The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row by Anthony Ray Hinton

Author:Anthony Ray Hinton
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: memoirs
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2018-03-27T04:00:00+00:00

13

NO MONSTERS

Mr. Hinton was denied effective assistance of counsel at the guilt/innocence penalty and appellate phases of his case in violation of his rights under the laws and Constitution of Alabama and the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

—SANTHA SONENBERG, 1990 PETITION FOR RELIEF

Santha filed my petition the day before the deadline. In it, she listed thirty-one reasons why I should be granted a new trial—prosecutor misconduct and racial discrimination, ineffective assistance of counsel, and not being allowed to hire a real expert, to name just a few. I read the list over and over again, and I felt hope. I let some of the other guys read it. They passed it from cell to cell.

  1.  Newly discovered evidence.

  2.  Denied effective assistance of counsel at the guilt/innocence penalty and appellate phases of his case in violation of his rights under the laws and Constitution of Alabama and the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.

  3.  The trial court erroneously consolidated two separate capital indictments.

  4.  The trial court erroneously precluded Mr. Hinton from presenting evidence, at both the guilt/innocence and penalty phases of his trial, that he successfully passed a polygraph examination in which he denied involvement in the charged capital offenses.

  5.  Confiscation of records that supported Mr. Hinton’s alibi defense to the uncharged offense which was the State’s critical link between Mr. Hinton and the two charged capital offenses violated his rights and rendered the verdicts and sentences in these cases unconstitutional.

  6.  The trial court erroneously permitted introduction of Mr. Hinton’s oral statements to the police.

  7.  The publicity surrounding the charged and uncharged offenses made it impossible for Mr. Hinton to receive a fair trial in Jefferson County and thus his rights to a fair trial by an impartial jury under the Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution were violated.

  8.  The prosecutor’s misconduct and arguments at the guilt/innocence phase were improper and violated Mr. Hinton’s rights.

  9.  The failure to fully transcribe trial court proceedings deprived Mr. Hinton of full appeal and statutorily mandated review of his capital sentence and conviction.

10.  Mr. Hinton was deprived of a fair trial and a fair sentencing by the prosecutor’s use of peremptory challenges in a racially discriminatory manner.

11.  Mr. Hinton was deprived of an impartial jury through improper juror exclusion in violation of the Sixth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

12.  Mr. Hinton was deprived of an impartial jury through improper juror inclusion in violation of the Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.

13.  Mr. Hinton’s rights to a fair trial by an impartial jury were violated by the trial court’s restrictions on the voir dire examination of the prospective jurors and the trial court’s interference in the jury selection process.

14.  Mr. Hinton’s rights to a fair trial and a fair sentencing were abrogated by his convictions and death sentences being based upon insufficient and unreliable evidence of his guilt in the charged offenses.

15.  Mr. Hinton’s right to present a defense was abrogated by the court’s failure to grant trial counsel’s

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