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<a href="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/ap/nation/4199554" eudora="autourl">
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/ap/nation/4199554<br>
</a><i>Sept. 19, 2006, 7:56PM<br><br>
</i></font><h2><b>Ex-Black Panther argues for new
trial</b></h2><font size=3><b>By DOUG SIMPSON Associated Press Writer
<br>
© 2006 The Associated Press</b> <br><br>
ANGOLA, La. A former Black Panther convicted of killing a Louisiana
prison guard in the 1970s deserves a new murder trial because prosecutors
withheld key evidence that could have won him an acquittal, his lawyer
argued in a prison courtroom on Tuesday.<br>
Herman Wallace, one of a trio of prisoners known as the "Angola
Three," has spent most of the past three decades in solitary
confinement at the state's top-security prison after his conviction in
the stabbing death of guard Brent Miller.<br><br>
His lawyer argued that the warden had essentially bribed a witness into
identifying Wallace as one of the killers _ and that prosecutors
knowingly kept the deal secret from jurors.<br><br>
"Jurors would have dismissed (the witness') testimony as
hogwash" if they had known, lawyer Nick Trentecosta said.<br><br>
Prosecutors, fighting Wallace's efforts at a new trial, said no proof
exists of that deal _ an alleged promise from the warden to help the
witness get a pardon and eventual release from prison. The warden and the
witness are dead.<br><br>
"I haven't seen anything to say that there was a promise
given," prosecutor Dale Lee said. "There's nobody here to
disprove what actually happened in 1972 _ they're all
dead."<br><br>
Trentecosta said Hezekiah Brown, the witness who testified against
Wallace, received a weekly carton of cigarettes as a payoff for his
testimony. The cigarettes amounted to valuable currency _ "a prison
pension" _ that Brown could spend on gambling, alcohol, drugs or
sex, Trentecosta said. After the trial, he was transferred to a private
house with his own room and television set, a former guard, Bobby
Ovileaux, testified.<br><br>
Lee said the prison was right to segregate Brown from the general prison
population because he would be in danger of being attacked or killed by
other inmates who were angry that he had testified against a fellow
prisoner.<br><br>
Trentecosta also produced several documents from then-Warden C. Murray
Henderson in which Henderson referred to commitments and promises he had
made to help Brown get a pardon.<br><br>
Court commissioner Rachel Morgan said she will issue a recommendation to
the trial judge, probably within a month, on whether Wallace should get a
new trial. District Judge Michael Irwin could accept or reject her
recommendation, or order another evidentiary hearing in his courtroom,
she said.<br><br>
Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert Wilkerson are known as the
"Angola Three," considered by prisoners' rights groups to be
wrongly held in solitary confinement because of their political activity
with the now-defunct Black Panthers.<br><br>
Wilkerson was released in 2001 after a judge overturned his conviction
for killing another inmate. Prison officials have said Wallace and
Woodfox are in solitary because they would be endangered if returned to
the general prison population.<br><br>
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