Star Tribune
Anthony Ray Hinton, who was wrongly convicted and then freed from death row, shares his story
It has happened to others, what happened to Anthony Ray Hinton, the author of “The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life And Freedom on Death Row.”
He was 29 and innocent when he was arrested and charged with capital murder after a string of fatal armed robberies in 1985 in Birmingham, Ala. As he was being sentenced to death, he only thought of one person.
“I dropped my head,” Hinton writes toward the beginning of the book. “Judge Garrett banged his gavel, and my attorney said some things about an appeal, but my stomach was in my throat and there was a buzzing in my ears like a swarm of bees had been let loose in the courtroom. I thought I heard my mom crying as if in pain, and I looked back to see Dollie and Rosemary circled around her. The bailiffs were leading me toward the door that led out the back of the courtroom, but I turned and started to walk toward my mom. One of the bailiffs grabbed my arm below the shoulder, and I could feel each of his fingers digging in hard. There was no going to her. There was no way for me to comfort her. They would kill me if they could. I couldn’t let them. I needed to get back to my mom, and she needed to get me back.”
Hinton was freed in 2015 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his conviction, and his story was referenced in the 2019 movie “Just Mercy.”
His book has been selected for the sixth season of the Mary Ann Key Book Club, named after my great-great-great-grandmother, who was enslaved in Alabama and Georgia in the 1840s and 1850s. Our partnership with Hennepin County Library, Friends of Hennepin County Library and the Star Tribune continues three years after it began with one specific goal: Use education as a foundation for dialogue about the challenges marginalized communities endure and the solutions those obstacles demand.
We’re looking forward to seeing you at our author event with Hinton at 6:30 p.m. April 25 at Minneapolis Central Library and then at our panel discussion with formerly incarcerated Minnesotans on May 16, also at 6:30 p.m.
Our incarcerated population is often the most silenced community. A conviction is generally viewed as a guarantee of guilt, regardless of evidence that might suggest otherwise. And even for those who’ve been exonerated, such as Hinton, the stigma often follows them the rest of their lives.
Our goal with this book and the accompanying dialogue is to highlight the experiences within Minnesota’s prison system and the men and women who have been affected by it.
Hinton’s story is familiar. A few weeks ago, I wrote about the exoneration of Marvin Haynes, who had been convicted in the 2005 murder of an employee at a Minneapolis flower shop. A physical description by an eyewitness did not match Haynes, whose family members had said he was at home when the murder occurred. He is free now, and I have since received letters and emails from people in Minnesota prisons who say they are also innocent.
According to the National Registry of Exonerations, exonerated defendants — to date — have collectively served more than 25,000 years for crimes they did not commit. With limited resources available to a significant portion of the prison population, it’s unknown how many innocent inmates died long before they had the opportunity to fight their convictions.
But conversations about mass incarceration should not only involve those who deserve to be freed. The effectiveness of the American prison system is also worth discussing, along with the treatment of those who are incarcerated.
In September, inmates at the state prison in Stillwater protested the conditions there, citing concerns about overheated rooms and unhealthy water. The prison population is often the most vulnerable. In 2020, the mortality rate in U.S. jails and prisons increased by 77% compared with 2019 as COVID-19 rates increased, according to a study by Science Advances.
Facing death, Hinton endured every challenge, knowing he was innocent of the crime that cost him nearly 30 years of his life. I think he had every right to feel embittered and angry, long after his exoneration.
Instead, he decided “the sun does shine” through the darkness. I’m not convinced, under the same circumstances, that I would have found that light. But he did. And his story changed his life and the lives of inmates he helped throughout his time in prison.
“I look for purpose in losing 30 years of my life,” he says toward the end of the book. “I try to make meaning out of something so wrong and so senseless. We all do. We have to find ways to recover after bad things happen. We have to make every ending be a happy ending.”
Myron Medcalf is a local columnist for the Star Tribune and recipient of the 2022 Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award for general column writing.
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
