Olivia: Okay, Jackson, The Sun Does Shine. Five-word review. Go. Jackson: Hrm. 'System tried to break him.' Olivia: Ooh, good. Mine is: 'He chose joy over hate.' Jackson: That’s the whole story right there, isn't it? The tension between those two sentences. It’s a story that is both infuriating and, against all odds, incredibly uplifting. Olivia: It really is. Today we are diving into The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton. This is the unbelievable true story of a man who spent 28 years on Alabama's death row for a crime he did not commit. Jackson: Twenty-eight years. It’s a number you can say, but it's almost impossible to comprehend. Olivia: And his case was so egregious that when it finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court, they unanimously overturned his conviction. Many people might even recognize his story, as he was a character in the film Just Mercy, which was based on the work of his lawyer, Bryan Stevenson. Jackson: Right, and that film gave a glimpse, but this book… this is his own voice. It takes you inside the experience. So, Olivia, how does something this catastrophic even begin? How do you put an innocent man on death row for three decades?

Olivia: It begins with a terrifyingly simple and biased foundation. In 1985, there were a series of robberies and murders of restaurant managers in Birmingham, Alabama. The police were under pressure, and Anthony Ray Hinton, a poor Black man with a solid alibi—he was at work in a locked warehouse miles away—becomes a suspect. Jackson: A solid alibi should be the end of the story. What was the evidence? Olivia: That's the thing. There was no physical evidence. No fingerprints. No eyewitnesses who could definitively identify him. The entire case hinged on two things: a faulty eyewitness ID from a survivor who was in shock, and a .38 caliber pistol that belonged to Hinton's mother. Jackson: So they had a gun. Did they prove it was the murder weapon? Olivia: The state's forensic experts claimed the bullets from the crime scenes matched his mother's gun. But the core of the injustice, and what the book lays out so chillingly, is how the system decided he was guilty before the trial even started. The prosecutor, a man named Bob McGregor, later said, and this is a direct quote, "More so than the evidence, I have never had as strong a feeling... that the defendant just radiated guilt and pure evil." Jackson: Wait. He said that? Not based on evidence, but on a feeling of "pure evil"? That's terrifying. That’s not justice; that’s a witch hunt. Olivia: Exactly. And it gets worse. Because Hinton was poor, he couldn't afford a lawyer. The court appointed one for him, a man named Sheldon Perhacs. The state only gave Perhacs a thousand dollars for the entire defense, including hiring expert witnesses. Jackson: A thousand dollars to save a man's life? You can't even hire a decent plumber for that. Olivia: Perhacs literally told Hinton, "They’re only paying me $1,000 for this, and hell, I eat $1,000 for breakfast." He was completely out of his depth. He didn't know how to find a qualified ballistics expert. The expert he eventually hired was a one-eyed civil engineer who admitted on the stand he had trouble using a microscope and that the state's experts had to help him. Jackson: You're kidding me. His own expert was discredited on the stand? Olivia: Utterly. He was torn apart by the prosecution. And to make matters worse, Perhacs himself held a clear bias. When he first met Hinton, he muttered, "all y’all always doing something and saying you’re innocent." Jackson: Hold on. His own lawyer, the one person who is supposed to believe in him and fight for him, basically said, 'You're Black, so you're probably guilty.' Olivia: That's the system Hinton was up against. A prosecutor who saw "evil," not a person. A defense attorney who saw a stereotype, not a client. And a legal system in 1980s Alabama that was deeply infected with racial bias. A police lieutenant even told Hinton on the way to jail, "I don’t care whether you did or didn’t do it... one of your brothers did. And you’re going to take the rap." Jackson: Wow. So from the very beginning, his guilt was a foregone conclusion. His innocence was irrelevant. The system wasn't looking for the truth; it was looking for a conviction, and he was the convenient target. Olivia: He was poor, he was Black, and that was enough. He was sentenced to death and sent to Holman Prison, to a five-by-seven-foot cell, where the state fully expected his spirit to die long before they got around to executing his body. Jackson: And for most people, that would be the end. The system wins. But that's not what happened here.

Olivia: No, it's not. And this is where the story pivots from a tragedy about injustice to one of the most profound testaments to the human spirit I've ever read. For the first few years, Hinton was consumed by rage and despair. He stopped speaking. He hated everyone—the guards, the prosecutor, his lawyer, even God. He was dying inside, just like the system wanted. Jackson: I can't blame him. I think most of us would react the same way. What changed? Olivia: It was a choice. One night, he hears another inmate sobbing uncontrollably because his mother had just died. Hinton, who had been silent for years, felt a pang of empathy. He broke his silence and called out to the man, offering comfort. In that moment of connection, he realized he had a choice. He could let the hate consume him, or he could choose to live, to feel, to connect. He decided that while they had his body, they would not get his mind or his soul. Jackson: That’s an incredible turning point. But how do you "choose to live" on death row? What does that even look like? Olivia: It looks like using your imagination. He started taking trips in his mind. He’d imagine he was marrying Halle Berry. He’d fly to London and have tea with the Queen of England. He said his mind was the one thing they couldn't lock up. And then, he had an even more radical idea. He decided to start a book club. Jackson: A book club. On death row. Olivia: Yes. He convinced the warden, who was skeptical but eventually agreed. They got books, starting with James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain. And for two hours every month, these men—Black, white, guilty, innocent—would leave their cells and sit in the law library to discuss literature. Jackson: That is just wild. What were those discussions like? Olivia: They were transformative. And this leads to maybe the most powerful story in the entire book. One of the book club members was a man named Henry Hays. Ray and Henry had become friends. One day, Ray learns that Henry is on death row for the 1981 lynching of a Black teenager, Michael Donald. Henry was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Jackson: Whoa. So Hinton, an innocent Black man, is on death row, and he's friends with a white Klansman who is there for lynching a Black kid? That's... I don't even have words for that. Olivia: And it's in the book club, while discussing James Baldwin, that Henry has a breakthrough. He reads a passage about the hatred taught to Black people and says, "Ray, everything my mom and dad taught me was a lie. Everything they taught me against Blacks, it was a lie." He confronts his own past, his own hatred, right there in that room. Jackson: That's unbelievable. A book club on death row, led by a Black man, with a Klansman as a member, discussing James Baldwin, leads to a moment of racial reconciliation. It sounds like fiction. Olivia: It's the power of empathy. Hinton chose to see Henry not as a monster, but as a man. He later told Henry, "My mama taught me to have compassion for everybody... and I have compassion for you." He created a community in the most desolate place on earth. He chose to find and create humanity where the system had tried to extinguish it. Jackson: So while he's building this incredible community on the inside, what's happening on the outside? Is anyone still fighting for his legal freedom?

Olivia: For a long time, no. His appeals went nowhere. But then, years into his sentence, he gets a new lawyer. And this is the other hero of the story: Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. Jackson: The author of Just Mercy. The contrast between him and the first lawyer, Perhacs, must have been night and day. Olivia: Completely. Stevenson believed in him from the start. He told Ray, "We are a team. I want to hear every idea you have." For the first time in over a decade, Hinton had someone on his side who was not just competent, but deeply committed. Stevenson and his team at EJI spent the next 16 years fighting for him. Jackson: Sixteen years. Even with a great lawyer, it took that long. Olivia: Yes, the legal battle was a slow, agonizing grind. They hired three of the nation's top firearms experts—all of whom confirmed, independently, that the bullets did not match Hinton's mother's gun. The state's original evidence was junk science. But the Alabama courts refused to listen, again and again. They prioritized procedure and finality over actual innocence. Jackson: So the system was still fighting to protect its own mistake. Olivia: Viciously. It took until 2014 for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case. They ruled 9-0 that Hinton's original trial was a sham because of his incompetent lawyer. They sent the case back to Alabama, and finally, in 2015, with the evidence against him completely discredited, the state dropped all charges. After 28 years, he was free. Jackson: It's an amazing victory, but it's also a profound tragedy. He lost 30 years of his life. His mother passed away while he was inside. How does a person even begin to process that level of loss and anger? Olivia: That's the final, and perhaps most powerful, part of his story. He had to make another choice. He could live the rest of his life consumed by bitterness, or he could forgive. And he chose forgiveness. Jackson: He forgave the prosecutor? The lawyer? The people who stole his life? Olivia: All of them. He has this incredible quote in the book: "I’ve never had an apology, but I forgave those involved in my conviction long before I left prison. I didn’t forgive them so they can sleep well at night. I did it so I can." Jackson: Wow. So the legal justice took 30 years, but the personal justice, the forgiveness, was a choice he could make at any time. That's the real power here. He was free on the inside long before they unlocked the door. Olivia: Exactly. He escaped two prisons. The physical one built by the state of Alabama, and the emotional one built by hatred. And he escaped the second one all on his own.

Jackson: This story is just... it's overwhelming. So what's the one thing we should all take away from this? It's more than just a story about a broken system. Olivia: I think it's a story about radical agency. We all feel trapped sometimes—by our jobs, our circumstances, our own negative thoughts. Hinton's story shows us that even when every external choice is stripped away, when you are literally in a cage, you still possess the ultimate choice: to respond with love or with hate. He chose love, and in doing so, he found a way for the sun to shine even in the darkest place on Earth. Jackson: It redefines what it means to be free. Freedom isn't just about the absence of bars. It's an internal state of being. Olivia: Precisely. And Hinton doesn't just leave us with his story; he leaves us with a challenge. He ends his book with a call to action, referencing the way inmates would bang on the steel bars of their cells in protest when an execution was happening. He says, "The death penalty is broken, and you are either part of the Death Squad or you are banging on the bars. Choose." Jackson: That’s a powerful question for all of us. It forces you to take a side. Olivia: It does. And it's a question worth sitting with. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. What did this story bring up for you? Find us on our socials and let us know what you think. Jackson: This is Aibrary, signing off.