The Sun Does Shine

People sentenced to death row have the right to an appeal, but the state of Alabama doesn’t provide any information about the process. The state also makes it as difficult as possible for evidence to be revisited in appeals. In addition, in Alabama, judges are often elected based on how many people they send to death row. Over the first several weeks at Holman, Ray tries to contact Perhacs, particularly because he keeps reading about robberies in Birmingham that are similar to the incidents for which he was convicted.

Ray’s mom visits after his 90-day probation period is over. She tells him that God will fix what has happened, but Ray no longer believes in God. Ray’s mom also explains that she’s been sending letters to Perhacs, asking the lawyer to protect Ray. She shows Ray letters from Perhacs: he writes that he will do everything he can to protect Ray but the appeals process will probably take a few years.

At the time, Ray doesn’t know that his mom is also sending $25 with each letter, begging for Perhacs’ help. Ray wonders in retrospect if Perhacs laughed at those money orders—Perhacs doesn’t know what it means to be poor. After the first visit, Ray’s mom returns every week along with Lester, making a seven hour round-trip drive each Friday.

Ray is full of rage in the early months of his imprisonment, continuing to imagine how he would kill McGregor. He tries to figure out ways he might escape, and wonders if it would be better to be killed while trying to flee than in the electric chair. The only thing that stops Ray from doing this is that he still wants to prove his innocence. Still, he worries that he’s becoming a monster.

Every day, Ray eats breakfast at 3:00 a.m., lunch at 10:00 a.m., and dinner at 2:00 p.m. The food is terrible and every night he is hungry—not only physically hungry, but hungry for his dignity and freedom. He’s Anthony Ray Hinton, not inmate Z468. He worries that he’s not going to survive and becomes desperate to escape in some way.

Perhacs files a motion for a new trial, but the motion is denied on July 31, 1987—two years to the day after Ray was arrested. Ray finds out the next steps for his appeal process by listening to other inmates talk about their own appeals. They constantly talk about a man named Bryan Stevenson, who sends lawyers to help many of the inmates, but Ray largely ignores their discussion because he already has a lawyer.

The inmates shower every other day at random times. They have no privacy, with two guys showering at once and two guards watching. They have to shower in under two minutes—Ray feels like a farm animal being hosed off in a barn. And once a day, for 15 minutes, the inmates are allowed to walk around in the yard. Ray always takes this opportunity, especially because he is constantly looking for a way out. He notices rats and roaches crawling around and thinks that if they can get out, so can he.

Every night on death row, men scream and cry. Ray tries to block out the sound, but he has trouble sleeping. There are ghosts everywhere: both of people who died in the electric chair and people who chose to kill themselves. It is hard to hang yourself but easy to bash your head against the cement wall. Ray thinks that Holman is the real hell on earth.

In 1988, the Court of Criminal Appeals affirms Ray’s conviction, disagreeing with Perhacs’s assessment that the three cases shouldn’t have been combined, that Ray was unconnected to the first two murders, and that they should have been allowed to submit the polygraph test. Perhacs sends Ray a letter in April 1989, explaining that he’s appealing to the Alabama Supreme Court but that they will likely need a new ballistics expert. If that fails, they will take an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but Ray would need to find someone to finance that appeal.

Ray hopes that the Alabama Supreme Court will order a new trial, because he has no money for an appeal to U.S. Supreme Court. He’s also frustrated with Perhacs, annoyed that the appeal didn’t say anything about the fact that Ray is innocent. He’s desperate to find a way to escape, and he still isn’t ready to take his own life.