Lester had choices, and I was glad he was making them. I thought again about all the choices I didn’t have and about freedom, and then the man stopped crying and there was a silence that was louder than any noise I’d ever heard. What if this man killed himself tonight and I did nothing? Wouldn’t that be a choice?
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.
“Hey!” I walked up to my cell door and yelled toward the crying man. “Are you all right over there?”
There was nothing but silence. Maybe I was too late.
“Hey, you okay?” I asked again.
“No,” he finally answered.
“Is something wrong? Do you need me to call for an officer or something?”
“No, he just left.”
“Okay, then.”
I stood at the bars. I didn’t know what to say or what to do. It was weird to hear my own voice on the row. I only spoke during visits. I wondered if the man was as surprised as I was to hear me speak. I guess he didn’t want to talk about it. I started to walk back to my bed, but then I thought about what he had been saying when he was sobbing. Please help me. I can’t take it anymore.
I walked back up to the door. “Hey, man. Whatever it is, it’s going to be all right. It’s going to be okay.”
I waited. It had to be another five minutes before he spoke.
“I just … I just got word … that my mom died.”
I could hear him trying to hold back the tears as he talked.
I can’t describe exactly what it is to have your heart break open, but in that moment, my heart broke wide open and I wasn’t a convicted killer on death row; I was Anthony Ray Hinton from Praco. I was my mama’s son.
“I’m sorry, man. I really am.”
He didn’t say anything back, and then I heard a guy yell from down below me, “Sorry for your loss.” And then another from the left side of me yelled, “Sorry, man. Rest in peace.” Nobody else was talking before that, but they had been listening too. How could you not hear him crying? I didn’t have to think about people all around the world sitting on the edge of their beds and crying when there were almost two hundred men all around me who didn’t sleep, just like me. Who were in fear just like me. Who wept just like all of us. Who felt alone and afraid and without hope.
I had a choice to reach out to these men or to stay in the dark alone. I walked over to my bed and got on my hands and knees. I reached my arm under the bed and felt around through the dust and dirt until the tips of my fingers brushed against my Bible. It had been under there for too long. This man had lost his mom, but I still had mine, and she wouldn’t care for my Bible to be collecting filth. Even here, I could still be me. I walked back up to the cell door.
“Listen!” I yelled. “God may sit high, but he looks low. He’s looking down here in the pit. He’s sitting high, but he’s looking low. You’ve got to believe it.” I had to believe it too.
I heard an “Amen!” from somewhere on the row.
“It’s a hard loss to bear. But your mom’s looking down on you too.”
“I know. Thanks.”
I asked him to tell me about his mom and listened for the next two hours as he told story after story. His mom seemed a lot like my mom. Tough, but full of love.
He finished telling a story about her making a dress for his sister out of a tablecloth and two silk pillowcases just so she could go to a school dance in a new dress. “It was beautiful,” he said. “My sister looked better than any other girl at that dance because my mom worked hard. She always found a way, man. She always found a way.”
He started crying again, but softer than he had at the beginning of the night.
I wondered why it is that the cries of another human being—whether it’s a baby or a woman in grief or a man in pain—can touch us in ways we don’t expect. I wasn’t expecting to have my heart break that night. I wasn’t expecting to end three years of silence. It was a revelation to realize that I wasn’t the only man on death row. I was born with the same gift from God we are all born with—the impulse to reach out and lessen the suffering of another human being. It was a gift, and we each had a choice whether to use this gift or not.
I didn’t know his story or what he had done or anything about him that made him different from me—hell, I didn’t know if he was black or white. But on the row, I realized, it didn’t matter. When you are trying to survive, the superficial things don’t matter anymore. When you are hanging at the end of your rope, does it really matter what color the hand is that reaches up to help you? What I knew was that he loved his mother just like I loved my mother. I could understand his pain.
“I’m sorry you lost your mom, but man, you got to look at this a different way. Now you have someone in heaven who’s going to argue your case before God.”
It was silent for a few moments, and then the most amazing thing happened. On a dark night, in what must surely be the most desolate and dehumanizing place on earth, a man laughed. A real laugh. And with that laughter, I realized that the State of Alabama could steal my future and my freedom, but they couldn’t steal my soul or my humanity. And they most certainly couldn’t steal my sense of humor. I missed my family. I missed Lester. But sometimes you have to make family where you find family, or you die in isolation. I wasn’t ready to die. I wasn’t going to make it that easy on them. I was going to find another way to do my time. Whatever time I had left.
Everything, I realized, is a choice.
And spending your days waiting to die is no way to live.
12
THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND
So that you will know exactly what my position is, I must inform you at this time that if Hinton’s Rule 20 petition is not filed by the agreed-upon date, I will have no choice but to petition the Alabama Supreme Court for the setting of the execution date.
—KENNETH S. NUNNELLEY, ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL, MAY 1, 1990
Time runs differently in prison. Sometimes it passes as if in slow motion, when every hour feels like three hours, every day feels like a month, every month feels like a year, and every year feels like a decade. In regular population, time is something you count down until your release date. You cross off each day, happy to have gotten through it and thankful that you are one day closer to leaving—to freedom. On the row, it’s different. The only date you would ever have to count down to is your execution date, and when you have that date, time speeds up. It runs as if someone has pressed fast-forward, and every day feels like an hour, every hour feels like a minute, and every minute feels like a second. In prison, time is a strange and fluid thing, but time on the row is even more warped.
Everyone knew there were only two ways to leave the row—on a gurney or set free by the law. I wasn’t ready to leave on a gurney, so I started praying at night for my new attorney and for the truth to finally come out. I didn’t pray for my release, because that wasn’t enough. I wanted the truth to come out. I wanted people to know that I was innocent. I wanted McGregor to apologize. I wanted the jury to know they had gotten it wrong and for other juries to learn from their mistakes. The only way that could happen was if I was found innocent. I was also a bit suspicious. Growing up, I had heard too many stories of folks praying for things in a general way and having it turn out badly for them when it seemed like their prayers were answered in a literal way. I knew a guy in the county jail who used to pray every day to get to leave C block. Everybody knew he wasn’t going to leave before his trial, but he said he was praying and he knew God was going to answer his prayers. The next day, he was caught smoking, and when they turned
over his cell looking for his stash, the guards found a weapon he had made out of broken plastic off his meal tray. He did leave C block, but only to go into solitary confinement.
I said my prayers carefully. I prayed for Lester and our moms. I prayed for Lester’s new wife, and I prayed for the members of our church, our neighbors, my brothers and sisters, and my nieces. I prayed for Sid Smotherman, and I prayed for the families of John Davidson and Thomas Vason. But mostly I prayed for the truth. Truth was a big, broad word, but I knew there was no gray area and no way to misinterpret my prayer. I prayed for God to reveal the truth—and whether that meant they proved me innocent or they caught the guy who really did it or Reggie confessed to lying, didn’t matter. I knew that the truth would set me free. John 8:32: “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
I also read Mark 11:24. “What things so ever you desire when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.” I read this over and over again, looking for a loophole. If it was true that God could do everything but fail, then the truth had to be known. The truth had to set me free. If I believed it, it would happen. It had to.
I had gotten a few letters from Santha Sonenberg, so I knew she was investigating my case. She and a woman named Laura had been calling my mom and my friends, looking into things. I spoke to Santha on the phone, and she apologized for not being able to come visit again but told me she was busy preparing my Rule 20 petition, which was a petition for relief from convictions and sentences of death. I wondered how she was going to be able to investigate things if she worked in Washington, D.C., but I didn’t ask her. I was grateful she was keeping me from the electric chair. I had to pray and believe.
The assistant attorney general of Alabama, a guy named Kenneth S. Nunnelley, was now representing the State in my post-conviction appeal. Santha told me he gave her until August to file my petition, and she would be sending me a copy when she filed it. We were allowed to go to the law library once a week for an hour, and I had refused my time for the past three years, but now I went every week. We weren’t allowed to bring any books back to our cells—all we were allowed were Bibles or other religious books—so for an hour every week, I would read about the law in Alabama. I learned what a capital conviction really was, and I read about aggravating and mitigating circumstances. I didn’t know at the time of my trial that even though a jury said life in prison, a judge in Alabama could override the jury and still send you to the electric chair. It was called judicial override, and to me it just seemed like another way to put an innocent man to death.
I couldn’t understand the point in having a jury if a judge could just go ahead and do whatever he wanted. How was that justice? I wondered. Why was Alabama so hell-bent on putting people to death one way or another? I got back to my cell after my law library trip. I could only read so much in an hour, and I had questions.
“Y’all heard of this judicial override business?” I yelled out.
“That’s some bullshit right there.”
I wasn’t sure who the voice belonged to. I had just started talking to the guards, to the other inmates, so it felt a little like being the new kid at school.
Several other voices yelled out in agreement.
“It seems like it defeats the purpose of a jury if a judge can just do what he wants,” I said. “As if the cards aren’t stacked against you enough already.”
“Preach it, brother!” another voice yelled out.
There was some laughter.
“I’m going to read up on it some more next week,” I said. “Some of you should do the same.”
A voice I hadn’t heard earlier yelled out, “I’m here because of that judge overriding the jury. My jury said life.”
“Me too,” yelled another voice. “It’s ’cause them judges got to get elected. That’s all. They get more votes the more men they send to the death chair.”
I stood at the front of my cell. It was weird to have a discussion when you couldn’t see anybody and couldn’t tell who was talking unless it was the guy on either side of you. I was beginning to distinguish guys from their voices. Their accents. You could tell who was a bit more educated and who wasn’t, but that’s about all you could tell.
“The police lied and said I took a dollar from the guy.” It was the first voice again. “That’s how I even got a capital case. I’m not saying what I did, or even if I did anything, but I’m just saying they lied and said I took one dollar. One dollar. That made it a capital case. And then when the jury said, ‘Life,’ the judge said, ‘Nope … it’s gonna be death.’”
I could hear his voice break a little, like he was choking up.
“What’s your name, man?” I yelled.
He didn’t answer for a few minutes, and the row got strangely quiet. Even though there were guys around him who had to know his name, it was his to tell or not to tell. You didn’t speak for anyone on the row, and you didn’t name names ever.
“My name’s Ray,” I said. “Anthony Ray Hinton, but folks call me Ray.”
There was silence. I rested my left cheek up against the mesh wire of my door. I could wait. We had nothing to do here but wait. There was something in this guy’s voice. He sounded alone.
“I’m from Praco,” I said. “And proud to be the son of Buhlar Hinton, the best mother God ever sent down to this earth, who can make a pie like an angel and swat you like the devil if you try to eat it before she says so.”
I heard a few guys laugh, but I didn’t know if the guy whose name I was waiting on was one of them.
“My mom makes a pretty good pie herself,” he finally said. “My name is Henry.”
Henry didn’t say his last name, and I didn’t care to ask him. The guards called us by number or last name, rarely by our first name. I would no sooner ask him his last name than I would ask him what he was in for. Some things you never asked a guy. If someone wanted to tell you or talk about it, that was one thing. But you never asked. And really, what did it matter? We were all being careful. We were all protecting ourselves and reaching out at the same time. What else could you do?
“Nice to meet you, Henry. And I hope someday we can sit together in the shade on a beautiful Fourth of July, drinking sweet tea while our mothers compete to see who can make us the best pie. I don’t know about your mom, but mine loves a good competition.”
Henry laughed. “Well, that would be something to see, Ray. You have no idea. That would really be something.”
“I’m sorry about your case, Henry,” I said. “That doesn’t sound right. It doesn’t sound right at all. I’m going to do some more research next week on this judge override. You should do the same.”
He didn’t say anything back, so I dropped it.
“You know they don’t like it when we educate ourselves,” I yelled out. “The South still isn’t happy we ever learned to read.”
“Preach it, brother!”
“Is that you, Jesse?” I hollered back.
“Last time I checked, it was. I’m still here. You still here, Wallace?”
“I’m still here!”
And up and down the row it went, guys calling out to each other cell by cell. Sometimes they asked by name; other times they just asked in general. “You still here?” And a different voice would yell back, “I’m still here!”
And with each voice, it got funnier and funnier. I started laughing. Each man who yelled that he was still here made me laugh harder. Here we were in our cages. It shouldn’t have been funny, but it was.
“We are all still here!” I yelled out one last time, and then I lay back on my bed. It was a good day when you could find a little bit of light.
I didn’t hear from Henry again that day, but there was no need to push it. Maybe we would become friends, maybe not.
I thought about Wallace. He had been yelling and laughing, and everyone knew he had an execution date in less than two weeks. It made my stomach turn over a bit. Wallace and Jesse had started Project Hope�
�a kind of inmate advocacy group to fight the death penalty. I didn’t see how it was really going to change anything, but I knew it helped to feel like you were doing something. I knew they had gotten permission to meet up as a small group, and I’m sure some guys just went to have another opportunity to get out of their cells. We were still only allowed less than an hour out of our cells every day. That and visiting day and law library was it. The warden only let a small group meet for Project Hope, and I hoped they didn’t cause any trouble. If someone on the row caused trouble, it made a problem for all of us. The warden had no trouble locking us down all day or taking away our visits if anyone did anything. I was a nice guy to everyone, but I definitely wasn’t going to let some fool stop my visits. Lester came every week, no matter what, and apart from those six hours with him and our moms, I had very few ways to keep myself occupied. I was reading my Bible again, but a man can’t read only the Bible. It’s like only having steak for dinner. You might love steak, but if you have it every day of the week, eventually you’re going to get sick of it.
I read my Bible before Wallace was executed on July 13, 1990.
He wore a purple ribbon and a sign that said, “Execute justice, not people.”
We banged on the bars for Wallace Norrell Thomas. Some banged on the bars to protest the death penalty. Others banged on the bars just to have something to do or as a way to let off steam. I banged on the bars so he would know that he mattered. That he was not alone. In the end, I think that’s what we all want. To know we matter to someone, anyone. I knew I mattered to my mom and Lester and Phoebe, and that was more than a lot of these guys had. A lot of guys came here and died here without ever getting a visit. A lot of them never had a parent who loved them.
A few weeks after Wallace was killed, I got a letter from Santha, a handwritten note, which was unusual.
Mon 8/6/90
Mr. Hinton–
Apologies for the delay in getting this to you & for such an informal note. As I mentioned, I’m ½-way to finishing the Rule 20 petition. I met with Bryan Stevenson this morning and we have many ideas for your case.
The Sun Does Shine Page 14
