Of all the stories I read each day, the one type of story that stretches my comprehension deals with Death Row inmates who suddenly find themselves free to pick up the pieces of their lives.

I never can quite grasp how these individuals cope with such profound circumstances.

Anthony Ray Hinton sat on Alabama’s Death Row for nearly 30 years. He’s now a free man. He gets to go to the grocery store, watch the movie of his choice, visit with friends and family members … you know, do the things you and I get to do.

http://news.yahoo.com/alabama-death-row-inmate-freed-nearly-30-years-174433714.html

The court had convicted him of a 1985 murder, sentenced him to death and then let him sit there for three decades. The U.S. Supreme Court, though, ruled that Hinton didn’t receive a competent defense, to which he is entitled under the U.S. Constitution. “He was a poor person who was convicted because he didn’t have the money to prove his innocence at trial. He was unable to get the legal help he needed for years. He was convicted based on bad science,” according to Bryan Stevenson, head of Equal Justice Initiative, based in Alabama.

Now the court has determined it doesn’t have enough evidence to kill him, so Hinton has been set free.

Good for him. I will pray for him as he seeks to acclimate himself to a life he hasn’t known for 30 years.

How he accomplishes that is the great mystery.

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This story also brings to the forefront the great debate about capital punishment.

Anthony Hinton sat in an Alabama prison cell for more than half of the life he’s lived already. What if the state had executed him for a crime it couldn’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt? In Hinton’s case, he reportedly had an alibi and couldn’t have been present when two men were shot to death.

It is fair to ask whether Hinton symbolizes other individuals whose guilt remain in question.

The ultimate punishment for crimes requires utterly incontrovertible proof that the person awaiting execution is guilty of the crime. Innocent people have been put to death; of that there can be no doubt.

A single wrongly executed individual is one too many.

Anthony Hinton has been spared.

Now the hard part commences. This man has to figure out how to live like a human being.

Godspeed, Anthony Ray Hinton.