[Ppnews] Angola - Herman Wallace Update

[Political Prisoner News]

FREEDOM VIGIL FOR THE ANGOLA 3
Supporters to hold vigil for Herman Wallace's hearing.

COME TO ANGOLA LOUISIANA!

Political prisoner/POW supporters, prison 
abolitionist, and comrades from all over, this is 
a call to organize in your community to bring 
people to Angola prison in August for former 
Black Panther Herman Wallace’s hearing. Load up 
your buses, vans, trains and bikes to get people here for this historic event !

This vigil is appropriate and sends a powerful 
statement to those who hold power on the other 
side of the prison walls. They cannot bury our 
comrades, friends, families and citizens behind 
concrete and barbed wire. The Louisiana State 
Penitentiary and Burl Cain do NOT want the 
exposure to their prisons. Herman’s case, just as 
Robert Wilkerson’s did, exposes the depths the state will go to hide the truth.

The A3 want poeple to come and stand in 
solidarity while Herman's case hangs in the balance.

The BBC in a recent investigative news program 
broadcast for 25 million viewers said about the 
Angola 3 case: “
there is powerful evidence that 
they were framed
” and “
despite the compel ling 
evidence of a terrible miscarriage of justice, 
Woodfox and Wallace remain locked up
.”

Come and Join us deep in Louisiana on the Angola 
prison site which was built from old slave 
plantations. Remember, as many prisoners have 
said it’s ‘the same game, different name
’ 
prisons ARE modern day versions of slave plantations for many.

Common Ground Relief and other community groups 
will be sending buses from New Orleans.

Other rides will be leaving from many points in 
the U.S. including: Austin, Lawrence, Oakland,
New York City, Chicago, Tucson, Houston, Dallas, Philadelphia and more !!

We hope to see you there!!

Free the Angola 3!!
Free ALL political prisoners !!

EVENT INFO:

.DATE: Friday, August 15th 2006
LOCATION* Louisiana State Penitentiary
*Location may change due to a request for change 
of venue to Baton Rouge. Please make contact to 
reaffirm the location and time of vigil.

At the moment, the hearing is scheduled to be 
held inside Angola prison. It is not yet known 
how many members of the public will be allowed 
inside or what the procedures will be for gaining admission.

The vigil is being held to:

- Support Herman Wallace and show the prison 
officials and the courts that the public demands 
justice for the A3, and all political prisoners.

-Expose the racism and corruption that goes on 
behind the walls of the Louisiana State Penitentiary.

- Demand that the governor and legislators of 
Louisiana form an investigation and audit of Louisiana State Penitentiary.
.

CONTACT:
-Erin Howley 512.608.3218
hilo (at) riseup.net
-Ann Harkness 512.297.1049
ann (at) riseup.net
-Robert King Wilkerson 504.261.3454
-Shana Griffin ambakeysha (at) yahoo.com
-Nik Bose (Common Ground) 631-365-2139.
nik.bose (at) gmail.com
-Israel (CG) 504.368.6897
commongroundrelief (at) gmail.com
.

WHAT IS THE EVIDENTARY HEARING ABOUT?
Message from Scott Fleming their longtime lawyer
about the hearing:

The state court in Baton Rouge has scheduled an 
evidentiary hearing for former Black Panther 
Herman Wallace August 15-17 (though it may not take three days).

The court will consider the well-established 
evidence that Hezekiah Brown, the only purported 
eyewitness to the murder Wallace was convicted 
of, was provided a pardon, a transfer to minimum 
security, and a carton-per-week cigarette ration 
in exchange for his false testimony.

If the court finds that Brown received these 
favors, that they were not disclosed to the 
defense or the jury, and that the state's 
suppression of them could have contributed to 
Wallace's conviction, then Wallace's conviction 
will be overturned. Given the overwhelming 
evidence that Wallace and his co-defendant, 
Albert Woodfox, are innocent, supporters are optimistic of a positive outcome.

CIVIL CASE
In addition, the Angola 3 civil rights suit, 
which alleges that their 34+ years as well as 
Robert King Wilkerson’s 29 years in solitary 
confinement is a violation of the right to due 
process and amounts to cruel and unusual 
punishment. The suit, which the Supreme Court of 
the United States has ruled has merit to proceed, 
is moving forward in federal court and could go 
to trial in the fall of this year.


MORE FACTS ABOUT THE ANGOLA 3 CASE

Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have spent the 
past 34 years in solitary confinement at the 
Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. They are 
serving sentences of life without parole as a 
result of wrongful convictions for the 1972 
murder of a prison guard. Robert Wilkerson, the 
third member of the Angola 3, proved his 
innocence and was released in 2001, after 
spending 29 years in solitary confinement.

• Woodfox and Wallace were activist prisoners who 
risked their lives by standing up against racism, 
prison rape, and violence at Angola, Louisiana’s 
slave plantation-turned-prison farm. In 1972, the 
prison was racially segregated (80 percent of the 
prisoners were – and still are – 
African-American), had an all-white staff, and 
was known for terrible brutality. Between 1972 
and 1975, 40 Angola prisoners were stabbed to 
death and 350 more were seriously injured in an epidemic of violence.

• Woodfox and Wallace, along with many other 
prisoners, responded to these conditions by 
organizing themselves, establishing political 
education programs among prisoners, and 
organizing civil disobedience such as work 
stoppages and dining hall strikes. Woodfox and 
Wallace founded a chapter of the Black Panther Party inside the prison.

• When a prison guard was found stabbed to death 
in 1972, Woodfox and Wallace were immediately 
placed in solitary confinement and charged with 
the murder. The prison administration unleashed a 
reign of terror on the black prisoner population, 
including beatings, the forced shaving of Afro 
haircuts, and mass solitary confinement.

• The state prosecuted Woodfox and Wallace by 
using the testimony of prison snitches, a 
notoriously unreliable form of evidence. At their 
separate trials, different snitches – telling 
different stories – testified against the two 
men. Since the trials, new evidence has emerged 
that these witnesses were coerced or bribed with 
pardons, early releases, and free cigarette rations.

• Three of the state’s witnesses have now 
admitted that they lied under oath and have 
recanted their testimony against Woodfox and 
Wallace. Others have come forward to identify the 
prisoner – now dead – who actually committed the 
murder. The courts in Louisiana have yet to rule on this evidence.

• While they wait for the courts to grant them 
the justice for which they have waited 34 years, 
Woodfox and Wallace continue to spend at least 23 
hours of every day alone in 6-by-9 foot cells. 
The un-air-conditioned concrete block cells are 
excruciatingly hot during the summer months. The 
ACLU has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit 
alleging that these conditions are cruel and unusual punishment.

• Wallace has been wrongfully held in isolation 
for 34 years because of his involvement with the 
Black Panther Party at Angola Penitentiary. The 
Louisiana Court of Appeals ordered the 
evidentiary hearing into Wallace’s claim that the 
state failed to disclose to him that prison 
officials paid the chief prosecution witness at 
his 1974 trial with cartons of cigarettes and a 
pardon of his life sentence for testifying against Wallace.

For more information, visit:
<http://www.angola3.org/>www.Angola3.org
www.3BlackPanthers.com


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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