Breaking News: Anthony Ray Hinton: Alabama; Having spent nearly 30 years on Alabama's death row, he will be freed Friday morning after prosecutors told a judge they won't re-try him for the 1985 slayings of two fast-food managers after new testing couldn't match crime scene bullets to a gun found in Hinton's house. Al.com.

BREAKING NEWS: Anthony Ray Hinton, who spent nearly 30 years on Alabama's death row, will be freed Friday morning after prosecutors told a judge they won't re-try him for the 1985 slayings of two fast-food managers after new testing couldn't match crime scene bullets to a gun found in Hinton's house. Chief Deputy Jefferson County District Attorney John Bowers and Assistant District Attorney Mike Anderton filed a motion late Wednesday afternoon to drop the prosecution of Hinton on the capital murder charges. The charges are being dropped after "three experts found that they could not conclusively determine that any of the six bullets" were fired from a gun found in Hinton's home, the motion states. Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge Laura Petro on Thursday morning issued an order dismissing the case. She also ordered the Alabama Department of Corrections to forward paperwork to the Jefferson County Jail, where Hinton has been awaiting his re-trial, so he can be released at 9:30 a.m. Friday. ......... The conviction was based largely on the prosecution's gun experts and the eyewitness testimony of a surviving restaurant manager in a July 26, 1985 shooting and robbery of a Bessemer Quincy's night manager. But EJI argues in its motion for dismissal that Hinton had a "powerful alibi" for that night, with co-workers confirming he was at work 15 miles away at the time. Hinton was not tried for the Quincy's shooting. Hinton last year was granted a re-trial in the case after the U.S. Supreme Court found that Hinton's attorney could have hired a better ballistics expert for his first trial. His appellate attorneys with the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery have argued that testing in 1994 by nationally recognized gun experts showed the gun was not the one that fired the fatal bullets. At first prosecutors couldn't find the gun and crime scene bullets, but after they were located in a box in a storage facility prosecutors sent them to be re-tested.........(Motion to dismiss); On March 11 two bullets recovered from the bodies of Davidson and Vason, and the two bullets collected during the investigation of the robbery of Smotherman were resubmitted to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for additional microscopic comparison analysis to each other and to the Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver recovered from Hinton's home, according to the prosecution's motion to drop the charges. "Three highly-qualified and experienced ADFS forensic scientists, who are experts in the field of firearms and tool mark identification, each performed independent forensic examinations of the submitted bullets and firearm," the motion states. "Utilizing comparison microscopy, each expert inter-compared all six bullets recovered during the investigations of the three crimes to each other and to bullets test fired through the barrel of the firearm taken from (Hinton's) home."  "Due to insufficient corresponding individual microscopic characteristics, all three experts found that they could not conclusively determine that any of the six bullets were or were not fired through the same firearm or that they were fired through the firearm recovered from (Hinton's home)," the motion states. "The only potential evidence that has ever been available to the State to prove that the Defendant committed the murders of John Davidson and Thomas Wayne Vason depends upon an absolute, conclusive determination that the bullets recovered from their bodies were in fact fired through the barrel of the firearm taken from the (Hinton's) home," the motion states. "Based on the microscopic comparisons and conclusions of all three of the ADFS firearms and tool mark identification experts, the State does not have sufficient evidence to warrant further prosecution of these cases." Updated at 11:30 a.m. April 2 with judge's order dismissing case and ordering Hinton's release.
http://www.al.com/news/birmingham/index.ssf/2015/04/former_alabama_death_row_inmat.html