Bitterness kills the soul.
— Anthony Ray Hinton
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.
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.
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.
I was born with a mother who loved me unconditionally and with a sense of humor.
When it seems like the whole world thinks you're bad, it's hard to hang on to your goodness.
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.
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.
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?'
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.
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.
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.
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.
Everybody that played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God.
The State of Alabama let me down tremendously.
I hope that America will do away with the death penalty. I truly believe we are better than that.
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.
My only crime was being born black - or being born black in Alabama.
