Arrest, prosecution, and conviction Īfter Hinton's arrest, his public defense attorney did not provide adequate counsel. At the time, Hinton worked at a supermarket warehouse and lived with his mother, Buhlar Hinton, at her home in rural Alabama, about half an hour north of Birmingham. A survivor of a third restaurant robbery picked a photo of Anthony Ray Hinton, then age 29, from a lineup, and the police investigated him. On February 25, 1985, and July 2, 1985, two fast food managers, John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason, were killed in separate incidents during armed robberies at their fast food restaurants in Birmingham. Hinton was portrayed by O'Shea Jackson Jr.

After being released, Hinton wrote and published a memoir The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (2018). The court was unable to affirm the forensic evidence of a gun, which was the only evidence in the first trial. In 2014 the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously overturned his conviction on appeal, after which the state dropped all charges against him. Hinton was sentenced to death and held on the state's death row for 28 years before his 2015 release. The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death RowĪnthony Ray Hinton (born June 1, 1956) is an American activist, writer, and author who was wrongly convicted of the 1985 murders of two fast food restaurant managers in Birmingham, Alabama.

Being wrongfully convicted of murder criminal justice reform and anti-death penalty activism

Anthony ray hinton the sun does shine