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A man who spent 30 years on death row in the United States for crimes he didn't commit walked free from court after his conviction for a 1985 double murder was overturned because key ballistics evidence was discredited. 
 The exonerated man, 58-year-old Anthony Ray Hinton,  of Alabama, emerged from Jefferson County Courthouse to cheers from well-wishers before being embraced by tearful friends and relatives, a day after a judge dismissed all charges against him.
 "Sun do shine," an emotional Hinton said moments after his release. 
 "They had every intention of executing me for something I didn't do … I shouldn't have sat on death row for 30 years."
 Hinton was released after a key piece of ballistics evidence used against him in his December 1986 trial for two separate murders during robberies in Birmingham  was discredited.
 State technicians said bullets recovered from the crime scene were fired from a gun later recovered from Hinton's mother.
 However subsequent tests later cast doubt on the assertion that the bullets used in the killings came from that gun.
 A long legal saga culminated in victory last year when the US Supreme Court  ruled Hinton had not  had an adequate defence.
 His trial lawyer had hired an expert  not properly qualified to challenge the ballistics evidence.
 "All they had to do was test the gun," Hinton told reporters, frequently wiping away tears.
 "But when you think you're high and mighty and above the law, you don't have to answer to nobody. But I've got news for you - everybody that played a part in sending me to death row, you will answer to God."
 Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Laura Petro  dismissed all charges against Hinton after his lawyers from the Equal Justice Initiative  argued there was not enough evidence linking him to the crimes.
 Hinton, who was 29 at the time of the killings, was one of the longest-serving death row prisoners in Alabama history and among the longest-serving condemned prisoners to be freed, according to the initiative.
 Hinton was charged after two  managers were shot dead in a robbery at a fast-food restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama.
 Police did not find eyewitnesses or fingerprint evidence, the initiative said. That same year, another restaurant was held up at gun point and the manager was shot and seriously injured.
 The manager identified Hinton as the suspect, though Hinton said he was at work at the time, 24 kilometers away. Colleagues backed his alibi.
 Chief attorney Bryan Stevenson said Hinton, who is black, was wrongly convicted in part because the colour of his skin.
 "Race, poverty, inadequate legal assistance and prosecutorial indifference to innocence conspired to create a textbook example of injustice," Stevenson said.
 Hinton is the 152nd condemned person  to be cleared in the US since 1973 and the second  in 2015, according to the Death Penalty Information Centre.


Man freed after 30 years on death row after key evidence against him is discredited

Anthony Ray Hinton wipes away tears outside the Jefferson County jail after his exoneration.Photo: AP

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Condemned Alabama man had his double murder conviction dismissed and was one of the longest-serving capital inmates in history


Man freed after 30 years on death row after key evidence against him is discredited

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Condemned Alabama man had his double murder conviction dismissed and was one of the longest-serving capital inmates in history

Condemned Alabama man had his double murder conviction dismissed and was one of the longest-serving capital inmates in history