MONTGOMERY, Ala. — In his first day free, after nearly 30 years on Alabama’s death row, Ray Hinton said he kept asking a question to his childhood friend.
“You just got to tell me we can stay out tonight that we don’t have to go in after an hour,” Hinton said, referring to the hour limit that inmates got on yard time.
Hinton spent 28 years on death row for two 1985 murders that occurred during separate robberies of fast-food restaurants in Birmingham. He was set free on April 3 after new ballistics tests contradicted the only evidence — an analysis of crime-scene bullets — used to convict him decades ago.
In his first days off death row, Hinton said he sometimes enjoys just driving, relishing the freedom to simply move about as he wants. He says he’s not angry, crediting God for suppressing the hatred that otherwise could devour him “like a form of cancer.”
“I have too much to live for to allow a bunch of cowards to take my joy. I refuse to give them my joy,” Hinton said.