STORY: "Man being removed from Alabama death row for retrial in 1985 slayings of Birmingham fast food managers," by reporter Kent Faulk, published by Alabama.com on January 15, 2015.
GIST: "After spending nearly 30 years awaiting execution for the deaths of two Birmingham area fast-food restaurant managers, Anthony Ray Hinton will be removed from Alabama Death Row in the next few weeks to await a new trial in the slayings.........Petro in October had ordered Hinton's conviction set aside and for him to be retried. She issued the order after rulings earlier in 2014 from the U.S. Supreme Court and Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals that she should look at whether the lawyer for Anthony Ray Hinton should have hired a better firearms expert for his trial. Hinton was convicted of killing two fast-food restaurant managers and wounding a third during three robberies in 1985. Hinton was convicted largely on the strength of the eyewitness testimony of the surviving restaurant manager and expert testimony from prosecution witnesses that bullets recovered from all three crime scenes had been fired by a pistol police found in his home. A man hired by Hinton's trial attorney to counter state forensics experts testified the bullets could not be matched to the gun, but in stinging cross examination was discredited by the prosecution over his qualifications and findings. Hinton's court appointed defense attorney had contended that he tried to find a better firearms expert cut could not find one with the limited funds he had. But the appeals courts ruled that the defense attorney did not know that the spending limits for such experts had been lifted and he could have hired a better one.......... The issue over whether the defense gun expert was qualified to testify in Hinton's case has been going for more than six years. As of today Hinton has been on death row 29 years, four months and 28 days. He also spent another 485 days in the county jail."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/01/man_being_removed_from_alabama.html
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
Dear Reader. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog. We are following this case.
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and myself get more out of the site.
The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2013/12/the-charles-smith-award-presented-to_28.html
I look forward to hearing from readers at:
hlevy15@gmail.com.
Harold Levy; Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog;
