Amnesty International responds to AG James Caldwell: "Louisiana's 'justice' keeps man locked up in isolation for over 40 years"

Reprinted below is a statement from Amnesty International, made in response to an email released last week by Louisiana Attorney General James Caldwell, where among other things, he claimed that the Angola 3 "have never been in solitary confinement." Please support Amnesty's campaign urging Caldwell to not appeal last month's ruling that overturned Albert Woodfox's conviction for a third time. Take action here!

Louisiana’s “justice” keeps man locked up in isolation for over 40 years

By Amnesty International

March 26, 2013

Albert Woodfox has spent more than half his life in a cell just three paces wide and four paces long.

The 66-year-old man was convicted in 1972 of the murder of Brent Miller, a prison guard.

He claims he is innocent and organizations including Amnesty International have said his case raises serious legal and human rights concerns.

Robert H. King: End 41 years of cruel and inhuman solitary confinement for Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3

Photo of Robert H. King

**Please support Albert Woodfox by sending an email to Attorney General Caldwell, via Amnesty International's online action page!

My name is Robert H. King. I was released on February 8, 2001 after spending 31 years in prison - 29 of them in solitary confinement at the infamous Louisiana State Prison also known as 'Angola'.

Confined there with me were Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, the other two friends who make up 'the Angola 3'. Herman and Albert have now spent 41 years in prison. And though they are no longer housed at Angola, both remain in solitary confinement at another prison - a punishment Amnesty has described as 'cruel, inhuman and degrading'.

Solitary Watch on today's statement by AG Caldwell that the Angola 3 "have never been in solitary confinement"

A sketch by Herman Wallace of his solitary confinement cell

(March 21, 2013 article by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella, reprinted from Solitary Watch)
 
James “Buddy” Caldwell, attorney general of the state of Louisiana, has released a statement saying unequivocally that Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox, the two still-imprisoned members of the Angola 3, “have never been held in solitary confinement while in the Louisiana penal system.”

In fact, Wallace, now 71, and Woodfox, 66, have been in solitary for nearly 41 years, quite possibly longer than any other human beings on the planet. They were placed in solitary following the 1972 killing of a young corrections officer at Angola, and except for a few brief periods, they have remained in isolation ever since.

Amnesty International Launches New Online Campaign for Albert Woodfox --Please Take Action

Please take action here!
 
Today Amnesty International launched an online campaign asking Louisiana Attorney General James Caldwell to not appeal the District Court's ruling to either release or retry Albert Woodfox, declaring: "After decades of injustice, let the Angola 3 ruling stand!"

Please support Albert by taking action, forwarding it to your email list and asking your networks to spread the word. Now is a critical time in the fight for Albert's freedom. We want Caldwell's office to be inundated with emails so he hears it loud and clear that the cycle of injustice and cruelty must end.
 
Introducing their online action campaign, Amnesty writes:

Albert Woodfox has spent nearly 41 years in solitary confinement in conditions that are cruel, inhuman and degrading. In 1972, he and two others were convicted of murdering a guard at Angola prison. The "Angola 3" were sentenced to life imprisonment - although no physical evidence linked them to the crime and serious legal flaws came to light.

BREAKING: Judge Brady overturns Albert Woodfox's conviction for a third time!

NEWS COVERAGE:  Democracy Now interviews Robert King and Mwalimu Johnson (featured by the Havana Times) II  Amy Goodman's Truthdig column  II  The Advocate (Baton Rouge, LA)  II  The Root (Katti Gray)

On February 26, District Court Judge Brady released a 34-page ruling that granted habeas to Albert on the issue of racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson for his 1998 retrial. This decision now overturns Albert’s conviction for a third time (view/download a PDF of Judge Brady's ruling here).

The new film about Robert King, entitled 'Hard Time' screens in Canada w/ TV news coverage

Hard Time - promo from Shebafilms Kelly Saxberg on Vimeo.

You can watch the TV segment by Thunder Bay News Watch, and read their separate written article, both of which feature an interview with Robert King, while the video presents archival video footage from the day of King's release from Angola in 2001.

The news coverage marked the February 12 screening of the new documentary film about King by Lakehead University professor Ron Harpelle, entitled Hard Time. The following day, King spoke at both the Thunder Bay Public Library and at Lakehead University.

Watch the trailer for the new UK film entitled: Who are the Angola 3?

Featured above is the trailer for a new film from the United Kingdom, entitled "Who Are the Angola 3?" It is directed by Hugo Levien, and produced by Sian Smith. Read more here.

Strategizing to Defeat Control Unit Prisons and Solitary Confinement --An interview with author/activist Nancy Kurshan

Buy the new book Out of Control here.

Strategizing to Defeat Control Unit Prisons and Solitary Confinement

--An interview with author/activist Nancy Kurshan

By Angola 3 News

Author and longtime activist Nancy Kurshan’s new book, entitled Out of Control: A Fifteen Year Battle Against Control Unit Prisons, has just been released by the Freedom Archives. Kurshan’s book documents the work of The Committee to End the Marion Lockdown (CEML), which she co-founded in 1985 as a response to the lockdown at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois. It quickly turned into a broader campaign against control unit prisons and human rights violations in US prisons that lasted fifteen years, until 2000.  The following excerpt from Out of Control details CEML’s origins:

Two-part article on Albert Woodfox, the Angola 3 and the broader epidemic of solitary confinement in US prisons, written by Katti Gray, The Root

(Herman Wallace, left, with Albert Woodfox, right.)

We are reprinting in full, two recent articles by Katti Gray, writing for The Root. Part one, entitled "Freedom After 40 Years in Solitary?," focuses mostly on the pending decision from US District Court Judge James A. Brady, who in 2008 ruled to overturn his conviction. That ruling was ultimately reinstated on appeal by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Part two, entitled "Reforming Prison's Harshest Tactic," focuses mostly on solitary confinement in US prisons. You can read parts one and two at The Root, or you can read the two articles reprinted below, with our own photos added (quick link here).

Robert King Speaks at Michigan Journal of Race and Law Symposium and at anti-solitary events in NYC and Chicago

RELATED: Coverage of the recent Cage Prisoners event in the UK w/ Robert King: Video and Writeup II Wanda's Picks Radio Show interviews Robert King: Listen here.

On February 2, 2013, the Michigan Journal of Race and Law hosted a symposium at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, entitled "Inhumane and Ineffective: Solitary Confinement in Michigan and Beyond." As described by the flyer posted below and the Journal's website, the all-day event featured a keynote address given by James Forman, Jr.

In November, 2012 following his visit to the UK, where he received an honorary law degree, Robert H. King of the Angola 3 was a featured speaker at two US events focusing on solitary confinement:

Nov. 9:  King spoke in Chicago at a conference focusing on solitary confinement and human rights, organized by the Midwest Coalition for Human Rights (read their report of the event here).

Nov. 17:  King spoke in New York City as part of an all-day event at New York University, entitled "Should You Ever Happen to Find Yourself in SOLITARY:  Wry Fancies & Stark Realties," that was covered by the NY Times.

See event flyers below.

The Black Panther Party’s Living Legacy --Touring Oakland and Berkeley with Billy X Jennings (part one)

(Watch the full-screen, high definition format here.)

The Black Panther Party’s Living Legacy

--Touring Oakland and Berkeley with Billy X Jennings

(Part One)

By Angola 3 News

This month, over twenty students enrolled in the “Dismantling Racism” class offered by St. Catherine University in Minnesota traveled to the San Francisco Bay Area. The class focused primarily on California’s prisons and what anti-prison activists are doing to challenge the human rights violations and racism endemic to California’s infamous prison system.

Last week, the class was taken around on a Black Panther History Tour in Oakland and Berkeley, led by Billy X Jennings from It’s AboutTime BPP Alumni & Legacy. Along with ongoing BPP history exhibits at the Alameda County Law Library in downtown Oakland and the window of Rasputin Music on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley is a new photo exhibit running until February 28, entitled Louder Than Words, at La Peña Cultural Center (3105 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley).   An important friend and ally of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3, Billy X Jennings’ work was previously spotlighted in an interview with Angola 3 News, entitled We Called Ourselves the Childrenof Malcolm.

San Quentin Six Declare Solidarity with CA Prisoners’ Agreement to End Hostilities

The authors dedicate their essay to Marilyn Buck (1947-2010).

San Quentin 6 Declare Solidarity with CA Prisoners’ Agreement to End Hostilities

by Sundiata Tate, Bato Talamantez and Giappa Johnson – three of the San Quentin 6

(Reprinted in full by Angola 3 News. Watch the video of our April 6, 2012 event, featuring Bato Talamantez at the end)

We strongly support the statement issued by the Pelican Bay prison Short Corridor Collective calling for the end of racial and factional hostilities inside California prisons and in county jails. We believe that this along with our struggle for human rights is a most righteous cause which will have a tremendous impact on changing the perception that the Security Housing Units (SHUs) house only the worst of the worst.

The truth is that the SHUs are filled with those who have transformed themselves into socially conscious men and women who desire to live more productive and constructive lives while working to bring an end to their tortuous living conditions. These comrades who have issued the agreement to end hostilities demonstrate their commitment to changing not only their conditions but themselves. Furthermore, they seek to change how prisoners are treated and how prisons are currently run.

Amnesty International Denounces Human Rights Violations in California Prisons --An interview with Tessa Murphy

UPDATE:  Read Amnesty's statement released for the Feb. 25, 2013 CA State hearing on SHUs (w/ protest rally outside organized by anti-SHU activists): Proposed reforms will not alleviate the inhumanity of conditions in Security Housing Units in California’s prisons.

Amnesty International Denounces Human Rights Violations in California Prisons

--An interview with Tessa Murphy

By Angola 3 News

“California Department of Corrections/PBSP-SHU policies and practices, have violated our human rights and subjected us to torture – for the purpose of coercing inmates into becoming informants against other inmates, etc., for the state,” writes one prisoner held in solitary at California’s infamous supermax Pelican Bay State Prison. This excerpt of his letter to the internationally renowned human rights organization, Amnesty International, is featured in Amnesty’s new report on the use of prolonged solitary confinement inside California’s ‘Security Housing Units’ (SHUs), entitled The Edge of Endurance: Conditions in California’s Security Housing Units.

The Amnesty report states that “no other US state is believed to have held so many prisoners for such long periods in indefinite isolation.” At least 3,000 California prisoners are being held today in an extreme form of solitary confinement known as “super maximum” custody. Furthermore, the CDCR reported in 2011 that over 500 prisoners had spent over ten years in the Pelican Bay SHU, with 78 having spent over 20 years there. Explaining the recent emergence of SHUs, Amnesty writes that “California was at the forefront of moves to toughen penalties, and its prison population escalated during the 1980s and 1990s following the introduction of some of the nation’s harshest sentencing laws. Once a leader in the philosophy of rehabilitation, California also passed legislation which expressly described punishment rather than rehabilitation as the central aim of imprisonment. Pelican Bay SHU, which opened in 1989, was one of the first super-maximum security facilities specifically designed to be ‘non- programming,’ that is, constructed with no communal space for recreation, education or any other group activity.”

Robert King in UK to Receive Honorary Doctor of Laws Degree from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England

(PHOTO: Robert King and Professor Michael Thorne, Vice Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University.)

On October 9, the Angola 3's own Robert King received an honorary law degree from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, England (read reports by the BBC and Cambridge News here).

Read King's speech given at the ceremony here.

While in the UK, King will also be appearing at other events, including:

--Caged in the USA: What will happen to individuals if extradited to the US?, in London, on October 18, at 7pm, organized by Cage Prisoners (read more here). UPDATE: Coverage of this event with a Video and Writeup.

--Screening of In the Land of the Free, about the Angola 3, in London, on October 16, at 7pm (read more here).

RELATED:   HRC Coverage of Rally and Hearing Against Solitary in Philadelphia, w/Robert King

World Premiere of Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal --An interview with filmmakers Noelle Hanrahan and Steve Vittoria

(Photo of Mumia Abu-Jamal during recent contact visit.)

World Premiere of Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal

--An interview with filmmakers Noelle Hanrahan and Steve Vittoria

By Angola 3 News

On October 6, the new documentary film entitled Long Distance Revolutionary: A Journey with Mumia Abu-Jamal, will be making its world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival, just north of San Francisco.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a veteran journalist, author of seven books, and a former Black Panther who was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of white Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in a 1982 trial deemed unfair by Amnesty International and many others. Abu-Jamal, who has always maintained his innocence, spent almost 30 years in solitary confinement on death row in Pennsylvania. The death sentence has now been officially overturned and since early in 2012, Abu-Jamal is out of solitary and in general population at SCI-Mahony, with such new ‘privileges’ as contact visits with family and friends (view photos). 

Will AB 2530 Unshackle Childbirth in California? --An interview with Tina Reynolds and Vikki Law

UPDATE (Sept. 29): This week AB 2530 was signed into law by CA Governor Jerry Brown and will take effect on Jan 1, 2013 (read more here).

Will AB 2530 Unshackle Childbirth in California?

--An interview with Tina Reynolds and Vikki Law

By Angola 3 News

A bill opposing the shackling of pregnant prisoners, AB 2530, has been passed unanimously by the California State Legislature and is now on Governor Jerry Brown’s desk, with thirty days to either approve or veto it. Last year, a previous version of this bill was also passed unanimously by the Legislature, but it was ultimately vetoed by Governor Brown.

With Governor Brown’s decision expected anytime, local activists are urgently mobilizing to stop him from vetoing this important bill once again. AB 2530 supporters have created a webpage for the public (not just California residents) to contact the Governor. Take action here.

VIDEO: Amnesty International Delivers 67,000 Signature Petition for the Angola 3 at the Louisiana State Capitol on April 17, 2012, Marking 40 Years of Solitary Confinement

Sign Amnesty International's new petition here!


On April 17, 2012, Amnesty International was joined by a delegation of supporters, holding a press conference at the Louisiana State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, LA, and hand delivering to Governor Bobby Jindal's office the petition initiated by Amnesty International demanding the immediate release of the Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox from solitary confinement.

Governor Jindal refused to meet with the delegation despite several attempts made by Amnesty International to contact him in the weeks leading up to the petition delivery. Jindal ultimately referred the issue to the Department of Public Safety and Corrections. In response, the following month, Amnesty launched a new online petition directed to the Secretary of that department, James M. LeBlanc, still calling for Albert and Herman's immediately release from solitary.

Prolonged Solitary Confinement on Trial --An interview with law professor Angela A. Allen-Bell

**Watch the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on solitary confinement in US prisons here! 

RELATED COVERAGE:  Prof. Bell interviewed by Wanda Sabir, Democracy Now, The Atlantic (parts 1, 2, 3), Time Magazine, UK Guardian

Angela A. Allen-Bell speaks in Baton Rouge at the Louisiana State Capitol on April 17, 2012 when Amnesty International delivered a 67,000 signature demanding Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox's immediate release from solitary confinement.

Prolonged Solitary Confinement on Trial

--An interview with law professor Angela A. Allen-Bell

By Angola 3 News

A diverse grassroots movement confronting the widespread use of prolonged solitary confinement in US prisons appears to be gaining momentum. On the morning of Tuesday, June 19, the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights is having an important public hearing on “Reassessing Solitary Confinement: The Human Rights, Fiscal and PublicSafety Consequences,”  presided over by Chairman Dick Durbin.

Angola Three: 40 Years of Solitary, 40 Years of Cruel and Unusual Punishment (Statement to Senate Judiciary Committee)

A3 supporters at the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, April 17, 2012, exactly 40 years after Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox were put in solitary confinement at Angola State Prison.

(Note: below is the statement by the Angola 3, submitted to the US Senate Judiciary Committee for their hearing on June 19, 2012 entitled, “Reassessing Solitary Confinement: The Human Rights, Fiscal and Public Safety Consequences."  In April 2011, Congressmen Bobby Scott, John Conyers, and Cedric Richmond all hosted a Congressional Briefing on “The Abuses of Solitary Confinement in the U.S. Criminal Justice System” that included a screening of "In The Land of the Free," a full length feature documentary film about the A3 civil and criminal cases narrated by Samuel L. Jackson.)

Dear Chairman Durbin and Ranking Member Graham:

My name is Robert Hillary King.  I spent 29 years in solitary before I was freed in 2001 after proving my innocence.  Since then I have worked tirelessly speaking and traveling around the world to raise awareness about prison conditions in the US, and to bring attention to the remaining two members of the Angola 3—Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox—who are still actively fighting to prove their innocence in federal court.  Both remain behind solitary bars in Louisiana today after 40 years. 

Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly article on the Angola 3 by Prof. Angela A. Allen-Bell

Vikki Wallace, sister of Herman Wallace, holds a photo of Albert Woodfox and Herman, standing outside the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge, April 17, 2012.

**Read Prof. Bell's statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee about solitary confinement and the Angola 3 here.


(Note: This law journal article has been reprinted in full by permission of the author. All rights are reserved. Please email the author for permission to reprint: BellA6@cox.net. The article's footnotes are reprinted in full at the end of the article, and are designated throughout the body of the article by [FN]. For ease of citation, we have preserved the original page numbers from the printed Hastings CLQ article. The page break notations and corresponding page numbers are designated as [*]. For example, in the first paragraph, [*764] marks where page 763 ends and 764 begins.)

Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly
Volume 39, Number 4
Summer 2012
Pages 763-821

PERCEPTION PROFILING & PROLONGED SOLITARY CONFINEMENT VIEWED THROUGH THE LENS OF THE ANGOLA 3 CASE: WHEN PRISON OFFICIALS BECOME JUDGES, JUDGES BECOME VISUALLY CHALLENGED, AND JUSTICE BECOMES LEGALLY BLIND [FN1]

Angela A. Allen-Bell [FNa1]

Copyright (c) 2012 University of California, Hastings College of the Law; Angela A. Allen-Bell

Introduction

       Incarceration has crept its way into the mainstream of American society. It no longer conjures an emotional reaction. In fact, for [*764] many populations, it is a predictable destination. For others, it is a fate easily justified. “Since the mid 1990s, the war on drugs, the war on gangs, the war on terror, ‘zero tolerance’ and sentencing policies such as ‘three strikes and you're out[,]’ ‘mandatory minimum sentences[,]’ and ‘truth in sentencing’ have all contributed to the dramatic increase in the number of people sent to prison in the United States and in the length of sentences they serve.” [FN2]