It wasn't until later that they said the charges were first-degree robbery, kidnapping, and attempted murder. Mama screamed and hollered and told them I hadn't done anything, but it didn't matter.

They took me into the house in handcuffs. RH: I begged them to let me tell her what was happening. They handcuffed me and put me into the squad car.

When I asked what for, they wouldn't say. They said they were detectives and had a warrant for my arrest. One asked, 'Are you Anthony Ray Hinton?' I said I was. After a few minutes, I looked up and there were two white gentlemen standing there. RAY HINTON: I was cutting the grass in the back of the house where I lived with my mother, in Burnwell, Alabama. Take us back to your arrest, when you were 29. You spent almost three decades in prison for crimes you were not guilty of. OPRAH: Ray, I've been listening to people's stories for a long time, but yours is about the most incredible. As Stevenson-who personally took up Hinton's case 12 years into his sentence and finally got him released from prison after he'd served 28 years for two murders he didn't commit-puts it, the tale is 'a textbook example of injustice.' I was honored, a few weeks after I finished reading, to sit down with Ray and find out more about what he went through and how, remarkably, he kept the faith. And for the next two days I was glued to Ray Hinton's soul-searing memoir. I was in Alabama interviewing social-justice warrior Bryan Stevenson and noticed a book on his desk.

The sun does shine