The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row

“When I crossed home plate, I looked over to see the pitcher throw his glove in the dirt, and, for some reason, this made me smile more than the home run or the cheering crowd chanting for me. They can beat you, but they can’t break you. I guess his mama hadn’t taught him the same things my mama did.” 

This passage presages Hinton’s attitude once he found himself on death row. He has just hit a home run and is pleased to hear the cheers. He is even more pleased to see that the pitcher threw a tantrum upon defeat. Hinton reaffirms what his mother has taught him. While this pitcher was beaten, he is also displaying brokenness. Later, Hinton will be beaten—but not broken—by the criminal justice system; as his mother taught him, he will concede defeat, but will not surrender to circumstances. 

“My face was in all the local newspapers. People wanted to string me up. Shoot me outright and save the taxpayers some money.” 

The media, Hinton notes, is looking for a juicy story. Amazed and sickened by the attention, he is especially disturbed to note his case has been presented to the media before he has even been in a courtroom or assigned a lawyer. For now, the media is against him. Eventually, the media, reporting on Hinton’s eventual exoneration, will congratulate him—and themselves. Throughout, it seems that his case—and his life—has become mere fodder for press. 

“It was like the death penalty was a contagious disease and everyone thought they could catch it from me.” 

Increasingly aware of the ridiculousness of his sentencing, Hinton notes that others around him do, in fact, believe he is a murderer. He is also becoming resigned to being avoided. His situation leads to more isolation—both physical and emotional. He implies that had he been actually guilty, he could have parlayed his supposed violence in order to gain some credibility as an inmate. He never relies on this tactic. 

“All day long I heard the name Bryan Stevenson, but I didn’t care about Bryan Stevenson […] I didn’t believe in God, and I didn’t believe in Santa Claus.” 

Hinton keeps hearing the desperate hopes and pleas of his fellow inmates. He can’t abide their foolishness. They seem to believe, at this point, that Stevenson is some kind of God—or perhaps a mythical figure like Santa. Hinton has lost faith in everyone and everything. At this point in the narrative, he has not spoken to anyone—paranoid that anything he says will worsen his situation. Finally, he will be forced to accept the truth that Stevenson is not only real, but a defender of justice, and a friend.  

“Freedom was a ghost that haunted us all on the row, but most of all we were haunted by a past we could not go back and change.” 

Hinton has accepted himself as a group of others, although he’d rather be alone. None of them can escape their current circumstances, nor are they free to undo the past. The past, in fact, would serve to haunt all those inmates—even those who were innocent.  

“Hope was a choice. Faith was a choice. And more than anything else, love was a choice. Compassion was a choice.” 

Hinton makes these comments after considering how he previously chose despair and hatred. These choices, however, are all abstractions. Choosing meant doing. He would have to demonstrate hope, faith, love and compassion, rather than just feeling them.

“We each did our own time in our own way. One guy would just draw spirals on a piece of paper—all day every day. Spirals within spirals within spirals so that you never saw where anything ended and anything began.” 

This observation reflects the nature of Hinton’s changing understanding of the passage of time. It also demonstrates the futility of punishment. He wonders where things did, indeed, begin, and where might they end. Were are all these beginnings and endings indiscernible? Hinton also questioned what effects the passages of time had on his own psyche. 

“We were so much more than what we had been reduced to—so much more than could be contained in one small cage.” 

Speaking on his own behalf, and on behalf of his fellow inmates, Hinton refuses to be considered a monster. Even those who were guilty were not monsters. They shouldn’t be defined solely by their transgressions. It is at this point then Hinton begins to show compassion for the others on death row.  

“A little bit of kindness was amplified on death row, because it was so unexpected.” 

Rather than resorting to violence or planning revenge, demonstrations of kindness did more to ease the suffering of those on death row. Despite the stigma attached to being friends with the guards, Hinton is friendly—though not friends—with them. Doing so will ultimately help him to receive small acts of generosity, which will seem huge since they are so rare.   

“There was a reason back in the slave days the plantation owners didn’t want their slaves to learn to read.” 

Being able to read brings many obvious advantages, such as self-education. Additionally, Hinton says, being able to read allowed for a means of escape: not physical escape, but the freedom to imagine. The death row inmates constantly think about their impending executions. Being allowed to read would take the burden off of their minds. 

“I looked around at our unlikely group, locked in a library at Holman Prison. A few of us were innocent, a few were not. It didn’t really matter.” 

Though they are forced together by desperate and dissimilar circumstances, the men form a bond over shared reading experiences. Their criminal past could be forgotten, even forgiven, during these moments spent in discussion. While they were locked up not only on death row, but also inside the library, they could still find solace and friendship, regardless of their differences.  

“I knew these guys [the aggressive guards brought in from another prison]. They were the guys in high school who were really short or bad at sports or who felt powerless and picked on, and now they had some small bit of power in their little worlds.” 

Hinton observes that the visiting guards, armed and uniformed, are merciless compared to the regular guards who wanted to keep the peace. Because the visiting guards are only temporary, they feel free to bully and abuse the prisoners. They act in hostility in order to falsely empower themselves. It is likely they were working out their perceived inadequacies by turning the tables—the men on death row are now the ones who are defenseless; the bullied became the bullies. 

“There’s no racism on death row.” 

The death row inmates share such a grotesque and intimate bond they can’t possibly hold on to useless prejudices to bolster their sense of identity or superiority. They have, in a sense, become emotionally dependent on each other, regardless of skin color. Hinton also includes the guards, who show no—or little—racial hatred, and who are especially nice to those inmates whose execution dates are nearing.  

“[Stevenson] listened to everything I said […] It was a powerful thing to be listened to like that.” 

By this point in the narrative, the reader is familiar enough with Hinton’s case. This first meeting with Bryan Stevenson, however, pinpoints the first time he has in fact talked at length to someone—a professional in the case—about his struggles. Being listened to gives him strength—not unlike one unloading a burden to a mental health specialist. He is not only being listened to, he is speaking and representing himself, taking agency of his life. 

“I had to make a home of Holman to survive. I had to block out my real home and block out the outside world.” 

Due to the extremity of Hinton’s situation, he feels compelled to reframe the way he viewed certain terms and concepts in order to preserve his sanity and humanity. Thinking of his actual home made his prison home unbearable; by forgetting his actual home, the time, he hopes, will be more tolerable. Hinton suggests that this is a kind of defense mechanism: In his real home, he could thrive, but in his prison home, it would have to be enough just to survive. Similarly, he redefines his sense of family and friendship.   

“Hope can be a four-letter word in prison.” 

Hinton suggests that hope can be dangerous; having it was dangerous, as was talking about it. Seeing one’s hopes repeatedly crushed, as his have been, can lead to resignation. Without hope, however, one might lose the will to struggle, or even to live. Particularly on death row, where life and death hang in the balance, hope can be a double-edged sword.  

“Some [of Hinton’s fellow inmates] had the intellect of a child, and others had the intellect of a genius. But I still didn’t believe any person or any institution had a right to take their life, no matter what they had done.” 

Here, Hinton clarifies his stance on capital punishment: The state had no right to execute anyone. Some of his fellow inmates were smart, others not. A few were innocent. Others were criminally insane, brutal rapists and murderers. Hinton doesn’t claim to forgive them, nor does he claim that they have the right to live. He simply states that no one is legally or morally entitled to kill as punishment. 

“I couldn’t imagine the guards putting a woman to death. Especially a woman with children.” 

Hinton relies on the power of imagination to help escape from the reality of his situation. However, this execution is too much to bear. His commentary underscores the thoughtless cruelty not only of the patriarchal criminal justice system, but also that of the guards. While at times Hinton claims to understand that the guards have a job to do, he is dismayed when they do finally electrocute the woman mentioned here. 

“All through the day and into the night, men shouted out their words of sympathy [concerning the news of Hinton’s mother’s passing]. Sorrow shared is sorrow lessened.” 

Facing the reality of his mother’s death, Hinton is not left alone with his grief. The other inmates’ willingness to share their food, as well as their condolences, lifts Hinton spirits. Upon the news of her death, he was despondent; fellow inmates helped him by distributing the weight of that burden among themselves.

“But death has never deterred death.” 

After reading Stevenson’s article opposing the death penalty, Hinton reflects on what he learned from first-hand experience. The fear of being executed as a means of punishment never stopped anyone from committing murder. It is not logical to argue that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to crime. 

“These men [the guards and executioners] were our family. We were all in this dark, dank, tiny corner of the world acting out some perverse play where we laughed together six days of the week, but on Thursdays, they killed us.” 

Still not expecting to be released, Hinton anticipates the day of his execution. While one guard said to Hinton that they would never execute him, he knows this to be untrue, thought he doesn’t call it a lie. Because of their shared circumstances, the inmates and the guards form an unlikely bond. The guards brought food, shared stories, took inmates to the doctor when needed; Thursdays were different. On Thursdays, execution days, there was no bond.  

“I’ve made a home here and a family out of some of the most terrifying men you’d ever meet. And you know what I’ve learned? We’re all the same. We’re all guilty of something, and we’re all innocent at the same time.” 

Here, Hinton is speaking to Lester, and, showing signs of defeat, admits that he is gotten tired of fighting. He has become complacent to the extent that he conflates guilt and innocence, and considers death row to be a home that he’s made along with his family of inmates. Lester doesn’t understand; it’s unlikely that the reader will understand unless they have been in Hinton’s shoes. It’s worth noting, as well, that this is what he tells Lester, perhaps to console him.

“I had gone to death row, and Bryan Stevenson had come there to bring me home. There were no words. There was no way I could repay him.” 

Hinton learns that the case against him has been dropped; Stevenson reassures him he will very soon be released. Hinton finds himself unable to express his gratitude. The issue of payment recurs frequently in Hinton’s narrative: underfunded public defenders demanding that he borrow from family or church; asking friends for money to spend in the commissary; the simple calculation of the worth of one man’s life; the cost, both financial and psychic, of being poor and black in the South. Stevenson, for his part, never asked Hinton for any money.