Former death row inmate to speak at Clemson

Ray Hinton, freed from prison in 2015 after 30 years on death row, will speak at Clemson University as the guest of the Clemson Humanities Hub.  Hinton’s lecture will be 5:30 pm March 9 at the Watt Innovation Center, as part of the 2nd Annual series “Lectures in Law and Humanities”.  In 1985, Hinton was convicted of the murders of two restaurant managers in Alabama.  His conviction hinged on the testimony of a state ballistics expert who claimed the bullets from the murders matched a dusty revolved in the closet of Hinton’s mother.  After a jury found Hinton guilty, he began years of petitioning to have the revolver re-analyzed and his conviction overturned.  With help from pro bono attorney Bryan Stephenson at the Equal Justice Initiative, three independent experts were called to re-analyze the gun and concluded it could not have been used in the murders.  That led to Hinton’s exoneration and release.