Anthony Ray Hinton
I hope that America will do away with the death penalty. I truly believe we are better than that.Collection: Death
You never think of your freedom until it's taken away from you, and once it's taken... So, it means everything to me. You couldn't put a price tag on it.Collection: Freedom
For 14 years, I could not find volunteer lawyers capable of providing the legal assistance I needed to prove my innocence.Collection: Legal
When every court was saying 'no,' I believe God was still saying yes. I had to somehow find that faith and reach deep down in my soul and believe in the teaching that my mother taught me as a young boy, that God can do everything but fail.Collection: Faith
My mom was my mother and father. My father lost his mind when I was about 4 years old. And my mom did everything she could to make sure that we was brought up right.Collection: Mom
I have no respect for the prosecutors, the judges. And I say that not with malice in my heart. I say it because they took 30 years from me.Collection: Respect
They took my 30s, my 40s, my 50s, but what they couldn't take was my joy. I couldn't do nothing about the years, but I could control my joy... I kept a smile on my face; I kept love in my heart.Collection: Smile
Henry Hays was cheated all his life. He was cheated by his father who taught him to hate. His community taught him to hate. My mom told me, no matter what one does in life, he or she deserves some compassion, and I knew Hays deserved compassion more than anybody.Collection: Mom
Black, poor, without a father most of my life, one of 10 children - it was actually pretty amazing I had made it to the age of 29 without a noose around my neck.Collection: Amazing
The last time I saw my mom was in 1997. My mom started getting sick, and my mom finally passed away in 2002. My mom was my world. My mom was everything to me. We didn't have money. We didn't have a whole lot of materialistic things, but one thing I can truly say, that my mother loved me and all of her children unconditionally.Collection: Mom
I was born with a mother who loved me unconditionally and with a sense of humor.Collection: Humor
My only crime was being born black - or being born black in Alabama.
On September 22, 2002, my mama, Buhlar Hinton, died. When the guards told me, I gave up. She'd been deteriorating for a long time - I believe she died of a broken heart.
I want you to know there is a God. He sits high, but he looks low. He will destroy, but yet he will defend - and he defended me.
When you're poor and black in America, you stand a greater chance of going to prison for something you didn't do.
I want people to realize that we can teach hate, but we also can teach love.
It took me a little while to remember how to use a fork. You know, we don't use forks in the penitentiary. You get a spoon.
Spending your days waiting to die is no way to live.
I believe in laughter. I believe laughter is good for the soul. I believe in making other people laugh to make them feel good.
I cannot hate, because my Bible teaches me not to hate.
I forgive because not to forgive would only hurt me.
I have too much to live for to allow a bunch of cowards to take my joy. I refuse to give them my joy.
I witnessed other inmates' time run out, and I'd be lying if I said you don't ask yourself, 'Wow, is that going to happen to me?'
The State of Alabama let me down tremendously.
Believe me, when you're sitting on death row, you want the appeal process to take time; as long as you're going through it, you're going to be alive.
There was a time I thought I'd never see the sun again.
It's hard to explain exactly what it feels like to be judged. There's a shame to it. Even when you know you're innocent. It still feels like you are coated in something dirty and evil.
I've often thought books give you - put you in a world that you never thought you could go. And I often would say, I don't need to go to California. Give me a book that talks about California. And I can put it in my head and imagine what it looked like.
What kind of system do we have when innocent people can sit on death row for 30 years?
Bitterness kills the soul.
I'm just trying to be a little tiny light in God's world.
When it seems like the whole world thinks you're bad, it's hard to hang on to your goodness.
I loved to read books in the free world, and there was a lot of time to sit around and do nothing in prison. When you read, it opens up your mind; it helped us take our minds away from where we were.
When the very people that you been taught to believe in - the police, the D.A., these are the people that are supposed to stand for justice - and when you know that they lied to you, it's hard for you to have trust in anybody.
Everybody that played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God.
I shouldn't have sat on death row 30 years. All they had to do was test the gun. But when you think you are high and mighty and you're above the law, you don't have to answer to nobody, but I've got news for you.
I was put on death row because of hate.
For 30 years, I lived in pure hell.
Death Row is the same every day - breakfast at 3 A.M., lunch at 10 A.M., dinner at 3 P.M.
The state of Alabama can take my freedom, the state of Alabama can take my future, but the state of Alabama cannot take my joy.
I went to Paris, I went to France, I went to England, I went to Ireland. In my mind, I can go wherever I wanted to go. I left death row every day.
I spent 30 years on Alabama's death row for a crime I did not commit.
Death row prisoners face enormous challenges in finding lawyers who will assist them.
Justice should be one of the things that's colorblind.
I'm really trying to bring an end to the death penalty because it means so much to me.
I never used a gun in my life.
I don't believe that man was built to be put in a 5-by-7 for 30 years and have his sanity when he comes out if he doesn't find something to escape.
What do you say to a person who is going to their death? Normally, we would just say, 'Hang in there, keep your hope up,' because there is hope until the very last second.
Being in a five-by-seven every day for 365 days a year is more than what the average man could stand. You weren't built to be in a cage that long.
I just didn't believe the God that I served would allow me to die for something I didn't do.