Free Woodfox and Wallace
By
Marina Drummer
Published Mar 30, 2005 10:37 AM
April 17 marks the 33rd consecutive year that
Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, members of the Angola 3, have been held in
solitary confinement at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Their case has
been championed by Ramsey Clark, Workers World Party and others since the 1998
retrial of Woodfox.
Political prisoners Herman Wallace (left) and Albert Woodfox.
|
The Angola 3 are former Black Panthers. Robert King
Wilkerson, the third member, was released from prison in 2001 after 29 years of
solitary confinement. Wallace and Woodfox were falsely convict ed of murdering a
white prison guard in 1972. During that time, Loui s iana State was widely known
as the “bloodiest prison in America.”
Despite demonstrable and
growing evidence of their innocence, Louisiana’s racist and conservative
courts have so far refused to consider their appeals. The state’s elected
judges run for office on tough-on-crime, pro-death penalty platforms like other
politicians. Because Woodfox and Wallace are politicized Black men who refuse to
acquiesce to their own oppression, the Louisiana penal system hopes to torture
them until they die.
The prison itself is a former slave plantation, named
“Angola” after the national origin of kidnapped African slaves
brought to the U.S. After the Civil War, the Angola plantation became a prison
and is still operated on the plantation model. Eighty percent of the 5,000
prisoners there are African American and 80 percent are serving sentences that
will keep them there until they die. Most of them spend their days in the
fields, working for pennies an hour to harvest produce that the state sells at a
profit. Louisiana incarcerates a higher percentage of its population than any
other state.
Woodfox and Wallace both have criminal post-conviction
appeals pending, which the state is dragging through the courts at a painfully
slow pace. The ACLU has filed a civil challenge on their behalf citing cruel and
unusual punishment and lack of due process. Supporters hope that successful
litigation could set a legal precedent for limits on confinement in solitary and
super-max conditions. A recent magistrate’s ruling on this civil case
accurately states, “The present matter, of course, involves confinements
of nearly 33 years, durations so far beyond the pale that this Court has not
found anything even remotely comparable in the annals of American
jurisprudence.”
Drummer is the West Coast organizer of the
National Coalition to Free the Angola 3.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email:
[email protected]
Subscribe
[email protected]
Support independent news
DONATE