Angola 3 News: November 2018

Friday, November 30, 2018

A3 Newsletter: Going to Amsterdam, Widows, Non-Unanimous Juries and more

A3 Newsletter, November 30, 2018:
Another Years Draws to a Close

Albert and King are ending their year with a short trip to Holland to support the Dutch branch of Amnesty International's " Write for Rights Campaign" which kicks off on December 10, International Human Rights Day. The Dutch section of Amnesty has now existed for 50 years and is one of the world's largest Amnesty sections.

Amnesty featured Albert in their 2015 Write for Rights and the prison received bags of mail addressed to him from all over the world! Albert and King are both happy to be able to support this highly successful effort at protecting prisoners by shining the world's light on them and helping them reach for freedom.

On Friday December 7th, they will appear in Amsterdam, and Den Hague and for the first time, Amnesty has a Write for Rights train ride across the country, where people can get on and write during their ride! Albert and King will ride the train with Amnesty from Den Hague back to Amsterdam before heading home. The featured prisoners this year are eight women who have dared to speak out about human rights abuses from eight different countries.

In one of many interesting interviews and events that occurred this year, Director Steve McQueen (Twelve Years A Slave) asked Albert to read a quote from one of his interviews to open his new film Widows. Several supporters have been stunned to hear Albert's voice at the start of the movie.

For those of you who have been fighting the good fight by illuminating the torture that is solitary confinement, there is a new project that you may find useful. Solitary Watch, in conjunction with Unlock the Box, has started the Solitary Confinement Resource Center, where information, statistics, resources, tools and articles about solitary have been compiled into a huge searchable database. Check it out when you can.

This has been a year full of travel and interviews for both Robert and Albert. Two years free and Albert has become a well-seasoned traveler, sharing how his experience of 44 years in solitary motivates him to stay involved and keep spreading the word about this dreadful penal practice. After fourteen years of advocating for Albert's release and the freedom of all political prisoners, King is happy to share the podium and the plane with his comrade of decades. March of next year brings the long-awaited release of Albert's book, Solitary, which will be released by Grove Press and, undoubtedly more travel.

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Angola 3 Basics

(Download a flyer version of this fact sheet here.)

In 1972, deep in rural Louisiana, three young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000 acre former slave plantation called Angola.

Peaceful, non-violent protest in the form of hunger and work strikes organized by inmates caught the attention of Louisiana’s elected leaders and local media in the early 1970s. They soon called for investigations into a host of unconstitutional and extraordinarily inhumane practices commonplace in what was then the “bloodiest prison in the South.” Eager to put an end to outside scrutiny, prison officials began punishing inmates they saw as troublemakers.

At the height of this unprecedented institutional chaos, Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and thrown into 6x9 foot solitary cells where they remained for decades.

Their struggle for justice continued until Robert was released in 2001, Herman in 2013, and Albert in 2016.

Despite a number of reforms achieved in the mid-70s, many officials repeatedly ignored both evidence of misconduct, and of innocence.

The State’s case was riddled with inconsistencies, obfuscations, and missteps. A bloody print at the murder scene did not match Herman, Albert or anyone charged with the crime and was never compared with the limited number of other prisoners who had access to the dormitory on the day of the murder. In 2008, NPR asked Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell why the state refused to test the print. "A fingerprint can come from anywhere," Caldwell explained. "We're not going to be fooled by that."

Potentially exculpatory DNA evidence was “lost” by prison officials—including fingernail scrapings from the victim and barely visible “specks” of blood on clothing alleged to have been worn by Albert.

Both Herman and Albert had multiple alibi witnesses with nothing to gain who testified they were far away from the scene when the murder occurred.

In contrast, several State witnesses lied under oath about rewards for their testimony. The prosecution’s star witness Hezekiah Brown told the jury: “Nobody promised me nothing.” But new evidence showed Hezekiah, a convicted serial rapist serving life, agreed to testify only in exchange for a pardon, a weekly carton of cigarettes, TV, birthday cakes, and other luxuries.

“Hezekiah was one you could put words in his mouth,” the Warden reminisced chillingly in an interview about the case years later.

Notably, Teenie Rogers, the widow of the victim, prison guard Brent Miller, after reviewing the evidence believed Herman and Albert’s trials were unfair, expressed grave doubts about their guilt, and called upon officials to find the real killer. "“Each time I look at the evidence in this case, I remember there is no proof that the men charged with Brent’s death are the ones who actually killed him. It’s easy to get caught up in vengeance and anger, but when I look at the facts, they just do not add up,” said Rogers in 2013.

Herman’s conviction was finally overturned in October 2013 by a Federal Judge. Although his trial was riddled with evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and other constitutional violations, it was the systematic exclusion of women from his jury in violation of the 14th Amendment that freed him. Unfortunately he was released in the late stages of advanced liver cancer and only experienced 3 days of freedom. Sadly for Herman, justice delayed was justice denied.

Albert’s conviction was overturned three times by judges citing racial discrimination, prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate defense, and suppression of exculpatory evidence. While the case worked its way through endless appeals, Louisiana officials refused to release Albert from solitary, even when no longer convicted of the crime, because “there’s been no rehabilitation” from “practicing Black Pantherism.”4

In June 2015, a Federal Judge courageously ordered Albert's immediate release and barred a retrial stressing the “Court's lack of confidence in the State to provide a fair third trial." This extraordinary remedy was also frozen pending yet another series of appeals.

Finally, Albert was released in February of 2016, 43 years and 10 months after first being put in isolation for a crime he didn’t commit.

Louisiana today has the highest incarceration rate in the US—thus the highest in the world.

Three-fourths of the 5,000+ prisoners at Angola are African American. And due to some of the harshest sentencing practices in the nation, 97% will die there.

Reminiscent of a bygone era, inmates still harvest cotton, corn and wheat for 4 to 20 cents an hour under the watchful eye of armed guards on horseback.

We believe that only by openly examining the failures and inequities of the criminal justice system in America can we restore integrity to that system.

We must not wait.

We can make a difference.

As the A3 did years before, now is the time to challenge injustice and demand that the innocent and wrongfully incarcerated be freed.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

In 2000, Herman, Albert and Robert filed a civil lawsuit challenging the inhumane and increasingly pervasive practice of long-term solitary confinement. Magistrate Judge Dalby described their decades of isolation as “so far beyond the pale” she could not find “anything even remotely comparable in the annals of American jurisprudence.” Over the course of 16 years, this seminal case detailed unconstitutionally cruel and unusual treatment and systematic due process violations at the hands of Louisiana officials and inspired worldwide action to end long term solitary.

Friday, November 30, 2018

A3 Newsletter: Going to Amsterdam, Widows, Non-Unanimous Juries and more

Enslavement, past and present--from the Middle Passage to US prisons today