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.
Anthony Ray Hinton
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.
Justice should be one of the things that's colorblind.
What kind of system do we have when innocent people can sit on death row for 30 years?
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 have too much to live for to allow a bunch of cowards to take my joy. I refuse to give them my joy.
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.
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.
Bitterness kills the soul.
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?'
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 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.
I was put on death row because of hate.
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.
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.
You get to know everyone on death row. You become friends with them and their families. I met some great guys. Everyone regrets what they did.
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.
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 believe in laughter. I believe laughter is good for the soul. I believe in making other people laugh to make them feel good.
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.
Death Row is the same every day - breakfast at 3 A.M., lunch at 10 A.M., dinner at 3 P.M.
I have a good sense of humour, and that's what kept me for the 30 years I was locked up.
A white man of authority don't ever want to admit to someone of colour they was wrong.
I hope that America will do away with the death penalty. I truly believe we are better than that.
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.
To stay sane, I lived in my head, where I could travel and imagine. In my mind, I played a championship game with the Knicks. I won Wimbledon five times. If the Yankees needed a home run, I came to bat.
Hatred is nothing but a form of cancer, and it will eat you up.
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.
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.
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.
Death row was the only place where I never witnessed racism. We all went to bed with a death sentence on our heads and woke up that way. We had to become each other's support system.
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.
When it seems like the whole world thinks you're bad, it's hard to hang on to your goodness.
America should be ashamed to say they have the best justice system in the world when, every day, race plays a part in who goes to prison, who don't go to prison.
When I went to prison, for three years I didn't say a word to another human being until, going into the fourth year, when I realized, 'You know what, I have to find a way to live.'
For 14 years, I could not find volunteer lawyers capable of providing the legal assistance I needed to prove my innocence.
I forgive because not to forgive would only hurt me.
I often say that if I had one wish in this world, I would wish that every child could have a mother the way my mother were. And I never went without clothes, I never went without food... I never went without anything that a child needs. But above all of that, she gave me unconditional love.
I was born with a mother who loved me unconditionally and with a sense of humor.
Being able to control your mind is a beautiful thing.
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 am a joyful person.
I spent 30 years on Alabama's death row for a crime I did not commit.
I'm really trying to bring an end to the death penalty because it means so much to me.
To me, America need to clean up their own home before they tell another country about human rights. I'm a primary example. America don't care nothing about human rights.
I've seen hate at its worse. What would it profit me to hate?
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.
When you have a death row case, you have to make 100 percent sure you have the right person. But these DAs in the state of Alabama are racist.
