The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton

Even when the evidence was found to be faulty in his first trial, Hintons case was passed from Court to court. This book makes this point perfectly clear. It seems always weekly men who have been in prison, serving long sentences are found innocent and released. That the criminal justice system in this country is evident just from what we see on our televisions. In fact, Stevenson writes the forward in this book. He would also, eventually have Bryan Stevenson, the author of Just Mercy and his lawyers in the Equal justice initiative. His first lawyer incompetent, fighting against a system prejudice that despite evidence to the contrary, would do anything for a conviction. He had a best friend, Lester a childhood friend who never missed visits, a mother to whom he was her baby boy, always asking him when he would be coming home, and he had his faith in God. Not that he never got angry, he did, but he still hung on, didn't give up. I am appalled, angry, sad but also filled with admiration for this inncent man on death row for over thirty years, who managed to retain hope and love. I am not sure where to put my feelings after finishing this book. Destined to be a classic memoir of wrongful imprisonment and freedom won, Hinton’s memoir tells his dramatic thirty-year journey and shows how you can take away a man’s freedom, but you can’t take away his imagination, humor, or joy. With a foreword by Stevenson, The Sun Does Shine is an extraordinary testament to the power of hope sustained through the darkest times.

With the help of civil rights attorney and bestselling author of Just Mercy, Bryan Stevenson, Hinton won his release in 2015.

For the next twenty-seven years he was a beacon-transforming not only his own spirit, but those of his fellow inmates, fifty-four of whom were executed mere feet from his cell. But as Hinton realized and accepted his fate, he resolved not only to survive, but find a way to live on Death Row. He spent his first three years on Death Row at Holman State Prison in agonizing silence-full of despair and anger toward all those who had sent an innocent man to his death. Stunned, confused, and only twenty-nine years old, Hinton knew that it was a case of mistaken identity and believed that the truth would prove his innocence and ultimately set him free.īut with no money and a different system of justice for a poor black man in the South, Hinton was sentenced to death by electrocution. In 1985, Anthony Ray Hinton was arrested and charged with two counts of capital murder in Alabama. A powerful, revealing story of hope, love, justice, and the power of reading by a man who spent thirty years on death row for a crime he didn't commit.

The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton