[Ppnews] In His Own Words: Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3

Political Prisoner News ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Mon Apr 2 15:03:50 EDT 2007


Monday, April 02 2007 @ 12:00 PM PDT
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2007angola3

Kari Lydersen: In His Own Words: Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3


Thursday, March 29 2007 @ 11:14 PM PDT
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The two still-incarcerated members of the “Angola 
3,”Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, have been 
in solitary confinement for 32 and 35 years, 
respectively – among the longest in US history.
An exclusive Infoshop News interview.

Along with Robert King Wilkerson, who was 
released from prison in 2001, they were convicted 
of the 1972 murder of a white guard at the 
infamous Angola prison farm about 100 miles from 
New Orleans. As politicized members of the Black 
Panther Party in the Louisiana prison system, 
their supporters say they were framed for the 
guard’s murder and subsequently kept isolated 
from other inmates because of their political 
beliefs and activism. This winter a state 
judicial commissioner opined that Wallace should 
get a new trial; a state judge will rule on the 
matter after prosecutors file a response to the 
commissioner’s decision. Woodfox, who was 
reconvicted in a 1998 trial with serious conflict 
of interest issues described below, has a habeas 
corpus petition pending in federal court.



In His Own Words: Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3

Interview by Kari Lydersen
Infoshop News Exclusive
March 30, 2007

Louisiana -- The two still-incarcerated members 
of the 
<http://www.infoshop.org/wiki/index.php/Angola_3>“Angola 
3,” Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, have been 
in solitary confinement for 32 and 35 years, 
respectively – among the longest in US history.

Along with Robert King Wilkerson, who was 
released from prison in 2001, they were convicted 
of the 1972 murder of a white guard at the 
infamous Angola prison farm about 100 miles from 
New Orleans. As politicized members of the Black 
Panther Party in the Louisiana prison system, 
their supporters say they were framed for the 
guard’s murder and subsequently kept isolated 
from other inmates because of their political 
beliefs and activism. This winter a state 
judicial commissioner opined that Wallace should 
get a new trial; a state judge will rule on the 
matter after prosecutors file a response to the 
commissioner’s decision. Woodfox, who was 
reconvicted in a 1998 trial with serious conflict 
of interest issues described below, has a habeas 
corpus petition pending in federal court. The two 
are also both plaintiffs in a federal civil 
lawsuit challenging their ongoing solitary 
confinement as cruel and unusual punishment. For 
more information, visit 
<http://www.angola3.org/>www.angola3.org. On 
March 24 and 25, I talked with Albert Woodfox in Angola.

Q: How do you feel about your chances for freedom at this point?

AW: Hope is eternal. But I’m worried about the 
conservative tilt of the federal court since Bush 
has been in office. If they go by the letter of 
the law, I should get a new trial.

Q: It seems incredible that one of the members of 
the Grand Jury that led to your 1998 trial was 
Anne Butler, the wife of the former Angola 
warden, who had written a book about the guard’s 
murder. How can this be? [As a side note, that 
warden later was sentenced to prison himself for 
trying to murder his wife, shooting her five times.]

AW: Not only did she write the book “Dying to 
Tell,” but she took it into the Grand Jury room 
and talked about the case. Anyone with 
pre-knowledge of the crime is not supposed to sit 
on a Grand Jury. This came up in my appeal to the 
state, but it was denied. This clearly violates 
my 14th Amendment right to due process under the 
law. And the trial was moved to this small town 
of Amite. We heard that some of the jurors didn’t 
want to convict me, but they were beaten down. In 
a small town it’s guaranteed that people will run 
into each other, and so on a jury that small town 
mentality sets in. They don’t want to be the ones 
known for letting this man go free. They think, 
I’m not going to go out on a branch and isolate 
myself for someone I don’t even know. I think 
they (prosecutors) counted on that small town 
mentality, that’s why they moved the trial.

Q: Do you think the justice system has changed or 
improved at all since the 1970s?

AW: I think the justice system is exactly the 
same. It’s corrupt, prejudicial, racist. There’s 
the saying why fix something that isn’t broken. 
 From their perspective, why change something 
that’s worked so well for them for so many years? 
You hear politicians say the justice system isn’t 
perfect but it’s best in the world. Well we’ve 
had hundreds of people freed by DNA evidence now. 
If this was the best system in the world all 
those innocent people wouldn’t be in there. 
Attorneys seem more concerned with getting 
convictions than the guilt or innocence of the 
person charged. And under the theory that 
District Attorneys and police need to do their 
job free from intimidation, they are given 
immunity. So they can continuously violate the 
law without any fear of being punished for it.

Q: Is Louisiana one of the worst states as far as 
having a racist and corrupt justice system? Roy 
Hollingsworth (a fellow inmate in the isolation 
wing and Angola 3 supporter) said he represents 
himself because he’d be afraid to have a lawyer in Louisiana.

AW: I’ve only been exposed to two justice 
systems, in Louisiana and New York, and while all 
systems are corrupt and racist, procedurally 
Louisiana has got to have one of the most chaotic 
justice systems in the US. In everything except 
capital cases, it still operates under the old 
Napoleonic system where [to get an indictment] 
the DA just has to produce a bill of information, 
saying so and so did such and such, without any 
evidence showing a crime occurred.

Q: So you and Herman have been in solitary your whole time at Angola?

AW: For Herman it will be 35 years on April 18. 
The guard was killed on April 17, and he was put 
in solitary the next day. I’ve been in CCR or 
Camp J (both solitary confinement) my whole time 
in Angola, for a total of 32 years. I was 
discharged to the St. Francisville Sheriff’s 
Department in April 1996 [pending his new trial], 
and then when I was returned to Angola in March 
1999 after being convicted again, I was put back 
in CCR. When I was in general population [in St. 
Francisville], it was strange to sit at a table 
and eat a meal with another human being, to be in 
the yard with other people. I didn’t know what to 
do with my hands or how to stand naturally 
[without restraints]. One of the most important 
issues in this country is how they are building 
all these Supermax prisons where they isolate 
individuals, it’s sensory deprivation. This case 
could affect the prison system across America if we win.

Q: You said you can’t talk about your personal 
experience in solitary because of the pending 
lawsuit. What is it like for someone in solitary in general?

AW: It’s cruel and unusual. You’re locked in a 
cell 23 hours a day. It denies you the 
opportunity to interact with human beings and 
just be a human being. The conditions in CCR are 
much better than most Supermax prisons. We have 
color TV, microwaves, a hot water tap. But the 
issue is constitutional, our constitutional due 
process rights to be treated like other prisoners 
have been violated. No matter how well we behave, 
we don’t have a way to get out of solitary. What 
is a color TV if you can’t be with other human beings?

Q: With your lawsuit and others in the past few 
years, do you think public awareness of the human 
rights issues raised by Supermax prisons and solitary confinement is growing?

AW: No, the American people can only see their 
immediate needs, and how things affect them on a 
personal level. So they’re not concerned with 
someone who is locked in a cell 23 hours a day if 
they feel safe because people are being arrested 
and locked up. America trains its citizens in 
“me-ism.” So the American government and the 
American judicial system are winning. People are 
brainwashed by all these shows like “CSI” and 
“Law and Order.” They just show perfect 
situations where everyone who is arrested is guilty.

Q: How about public awareness of police brutality?

AW: People tend to say that can’t happen, police 
wouldn’t do that. Until it happens to them, you 
hear families of [police brutality] victims on TV 
saying, “I can’t believe this happened, this is 
America.” Now that it happened to them, the outrage becomes personal.

In general people have too much blind trust in 
public institutions. You should respect and 
support a government when it does the right 
thing, but you should never trust it. People have 
this blind trust, then they’re shocked when it’s violated.

Look at Sean Bell in New York [killed outside a 
nightclub before his wedding day]. Fifty shots 
fired into a van, when no criminal act, no act of 
violence had occurred. And they’ll be found not 
guilty. In New York they think the police can do 
no wrong, especially if there is a minority involved.

Q: What’s the status of Herman's case since the 
commissioner said he should get a new trial?

AW: The state was supposed to have 10 days to 
appeal, but they didn’t file anything in those 
days, then the judge still let them file late. 
And to add insult to injury, the judge gave them 
30 extra days, and then 60 extra days, to put their brief together.

Q: Do you see any parallels between what’s going 
on with the war and imprisonment on a global scale and your situation?

AW: Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are prime examples 
of the American justice system. Most of the 
people involved in torture at Abu Ghraib were 
correctional officers – that’s a fact lost in the 
media. A lot of the techniques they used were 
created right here in our prisons. Everything 
they’re trying to do in Iraq is an extension of 
America. That’s why they’re never going to win 
this war. You can’t take people and force them to 
live in a western system so different from what 
they’ve been used to for centuries. It’s gun barrel democracy.

Q: Can you tell how Katrina has affected New 
Orleans and the region at this point?

AW: Katrina showed people exactly what America is 
about. That how you’re treated by state, federal 
and local governments depends on the color of 
your skin. I think the political machine in this 
country, particularly Republicans, have done a 
lot of things trying to destroy New Orleans as a 
predominantly African American city. New Orleans 
has always been a thorn in the Republicans side. 
They’ll be leading in the region and then when it 
comes to New Orleans the vote is 97 percent 
Democrat. After Katrina they did a lot to try to 
embarrass Governor Kathleen Blanco for things she 
had no control over. And it worked, she’s not 
running for governor again. That leaves it wide 
open for [Republican] Bobby Jindal.

Q: What have you heard about how the recovery is going?

AW: I don’t know that the city will ever be 
around 65 percent African American again. The 
system is doing everything it can to make sure 
that doesn’t happen. [Grassroots activist group] 
Common Ground has made a difference. And the 
media ignores them – they’ll call every other 
Baptist and Catholic organization and government 
agency by name, but they never mention Common 
Ground. I’ll see clips on TV and say, ‘Oh there’s 
[Common Ground founder and Black Panther] Malik 
[Rahim], that’s Common Ground;’ but they’ll just 
say ‘community activists.’ Two of the founders of 
Common Ground – Malik and [former A-3 inmate] 
King were Black Panthers. It is based on the Ten 
Point Program, and Common Ground shows that 30 
some years later, that still proves an effective 
tool for serving the community.

Kari Lydersen is a freelance writer whose work 
has appeared in the Washington Post, In These 
Times, LiP Magazine, Clamor, and The New Standard.


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