Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-507_h315.pdf
Page Number: 3.0

Cite as:  592 U. S. ____ (2021) 

3 

Per Curiam 

Hines  volunteered  that  “he  took  the  automobile  but  he 
didn’t  murder the woman.”    Id.,  at  54–55,  57.   But  Hines 
later changed his mind and offered to confess to the murder 
if the sheriff “could guarantee him the death penalty.”  Id., 
Doc. 173–4, at 72. 
  The investigation turned up other physical evidence con-
necting  Hines  to  the  crime.    Police  found  Jenkins’  wallet 
where Hines had abandoned her car.  And a search of his 
motel room revealed stab marks on the walls that were sim-
ilar in size to the wounds on Jenkins’ body.  When an inves-
tigator  asked  Hines  about  the  damage,  he  identified  the 
holes as “ ‘knife marks.’ ”  Id., at 83–84. 
  The jury heard all of this evidence at trial.  It also heard 
testimony from the man—Kenneth Jones—who had discov-
ered Jenkins’ body.  According to Jones, he knew the owners 
of  the  motel  and  had  stopped  by  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
murder.    Finding  no  one  in  the  office,  Jones  had  lingered 
outside before realizing that he needed to use the bathroom.  
He returned to the office, took a key, and entered the room.  
Hines’ counsel stressed to the jury this oddly fortuitous se-
quence of events, noting that “Jones was fooling around at 
that  motel  that  Sunday  afternoon”;  that  Jones  seemed 
“nervous”; and that Jones just happened to be present when 
“[t]here was a lot of something going on.”  Id., Doc. 173–6, 
at 72–73.  The jury also heard discrepancies between Jones’ 
account of finding the body and the timeline given by first 
responders.  But it found Hines guilty. 
  The full truth came out several years later when Hines 
sought postconviction review in the Tennessee courts.  In a 
new  statement,  Jones  admitted  that  he  was  at  the  motel 
neither by happenstance nor by himself, but rather in the 
company of a woman other than his wife.  The duo had ren-
dezvoused at the motel nearly every Sunday for at least two 
years,  and  Jones  was  well  known  to  the  staff.    But  when 
Jones and his companion arrived on the day of the murder, 
they found no one to greet them.  After waiting for a while,