allowed out of his cell for only fifteen minutes each day. The summer heat was unbearable, with temperatures in the cells reaching 120 degrees with no ventilation. The psychological torture was even worse than the physical conditions. Hinton's cell was close enough to the death chamber that he could smell the burned flesh of executed inmates. During his first years on death row, he witnessed multiple executions, hearing the condemned men cry and beg for their lives. For the first three years, Hinton retreated into silence. Filled with rage and despair, he refused to speak to guards or fellow inmates. He was consumed by thoughts of revenge against those who had wrongfully convicted him. At night, he would lie awake listening to the sounds of men crying, screaming, or laughing maniacally in the darkness. Sleep came in fifteen-minute intervals at best, pushing him further into darkness. Faced with this unbearable reality, Hinton developed an extraordinary coping mechanism. He discovered that while his body was confined, his mind remained free. He began using his imagination to escape the horrors around him, creating elaborate mental journeys where he would travel the world, meet famous people, and experience the simple pleasures denied to him in prison. In one of his favorite mental escapes, Hinton would imagine boarding a private jet that landed in the prison parking lot. A beautiful flight attendant would serve him champagne as they flew to London, where the Queen of England awaited his arrival for tea and conversation. These mental journeys provided more than mere distraction; they became a form of resistance against the dehumanization of death row. "There were only two ways to leave the row—on a gurney or set free by the law," Hinton observed. "But I had just found another way. A third way." By preserving his ability to imagine beauty, freedom, and dignity, Hinton maintained his sense of self in an environment designed to destroy it. These vivid daydreams became so real that Hinton sometimes lost track of time—once "traveling" for so long that he missed an entire day. Through this remarkable mental resilience, Hinton demonstrated that while the state could imprison his body, they could not imprison his mind unless he allowed them to. This ability to transcend his physical circumstances through imagination would prove crucial to his survival through nearly three decades of wrongful imprisonment.

Chapter 3: Creating Community in Confinement: The Book Club

In 1991, after years of isolation and mental escape, Hinton approached Warden Charlie Jones with an unusual request: permission to start a book club on death row. His pitch was strategic—he argued that giving inmates something constructive to focus on would help maintain peace and make the guards' jobs easier. The warden was skeptical but eventually agreed to allow six inmates to meet monthly in the law library, with books to be sent directly from bookstores to the prison. When the first books arrived—two copies of James Baldwin's "Go Tell It on the Mountain"—they created a sensation. For men who had been allowed only Bibles in their cells, these books represented a new world of possibility. The seven members of the book club took turns reading the books and passing them to others on the row. Throughout death row, inmates began discussing the book, debating its religious themes and relating to its complex family dynamics. For that month, death row was transformed—inmates were no longer just condemned men awaiting execution but readers engaged with ideas and stories. The book club meetings themselves were strictly controlled—each inmate had to sit at a separate table and couldn't stand up during the discussion. Despite these restrictions, the conversations were profound. Men who had committed terrible acts discussed redemption, faith, and human connection. These discussions allowed the inmates to examine their lives and choices with a depth rarely possible in the dehumanizing environment of death row. As Hinton observed, "We were ourselves, but we were different, and the book occupied our days and our nights in a new way." Perhaps the most remarkable relationship to emerge from the book club was between Hinton and Henry Hays, a former Ku Klux Klan member sentenced to death for the lynching of a Black teenager. When Hinton discovered Hays's identity, he was shocked but chose compassion over judgment. Their friendship developed across racial lines that would have been unthinkable outside prison walls. When Hays's father died during a prison visit, Hinton organized an impromptu food collection among the inmates—a death row version of the Southern tradition of bringing food to grieving families. Through the book club and other initiatives, Hinton created a sense of community in the most unlikely place. He used humor to defuse tensions with guards, advocated for small improvements in conditions, and encouraged inmates to educate themselves. His ability to find humanity in everyone—even those who had committed horrific crimes or worked for the system that kept him unjustly imprisoned—allowed him to maintain his own humanity in circumstances designed to destroy it. The book club became a testament to the power of literature to connect people across the most profound divides and to the human need for meaning and connection even in the shadow of death.

Chapter 4: Bryan Stevenson's Fight: The Legal Battle for Justice

For the first fifteen years of his imprisonment, Anthony Ray Hinton's legal appeals met with consistent failure. His court-appointed attorney for his initial appeals was unable to secure the funds needed for proper expert testimony to challenge the flawed ballistics evidence that had convicted him. When his attorney eventually asked Hinton's family to mortgage their home to pay $15,000 for a Supreme Court appeal, Hinton made the difficult decision to fire him rather than burden his family further. This left him without legal representation and seemingly out of options. The turning point came in 1998 when Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), took on Hinton's case. From their first meeting, Hinton felt a connection with Stevenson that gave him renewed hope. Unlike previous attorneys, Stevenson fully believed in Hinton's innocence and was committed to proving it. Stevenson secured funding for three of the nation's top firearms experts to examine the evidence. Their conclusion was unanimous and unequivocal: the bullets from the crime scenes could not be matched to the gun found at Hinton's mother's house. The only evidence linking Hinton to the crimes was fundamentally flawed. Despite this compelling new evidence, the state of Alabama fought relentlessly to prevent Hinton from receiving a new trial. For years, prosecutors and judges used procedural technicalities to avoid addressing the substance of Hinton's innocence claims. The legal catch-22 was typical of Alabama's post-conviction process: Hinton was denied funds for proper experts at trial, but then couldn't later present evidence from proper experts because he should have done so at trial. This circular reasoning exemplified the Kafkaesque nature of the system he was fighting. Stevenson's persistence was remarkable. He filed appeal after appeal, wrote letters to judges and prosecutors, and eventually began bringing media attention to Hinton's case. Throughout this process, he maintained regular contact with Hinton, visiting him frequently and sending encouraging letters. Their relationship evolved from attorney-client to a deep friendship, with Stevenson becoming one of the few people Hinton truly trusted after decades of betrayal by the justice system. The breakthrough finally came when Stevenson petitioned the United States Supreme Court. In a rare move, the Court issued a unanimous ruling in 2014 without even hearing oral arguments, finding that Hinton had been denied effective counsel because his trial lawyer failed to request adequate funding for a qualified ballistics expert. The case was remanded to the lower courts, where the state's case quickly fell apart. When state experts reexamined the evidence, they could no longer match the bullets to Hinton's mother's gun. After nearly thirty years of fighting, on April 3, 2015, Anthony Ray Hinton walked out of prison a free man. The legal battle had been extraordinarily long and difficult, revealing both the profound flaws in the justice system and the extraordinary dedication required to overcome them. Stevenson's advocacy had not only secured Hinton's freedom but had also exposed systemic issues of racial bias, inadequate defense funding, and procedural barriers that prevent innocent people from obtaining justice.

Chapter 5: Faith and Forgiveness: Maintaining Humanity

Throughout his ordeal, Hinton's resilience was rooted in a faith that evolved and deepened during his time on death row. Though he initially turned away from God in anger, abandoning his Bible beneath his bed for three years, he eventually returned to his spiritual roots with a more mature understanding. "I didn't want to think about death row," he reflected. "I wanted to think about life row." This spiritual resilience manifested in Hinton's remarkable capacity for forgiveness. Despite the profound injustice he suffered, he refused to be consumed by hatred. When he testified at his sentencing hearing, he told prosecutor Bob McGregor, "I don't hate you. Mr. McGregor, I don't hate you... I love you. You might think I'm crazy for telling a man that I love him that's done prosecuted me and is trying to send me to the death chair, but I love you." This wasn't mere posturing; it reflected Hinton's genuine belief that hatred would only destroy him from within. Hinton's resilience was also evident in his ability to find humor in the bleakest circumstances. He became known for his jokes and storytelling, using laughter as both a personal coping mechanism and a way to lift others' spirits. When a guard refused his facetious request to borrow a truck to visit a swimming hole, Hinton's humor transformed a potentially tense interaction into a moment of shared humanity. This ability to make others laugh—guards and inmates alike—became one of his most powerful tools for survival. Perhaps most remarkably, Hinton developed compassion for his fellow inmates regardless of their crimes. He recognized that many had committed terrible acts but refused to reduce them to those acts alone. "The outside world called them monsters," he observed. "But I didn't know any monsters on the row. I knew guys named Larry and Henry and Victor and Jesse... Not monsters. Guys with names who didn't have mothers who loved them or anyone who had ever shown them a kindness that was even close to love." Hinton's resilience was further strengthened by the unwavering support of his mother, Buhlar Hinton, and his best friend, Lester Bailey. Every week, despite the seven-hour round trip, they visited him at Holman Prison. These visits provided crucial connection to the outside world and reminded Hinton that he was loved unconditionally. When his mother asked, as she did at every visit, "When are they going to let you come home, baby?" Hinton would reassure her, "Soon, Mama. I'm going to be coming home real soon." This wasn't just wishful thinking; it reflected Hinton's unshakable belief in his eventual vindication. He clung to the promise in John 8:32: "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Despite decades of legal setbacks, he maintained his faith that the truth would eventually prevail. This hope sustained him through the darkest moments of his imprisonment and gave him the strength to help others find hope as well.

Chapter 6: Freedom at Last: Life After Exoneration

On April 3, 2015, Anthony Ray Hinton walked out of the Jefferson County Jail into the bright Alabama sunshine as a free man for the first time in nearly three decades. Surrounded by family, friends, and his attorney Bryan Stevenson, Hinton faced a bank of news cameras and uttered the simple but profound words that would become emblematic of his story: "The sun does shine." This poignant statement captured both the literal reality of feeling direct sunlight after years in a cell and the metaphorical dawn of justice that had finally broken through after decades of darkness. Hinton's transition to freedom presented both joys and challenges that few can comprehend. The world had changed dramatically during his imprisonment – cell phones, the internet, and digital payment systems were all new to him. Simple activities like ordering at a restaurant or sleeping in a regular bed became overwhelming experiences. In a particularly telling moment, Hinton found himself sleeping on the bathroom floor of his friend Lester's house during his first night of freedom, as the confined space more closely resembled the cell that had been his home for thirty years. Reuniting with family brought both happiness and heartbreak. While his loyal friend Lester had visited him every week for three decades, Hinton's beloved mother had passed away in 2002, meaning she never lived to see her son's exoneration. One of Hinton's first acts as a free man was to visit her grave, a bittersweet moment of connection and loss. The grief of missing her final years would remain one of the most painful consequences of his wrongful imprisonment. Despite the challenges, Hinton approached his newfound freedom with remarkable grace and purpose. He moved into and renovated his mother's long-abandoned house, creating a home that honored her memory while allowing him to build a new life. He established routines that helped him adjust to freedom while still acknowledging the trauma he had experienced. Each day, he walked for miles, savoring the simple ability to move freely that had been denied to him for so long. When it rained, he would stand outside and feel the drops on his skin, experiencing sensations that most people take for granted. Perhaps most remarkably, Hinton emerged from death row without bitterness. Though he received no apology or compensation from the State of Alabama, he chose forgiveness over resentment. This was not an easy or immediate process – Hinton had to consciously work through his anger toward those who had wrongfully convicted him, including prosecutor Bob McGregor, who had continued to insist on Hinton's guilt even after his exoneration. Hinton's adjustment to freedom revealed both the resilience of the human spirit and the profound trauma inflicted by wrongful incarceration. His experience highlighted the absence of systematic support for exonerees, who often receive less assistance than guilty people released on parole. Despite these challenges, Hinton embraced his second chance at life with the same extraordinary mental strength that had sustained him through decades on death row, determined to make the most of every moment of freedom he had been denied for so long.

Chapter 7: Voice for Reform: Transforming Suffering into Advocacy

Since his release, Anthony Ray Hinton has emerged as one of the most powerful and effective voices in the movement for criminal justice reform in America. Rather than retreating into private life after his ordeal, he has chosen to use his experience to shine a light on the systemic flaws that led to his wrongful conviction and that continue to plague the American legal system. His story provides a human face to abstract debates about justice, making the consequences of a broken system impossible to ignore. Hinton has become a sought-after public speaker, addressing audiences at churches, universities, conferences, and even international forums. His presentations combine heartbreaking details of his experience with unexpected humor and profound insights about human dignity. He speaks with particular authority about the death penalty, having witnessed the executions of 54 men during his time on death row. Hinton argues that capital punishment is fundamentally flawed not just because of the risk of executing innocent people, but because it denies the possibility of redemption and represents a failure of our collective humanity. In 2018, Hinton published his memoir, which became a New York Times bestseller and was selected for Oprah's Book Club. The book allowed him to reach an even wider audience with his story and his message about the urgent need for reform. Through his writing and speaking, Hinton has helped to educate the public about issues including inadequate defense funding, racial bias in the criminal justice system, prosecutorial misconduct, and the psychological torture inherent in death row confinement. Hinton continues to work closely with the Equal Justice Initiative and its founder Bryan Stevenson, supporting their broader mission to challenge racial and economic injustice. He has become a powerful advocate for other wrongfully convicted individuals, understanding intimately the despair they face and the persistence required to achieve justice. His testimony before legislative bodies has helped advance reforms aimed at preventing wrongful convictions and providing better support for exonerees. What makes Hinton particularly effective as an advocate is his remarkable capacity for forgiveness and his refusal to be defined by bitterness. While he is unflinching in his critique of the system that stole 30 years of his life, he also speaks about the importance of not allowing hatred to consume one's heart. This message of resilience and redemption resonates even with those who might otherwise be defensive about criticisms of the criminal justice system. Through his advocacy, Hinton has transformed his personal tragedy into a powerful force for change. He often concludes his talks by reading the names of those still on death row, reminding his audiences that behind statistics and legal arguments are real human beings with their own stories. In this way, he ensures that those still waiting for justice are not forgotten, and that his own hard-won freedom serves a purpose beyond his personal redemption.

Summary

Anthony Ray Hinton's extraordinary journey from death row to freedom embodies the profound resilience of the human spirit in the face of systemic injustice. His story illuminates not just the failures of the American criminal justice system, but also the transformative power of maintaining dignity, compassion, and even humor in circumstances designed to strip away humanity. Through nearly three decades of wrongful imprisonment, Hinton refused to allow the state that condemned him to also condemn his spirit, creating meaning and community where none seemed possible and eventually emerging as a powerful voice for reform. The lessons of Hinton's life extend far beyond criminal justice reform. His example teaches us about the capacity of the mind to transcend physical confinement, the importance of forgiveness as a path to personal freedom, and the possibility of finding purpose even in profound suffering. For anyone facing seemingly insurmountable challenges, Hinton's journey offers a testament to the power of hope and the human capacity to endure. For society at large, his story stands as both an indictment of our collective failures and an invitation to create more just systems grounded in the recognition of every person's inherent dignity and worth. In Anthony Ray Hinton, we find not just a survivor of injustice, but a teacher whose hard-won wisdom continues to illuminate the path toward a more humane and equitable world.

About Author

Loading...

Bryan Stevenson

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.Bryan Stevenson is the executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, and a professor of law at New York University Law School. He has won relief for dozens of condemned prisoners, argued five times before the Supreme Court, and won national acclaim for his work challenging bias against the poor and people of color. He has received numerous awards, including the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” Grant.

Read more

Related Books by Bryan Stevenson

Loading...

Just Mercy

Bryan Stevenson

A Story of Justice and Redemption

★★★★½4.6