By James Ridgeway, The Unsilent Generation
The Louisiana State Supreme Court Friday denied an appeal from Herman Wallace, who has been held in solitary confinement for more than 37 years. Wallace and Albert Woodfox are members of what has become known as the Angola 3, whose story I have been covering for Mother Jones. Convicted of the 1972 murder of a prison guard at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, both men maintain their innocence; they believe they were targeted for the crime and relegated to permanent lockdown because of their organizing work with the prison chapter of the Black Panthers. Wallace, who is now 68 years old, was recently transferred from Angola to the Hunt Correctional Center near Baton Rouge, where he continues to be held in solitary. Two days ago, Wallace descended even deeper into the hole, placed in a disciplinary unit called Beaver 5 for unknown violations of prison policy.
Herman Wallace launched the appeal of his conviction nearly a decade ago. His lawyers have introduced substantial evidence showing that the state's star witness, a fellow prisoner named Hezekiah Brown, was offered special treatment and an eventual pardon in exchange for his testimony against Wallace and Woodfox. In 2006, a judicial commissioner assigned to study the case found that there were grounds for overturning the conviction, but Wallace's application was subsequently denied-by the state district court, court of appeals, and now by the Louisiana Supreme Court.
While every setback comes as a blow to a man nearing 70 who has spent nearly four decades in lockdown, one of Wallace's attorneys said tonight that this denial by the state's highest court came as no surprise, since it has a reputation for refusing to overturn the decisions of lower courts. Today's ruling opens the doors to a federal habeas corpus challenge, beginning with the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana at Baton Rouge. Here, if Wallace is lucky, his case will be reviewed by a fact-finding federal magistrate, and his conviction overturned by a federal judge. This is what happened to Albert Woodfox last year. Yet Woodfox, too, remains in prison-and in solitary confinement-as the state appeals the judge's decision.
Louisiana's Attorney General, James "Buddy" Caldwell, has stated that he opposes releasing the two men "with every fiber of my being," while the Warden of Angola and Hunt prisons, Burl Cain, has more than once suggested that the two men must be held in solitary because they ascribe to "Black Pantherism."
In addition to their criminal appeals, Wallace and Woodfox (along with Robert King, who was released in 2001), have a case pending on constitutional grounds. They argue that the conditions and duration of their time in solitary confinement constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Their lawyers have submitted reports showing the effects of decades of solitary confinement on men in their sixties--including arthritis, hypertension, and kidney failure, as well as memory impairment, insomnia, claustrophobia, anxiety, and depression. The suit also argues that Wallace and Woodfox are being held in lockdown for their political beliefs, in violation of the First Amendment.
(Image: Herman Wallace)
The Louisiana State Supreme Court Friday denied an appeal from Herman Wallace, who has been held in solitary confinement for more than 37 years. Wallace and Albert Woodfox are members of what has become known as the Angola 3, whose story I have been covering for Mother Jones. Convicted of the 1972 murder of a prison guard at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, both men maintain their innocence; they believe they were targeted for the crime and relegated to permanent lockdown because of their organizing work with the prison chapter of the Black Panthers. Wallace, who is now 68 years old, was recently transferred from Angola to the Hunt Correctional Center near Baton Rouge, where he continues to be held in solitary. Two days ago, Wallace descended even deeper into the hole, placed in a disciplinary unit called Beaver 5 for unknown violations of prison policy.Herman Wallace launched the appeal of his conviction nearly a decade ago. His lawyers have introduced substantial evidence showing that the state's star witness, a fellow prisoner named Hezekiah Brown, was offered special treatment and an eventual pardon in exchange for his testimony against Wallace and Woodfox. In 2006, a judicial commissioner assigned to study the case found that there were grounds for overturning the conviction, but Wallace's application was subsequently denied-by the state district court, court of appeals, and now by the Louisiana Supreme Court.
While every setback comes as a blow to a man nearing 70 who has spent nearly four decades in lockdown, one of Wallace's attorneys said tonight that this denial by the state's highest court came as no surprise, since it has a reputation for refusing to overturn the decisions of lower courts. Today's ruling opens the doors to a federal habeas corpus challenge, beginning with the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana at Baton Rouge. Here, if Wallace is lucky, his case will be reviewed by a fact-finding federal magistrate, and his conviction overturned by a federal judge. This is what happened to Albert Woodfox last year. Yet Woodfox, too, remains in prison-and in solitary confinement-as the state appeals the judge's decision.
Louisiana's Attorney General, James "Buddy" Caldwell, has stated that he opposes releasing the two men "with every fiber of my being," while the Warden of Angola and Hunt prisons, Burl Cain, has more than once suggested that the two men must be held in solitary because they ascribe to "Black Pantherism."
In addition to their criminal appeals, Wallace and Woodfox (along with Robert King, who was released in 2001), have a case pending on constitutional grounds. They argue that the conditions and duration of their time in solitary confinement constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Their lawyers have submitted reports showing the effects of decades of solitary confinement on men in their sixties--including arthritis, hypertension, and kidney failure, as well as memory impairment, insomnia, claustrophobia, anxiety, and depression. The suit also argues that Wallace and Woodfox are being held in lockdown for their political beliefs, in violation of the First Amendment.
(Image: Herman Wallace)
On lockdown for "pantherism"?! This is outrageous. I pray that these gentlemen get some relief from this inhumane treatment in the near future. kzs
October 12, 2009 6:36 PM | Reply
The short version of this comment concerning the Angola 3 case of Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox focuses on Slavery, timing, and political ideas or affiliations.
Fact #1: Constitution of Louisiana:
1868 – Title 1, Article 3:
There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in this State, OTHERWISE THAN FOR THE PUNISHMENT OF CRIME, WHEREOF THE PARTY SHALL HAVE BEEN DULY CONVICTED.
Fact #2: In 1972 The Angola Three were charged with murder, and placed in the “Hole” basically as a show of arrogance in implementing Louisiana’s convict slavery proviso to punish Black Pantherism, where they have remained for the past 37 years.
Fact #3: However, timing has it that the flaunting of slavery punishments rapidly became poor publicity for tax payers, and so in 1974 the above Louisiana Constitutional Amendment was changed:
1974 – Article 1, Section 3. Right to Individual Dignity
“No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws. No law shall discriminate against a person because of race or religious ideas, beliefs, or affiliations. No law shall arbitrarily, capriciously, or unreasonably discriminate against a person because of birth, age, sex, culture, physical condition, or political ideas or affiliations. Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, EXCEPT IN THE LATTER CASE AS PUNISHMENT FOR CRIME.
Slavery is said to have been removed as a punishment, and only involuntary servitude remains as punishment for crime in the State of Louisiana, with the return of freedom to practice political ideas or affiliations, Except for the Angola 3 who continue to be unreasonably punished for their political ideas or affiliations – Pantherism – with 37 years in the Hole. The problem is that this is not Involuntary Servitude – it is SLAVERY, the showing of the example of the errant slave punishment for all to witness and fear. The reality is that Louisiana prisons, especially Angola in this specific case, are violating their own 1974 Constitutional Amendment change prohibiting Slavery. Rather than enforcing the probation – they are openly and arrogantly practicing Slavery for all to see, and stammer in amazement as to how they could bold-face lie to Louisiana tax payers, and Federal Courts.
In reality, the 1974 Constitutional changes were merely cover-up provisions designed to placate tax payer revolts and refusals to pay taxes for slaveholding in their names. And it continues at this very minute. It is a bold faced lie – slavery as a punishment for crime continues to be practiced in Louisiana, in Angola, and with the Angola 3 prisoners who remain in the Hole after 37 stinking years. They are being denied each and every Right of Individual Dignity stated explicitly in Article 1, Section 3. Some have suggested that part of the problem is the close family breeding of white legislators dating back to that state’s old slavocracy, wherein they and their prodigy have problems understanding that such constitutional Amendments are not merely written these days to protect them, at the exclusion of all other Louisiana citizens. Thus, the 1974 Constitutional change is exposed as a “conspiracy to cover-up slavery” rather than an honest and true effort to abolish slavery. It’s hocus-pocus slavery by another name simply because slavery’s negative material conditions continue to exist, not occasionally, but in the most extreme and constant vile negatives.
The State of Louisiana has much to fear in admitting this Criminal offense – those who have been systemically violated by slavery would justly deserve restitutions befitting a return to make whole those poor soles so unjustly enslaved; and those who have committed these crimes would justly deserve imprisonment and great, if not total civil penalties for their 37 year crime spree against millions of people, including both the attempted enslavement of the Jena 6, of those being enslaved at this very moment, and of the enslavement of tax payers as shareholders in slavery.
Article 1, Section 3 reads almost like an Emancipation Proclamation:
No person shall be denied the equal protection of the laws.
No law shall discriminate against a person because of race or religious ideas, beliefs, or affiliations.
No law shall arbitrarily, capriciously, or unreasonably discriminate against a person because of birth, age, sex, culture, physical condition, or political ideas or affiliations.
However, all have been arbitrarily, capriciously, or unreasonably discriminated against with great and total impunity, prejudice, racism, and vilification as with a continuation of the old slave master reign of power, ownership, procession, control and financial profits from the forced and coerced labor of one whether he/she is paid or not. Truly, Louisiana prisoners remain “Slaves of the State” wherein during their terms in the penitentiary they loose all their rights of citizenship, labor, human, and economic rights and freedoms. There is no bigger crime than is being committed against both the prisoners and the tax payers of Louisiana at this very hour. Tax payers are being duped and made fools out of by it’s criminal injustice slave system. The chain around the neck of the convict slave would not be tolerated today because it was identical to the chain around the neck of the chattel slave. So, why too are all other symbols and practices and negative conditions of slavery so readily accepted? The answer is simply that they have not been exposed –YET!
There’s no time like the present to expose it. Consider it EXPOSED today. But that’s not enough – you the reader must pick-up this BANNER OF ABOLITION AND EMANCIPATION AND FLY IT BOLDLY AND CONSTANTLY IN THE FACE OF SLAVES AND SLAVOCRACY ALIKE – THE BACK OF SLAVE HOLDING MUST BE ABOLISHED AND ALL SLAVES MUST BE EMANCIPATED WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY.
Published in Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, Vol. 2, No. 4,Organization for Social Work. (Jul., 1912), pp. 159-163.
Prison Labor by E. Stagg Whitin
General SecretaryNational Committee on Prison Labor
Christianity has brought no greater change into the world than the overthrow of slavery. The greatest war of modern times had human slavery as its inciting cause, yet behind the dark bastilles we call our prisons, penitentiaries, reformatories, workhouses, and refuges, there still hides the enemy of our social progress, the economically-vicious slave system. The abolition of the evils inherent in this system, comprising as they do the exploitation of the helpless, the perversion of state functions, the gnawing of graft and the corruption of politics, appears no limited task, even to the most light-hearted of reformers; to undertake to work out the reconstruction, the peaceful reformation of this system throughout the length and breadth of this land is at least to grapple with fundamental issues."
Respectfully Submitted,
Lee Wood
prisonslavery@yahoo.com
October 13, 2009 5:22 AM | Reply