The Sun Does Shine is unfortunately and fortunately written by Ray Hinton and his life journey and experiences growing up in Alabama when racism is still an issue through the 80’s up through the 2010’s, as he is accused, eventually convicted and sentenced to death row’s electric chair, while innocent and with significant evidence to support his whereabouts during multiple murders that the state chose to ignore, dismiss, disregard or outright lie about. As a result, Ray has to literally fight for his life, just 30ft. away in a cell, from the execution chamber itself. After years and multiple appeals attorney Bryan Stevenson from the Equal Rights Initiative gets the glorious call from the Supreme Court and the State of Alabama confirming they were wrong in handling Ray’s case and Ray should be released immediately from death row and prison after almost 30 years confinement. Upon his release Ray addresses the media and the first words out of his mouth are “The Sun Does Shine”. Glory to God, his mother and best friend Lester who help see him through this miraculous story that is sure to make you cry, as it did me, and I don’t cry easily.
The following are some quotes or excerpts from the book that I can resonate with, although his experiences are much more extreme, as I have only been at a federal camp for 3 months in comparison to Ray’s almost 30 years on death row…
-There is no way to know the exact second your life changes forever
-Dear God, let them know the truth of things, see into my mind and heart. Bless the judge, DA, the victim’s families who are in pain. Let there be justice.
-Jesus was persecuted, accused falsely, for things he didn’t do, and all he did was try to love and save the world, and he died and suffered. My life is in God’s hands. Forgive them, for they know not what they do…
-Whatever way the Lord have me go, I’m ready to go.
-In relation to the State Prosecutor; “that I don’t mean anything to you”, “enjoying themselves – like taking my life away was some sort of sporting event”.
-Joy; The joy I got – the world didn’t give to me and the world can’t take it away.
-You took me from my family, but you can’t take me from God
-God ain’t closed the case…
-Dear God, please let the truth be known and protect my family
-What every poor person tangled up in the legal system knows.
-On Incarceration; Only the sweat of men forced to wear the same clothes for weeks at a time.
-I wanted my life back. I wanted my freedom back. I didn’t want to be locked up like some rabid animal in a cage.
-I hungered for home, my bed, my family, church and for friends I could laugh with and sit with.
-“God will fix this, God can do everything but fail, baby. God is going to fix this right up for you.”
-She (Ray’s Mom) was doing everything she could to save her son’s life. I knew my mom felt helpless. We all felt helpless.
-On Prosecutor McGregor; Why me? Why had he decided I was so evil he had to make it his personal mission to bend and twist the truth in ways that defied logic and common sense.
-On Prison life; Life was not supposed to be exactly the same way everyday – breakfast at 3a, lunch at 10a, and dinner at 2p.
You weren’t supposed to spend every single day in a small box doing the exact same thing as you did the day before and you would do tomorrow.
No one can understand what freedom means until they don’t have it. You can’t make a choice on how to live.
-On faith; I wanted to show him that anything was possible in this world if you only have faith.
-On Choices; Despair was a choice. Hatred, anger, I still had choices and that knowledge rocked me. I still had some choices. I could choose to give up or hang on. Hope, faith, love, and compassion were choices. Fear and joy are a choice.
-Self realization; I was born with the same gift from God we are all born with – the impulse to reach out and lessen the suffering of another human being. It was a gift and we each had a choice whether to use this choice or not.
-On Prison; But sometimes you have to make family, where you find family or you die in isolation. Everything is a choice.
-Time runs differently in prison, sometimes it passes in slow motion, when every hour feels like three hours, every day feels like a month and every month, feels like a year and every year feels like a decade. You cross off each day, happy to have gotten through it and thankful that you are one day closer to leaving – to freedom.
On Prayer; But I mostly prayed for the truth. I prayed for God to reveal the truth. John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”. Mark 11:24 ” What things you so ever desire when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them”.
-On the system; “It’s cause them judges got to get elected. That’s all. They get more votes the more men they send to the death chair”.
-Visits in prison; “Did you guys bring in some money for the vending machines?”
-On prison; “We each did our time in our own way… Humans were not meant to be locked in a cage, and a man couldn’t survive in a box. It was cruel.”
-Money; It always seemed to come down to money…
-Prison life; Any letter that came in was also read by the prison staff. Every phone call was recorded. (Emails too)
-You try your best to get home, and then at some point, you decide to make a home where you are. I had to make a home at Holman (prison) to survive. I had to block out my real home and the outside world. It didn’t matter anymore what other people did at 10a everyday. For me in my home, 10a was lunch time, I had to accept that. I had to face the fact that in my house, men cried, screamed and moaned every day, all day. In my home, the rats and roaches were free to come and go as they pleased, while I was not. In my home, people could come in at anytime and turn my home upside down, and I had to take it. I had to say “Yes, sir” and “Thank you, sir” in order to live. In my house, death was always at my door, it circled my house, watching and waiting, always present.
-From Attorney Bryan Stevenson from Equal Justice Initiative; He spoke of justice and mercy and of a system that was so broken it locked up children, mentally ill and the innocent. “No one is beyond redemption”. No one is undeserving of their own life or their potential to change. He had a compassion for victims… and even an anger for those in power who abuse that power.
-On Hope; Hope can be a 4 letter word in prison. It can tease a man by staying close but just out of reach…
“Hang in there” – words from Bryan Stevenson that got me through another day. Another long night.
-On Capital Punishment; When you take a life, it doesn’t bring back a life. It didn’t undo what was done. We were just creating an endless chain of death and killing, every link connected to the next. Every killer on death row was taught to be a killer – by parents, by a system, by the brutality of another brutilized person, but no one was born a killer.
-On children; The guys on the row who had children bore a pain that was almost too much to witness. They ached and they cried, and they missed all the things that other parents take for granted. And they also knew how much their children suffered.
-On suicide; “I didn’t raise a quitter, you’re not going to quit”. “You’re going to get out of here. You’re going to keep fighting… You have work to do… You are a beacon, a light… Your life isn’t your life to take. It belongs to God. You have work to do… God has a purpose for you… He has a purpose for all of us”.
-The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its’ prisons. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
-Key point of book; And you know what I learned? We’re all the same. We’re all guilty of something, and we’re all innocent at the same time.
-On the mentality of the situation;Dealing with “What if’s?” What if I had… or hadn’t… Dwelling.
-On hope; “But you need to hold on. You need to hold on to your hope. If you have hope, you have everything.”
-On encouragement; Words to those in jail, taking a life of crime lightly… “Life is precious. Freedom is precious. They each have the potential to be so much more than what landed them in jail.
-On how you perceive people look at you after; What if people were looking at me as the guy who got away with murder? What if they still thought I really did it? What if they say something? What would I say?
-On life after prison; I’m a walking curiosity – the man who survived death row – but I’m also a voice. I’m a voice for every person who sits on the row. I’m not against punishment. But I don’t believe in cruelty. I don’t believe in useless punishment.
-Since my release, not one prosecutor,or state attorney general or anyone having anything to do with my conviction has apologized.
-It hasn’t been easy to get used to life outside of death row. The bathroom was almost exactly the same size as my cell. I stretched out on the floor, my head resting on the bath mat. I would sleep here tonight.
-And as much as I try to change it, my body and my mind still stick to the routine it learned on death row. I’m up at 3a and ready for breakfast. Lunch is at 10a. Dinner is at 2p.
-I’m still locked down on the row. I know what day they’re serving fish for dinner. I know when it is visiting day and at what point the guys are walking in the yard. My mind goes back there every single day…
-I live in fear that this could happen to me again.
-I’m a poster boy for all that is broken in our prison system.
-On unconditional love; I have live a life where I have known unconditional love.
-On how we live; How we live matters. Do we choose love or do we choose hate? Do we help or do we harm? Because there’s no way to know the exact second your life changes forever.
In closing, this was a great read, highly recommended. Having been in a camp situation I can appreciate and relate to a lot of what Ray is saying… His situation obviously is a lot more extreme on a bunch of different levels and for almost 30 years instead of just currently 3 months.
