Former Alabama Death Row inmate Anthony Ray Hinton to be freed after new testing on bullets

Anthony Ray Hinton

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.

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Source: AL.com, April 2, 2015

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