An Alabama inmate who spent nearly 30 years
on death row will go free Friday after prosecutors told a judge there is
not enough evidence to link him to the 1985 murders he was convicted of
committing.
Jefferson County Circuit Judge Laura Petro on Thursday dismissed the
case against Anthony Ray Hinton. The district attorney's office in a
Wednesday
court filing said that forensic experts couldn't determine if
six crime scene bullets - which were the crux of the evidence against
Hinton - came from a gun investigators took from his home.
Hinton, now 58, was convicted of two 1985 murders that occurred
during separate robberies of fast-food restaurants in Birmingham.
Prosecutors linked Hinton to the killings through a .38-caliber revolver
found at his house.
The
U.S. Supreme Court last year sent Hinton's case back for a
potential new trial, which prompted a re-examination of the evidence.
"We've been hoping for this. We've believed that this should have
happened," said Bryan Stevenson, Hinton's attorney and director of the
Alabama-based
Equal Justice Initiative. The Jefferson County District
attorney's office could not immediately be reached for comment.
Stevenson has been arguing for 16 years that Hinton was innocent.
Hinton wept Wednesday night after learning the news that he would finally go free, Stevenson said.
Hinton is expected to be released from the Jefferson County Jail on
Friday morning after spending more than half his life in prison.
"Every day, every month, every year that the state took from him,
they took something that they don't have the power to give back. While
this moment is quite joyous and is quite wonderful, this case is quite
tragic," Stevenson said.
Six bullets were what prosecutors used in the 1980s to connect Hinton
to the slayings. A modern analysis on the bullets is what led
prosecutors to drop the case against him.
The
Supreme Court last year ruled that Hinton had "constitutionally
deficient" representation at his initial trial. Hinton's
defense lawyer
wrongly thought he had only $1,000 to hire a ballistics expert to try to
rebut the prosecution testimony about the bullets. The
lawyer hired the
only person willing to take the job at that price, even though he had
concerns about the expert's credentials. At the time, jurors chuckled as
the defense expert struggled to answer questions on cross-examination.
"He was a
poor person who was convicted because he didn't have the
money to prove his innocence at trial. He was unable to get the legal
help he needed for years. He was convicted based on bad science,"
Stevenson said.
John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason were killed during robberies at
Mrs. Winner's and Captain D's restaurants in Birmingham in 1985.
Investigators focused on Hinton after a person who was shot, but
survived, at a third robbery at a
Quincy's restaurant identified Hinton
as the person who shot him. However, Stevenson said Hinton had an alibi
showing that he was at work when the Quincy's robbery was committed.
"The connection has always been the bullets,"
Chief Deputy District Attorney John R. Bowers, Jr. said Thursday.
At his initial trial, state experts testified that the four bullets
fired during the slayings, and another two from the Quincy's robbery,
had all been fired from a revolver found at Hinton's home.
However, in 2015, three different experts from the Alabama Department
of
Forensic Sciences couldn't determine if any of those bullets were
fired through the revolver taken from Hinton's home, or even if they had
been fired from the same gun.
Bowers said the
forensics experts explained that standards have gotten more "conservative."
"Some things back then that experts would be willing to attest to,
they would not be willing to attest to now. They would need more now,"
Bowers said.
Asked if Hinton was
wrongly convicted, Bowers said he couldn't say
because his "experts haven't ruled him in. They haven't ruled him out."
"I don't have the evidence necessary to proceed with prosecution. I
don't have the evidence to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt
anymore," Bowers said.
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