Angola 3 - Albert Woodfox Conviction is Overturned!!

[Moorbey]

Good evening everyone,

I am thrilled to report that earlier today Judge Brady issued the long
anticipated final judgment in Albert's case (attached), officially
overturning his conviction after 36 years in solitary confinement!

Attorney General Buddy Caldwell immediately told AP reporters that the
State intends to appeal and retry if necessary saying: "We respectfully but
vehemently disagree with the judge's ruling ...If this ruling is
upheld, we will with no question retry Albert Woodfox. We will take it
as high as we need to go."

But no matter how hard the State fights back, this is a huge
victory--Albert is no longer convicted of the murder of Brent Miller,
and there is at least a possibility he could be released on bail in
the near future. A big congrats to the attorneys and everyone who has
refused to give up on the idea that Herman and Albert will one day be
free.

Albert's attorneys and the Chair of the Louisiana House Judiciary
Committee, Representative Cedric Richmond, will hold a joint press
conference call to discuss the ruling tomorrow at 11amC/12amE. The
press release and call-in numbers are below and
everyone is welcome to tune in if they'd like. If you have contacts
in the media who may want to cover the story, please forward the
release to them as well. The AP story has already been picked up by
hundreds of outlets around the world.

HOOORAY! YAHOO!! YIPEEE!!!

peace,

--
Tory Pegram
Campaign Coordinator
International Coalition to Free the Angola 3
odsllc@gmail.com
504.338.2631
Criminal Injustice in Louisiana Continues


COALITION TO FREE THE ANGOLA THREE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Emma Mackinnon

Thursday, September 25, 2008
202.302.6920/emma@fenton.com


*** Press Call FRIDAY at 11 AM Central * Dial 1-800-895-1085, Conf. ID
'ANGOLA' ***

Conviction Overturned After 36 Years in Solitary For "Angola 3" Member
Albert Woodfox

Federal Judge Orders the State: Must Either Retry or Dismiss Charges
Against "Angola 3" Member

Lawyers: Charges Should be Dismissed Immediately; Otherwise, Woodfox
Should be Released on Bail

In response to a federal judge's decision overturning the conviction
of Albert Woodfox, one of the two "Angola 3" members who remain in
prison, lawyers for the men called on the State Attorney General's
office to drop any further charges and release the men immediately.
If the state intends to re-try Woodfox, they said, he should be
released on bail until the time of trial. They argued the man, now 61
and in poor health, has spent long enough imprisoned on a wrongful
conviction and that continuing to hold him would be unthinkable. They
plan a press conference call for tomorrow, Friday, at 11 AM CDT; to
join, reporters can dial 1-800-895-1085 and provide conference ID
"Angola."

Woodfox and fellow inmate Herman Wallace have been imprisoned since
1972 for the murder of prison guard Brent Miller. They spent 36 years
of that time in solitary confinement. The federal judge's ruling
acknowledged that Woodfox has been wrongfully imprisoned. His
conviction rested on the testimony of a fellow prisoner, a convicted
serial rapist who was promised and received the warden's help
obtaining a pardon in exchange for testifying against Herman and
Albert. The deal was not disclosed at trial; the witness was pardoned
and freed later. An additional witness, who said he had seen Albert in
the area of the crime, was a schizophrenic who was on heavy doses of
psychotropic medications at the time of the murder, which also was not
disclosed. No physical evidence ties Woodfox or Wallace to the crime.

"Both the magistrate judge and the district court judge have now found
that Woodfox's conviction was invalid and had to be reversed. Woodfox
has demonstrated the deep flaws in the state's investigation and
prosecution of the case against him, and has presented evidence of his
innocence. If the State of Louisiana appeals, it will bear the burden
of showing the court of appeals that both of the two judges were
incorrect. As the facts and the law are so clearly on the side of Mr.
Woodfox, we are confident that the State cannot carry that burden. No
further legal delay should deprive Albert of even one more day of his
life," said Chris Aberle, one of Woodfox's lawyers.

"The state has already stolen nearly four decades of Albert Woodfox's
life. The injustice in this case is unfathomable. How can Louisiana
continue to imprison a 61 year old man after a federal judge has ruled
that he shouldn't have been convicted in the first place? Albert must
be released," said Nick Trenticosta, co-counsel in the case.

The third member of the Angola 3, Robert King, was released in 2001
after a judge overturned his conviction. King had spent 29 years in
solitary confinement for a separate crime.

For a copy of the ruling or to speak with lawyers in the case, call
Emma Mackinnon at 202-302-6920 or email emma@fenton.com. For Friday's
11 AM CDT call, dial 1-800-895-1085 and provide conference ID
"Angola"; please RSVP for the call by emailing emma@fenton.com.


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[nattyreb]

Now if only to see him walk outta those doors, followed soon thereafter by Bro. Herman!!!

[Moorbey]

[quote=nattyreb;153954]Now if only to see him walk outta those doors, followed soon thereafter by Bro. Herman!!! [/QUOT

I second that statement sista Nattyreb for that would be one beautiful moment to see our comrade walk free after such a long time behind the walls...

[Im The Truth]

Hooray, god-willing reparations will follow!

[BlkSpartacus]

Originally Posted by nattyreb

Now if only to see him walk outta those doors, followed soon thereafter by Bro. Herman!!!

That would be a beautiful day for afrikans worldwide

[Moorbey]

'Angola 3' Black Panther conviction reversed after 35 years; attention now turns to 'Omaha Two' case

by Michael Richardson


[]

U.S. District Court Judge James J. Brady in Baton Rouge, Louisiana has ordered the state to either free or retry Albert Woodfox after almost three dozen years in solitary confinement. Woodfox, tried with two other co-defendants, was convicted for the 1972 murder of prison guard Brent Miller at Angola Prison where Woodfox was serving a sentence for armed robbery.

After a controversial trial and an even more disputed second trial in 1998 when he was retried following appeal of his first conviction, Woodfox may see freedom from the infamous prison where he has been held in virtual isolation for over three decades.

Woodfox had been active in a prison chapter of the Black Panthers in racially-charged Angola Prison, a vast plantation-style penitentiary in rural Louisiana. Following conviction for the stabbing murder of Miller, a life sentence was imposed and Angola officials decided that for security reasons Woodfox and fellow Panther Herman Wallace would be held in solitary confinement. The 6' by 9' isolation cells would become home, night and day, for thirty-five years.

Magistrate Docia L. Dalby has described the punishment meted out to the two Panthers as, "durations so far beyond the pale that this court has not found anything even remotely comparable in the annals of American jurisprudence."

Judge Brady, after a careful review of the trial record and recommendation of Magistrate Judge Christine Noland, determined that Woodfox had not received a fair trial; that his attorney failed to adequately represent him; and that the state's chief witness, Hezekiah Brown, had gotten a reduced sentence for naming Woodfox. Further, exculpatory information about the physical evidence in the case, bloodstains, was withheld from the jury.

While Woodfox waits for a prosecutor's decision on his future, another Black Panther in the Nebraska State Penitentiary, Ed Poindexter, waits for a ruling from the Nebraska Supreme Court on his request for a new trial. Poindexter and fellow Panther activist Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) were convicted in April 1971 for the bombing murder of Omaha police officer Larry Minard.

Unlike Woodfox, who was an inmate at the time of his alleged crime, Poindexter and Langa were free and officers in the Nebraska Committee to Combat Fascism and were Omaha's most vocal police critics. On August 17, 1970, police were lured to a vacant house investigating a report of a woman screaming when a bomb killed Minard and injured seven other police officers. Within two days of the bombing, J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who had targeted the Black Panthers, ordered Ivan Willard Conrad, director of the FBI national crime laboratory to withhold information that was not favorable to the prosecution of Poindexter and Langa for Minard's murder.

Hoover was at war with the Black Panthers and secretly directed a clandestine "no holds barred" operation, code-named COINTELPRO, to put the group out of existence. Using illegal tactics, FBI agents engaged in a nationwide campaign that encouraged violence, planted evidence, withheld evidence, obtained false arrests, and took a host of other measures that would later be denounced by the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Government Operations commonly known as the Church Committee.

At question in the Minard killing was the identity of the unknown caller who made the emergency call to police headquarters. Hidden for years behind a secrecy stamp, Omaha Asst. Chief of Police Glen W. Gates, in a confidential COINTELPRO memo to Hoover, asked the FBI to abandon the search for the killer who made the call because it might "prejudice the police murder trial" against Poindexter and Langa.

Ultimately a 15 year-old, Duane Peak, confessed to the crime and claimed he made the phone call and that Poindexter and Langa put him up to the murder. Peak's story falls apart if someone else made the deadly call. The tape recording, which was withheld from the jury that convicted the two Panther leaders, did not sound like Peak but rather resonated with the voice of an older man.

The tape was destroyed by local authorities after the trial only to have a duplicate recording emerge years later. The duplicate tape was subjected to modern vocal analysis in 2006. Expert Tom Owens has testified that the voice on the tape is not that of Peak, thus leaving an unidentified accomplice on the loose.

Poindexter is seeking a new trial over the withheld evidence and the Nebraska Supreme Court hears oral arguments in the case this week. No date has been set for a decision. Poindexter and Langa are serving life sentences at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Both men deny any involvement in the crime.
Permission granted to reprint



Michael Richardson is a freelance writer based in Boston. Richardson writes about politics, law, nutrition, ethics, and music. Richardson is also a political consultant.



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

Freedom Archives - home

[Moorbey]

"In a sense we've come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the "unalienable Rights" of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds.""

~Dr. King from the "I Have A Dream" Speech

"Don't push me, cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head
It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under"

~Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five from "The Message"

On Monday Sept. 29, 2008, The U.S. Supreme Court Decided That An Innocent Man On Georgia's Death Row Will Live...At Least For Now...The Story Of Troy Davis , a poor innocent Black man who was wrongly convicted in the murder of a police officer almost 19 years ago based on faulty witness testimony and evidence is the bounced check of The American Dream...The Troy Davis travesty proves that being born poor and black are unforgivable sins in our society which can mean an automatic death sentence from The State...

Realize that Bro. Troy Davis is just one of many in this 'Just Us' System who have basically been railroaded by a system where race and class are the x-factors in determining guilt or innocence...TODAY HIM, BUT TOMORROW IT COULD BE YOU!!! More

--
"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

"If I could have convinced more slaves that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more."

-Harriet Tubman