Ray’s court-appointed lawyer, Sheldon Perhacs, grumbles that he is only being payed $1,000 for the case. While Ray protests his innocence, Lieutenant Acker openly says that it really doesn’t matter if Ray did or didn’t do it-one of his “brothers” did, and because Ray will have a white judge, jury, prosecutor, and defense attorney, he will likely be convicted. In 1985, there is a string of robberies and murders across the Birmingham, Alabama, area at various restaurants, and the police arrest Ray at his home in July for the crimes. He spends a brief time in prison, and afterwards, he resolves that he never wants to go back to jail. He keeps the car for two years before growing worried that the police might discover what he’s done, so he returns the car and turns himself into the police. He then goes to a dealership and steals a car, knowing that having a car is the only way that he can travel to a higher-paying job. The only way he tolerates the dark, suffocating space is by imagining that he is traveling across the country while he works.įrustrated with the harsh conditions of the mine, Ray decides to quit. After high school, he works in the coal mines in Praco, Alabama, which he hates.

He loves his mother more than anything and is very religious, going to church every Sunday. They are poor, but Ray has a happy childhood.

His father sustains a head injury in the coal mines when Ray is young, so Ray’s mom, Buhlar, raises him and his nine siblings alone. Ray flashes back to his late teen years, providing some background on his life. After Ray makes an impassioned speech explaining that they are convicting the wrong person, Judge Garrett sentences him to death. His defense attorney, Sheldon Perhacs, put in little effort for his case, and Ray knows that the white judge, jury, and attorneys are all biased against him because he is Black. Ray is on trial for two murders, and even though all of the evidence points away from Ray, he is going to be convicted. Author Anthony Ray Hinton opens his memoir at his sentencing on December 15, 1986, at the Jefferson County Courthouse in Alabama.

The sun does shine hinton