Angola 3 News: BBC

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Thursday, July 18, 2019

A3 Newsletter: Zulu Whitmore Court Date and more

(PHOTO: Albert's book tour takes him to Wales for the Hay Festival, where he is shown onstage with Sarfraz Manzoor.)

A3 Newsletter, July 18, 2019:
Summer Update

With summer half over, we want to share with you some of the activity going on around Angola 3 and news in general of A3 supporters and comrades.

Robert has been laying low the last few months, working on his own projects but he's got quite a few things scheduled once September rolls around. We'll keep you posted.

Albert traveled to England for an Amnesty International event in London (shown in the photo above) and to Wales for the Hay Festival where he spoke alongside Sarfraz Manzoor. While in the UK, Albert was interviewed by the BBC's "Hard Talk" radio show and for the Channel 4 show "Ways to Change the World" (also watch the Channel 4 interview at Albert's home in New Orleans, which aired in May).

At the end of June, Albert traveled to the meet with the Board of Directors of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in Washington D.C.and two weeks later in July, he participated in the LDF's 40th Annual Capital Punishment Training Conference in Tarrytown, New York.

Albert was also involved in the press conference held at Loyola University announcing the release of a study on the use of solitary confinement in Louisiana, a collaboration between VOTE, the ACLU of Louisiana, Solitary Watch, the Jesuit Social Research Institute / Loyola University New Orleans and the new Louisiana Stop Solitary Coalition. The wide range of news coverage included: The Advocate, The Advocate's Gambit, and the San Francisco Chronicle / Associated Press.

August is looking pretty quiet for both guys - time for them to spend with family and friends in between staying ever active in their efforts to spread the word about solitary confinement, prison conditions as a whole and the state of justice in America.

We hope you'll take a look at the awards and accolades that Angela A. Allen-Bell, an A3 supporter and Professor at Southern University Law Center has been receiving. We are thrilled to see that Prof. Bell's groundbreaking work is getting her the credit that she deserves.

We are sad to say that Kenny "Zulu" Whitmore's anticipated court date this month has been postponed. You can read the statement issued by Zulu's supporters in the section below.

A3 Newsletter: One Year Later: Albert Woodfox is still not convicted or released

One year ago today, supporters of Albert Woodfox were elated when Judge Brady's ruling on Albert's criminal case was announced. It was a THIRD overturning of his conviction!

How can it be possible that an innocent man, who now stands unconvicted in the eyes of the law, remains locked in a solitary cage while he waits for the State's endless appeal efforts to play out? How many more appeals, how many courts will it take for the State to finally recognize that they've done enough to this man?

Robert King in Canada for Hard Time screenings: Photos and Media Coverage

ROBERT KING IN THE NEWS: Tout Le Monde En Parle II Interview by Canadian Prison Radio Show II Morning News Montreal Televison Interview II La Presse: En croisade contre le milieu carcéral américain II Montreal Gazette Interview II Le Devoir: 29 ans d’isolement en prison II BBC News: Scientists call solitary confinement 'damaging and unnecessary' II Japan Times / AFP: In prisons, solitary takes toll on minds II VIDEO: Science Magazine Live Chat w/ Robert King; Is Solitary Confinement Torture? II CNN: 29 Years in a Box

(PHOTO: Robert King w/ filmmaker Ron Harpelle at the Toronto Black Film Festival. View more photos below.)

(PHOTO: Robert King and Ron Harpelle w/ Kathleen Cleaver at the Montreal Black Film Festival.)

As announced in our last newsletter, the Angola 3's Robert King has been traveling in the US, speaking in Chicago about solitary confinement at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in Canada alongside screenings of the film Hard Time.

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.