Beyond Innocence

The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt

By: Phoebe Zerwick

Narrated by: Sean Crisden

Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

In June 1985, a young Black man named Darryl Hunt was falsely convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a white copyeditor at the local paper. Many in the community believed him innocent and crusaded for his release even as subsequent trials and appeals reinforced his sentence. Finally, in 2003, the tireless efforts of his attorney combined with an award-winning series of articles by Phoebe Zerwick in the Winston-Salem Journal led to the DNA evidence that exonerated Hunt. Three years later, the acclaimed documentary, The Trials of Darryl Hunt, made him known across the country and brought his story to audiences around the world.

But Hunt's story was far from over. Part true crime drama, part chronicle of a life cut short by systemic racism, Beyond Innocence powerfully illuminates the sustained catastrophe faced by an innocent person in prison and the civil death nearly everyone who has been incarcerated experiences attempting to restart their lives. Freed after nineteen years behind bars, Hunt became a national advocate for social justice, and his case inspired lasting reforms. He was a beacon of hope for so many—until he could no longer bear the burden of what he had endured and took his own life.

Beyond Innocence makes an urgent moral call for an American reckoning with the legacies of racism in the criminal justice system and the human toll of the carceral state.

©2022 Phoebe Zerwick (P)2022 Tantor

A Story of American Injustice

The narrator's voice and tone were perfect for this story. I could not stop listening to this beautifully written, heartbreaking account of Darryl Hunt's false conviction for crimes he never committed. In the early 2000s, Zerwick's reporting helped bring the public's attention to Hunt's unimaginable plight. Now her book tells the story of Hunt's life, his suffering and perseverance, and his many defenders' efforts to secure his freedom in a culture whose criminal justice system remains mired by entrenched procedural injustice. From shoddy police work to unreliable witnesses, from the rejection of glaring evidence of another man's guilt to the nineteen years of life that Hunt lost in prison, this book casts a powerful light on racial injustice and on Hunt and his supporters' tireless efforts to finally see him and other innocent people released from prison and exonerated. What happens after Hunt is freed, celebrated, and awarded financial compensation forms yet another part of this gripping narrative. As Zerwick shows, the trauma continues after the battle is lost and won.