Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 10 of 17

Thread: Anthony Ray Hinton - Alabama

  1. #1
    Guest
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,534

    Anthony Ray Hinton - Alabama




    Facts of the Crime:

    Sentenced to death in 1986 for the 1985 robbery-murders of two Birmingham restaurant assistant managers, John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason.

  2. #2
    Guest
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    5,534
    October 17, 2008

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) - The Alabama Supreme Court has ruled that a judge must take another look at a capital murder case that has become a rallying point for death penalty opponents.

    The court issued an 8-0 decision Friday saying a Jefferson County judge must review Anthony Ray Hinton’s claim that he did not have an effective attorney at trial because the lawyer did not hire a qualified firearms expert.

    Hinton was sentenced to die for the shooting deaths of John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason during robberies at fast-food restaurants in Birmingham in 1985.

    Hinton was arrested after a third robbery and nonfatal shooting. The prosecution had a forensic expert tie the gun in that case to the two fatal robberies.

    Death penalty opponents have cited Hinton as someone who lacked money to put up an adequate defense.

    (Source NBC13.com)

  3. #3
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    MONTGOMERY, Ala. - Appellate courts have upheld the death sentences given to four Alabama death row inmates.

    The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the capital murder conviction and death sentences of 55-year-old Anthony Ray Hinton, convicted of killing two Birmingham convenience store clerks.

    http://www.dailycomet.com/article/20...er-convictions

  4. #4
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    The Alabama Supreme Court has asked the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals to take another look at the case of death row inmate Anthony Ray Hinton, convicted of killing two people during 1985 robberies at Birmingham fast food restaurants.

    The 56-year-old Hinton had questioned the qualifications of a firearms expert who testified during the trial. The Supreme Court asked the appeals court to use a different standard when reviewing the trial judge's decision that the firearms expert was qualified.

    The court ruled 7-0 to send the case back to the Court of Criminal Appeals. Justices Jim Main and Kelli Wise recused themselves because they were former criminal appeals court members. Justice Greg Shaw wrote he also was on the appeals court, but he said the issue was different then.

    http://www2.wrbl.com/news/2012/nov/0...ed-ar-4933870/
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  5. #5
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217

    Alabama appeals court upholds death penalty cases from Jefferson, Colbert counties

    The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld two capital murder cases from Jefferson and Colbert counties.

    In a ruling Friday, the court rejected for the second time an argument by Anthony Ray Hinton that his trial attorney was ineffective for not hiring a qualified firearms identification expert. Hinton was sentenced to death for the fatal shootings of John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason during fast-food restaurant robberies in Birmingham in 1985.

    In another ruling Friday, the appeals court agreed that a judge had sufficient reasons to sentence Anthony Lee Stanley to death despite a jury recommending life in prison without parole. It marked the third time the court reviewed the case. Stanley was convicted of the beating death of Henry Earl Smith during a 2005 robbery in Colbert County.

    http://www.therepublic.com/view/stor...-Death-Penalty
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  6. #6
    Moderator MRBAM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2011
    Location
    Capital Region NY
    Posts
    865
    US Supreme Court rules that defendant did not receive adequate representation. Orders hearing to determine if a new trial is required.

    SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
    ANTHONY RAY HINTON v. ALABAMA
    ON PETITION FOR WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE
    COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALS OF ALABAMA
    No. 13–6440 Decided February 24, 2014

    PER CURIAM.
    In Strickland v. Washington, 466 U. S. 668 (1984), we held that a criminal defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel is violated if his trial attorney’s performance falls below an objective standard of reasonableness and if there is a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different absent the deficient act or omission. Id., at 687–688, 694. Anthony Ray Hinton, an inmate on Alabama’s death row, asks us to decide whether the Alabama courts correctly applied Strickland to his case. We conclude that they did not and hold that Hinton’s trial attorney rendered constitutionally deficient performance. We vacate the lower court’s judgment and remand the case for reconsideration of whether the attorney’s deficient performance was prejudicial.

    Full case ruling: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions...-6440_5367.pdf

  7. #7
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Germany
    Posts
    13,014
    Justices Give Death-Row Inmate a Shot at Relief

    By BARBARA LEONARD

    WASHINGTON (CN) - A man sentenced to death for a trio of robbery-shootings may be able to show that his attorney's deficiencies prejudiced him, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

    Two Alabama restaurant managers were murdered during robberies in 1985, and a third manager who survived picked a photo of Anthony Hinton as the assailant.

    Police recovered two .38 caliber bullets at each scene, and they recovered a .38 caliber revolver at Hinton's house when they arrested him. The revolver belonged to Hinton's mother who lived with him. Investigators concluded that the revolver had fired all six bullets.

    Hinton was charged with two counts of capital murder for the first two robberies, but charged with regard to the robbery where the manager survived. The defense alleged that the manager who survived, identified in the ruling only as Smotherman, must have misidentified Hinton since he had an alibi of being at work during the third robbery.

    Hinton's attorney needed to rebut expert testimony matching the crime-scene bullets to Hinton's gun, but he did not take the court up an offer for funding beyond the initially granted allotment of $500 per case.

    "In fact, $500 per case ($1,000 total) was not the statu*tory maximum at the time of Hinton's trial," the unsigned opinion states (emphasis in original). "An earlier version of the statute had limited state reimbursement of expenses to one half of the $1,000 statutory cap on attor*ney's fees, which explains why the judge believed that Hinton was entitled to up to $500 for each of the two murder charges. But the relevant statute had been amended to provide: '"Counsel shall also be entitled to be reimbursed for any expenses reasonably incurred in such defense to be approved in advance by the trial court."' That amendment went into effect on June 13, 1984, which was over a year before Hinton was arrested, so Hinton's trial attorney could have corrected the trial judge's mistaken belief that a $1,000 limit applied and accepted his invitation to file a motion for additional funds.

    "The attorney failed to do so because he was himself unaware that Alabama law no longer imposed a specific limit and instead allowed reimbursement for 'any expenses reasonably incurred.'

    Hinton's trial attorney later testified that he failed to find a well-regarded expert willing to work for the price he was willing to pay. The only willing expert was not recommended by other lawyers in town, the attorney said.

    Prosecutors "badly discredited" Hinton's expert on cross-examination, according to the ruling.

    After his conviction, Hinton had claimed that his attorney was ineffective in failing to seek additional funds when the $1,000 allotted by the court proved insufficient to retain a qualified expert.

    Eventually the Alabama Supreme Court said that the circuit court needed to determine whether Hinton's expert was qualified to testify.

    The circuit concluded that the expert was indeed qualified, and Hinton's subsequent appeals failed until the U.S. Supreme Court summarily vacated the underlying judgment Monday with orders to reconsider "whether the attorney's deficient performance was prejudicial."

    At issue is the 1984 ruling Strickland v. Washington, which holds that "a criminal defendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel is violated if his trial attorney's performance falls below an objective standard of reasonableness and if there is a reasonable probability that the result of the trial would have been different absent the deficient act or omission," according to the ruling,

    In this case, the lower courts misapplied Strickland, the justices found.

    "Hinton's attorney knew that he needed more funding to present an effective defense, yet he failed to make even the cursory investigation of the state statute providing for defense funding for indigent defendants that would have revealed to him that he could receive reim*bursement not just for $1,000 but for 'any expenses rea*sonably incurred,'" the opinion states. "An attorney's ignorance of a point of law that is fundamental to his case combined with his failure to perform basic research on that point is a quin*tessential example of unreasonable performance under Strickland."

    The justices emphasized the limited nature of their findings.

    "The only inadequate assistance of counsel here was the inexcusable mistake of law - the unreasonable failure to understand the resources that state law made available to him - that caused counsel to employ an expert that he himself deemed inadequate," they wrote (emphasis in original).

    Hinton must show on remand that the deficient performance of his attorney prejudiced the outcome of his trial.

    http://www.courthousenews.com/2014/02/24/65586.htm

  8. #8
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Would a better gun expert have kept man off Alabama's death row? Judge to decide

    BIRMINGHAM, Alabama – An Alabama Death Row inmate's quest for a new trial in the 1985 deaths of two Birmingham area fast-food restaurant managers could be another step closer after a ruling Friday by the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.

    The appeals court ordered that a Jefferson County Circuit Court take another look at whether the lawyer for Anthony Ray Hinton should have hired a better firearms expert for his trial.

    The appeals court said the circuit court should make a written ruling on whether there is a reasonable probability that had Hinton's trial lawyer known that the statutory-funding limit for paying experts had been lifted the lawyer would have hired a firearms expert other than the one who testified for the defense.

    Also, the appeals court ruled, if Hinton's lawyer had hired another expert would it have "instilled in the jury a reasonable doubt as to Hinton's guilt. The appeals court stated that the circuit court In Jefferson County could conduct further hearings and accept additional evidence to make the determination.

    The appeals court ordered that a decision be made within 180 days. The Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative has taken on Hinton's case. The Hinton case became an issue in the debate over capital punishment.

    Hinton was convicted of killing two fast-food restaurant managers and wounding a third during three robberies in 1985. In a unanimous ruling, the state Supreme Court ordered the Jefferson County trial court to determine whether Hinton had inadequate counsel because of questions surrounding the qualifications of a forensics expert who testified for the defense.

    Hinton was convicted largely on the strength of the eyewitness testimony of the surviving restaurant manager and expert testimony that bullets recovered from all three crime scenes had been fired by a pistol police found in Hinton's home.

    A man hired by Hinton's trial attorney to counter state forensics experts testified the bullets could not be matched to the gun, but was discredited by the prosecution.

    Hinton was convicted and sentenced to death for the Feb. 25, 1985 shooting death of John Davidson, an assistant manager at a Southside Mrs. Winner's, was forced into the restaurant's cooler and shot twice in the head. The store was robbed of $2,100. He also was convicted in the July 2, 1985 death of 25-year-old Thomas Vason, an assistant manager at a Captain D's in Woodlawn, was forced into a cooler and shot twice in the head. That restaurant was robbed of $650.

    Hinton also was charged related to the July 26, 1985 shooting of Quincy's night manager Sid Smotherman Jr., who was shot in the head and hand in a robbery at the Bessemer restaurant. Smotherman survived and testified at Hinton's trial that he was driving home after work when Hinton bumped his car, and when he got out to check for damage Hinton forced him at gunpoint to drive back to the restaurant.

    The issue over whether the defense gun expert was qualified to testify in Hinton's case has been going for more than six years and made it to the U.S. Supreme Court.

    On Feb. 24 the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari review and vacated this the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeal's judgment affirming the circuit court's denial of Hinton's claim that his trial counsel had been ineffective for not hiring a qualified firearms-identification expert for his defense.

    The U.S. Supreme Court had held that the defense lawyer's "failure to request additional funding in order to replace an expert he knew to be inadequate because he mistakenly believed that he had received all [the funds] he could get under Alabama law constituted deficient performance."

    http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/in...pert_kept.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

  9. #9
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    20,875
    Man being removed from Alabama Death Row for retrial in 1985 slayings of Birmingham fast food managers

    After spending nearly 30 years awaiting execution for the deaths of two Birmingham area fast-food restaurant managers, Anthony Ray Hinton will be removed from Alabama Death Row in the next few weeks to await a new trial in the slayings.

    Meanwhile, prosecutors are trying to track down witnesses from the first trial and searching to see what physical evidence may still be available to decide how, or even if, they have enough to prosecute Hinton again.

    Jefferson County Circuit Judge Laura Petro on Wednesday ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections to bring Hinton from death row at Holman Prison to the county jail to await a new trial in the 1985 slayings. The judge in October had overturned Hinton's conviction and ordered he be retried in the wake of rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court and Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals.

    Hinton, 58, is to be returned to Jefferson County in time for a Feb. 18 hearing, Petro stated in her order.

    Jefferson County District Attorney Brandon Falls said that he expects Petro will set a trial date at that hearing.

    Petro on Dec. 11 had issued an order allowing both prosecutors and the defense access to physical evidence in the circuit clerk's office.

    The passage of nearly three decades, however, will make it tough for prosecutors to retry the case, Falls said.

    "Obviously it's difficult to try a case after 30 years," Falls said. "That's why we're in the process of determining where all the physical evidence is now, what witnesses are available to testify and (gather) any evidence the defense has complied over the years through their investigations."

    Some witnesses may no longer be alive, Falls said.

    Many of the death penalty cases where convictions were set aside and the inmate was ultimately freed was because the prosecution was unable to put a case back together years later, Falls said. "It is often claimed that the person was exonerated when in fact the simple passage of so much time prevented anyone from re- prosecuting the case," he said.

    Chief Deputy District Attorney John Bowers and Deputy District Attorney Mike Anderton are now assigned to the case, Falls said.

    Efforts to reach Hinton's attorney, Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, were unsuccessful. The EJI maintains Hinton is inncocent.

    Petro in October had ordered Hinton's conviction set aside and for him to be retried. She issued the order after rulings earlier in 2014 from the U.S. Supreme Court and Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals that she should look at whether the lawyer for Anthony Ray Hinton should have hired a better firearms expert for his trial.

    Hinton was convicted of killing two fast-food restaurant managers and wounding a third during three robberies in 1985.

    Hinton was convicted largely on the strength of the eyewitness testimony of the surviving restaurant manager and expert testimony from prosecution witnesses that bullets recovered from all three crime scenes had been fired by a pistol police found in his home.

    A man hired by Hinton's trial attorney to counter state forensics experts testified the bullets could not be matched to the gun, but in stinging cross examination was discredited by the prosecution over his qualifications and findings.

    Hinton's court appointed defense attorney had contended that he tried to find a better firearms expert cut could not find one with the limited funds he had. But the appeals courts ruled that the defense attorney did not know that the spending limits for such experts had been lifted and he could have hired a better one.

    Hinton was convicted and sentenced to death for the Feb. 25, 1985 shooting death of John Davidson, an assistant manager at a Southside Mrs. Winner's, was forced into the restaurant's cooler and shot twice in the head. The store was robbed of $2,100.

    He also was convicted in the July 2, 1985 death of 25-year-old Thomas Vason, an assistant manager at a Captain D's in Woodlawn, was forced into a cooler and shot twice in the head. That restaurant was robbed of $650.

    Hinton also was charged related to the July 26, 1985 shooting of Quincy's night manager Sid Smotherman Jr., who was shot in the head and hand in a robbery at the Bessemer restaurant. Smotherman survived and testified at Hinton's trial that he was driving home after work when Hinton bumped his car, and when he got out to check for damage Hinton forced him at gunpoint to drive back to the restaurant.

    The issue over whether the defense gun expert was qualified to testify in Hinton's case has been going for more than six years.

    As of today Hinton has been on death row 29 years, four months and 28 days. He also spent another 485 days in the county jail.

    http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/in...l#incart_river
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  10. #10
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    33,217
    Death Row inmate gets retrial, and now prosecution can't find the murder weapon

    Prosecutors can't find a revolver and six bullets that were the key evidence in putting Anthony Ray Hinton on Alabama Death Row 29 years ago for the murders of two Birmingham fast food restaurant managers.

    Finding the gun and bullets recently became a high priority after Hinton was granted a new trial because his attorneys with the Equal Justice Initiative successfully argued his original lawyer could have hired a better gun expert at his first trial.

    Prosecutors say in court documents that a testing lab Hinton's defense appellate attorneys used in 1994 was the last documented place the gun and bullets were located. Hinton's attorneys, however in another court filing, say the gun and bullets were returned at a court hearing in 2002.

    The issue of where the gun and bullets are located will likely be a topic of discussion at a Wednesday hearing before Jefferson County Circuit Judge Laura Petro. A date has not been set for Hinton's second trial.

    Prosecutors, in a motion filed Friday, say the last recorded location of the gun and bullets was the SouthWest Institute of Forensic Sciences, a lab in Dallas, Texas, used by Hinton's appellate defense attorneys. A receipt shows United Parcel Service delivered the gun and bullets from the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences to the lab on Nov. 3, 1994, according to the motion.

    Jefferson County Chief Deputy District Attorney John R. Bowers Jr. and Deputy District Attorney Mike Anderton ask in Friday's motion for Judge Petro to order defense attorneys to return all evidence, including the gun and bullets, to prosecutors.

    Bowers and Anderton also ask that defense attorneys be ordered to provide to prosecutors all reports, notes and memorandum from the independent tests on the bullets conducted by defense experts, "If the defendant's experts are unable to produce these items of evidence, the state (prosecutors) would request that any receipts in possession of the defendant, or their experts, be provided to the state (prosecutors) in order to show when and to whom they returned the evidence at the conclusion of their analysis," according to prosecutors' motion.

    If Hinton's attorneys can't produce the gun or bullets, or any receipts to account for their whereabouts, prosecutors ask that Petro require Hinton's experts "account for any missing physical evidence."

    Hinton's attorney, Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Montgomery-based Equal Justice Initiative, responded in a court filing Monday that the gun and bullets were returned to the court after a June 17, 2002, hearing before retired Circuit Judge James Garrett.

    At that hearing a firearm and toolmark expert hired by the defense, testified he had the pistol and fired projectiles with him at that hearing, though they were not used as evidence in that hearing, according to the motion by Hinton's attorney.

    "After being introduced, the gun and bullets were physically inspected in open court by the court, counsel for the state (prosecutors), and the state's examiner," according to Stevenson's response.

    "The record makes clear the evidence was returned to the custody of the clerk's office on June 17, 2002, and there is no basis whatsoever in the record or the law for the suggestion that the defendant or his experts are responsible for the safekeeping of evidence once it is admitted into the record and remanded to the custody of the Clerk," Stevenson's motion states.

    Prosecutors contend that a photograph of the revolver, not the gun itself, was used at the hearing. But Stevenson writes in his response that's not true.

    "There is no photograph of the revolver in this case, and the record is clear that State's Exhibit 79 (referred to in the 2002 hearing) is the revolver itself," Stevenson states in his response.

    "The State's apparent inability to locate this evidence must be charged against the State, not Mr. Hinton, who must be presumed innocent. Mr. Hinton has maintained his innocence for more than 28 years," Stevenson states in his response.

    Bowers said the defense, however, has not produced any kind of receipt stating that in 2002 it handed the evidence back to the court, which is normally done to prove chain of custody. He said the lab looked and they don't have the gun or a receipt, he said.

    Prosecutors also have yet to find the gun in a search of the circuit clerk's office.

    It's important for both prosecutors and the defense to get the gun and bullets so they can be tested using technology not available decades ago, Bowers said.

    Without the gun or bullets the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office would still seek to re-try Hinton using previous tests, Bowers said.

    Efforts to reach Stevenson for comment Monday were unsuccessful.

    The defense's original expert had testified that the revolver found in Hinton's home did not match the bullets from the three scenes. Prosecution experts testified they did match. Prosecutors also discredited the defense expert's qualifications in a cross examination.

    Judge Petro in October had ordered Hinton's conviction set aside and for him to be retried. She issued the order after rulings earlier in 2014 from the U.S. Supreme Court and Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals that she should look at whether the lawyer for Hinton should have hired a better firearms expert.

    Hinton was convicted and sentenced to death for the Feb. 25, 1985 shooting death of John Davidson, an assistant manager at a Southside Mrs. Winner's, was forced into the restaurant's cooler and shot twice in the head. The store was robbed of $2,100. He also was convicted in the July 2, 1985 death of 25-year-old Thomas Vason, an assistant manager at a Captain D's in Woodlawn, was forced into a cooler and shot twice in the head. That restaurant was robbed of $650.

    Hinton also was charged related to the July 26, 1985 shooting of Quincy's night manager Sid Smotherman Jr., who was shot in the head and hand in a robbery at the Bessemer restaurant. (The charge related to that robbery was later dropped.)

    Smotherman survived and testified at Hinton's trial that he was driving home after work when Hinton bumped his car, and when he got out to check for damage Hinton forced him at gunpoint to drive back to the restaurant.

    Hinton was convicted largely on the strength of the eyewitness testimony of the surviving restaurant manager and expert testimony from prosecution witnesses that bullets recovered from all three crime scenes had been fired by a pistol police found in his home.

    The EJI says that Smotherman misidentified Hinton. EJI also has stated that at the time of the third shooting, Hinton was working in a locked warehouse 15 miles from the crime scene and his supervisor and co-workers confirmed his innocence.

    EJI, which took over the case in 1999, states on its website that the defense's new firearms experts refuted the prosecutor's expert and stated that the recovered bullets could not have come from the revolver.

    Hinton's court appointed defense attorney for the first trial had contended he tried to find a better firearms expert but could not find one with the limited funds he had. But the appeals courts ruled that the defense attorney did not know that the spending limits for such experts had been lifted and he could have hired a better one.

    http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/in...mate_gets.html
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

    "Y'all be makin shit up" ~ Markeith Loyd

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •