[Ppnews] The Angola Three's long struggle for justice

[Political Prisoner News]

The Angola Three's long struggle for justice

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/05/angola-three-louisiana

On the basis of dubious convictions, these 
African American activists spent years in 
solitary. When will their nightmare end.

Tuesday 5 April 2011

The <http://www.angola3.org/>campaign to free the 
Angola Three reaches Washington, DC on 6 April. 
Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace are the 
remaining two of the trio who are still locked up 
in solitary confinement. Later this month, 17 
April will mark the 39th anniversary of the start 
of their nightmare. The campaign hits Capitol 
Hill not before time, as this summer 
<http://www.phillyimc.org/en/node/75389>Woodfox 
will appear in court for the last time to appeal against his conviction.

Congressman Cedric Richmond is to host a 
screening of a documentary, 
<http://www.thefilmpilgrim.com/reviews/in-the-land-of-the-free-dvd-review/2509>In 
the Land of the Free, directed by Vadim Jean and 
narrated by Samuel L Jackson, which brings to 
life the case – and the brutal day-to-day reality 
of Woodfox and Wallace's prison conditions. And 
Congressmen John Conyers and Bobby Scott will 
precede the documentary with a briefing on the 
horrors of solitary confinement. The one freed 
member of the 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angola_Three>Angola 
Three, Robert H King, will also speak. He was freed in 2001.

As members of the Black Panther party, they claim 
they were framed for the 
<http://articles.latimes.com/2008/may/03/nation/na-angola3>murder 
of prison guard Brent Miller in 1972. At the 
time, the three were organising politically 
against the brutalities of life in Angola prison, 
in the state of 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/louisiana>Louisiana. 
The 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_Party>Black 
Panther party was a militant political 
organisation that combined progressive social 
programmes in support of African American 
communities with a confrontational attitude 
towards the state. FBI boss J Edgar Hoover 
characterised them "the greatest threat to the 
internal security of the country".

Angola had been the site of a slave plantation 
before the Jim Crow era, and despite the civil 
rights campaigns of the 1950s and 60s, nothing 
much had changed by the 1970s when the Angola 3 
were incarcerated. Angola was still segregated, just larger than ever.

Prior to Miller's death, Woodfox and Wallace, who 
were serving time for armed robbery, had formed a 
Black Panther chapter in the prison and were 
struggling against the regime of the biggest, 
bloodiest jail in the US. They staged a hunger 
strike and fought to protect young inmates from rape.

They were convicted of Miller's murder on the 
hearsay evidence of other prisoners. Evidence 
that might have proved their innocence, such as a 
fingerprint left at the scene, was suppressed. In 
time, even Miller's widow came to believe these 
men were not responsible for the murder of her husband.

King joined Woodfox and Wallace after he was 
transferred to Angola from another prison. 
Despite not even being in the prison at the time 
of Miller's murder, he was implicated. It was 
enough that he was a known Black Panther party 
activist. He spent 31 years in prison, 29 of those in solitary.

King was released after successfully fighting his 
conviction for murder and pleading guilty to a 
lesser charge, but Wallace and Woodfox remain in 
jail. Both men have also contested their 
convictions: 
<http://www.opednews.com/articles/Southern-Injustice-Herman-by-By-James-Ridgeway-100104-969.html>Wallace's 
was recommended to be overturned by a Louisiana 
state judicial commissioner in 2006, but the case 
is still working its way through the appeals 
system. Woodfox has already had his case 
overturned twice, but was reconvicted partly on 
the basis of the transcribed testimony of the 
<http://www.phillyimc.org/en/southern-injustice-herman-wallace-angola-3>key 
witness in the original trial, Hezekiah Brown, a 
serial sex offender now deceased.

According to Tory Pegram of the 
<http://angola3news.blogspot.com/>International 
Coalition to Free the Angola Three, judges in 
both trials have raised "racial discrimination, 
prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate defence and 
suppression of exculpatory evidence" in their 
summing-up. Each time, the conviction has been 
reinstated on appeal – the state of Louisiana 
being the appelant. State Attorney General James 
"Buddy" Caldwell has called Woodfox "the most 
dangerous man on the planet", while Angola prison 
governor Burl Cain has stated on record that he 
wishes to see Woodfox and Wallace remain in 
solitary for the rest of their days. Cain has 
even acknowledged the political nature of 
Woodfox's solitary, saying he doesn't want 
Woodfox "walking around in my prison because he'd 
be organising young new inmates".

In the coming court hearing, Woodfox is 
challenging his conviction on constitutional 
grounds, claiming that the foreman of the grand 
jury that convicted him did not reflect the 
racial and gender makeup of Louisiana. If that 
fails, he is almost certainly to remain in prison 
for the rest of his life. The two have also 
launched a civil lawsuit on constitutional 
grounds against the length and severity of their 
solitary confinement; after a decade, that case is due to be heard in 2011.

King hopes that first Woodfox, then Wallace, win 
their freedom. But he believes that the problems 
with US jails run much deeper than the 
particulars of the Angola Three's case. "This is 
just the tip of the iceburg," he says.




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415 863-9977

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