The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row

by Anthony Ray Hinton

The good old boys had traded in their white robes for black robes, but it was still a lynching.

Most guys miss the changeup by swinging too soon. They can end up swinging themselves in a complete circle from missing a changeup. Nothing funnier than that, but I was done being a source of amusement today. I waited and I waited, and I put all my weight into my swing, and I swear I saw the moment that ball slowed down and I swung for my team, and for my mama, and for Lester, and for every kid in Praco who was going to be called a name today, and I heard the only sound that a batter wants to hear. It’s that sweet and sharp sound of the ball hitting the bat right where you want it. I’ve had dreams with that sound so loud and clear, it’s woken me up. It sounds just like thunder on a hot day in August. I didn’t even look to see where the ball was going when I heard that sound. I just dropped the bat, kept my head down, and began running.

At night, away from home, I spent a lot of time thinking about who and what mattered in this life. God mattered. Lester mattered. My freedom mattered. And most of all, my mom mattered. Everything else in life was just weather that was passing through.

“Would it make a difference if I told you I was innocent?” “Listen, all y’all always doing something and saying you’re innocent.” I dropped my hand. So that’s how it was going to be. I was pretty sure that when he said “all y’all,” he wasn’t talking about ex-cons or former coal miners or Geminis or even those accused of capital murder.

I was on death row not by my own choice, but I had made the choice to spend the last three years thinking about killing McGregor and thinking about killing myself. Despair was a choice. Hatred was a choice. Anger was a choice. I still had choices, and that knowledge rocked me. I may not have had as many as Lester had, but I still had some choices. I could choose to give up or to hang on. Hope was a choice. Faith was a choice. And more than anything else, love was a choice. Compassion was a choice.

Many of the guys I laughed with had raped women and murdered children and sliced innocent people up for the fun of it or because they were high on drugs or desperate for money and never thought beyond the next moment. The outside world called them monsters. They called all of us monsters. But I didn’t know any monsters on the row. I knew guys named Larry and Henry and Victor and Jesse. I knew Vernon and Willie and Jimmy. 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. Guys who were born broken or had been broken by life. Guys who had been abused as children and had their minds and their hearts warped by cruelty and violence and isolation long before they ever stood in front of a judge and a jury.

I learned he had a team of young lawyers, straight-A students from the best law schools in the country, working for him and volunteering to fight the good fight. “If those straight-A students can’t get it done,” I used to say, “you might want to bring in some of those C students. Those middle-of-the-class students sometimes know how to work the system. They have some hustle to them.” I liked making him laugh.

Alabama’s death penalty is a lie. It is a perverse monument to inequality, to how some lives matter and others do not. It is a violent example of how we protect and value the rich and abandon and devalue the poor. It is a grim, disturbing shadow cast by the legacy of racial apartheid used to condemn the disfavored among us. It’s the symbol elected officials hold up to strengthen their tough-on-crime reputations while distracting us from the causes of violence. The death penalty is an enemy of grace, redemption and all who value life and recognize that each person is more than their worst act.

I forgive them. I made a choice after those first difficult few weeks at Lester’s when everything was new and strange and the world didn’t seem to make sense to me. I chose to forgive. I chose to stay vigilant to any signs of anger or hate in my heart. They took thirty years of my life. If I couldn’t forgive, if I couldn’t feel joy, that would be like giving them the rest of my life. The rest of my life is mine. Alabama took thirty years. That was enough.

Freedom is a funny thing. I have my freedom, but in some ways, I am still locked down on the row. I know what day they are serving fish for dinner. I know when it’s visiting day and at what point the guys are walking in the yard. My mind goes back there every single day, and I realize it was easier for my mind to leave the row when I was inside than it is now that I’m free.