A Talk with Anthony Ray Hinton on the 10th Anniversary of His Exoneration

Please join us for a talk by Anthony Ray Hinton, who was exonerated after 30 years on Alabama's death row in 2015, and is the author of the memoir The Sun Does Shine. We are privileged to have Mr. Hinton join us on April 3, 2025, which marks the 10th anniversary of his release. Mr. Hinton is currently the Community Educator at the Equal Justice Initiative, and he has served in that role since 2015, when he was exonerated by lawyer Bryan Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative.

In their efforts to exonerate Mr. Hinton, EJI attorneys engaged three of the nation’s top firearms examiners who testified in 2002 that the revolver that was found in Mr. Hinton's mother's home could not be matched to crime evidence. State prosecutors never questioned the new findings but nonetheless refused to re-examine the case or concede error.

After 12 more years of litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the lower courts, and a new trial was granted. The judge finally dismissed the charges after prosecutors said that scientists at the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences tested the evidence and confirmed that the crime bullets cannot be matched to the Hinton weapon.

In his memoir The Sun Does Shine, Mr. Hinton discusses his own case as well as the death penalty more broadly. Mr. Hinton will speak about the death penalty in the South, the efforts of EJI to end the death penalty, his own experiences, and the important work that the Equal Justice Initiative is engaged in today.

Mr. Hinton will be in conversation with Sia Sanneh (YLS '07) of EJI and Professor Stephen Bright.

Lunch will be provided. This event is sponsored by the Yale Defenders and the Capital Assistance Project.

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