Judge Orders Inmate's Release After More Than 40 Years In Solitary Confinement-gctid152968

[Ajamu]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/08/angola-three-release_n_7540152.html

Judge Orders Inmate's Release After More Than 40 Years In Solitary Confinement

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  |                                    
By                                                                                CAIN BURDEAU

Posted:              06/08/2015 11:14 pm EDT                           Updated:              06/09/2015  1:59 am EDT

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPf23DKkb_0

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The last of the "Angola Three" inmates,  whose decades in solitary confinement on a Louisiana prison farm drew  international condemnation and became the subject of two documentaries,  was ordered released Monday.

The ruling would free 68-year-old  Albert Woodfox after more than 40 years in solitary, which human rights  experts have said constitutes torture.

U.S. District Judge James  Brady of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, ordered the release of Woodfox and took  the extraordinary step of barring Louisiana prosecutors from trying him  for a third time.
       
 A spokesman for the Louisiana attorney general said the state would  appeal Brady's ruling to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals "to make  sure this murderer stays in prison and remains fully accountable for his  actions."

Tory Pegram of the International Coalition to Free the  Angola 3, who is working with Woodfox's lawyers on his release, said  they are all "thrilled that justice has come for our innocent friend."

Woodfox  was placed in solitary confinement in 1972 after being charged in the  death of a Louisiana State Penitentiary guard in April of that year. The  prison farm is more commonly known as the Angola prison and it is  Louisiana's only maximum-security prison.

Woodfox and two other  state prisoners became known as the Angola Three because of their long  stretches in solitary confinement at Angola. Other members of the Angola  Three were prisoners Robert King and Herman Wallace.

Woodfox and  Wallace, who were both serving unrelated armed robbery sentences, had  said they were singled out for harsh treatment, including isolation,  because of their political activism. Woodfox and Wallace were former  Black Panthers and helped establish a prison chapter of the Black  Panther Party at the Angola prison in 1971, set up demonstrations and  organized strikes for better conditions.

Wallace, convicted with  Woodfox of murder in the death of guard Brent Miller, died last fall  only days after a judge freed him and granted him a new trial. King was  released in 2001 after his conviction in the death of a fellow inmate in  1973 was reversed.

Woodfox has been tried and convicted twice in  the guard's death, but both convictions were overturned. Brady said the  "exceptional circumstances" of the case had led him to bar the state  from seeking a third trial. In his ruling, he cited doubt that the state  could provide a "fair third trial"; the inmate's age and poor health;  the unavailability of witnesses; "the prejudice done onto Mr. Woodfox by  spending over forty years in solitary confinement," and "the very fact  that Mr. Woodfox has already been tried twice."

Woodfox is in  solitary confinement at a prison in St. Francisville, Louisiana,  awaiting trial. His lawyers were headed there Monday to seek his  release. Pegram said Woodfox gets to exercise for one hour three times a  week during his confinement at the West Feliciana Parish Detention  Center. He has a television to watch and a shower in his cell, she  added.

Of Brady's order for an unconditional release, Pegram said, "I call it the unicorn. It's almost never done."

Jasmine Heiss, a senior campaigner with Amnesty International united snakes, called Brady's ruling "a momentous step toward justice."

Heiss said Woodfox has been "trapped in a legal process riddled with flaws."

"The only humane action that the Louisiana authorities can take now is to ensure his immediate release."

At the same time, though, state prosecutors were working to keep Woodfox in prison.

Aaron  Sadler, a spokesman for Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, said  the state was seeking an emergency stay of Brady's ruling from the 5th  U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

"With today's order,  the court would see fit to set free a twice-convicted murderer," Sadler  said. "This order arbitrarily sets aside jury decisions and gives a  free pass to a murderer based on faulty procedural issues."
___
This  story has been clarified to point out that two of the inmates were  convicted in the prison guard's death, while a third was convicted of a  separate killing.

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

That's any of us on a whim. May the Ancestors do what they can on his behalf. :soldiert:

[Ɔbenfo Ọbádélé]

Man freed after 43 years in solitary http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33059012

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