Herman Wallace, the 71-year-old political prisoner with late stage liver cancer, was released from prison on Oct. 1. Wallace is one of the Angola 3 and among the longest serving prisoners on death row and in solitary confinement along with Albert Woodfox and Robert King Wilkerson.
In the morning of Oct. 1, U.S. District Judge Brian A. Jackson in Baton Rouge overturned Wallace’s conviction and ordered his immediate release, ruling that he did not receive a fair trial because women were systematically excluded from the grand jury that indicted Wallace. Later that evening, the Judge Jackson denied the State’s request for a stay and issued a second order for Wallace’s immediate release. Just after 9:00 p.m., Wallace was driven away from prison in an ambulance and taken immediately to the hospital. The State still has the option to file an appeal with the 5th Circuit to attempt to reverse the order.
The cases of Wallace and the other members of the Angola 3 not only exemplify the worst of the racist court system in Louisiana, but also serve as an inspiration for the movement against mass incarceration and targeting of Black, Latino and poor communities.
Wallace is so ill he may just have days to live.
“Compassionate release does not exist in Louisiana,” said Malik Rahim, from the Common Ground Collective and former Black Panther who has been advocating for the Angola 3’s release since 1997.
“Can’t say that justice prevailed when you have individuals locked up in these cells,” concluded Rahim.
The real crime of the Angola 3 is their consistent struggle against the racist prison system. Herman Wallace, Robert King Wilkerson and Albert Woodfox organized one of the first prison chapters of the Black Panther Party, building a movement to desegregate the prison, end systematic rape and violence and for better general conditions for prisoners. They organized many strikes and sit-ins behind the walls of Angola State Penitentiary, the largest maximum security prison in the United States, built on the site of a slave plantation.
To retaliate the prison system framed Wallace and Woodfox for the stabbing of a prison guard in 1972. King Wilkerson was released after 29 years of solitary confinement after pleading to a lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
The case of the Angola 3 has received support from around the globe making it critical in the movement against mass incarceration and for broadening the base of solidarity against the prison industrial complex. Among the supporters are Teenie Verret, the widow of the stabbed prison guard who advocates for their release as well as many celebrities and political figures from around the world.
Wallace has spent the last 42 years in a 9” x 6” cell. His health condition is certainly a result of his torturous confinement. Along with Wallace, on any given day in the United States, some 80,000 inmates are locked up in solitary confinement and subjected to the same cruel, inhumane treatment.
Albert Woodfox who continues to be incarcerated won appeals in 2008 and again in 2010 granting him full habeas corpus. However, both times the appeals were overturned by the racist Louisiana courts.
Before losing his capacity to speak, Wallace engendered the spirit of militant struggle against tremendous odds when he said: “This is the struggle and it’s worth it…and it makes us stronger.”
Free the Angola 3 and all political prisoners! Tear down the prison walls!
