After 30 years on death row, US inmate freed

Anthony Ray Hinton, a man condemned to death in 1985 for killing two people in Alabama, has been freed after spending 30 years in jail for a crime that a new trial found he did not commit.

Friends and family greeted the African American Hinton, now aged 59, as he walked out of the Jefferson County jail in Birmingham, Alabama, on Friday, Efe news agency reported.

Hinton's case goes back to 1985 when there was a wave of violent robberies in fast-food restaurants in the area and the managers of two of them -- John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason -- were murdered,.

A worker who was wounded in a third robbery identified Hinton as the shooter and with that testimony and a gun found in the home of the suspect's mother, prosecutors made a case against him that led to the death penalty.

According to the prosecution, that gun was used to kill Davidson and Vason and to wound the victim at the third establishment who testified against him.

Hinton was sentenced despite having no criminal record, successfully passing a polygraph test and having an alibi for the night of the third assault -- his boss and fellow workers said he could not possibly have done it because he was at work.

In 2002, his attorneys of the Equal Justice Initiative proved the gun found at the home of Hinton's mother was not used in the murders of Davidson and Vason, and opened a long litigation to reopen the case that ended in 2014, when the US Supreme Court ordered a new trial.

The defence also introduced evidence that the prosecutors in the case had a history of racial discrimination and that the attorney assigned to defend Hinton at the time did not adequately represent him.

In the new trial, held this year, the attorneys proved his innocence and this Thursday a judge ordered his release.

This is the 152nd prisoner to be freed after spending time on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).

"Cases like Anthony Ray Hinton's give the public pause about the death penalty," said DPIC Director Robert Dunham, adding that however much one tries, human beings will never be perfect and would always make mistakes.