Anthony Ray Hinton was convicted and sentenced to the most extreme penalty for a crime he did not do because of the color of his skin. He spent 30 years in prison until, with the help of Bryan Stevenson, was released. Finally free and back in the world, Anthony has a message to share with everyone.
Horrifying case of boy, 14, executed on death row for heinous crimes he didn’t commit
Page Description
Examine the critical issues and challenges facing ‘The Legal System at Stake,’ highlighting how systemic problems impact justice and legal integrity.
1 The Child in the Electric Chair
George Stinney Jr was so small and puny that executioners struggled to attach his young body to the electric chair.
He was convicted of murder in just 10 minutes, but it took 70 years to prove he was innocent.
As miscarriages of justice go, few cases are as harrowing as that of George Stinney Jr.
The African-American boy was 14-years-old when he was accused of murdering two white girls in 1944.
A jury took just 10 minutes to find him
guilty despite no evidence to link him to the crime.
Two months later he was killed on death row without a chance to say goodbye to his family.
Unconfirmed reports claimed guards had to use a bible or telephone directory as a booster seat because at just 5ft 1ins tall and weighing 6st 7lbs, he was too small for the adult-size seat.
His sisters, Katherine Robinson and Amie Ruffner, along with their brother Charles, spent the next 70 years fiercely fighting for justice and finally, in 2014, a judge overturned George’s murder conviction..
George Stinney’s case was just a show trial!
Are you still human when you inflict such an unbearable pain on an innocent child?
Is this still a society?
There was hardly a lawyer who did anything to help this child.
A prime example of a broken legal system.
Justice on the wrong side of the law!
The Wild West of the legal state.
It has nothing to do anymore with fairness, honesty or what really happened
The justice system itself is finally being questioned.
A blatantly wrong injustice system
George Stinney is not the only young boy innocent executed on the electric chair:
English
Dutch
English
Justice is not whiter than white
Deception arises from the way in which the justice system operates
Justice becomes a crowbar and is no longer a scale
An error in the justice system can make a mess of a person’s life
(cfr. the mind-boggling examples on this page)
Dutch
Justitie is niet witter dan wit
Misleiding ontstaat door de manier waarop het rechtssysteem werkt
Justitie wordt een breekijzer en is niet langer een weegschaal
Een fout justitie systeem kan van het leven van een mens een puinhoop maken
(cfr de duidelijke voorbeelden op deze pagina)
2 Anthony Ray Hinton: “I Spent 30 YEARS In Prison For A Crime I DIDN’T COMMIT!”
You can’t imagine what innocent people went through when justice doesn’t work
4 – 28 years on death row for a crime he didn’t commit
24 apr 2019
Anthony Ray Hinton shares his journey to forgiveness after being falsely convicted and sentenced to death for crimes he didn’t commit.
Mr Hinton spent 28 years in an Alabama jail after wrongly being convicted over the murders of two people in 1985.
Justice was finally delivered in 2015 – when the US Supreme Court overturned his conviction on appeal, and since then Mr Hinton has written his memoir – “The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life on Death Row, published by Rider Books.
“I Spent 30 YEARS In Prison For A Crime I DIDN’T COMMIT!” | Anthony Ray Hinton
22 nov. 2020
Anthony Ray Hinton spent 30 years in prison, convicted of crimes he did not commit. Racism and a justice system stacked against the poor were the driving forces behind his wrongful conviction. During his time in prison, he formed an unexpeted bond with a fellow inmate and former white extremists. This is his incredible story.
5 Oprah and Anthony Ray Hinton on death row, first night of freedom
5 jun. 2018
Delivered by Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King, “CBS This Morning” offers a thoughtful, substantive and insightful source of news and information to a daily audience of 3 million viewers. The Emmy Award-winning broadcast presents a mix of daily news, coverage of developing stories of national and global significance, and interviews with leading figures in politics, business and entertainment. Check local listings for “CBS This Morning” broadcast times.
6 Oprah Winfrey and Anthony Ray Hinton reveal next book club pick
3 Bryan Stevenson beats the drum for justice
The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
One out of three black men aged 18 to 30 is in prison, on probation or parole.
The US is the only country in the world that has life imprisonment without parole for minors.
For every nine people who have been executed, one is later found to be innocent.
“If somebody tells a lie, they’re not just a liar.
If somebody takes something, they’re not just a thief.
And even if you kill somebody, you’re not just a killer.”
7 ‘Just Mercy’ and the real-life story of the attorney who exonerated death row inmates l Nightline
8 Memorial to 107,000 Slaves – Whitney Plantation on American Artifacts
To beat the drum for someone or something bang the drum for
If someone beats the drum or bangs the drum for something, they support it strongly.
The trade secretary disagreed but promised to ‘bang the drum for industry’.
Collins Dictionary
4 A perversion of justice
If someone perverts the course of justice, they deliberately do something that will make it difficult to discover who really committed a particular crime, for example, destroying evidence or lying to the police. [law]
Collins Cobuild Dictionary: To pervert the course of justice
9 Anthony Hinton Discusses His Exoneration
11 jun. 2015
Ricky Jackson, along with two other men, was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1975 in Cleveland, Ohio. Jackson was 18 years old at the time.
The case relied heavily on the testimony of a 12-year-old boy who claimed to have witnessed the murder. However, it was later discovered that the boy had been coerced by police into giving false testimony.
In 2014, the case was reopened after the witness recanted his testimony and admitted that he had lied. This led to the release of Jackson and the other two men, who had collectively spent 106 years in prison.
Jackson was exonerated in 2014 after spending 39 years in prison, making him one of the longest-serving prisoners to be exonerated in U.S. history.
The case received widespread attention and was seen as an example of the flaws in the U.S. criminal justice system, particularly with regards to wrongful convictions and coerced confessions.
After his release, Jackson became an advocate for criminal justice reform and worked to raise awareness about the issue of wrongful convictions.
In 2015, Jackson was awarded a $1 million settlement from the city of Cleveland for his wrongful conviction and imprisonment.
English
Dutch
English
Justice is no small matter
It is not a toy
It is not a Candid camera
Justice can be fooled
Sometimes the judiciary behaves like a loose entity
People who have done nothing wrong get into trouble
their lives are disrupted
Dutch
Justitie is geen kleinigheid
Het is geen speeltuigje
Het is geen Candid camera
Justitie kan voor de gek worden gehouden
Soms gedraagt justitie zich als een losgeslagen entiteit, een wildebras
Mensen die niets misdaan hebben komen in moeilijkheden
hun leven wordt ontwricht
It is ‘a contradiction in terms’
that justice either on the basis of sheer incompetence
(as prosecutor Jerry Hayes in the Liam Allan case puts it)or in an organised manner and with outrageous sneaky practices
gets those who have done nothing wrong into trouble.
Justice opens the gates of hell with baseless claims:
‘Ricky Jakson’ was innocent in prison for 39 years, on the basis of a child
who was blackmailed into giving false testimony.
This is horrible, Inconceivable, Inconprehensible, Unthinkable
In other words: what not can happen becomes reality
Such a thing no longer has anything in common with justice,
it is a form of Modern Day Slavery:
the deliberate exploitation of people who have done nothing wrong.
The dark side of justice.
The cracks in a broken justice system
Highlighted extreme examples show what can happen to yourself in simple issues
if justice is handled in the wrong way and degrades to a plaything.
Justice becomes unworkable and useless.
Definition of ‘pervert justice’
To try to stop the police from learning the facts about a criminal case
She was convicted of perverting justice for lying to the police.
Merriam Webster
Pervert the course of justice law
To act illegally to avoid punishment or to get the wrong person punished
The two police officers were charged with perverting the course of justice by fabricating evidence in the trial.
Cambridge Dictionary
Idioms
Pervert the course of justice
(British English)
(North American English obstruct justice)
(law) to tell a lie or to do something in order to prevent the police, etc. from finding out the truth about a crime
pervert somebody/something to affect somebody in a way that makes them act or think in an unacceptable or immoral way
SYNONYM corrupt
Some people believe that television can pervert the minds of children.
Oxford Dictionary
OVERVIEW
perverting the course of justice
QUICK REFERENCE
Carrying out an act that tends or is intended to obstruct or defeat the administration of public justice. Common examples are inventing false evidence to mislead a court (in either civil or criminal proceedings) or an arbitration tribunal, making false statements to the police, stealing or destroying evidence, threatening witnesses, and attempting to influence jurors. The maximum penalty is life imprisonment and/or a fine. The common-law offence of perverting the course of justice overlaps with certain forms of contempt of court and with the separate offence of tampering with witnesses. It is not an offence, however, to offer money to someone to persuade him not to proceed with an action in the civil courts; nor is it an offence to offer to pay reasonable compensation to the victim of a crime, if he will agree not to take criminal proceedings (Criminal Law Act 1967 s 5(1). However, once he has made a statement to the police in connection with possible proceedings, it is an offence to attempt to induce him to withdraw or alter his statement.
Oxford Dictionary
“Law applied to its extreme is the greatest injustice.”
Cicero – A Roman stesman, 106 BC – 43 BC
Notice:
Two webpages are enough to understand
the scope of the website:
‘Preface’ and ‘An Undying Mystery’
To summarise
The website is about a flaw in a fragile justice system that causes ordinary people who do not belong there, to get stuck in it. Even young children!
It deals with simple very clear black and white issues where the justice system is failing.
It is not about judging criminals but rather about everyday ordinary people who, because of a flaw in the system, end up in a dud street with a dramatic outcome.
Ricky Jakson, Anthony Ray Hinton, mentioned above 39 and 30 years innocent behind bars and so on.
The glow of life of a 19-year-old university student Liam Allan suddenly accused of rape: ‘I’ve spent two years living in fear’
It is beyond belief that such a thing can happen.
12 Man Gets Electrocuted and Falls into a Dumpster
5 dec. 2018
Welcome to the world-famous Just for Laughs Gags channel, where we pull public pranks on unsuspecting Montreal residents and tourists