BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — A man who spent nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row has been freed following a decades-long fight to prove his innocence.
Fifty-eight-year-old Anthony Ray Hinton was released Friday morning from an Alabama prison. He hugged tearful family members and friends after walking out, with one woman repeatedly saying “Thank you Jesus.”
Hinton says he shouldn’t have had to sit on death row for nearly 30 years because “all they had to do was test the gun.”
Hinton was convicted of the 1985 murders of two Birmingham fast-food restaurant managers. Crime scene bullets were the only evidence linking Hinton to the slayings.
However, prosecutors said new testing failed to show any of the bullets came from a revolver found in Hinton’s home, or even the same gun.
