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

The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row, is a 2018 memoir written by Anthony Ray Hinton (with cowriter Lara Love Hardin)—a man who spent nearly three decades on death row in Alabama.  For his book and for subsequent activism to fight the death penalty at large, public figures from Desmond Tutu to Richard Branson praised Hinton's efforts. Hinton is now a renowned speaker on prison reform, forgiveness, and hope. He appeared on television numerous times to recount his story, often accompanied by his lifelong friend, Lester Bailey. 

In Hinton’s widely read memoir, he recounts the circumstances leading to his arrest for capital murder. As a young black man in the South, he doubts the criminal justice system's true efficacy, but was told by his mother that if he just tells the truth, everything will always be okay. He is found guilty but shrugs off the verdict: He is certain that he will quickly be exonerated. He is innocent: His alibis and successful passing of a polygraph test confirm this. The weapon found in his mother’s home doesn’t match the one used in the crimes.  

In an odyssey of irony and imagination, Hinton spends three decades entangled in the legal system. Legal defenses come and go, with underfunded lawyers always asking for money. He loses faith and hope—both of which are eventually regained from reflection and Hinton's openness to experience.

He befriends his fellow death row inmates, most of whom, he supposes, are guilty, and all of whom have been convicted for violent crimes—including a KKK member who lynched a young black man. Hinton eventually finds a sense of home and family, and even starts a book club.

As he balances the weight of hope and imagination, picturing marriages and sports championships, and dealing with the loss of his mother—and the deaths, by execution, of his fellow inmates—he finally finds what he calls “God’s Best Lawyer” in Bryan Stevenson.

While his legal troubles continue, and the case drags on, Hinton’s faith and hope are repeatedly tested; he relies on his wit, charm, imagination, and appreciation of books to spiritually sustain him. Finally, after 30 years, he is released from prison.

Physically free at last, Hinton still has to deal with the emotional scars that have yet to heal. Hinton gradually come to terms with his experience and dedicates the remainder of his life to fighting the death penalty.