Death Penalty. Conviction overturned. Free at last...
Judge overturns ex-Black Panther's conviction
After a long campaign by many Activist's around the World including the Late Anita Roddick of The Body Shop fame a prisoner has been released from Solitary confinement after 30 years. Yes thirty years...
Imagine being held in solitary confinement for so long. One cannot. I cannot imagine being held in solitary for more than two days. A grave injustice seems to have been done. The man should be duly compensated and care for from now on until the end of his life..
Anita gave immense time and energy to the-cause of their freedom. In the past year, under the guidance of Gordon Roddick, a crack team of lawyers and activists have turned up the heat on Louisiana.
A federal judge on Tuesday overturned the conviction of a former Black Panther in the 1972 stabbing death of a Louisiana prison guard.
Albert Woodfox a man who was held in solitary confinement for over 30 years, is one of three former Panthers known as the "Angola Three." He and two other black prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were convicted in the killing of guard Brent Miller on April 17, 1972.
Judge James Brady issued a ruling late Tuesday approving a Federal Magistrate's June recommendation that Woodfox's conviction be overturned because one of his former lawyers failed to object to a prosecutor's testimony about a witness' credibility. Brady also found that Woodfox's trial lawyer failed to object to testimony from a witness who had died after the trial.
Woodfox's decades in solitary confinement attracted worldwide attention from activists who called him a political prisoner.
Nick Trenticosta, the New Orleans-based defense lawyer who handled the appeal, said Woodfox's immediate future lies in the hands of prosecutors, who could request a new trial. Trenticosta said he hoped Woodfox to be released without another trial.
"The man was convicted on false evidence, and he's been held in solitary for almost 40 years. Let's release him," Trenticosta said.
"I don't believe he knows," Trenticosta said. "But I'll talk to him in the morning and he'll probably find out about it in the newspaper."
It seems incredible that it would take this long to pardon a man wrongly convicted of a crime ho did not commit despite worldwide representation ny activist groups.
I felt this was worthy of a hub...
