Southern injustice

For the better part offour decades, Victory Wallace, 70, has made a monthly trip from NewOrleans to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola to visit herbrother Herman (photo right), who just turned 68. The 140-mile journey has shades of Heart of Darkness,following the course of the Mississippi River to a remote prison colonyfrom which most inmates never return. At the dark heart of this formerslave plantation, Herman Wallace has lived most of the past 37 years insolitary confinement, imprisoned alone for 23 hours a day in a6-by-9-foot cell.

When Herman was moved in the spring of 2009 from Angola to HuntCorrectional Center near Baton Rouge, Vickie's trip got a bit shorter.But what she found when she arrived on her most recent visit was evenworse than usual. Because of a disciplinary infraction, Herman had beenplaced in "extended administrative lockdown." That meant Vickie wasdenied a contact visit, and was permitted to see her brother onlythrough a glass partition as they spoke over a telephone. His handswere shackled to the table. (Other recent visitors reported that theshackles made it hard for him to hold the phone to his ear, while hishearing loss made communication over the telephone difficult.) Hermancomplained to Vickie that he was cold, and she thought that he had lostweight. His spirits, she said, were not the best.

Foryears, Herman Wallace's hopes have ridden on two cases that are inchingtheir way through the courts -- one challenging his conviction, the otherchallenging his long-term solitary confinement. Now, after a decade ofstarts and stops, obstacles and delays, both cases are advancing towardconclusions that will determine how he spends what's left of his life.

With the exception of a few brief intervals, Wallace has been livingin lockdown since 1972, when he was accused of murdering a young Angolaprison guard. Along with another inmate named Albert Woodfox, he wastried, convicted, and sentenced to life without parole. Wallace,Woodfox, and a third longtime prisoner called Robert King -- who are knownas the Angola 3 -- are also plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit alleging thattheir unparalleled time in solitary violates the constitutional ban oncruel and unusual punishment. The case -- whichcould potentially affect the estimated 25,000 American prisoners livingin long-term lockdown -- is expected to come to trial in the US DistrictCourt in Baton Rouge in early 2010.

Since 1990, Wallace has also been appealing his criminal convictionin the Louisiana state courts. He believes that he was targeted for theguard's murder because of his involvement in Angola's chapter of theBlack Panther Party, which had been organizing against conditions inwhat was then known as "the bloodiest prison in the South." Wallacecontends that the prosecution's witnesses -- all of them fellow Angolaprisoners -- were coached, bribed, coerced, or threatened into givingfalse testimony against him by prison employees bent on revenge. "Ifthey could have hung and burned the guys involved they would have," oneinmate witness later told Wallace's lawyers. "But there was too muchlight on the situation." Documents and testimony that have surfacedsince the trial show that prosecutors knew a good part of their casewas unreliable or manufactured. The state's own judicial commissioner,assigned to study the case in 2006, recommended that Wallace'sconviction be overturned. Even the prison guard's widow has publiclystated that she now doubtsthe guilt of the two men convicted of her husband's murder, and stillwants to see his killers brought to justice. But the Louisiana courts,one after another, have rejected his appeal, providing no reasons fortheir decisions.

Now, Wallace has turned to the federal courts. On December 4, hefiled a petition for a writ of habeas corpus -- basically, a plea for areversal of his wrongful conviction. It is his last chance to win a newtrial, and possibly his freedom. On his side are a team of skilledpro-bono attorneys who have assembled a brief full of evidence that washidden or suppressed 35 years ago during his original trial. Againsthim is an increasingly conservative federal court system, along withtwo of the most powerful figures in Louisiana criminal justice:Angola's famous warden, Burl Cain, and the state's ambitious attorneygeneral, James "Buddy" Caldwell, both of whom appear determined tofight to the bitter end to ensure that Herman Wallace never again seesthe light of day.

The incident that condemned Herman Wallace to a life in lockdowntook place at a particularly explosive time in Angola's notoriouslyviolent history. In the early 1970s, Louisiana's 5,000-man penitentiarywas the nation's largest prison; it was also notorious for its highrates of murder, rape, and assault. The former slave plantation's18,000 acres were farmed by prisoners working up to 96 hours a week,overseen by armed inmate guards, known as "trusties." The trusties alsooversaw gambling, drug-dealing, and a monstrous system of sexualslavery -- sanctioned by some of the all-white corrections officers, whowere referred to by staff and inmates alike as "freemen."

"Angola in those days was life and death, buying and selling people,and the officers knew it was happening," Howard Baker, a prisoner whotestified at Wallace's trial, stated in a subsequent affidavit. "Therewas a goon squad of guards. If they came after you, you could getanything from a beating to being killed, and they'd call it beingkilled by trying to escape." In addition, Baker said, "Physicalconditions were about as bad as you can get: hot, dirty, overcrowded.Weapons were everywhere. You could shake down for weapons one night andhave just as many the next. I saw as many as four stabbings a week,week after week."

It was also a time of simmering tensions between longtimeemployees -- many of whom had grown up in the staff community on theprison's grounds -- and Angola's new "reformist" leadership. A few yearsearlier, Warden C. Murray Henderson and Deputy Warden Lloyd Hoyle hadbeen brought in from out of state to "clean up Angola." As Wallace'shabeas petition states:

Their arrival at Angola disrupted [the Louisiana StatePenitentiary's] existing leadership, most of whom had worked their wayup the ranks at Angola. Associate Warden Hayden Dees and the old-guardleadership notably resisted their reform efforts, particularly thoseaimed at ending racial segregation and those directed at accordinginmates in extended lockdown, known as CCR (closed cell restriction),with due process. Associate Warden Dees in particular believed that "acertain type of militant or revolutionary inmate, maybe even acommunist type," should remain under lockdown conditions at all times;he wanted nothing to do with documenting decisions about who went intolockdown and for how long in compliance with federal court requirements.

Among the "militant" inmates were Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox,both serving time for armed robbery. After they arrived at Angola theybecame active members of the prison's chapter of the Black PantherParty. This cadre of inmates organized petitions and hunger strikes toprotest the horrendous conditions at the prison, and helped newinmates, known as "fresh fish," protect themselves from sexual assaultand enslavement. For their efforts, some of the Panthers were placed insolitary confinement to suppress what was viewed as a threat to prisonauthority.

On April 17, 1972, 23-year-old guard Brent Miller was found in frontof an inmate dormitory, stabbed 32 times. Investigators initially hadno suspects, but they soon zeroed in on the activists. In a written description[PDF] of his case, Wallace stated that Hayden Dees, the associatewarden, "went well out of his way to tie us in with the death for hisown political gain. He claimed that Henderson and Hoyle wereresponsible for Miller's death by releasing the 'militants' (he linkedme and Woodfox to those released)."

Statements from Henderson and Hoyle confirm that some of the guardsconsidered them complicit in the killing. Three days later, LloydHoyle, the deputy warden, was called from home to a meeting of staffmembers, who accused him of turning loose Miller's murderers. Hoyle wasassaulted and pushed through a plate glass door, and nearly bled todeath before one of the guards decided to drive him to the hospital. 

Wallace was thrown into lockdown the day of Brent Miller's murder.Within a few days, officials had obtained the evidence they needed tocharge Wallace and three other so-called "militants" -- Woodfox, ChesterJackson, and Gilbert Montegut -- with the crime. They were indicted by anall-white, all-male grand jury in nearby St. Francisville, Louisiana,which was home to many prison staff, their families, and friends.

A river town near the Mississippi border, St. Francisville proudlyadvertises itself as plantation country. It was also Klan country, anduntil the civil rights movement and the FBI arrived in the early 1960s,no African American had registered to vote in the parish in more than60 years. The defendants in the Miller case contested the indictment onthe grounds that women and blacks had been systematically excluded fromthe jury pool. They were subsequently re-indicted by another grandjury, chosen through "the same or substantially the same grand juryselection procedures," according to Wallace's current brief.

Albert Woodfox was convicted of Miller's murder in a separate trialin 1973. After being granted a change of venue, the three remainingdefendants--Wallace, Jackson, and Montegut--stood trial in East BatonRouge in January 1974--before yet another all-white, all-male jury.

The prosecutors in the case presented no physical evidence to tie thethree men to the crime. Although bloody fingerprints had been foundnear the guard's body, they matched none of the defendants'. Accordingto evidence presented in Wallace's petition, no effort was made tomatch them to any of the 5,000 other inmate prints on file. A bloodyknife, likewise, could not be connected to any of the men on trial. Theevidence against them consisted entirely of testimony by other Angolaprisoners obtained under highly dubious circumstances.

The prosecution's star witness was Hezekiah Brown, whose eyewitnesstestimony was indispensible to its case. An aging prisoner serving alife sentence for aggravated rape, Brown said that he had been in thedormitory on the morning of Brent Miller's death, and had seen thedefendants stab the guard repeatedly. Former Angola prisoners have saidin interviews that Brown was a notorious snitch. But it would be nearly25 years before proof emerged showing just what happened behind the scenes to secure his testimony.

In 1998, lawyers for Wallace's co-defendant, Albert Woodfox,succeeded in obtaining previously suppressed witness statements, tapedinterviews, and other documents from the murder investigation carriedout by prison officials, the county sheriff's office, and localprosecutors. These materials, supplemented by testimony by WardenHenderson and others, show that Hezekiah Brown was encouraged, if notcoerced, to identify the prisoners already chosen as suspects.Henderson admitted he promised to seek a pardon for the lifer if Brownhelped them "crack the case." A series of letters to judges, pardonboard members, and the secretary of corrections shows that WardenHenderson kept his word, though it would be more than 10 years beforeBrown's pardon came through. In the meantime, Brown benefited from anarray of special favors, including reassignment to a private room atthe low-security "dog pen" where the prison's bloodhounds were trainedand a carton of cigarettes, the crucial prison currency, every week.

Another inmate witness, Joseph Richey, placed Wallace and the othersat the scene of the crime; he was later found to be a schizophrenic whowas heavily medicated with Thorazine. After the trial, Richey wastransferred to a plum job at the governor's mansion and given weekendfurloughs (during which he robbed several banks). Previously suppresseddocuments, obtained through the discovery process by Albert Woodfox'slawyers in 1998, show that Angola officials didn't believe Richey hadseen anything. The state possessed these documents at the time ofWallace's trial, and presented his possibly perjured testimonynonetheless.

Howard Baker, yet another prisoner who testified at Wallace's trial,has since sworn an affidavit completely recanting his testimony. Bakerhad initially been a suspect in Miller's murder, and may have beenseeking to protect himself. In the affidavit, Baker states:

So I looked at the situation like this, I got 60 something years,and I got a chance to help myself - so I was going to do something tohelp me get out of this cesspool....So, I gave a statement on 10/16/72,to Warden Dees, which was a lie. And my testimony based on thatstatement was a lie. I really thought this would help me because Deestold me my statement would get my sentence commuted....It was all overthe penitentiary that they [Wallace and Woodfox] were the ones thatadministration thought was involved. So I gave a statement.

The state played its ace-in-the-hole in the middle of the trial,when one of the four co-defendants walked in after a recess and satdown at the prosecution's table. Chester Jackson had turned state'switness, and would now testify against the others. The defenseattorney, Charles Garretson, later testified that he "was in a completestate of shock...it took everything I could glean together to maintainprofessionalism and sanity and intelligence to go forward after thislunch break." The court gave him less than 30 minutes to prepare tocross-examine his own former client. Although he denied it on thestand, Jackson had clearly cut a deal; shortly after the trial, hewould plead guilty to manslaughter. Garretson later said that he felthe was "the only one in the courthouse that didn't know this. I feltthat -- I know all the deputies knew it. I felt the judge knew it."

These allegations of widespread and deliberate suppression ofevidence form the core of Herman Wallace's current appeal. His habeaspetition states, "Mr. Wallace's defense strategy was to show that theState's inmate witnesses must be either mistaken or lying. Although theState possessed precisely the information Mr. Wallace's defense counselsought -- material which would show that the State's witnesses lackedcredibility and the State's prosecution lacked integrity -- the Statedisclosed none of it." This withholding of evidence, Wallace says,violated his constitutional right to due process.

Wallace's remaining co-defendant, Gilbert Montegut, had a prisonguard to confirm his alibi, and was acquitted. Herman Wallace wasconvicted of the murder. His conviction happened to fall during a briefperiod when the Supreme Court had effectively struck down capitalpunishment -- had it come at any other time, Wallace would likely havereceived a death sentence. Instead, he got life without parole and wasplaced in lockdown, along with Woodfox. The reason given for theirconfinement in solitary was the nature of the crime -- the murder of aguard, which rendered them a threat to others in the prison community.Both Wallace and Woodfox remain there, ostensibly on the same grounds,35 years later.

If the story of Herman Wallace's trial reads like a study in Southernjustice, its sequel shows what has changed in Louisiana in theintervening decades -- and what has remained the same. Wallace and Woodfoxnow have a small legion of active supporters and an impressive team oflawyers renowned for their death penalty appeals, including NickTrenticosta, director of the Center for Equal Justice, in New Orleans,and George Kendall at the pro bono unit of Squire Sanders & Dempseyin New York. But even good lawyers can't vitiate the Louisiana justicesystem's apparent determination to keep Wallace and Woodfox locked upand locked down, for reasons that appear to go far beyond the facts ofthe 1972 murder of Brent Miller.
 
The two men believe that they were originally targeted for the murderbecause their political beliefs and activism represented a threat tothe absolute power of prison authorities. Statements from Angola'scurrent warden, Burl Cain, suggest they are being kept permanently insolitary for much the same reason. Cain has been widely celebratedfor "transforming" Angola, largely through the institution of Christian"moral rehabilitation," which he sees as the only path to redemptionfor the sinners in his charge. There is no room, either in Cain'sworldview or on his prison plantation, for people who questionauthority like Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox have.
 
In a 2008 deposition, Cain declared, "The prison operates with oneauthentic authoritarian figure, the warden and the rule book." He alsosaid that Woodfox's lack of deference made him a dangerous man: "Thething about him is that he wants to demonstrate. He wants to organize.He wants to be defiant. He wants to show to others that he is powerfuland strong."
 
Woodfox's lawyers have pointed out that he had no record of violenceand few disciplinary infractions in the past 20 years. They documenteda similar record for Wallace in a 2006 deposition[PDF]: "Mr. Wallace's most recent disciplinary report for institutionalviolence occurred some 22 years ago," it said, and in recent years,Wallace's handful of infractions included "possessing handmade earringsand a poem, 'A Defying Voice'"; "wearing a handmade necklace with ablack fist"; and "possessing the publication, It's About Time, a BlackPanther publication 16 containing articles/photos on the Angola three,characterized as, quote, 'racist literature' by security personnel."His most recent disciplinary report "was December 2005, when he wasfound in the possession of excess number of postage stamps, for whichhe received thirty days cell confinement."
 
But Cain believes "It's not a matter of write-ups. It's a matter ofattitude and what you are." And to Cain, what Woodfox and Wallace areand will always be is Black Panthers. Associate Warden Hayden Deespreviously said that "a certain type of militant or revolutionaryinmate, maybe even a communist type" was dangerous enough to be kept inpermanent lockdown. In 2008, Cain said that Woodfox belongs in solitarybecause "I still know that he is still trying to practice BlackPantherism, and I still would not want him walking around my prisonbecause he would organize the young new inmates. I would have me allkind of problems, more than I could stand, and I would have the blackschasing after them."
 
Wallace saysthat Cain at least once offered to release the two men into the generalpopulation if they renounced their political views and accepted JesusChrist as their savior. He refused. Cain declared that "Albert Woodfoxand Herman Wallace is locked in time with that Black Pantherrevolutionary actions they were doing way back when...And that's stilltheir motive and that's still their goal. And from that, there's beenno rehabilitation."
 
Louisiana's attorney general, Buddy Caldwell, also appears determinedto keep the two men in prison at all costs -- a vow that he will likelytry to uphold even if Wallace's case succeeds in federal court.Caldwell's resolve has already been tested in the case of Woodfox: Whena federal judge overturned Woodfox's conviction in 2008 and ordered himreleased on bail, the attorney general sprang into action -- filing anemergency motion to keep him behind bars, sending fearmongering emailsto the community where Woodfox was planning to stay with his niece, andtelling the press that he was "the most dangerous person on theplanet." Persuaded by Caldwell's plea and Cain's testimony about hisdangerous nature, the federal appeals court granted the motion anddenied Woodfox bail; he remains in lockdown, awaiting his appeal. In arecent letter, Wallace wrote of Caldwell, "Like most prosecutors, hewill never admit he made a mistake, he's fighting to keep usimprisoned. The reputation of the Louisiana justice system is at stakehere. If we gain our freedom it would expose the corruption that isrampant throughout the system."
 
The fate of both Wallace and Woodfox ultimately lies in the hands ofthe federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans -- and here,they are worse off than they might have been 40 years ago. In the 1950sand 1960s, a small group of Fifth Circuit judges -- mostly Southern-bredmoderate Republicans -- won a reputationfor advancing civil rights and especially school desegregation. Buttoday the Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Texas, andMississippi, is among the most ideologically conservative of thefederal appeals courts. It is notable for its overburdened docket andfor its hostility to appeals from defendants in capital cases,including claims based on faulty prosecution and suppressed evidence.In particular, the Fifth Circuit has kept the gurneys rolling in Texas'busy execution chamber. The court has even been reprimanded by the USSupreme Court, itself no friend to death row inmates: In June 2004,Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrotethat in handing down death penalty rulings, the Fifth Circuit was doingno more than "paying lip service to principles" of appellate law.

It will almost certainly be years before Herman Wallace's criminalappeal is finally resolved. While their case is exceptional, Wallace,now 68, and Woodfox, 62, are in certain respects emblematic of anentire generation of prisoners who came of age in a time of lengtheningsentences and tightening parole restrictions--spared execution to liveout their lives in prison, sometimes in complete isolation. "I'm inthis cell or in the hall 24/7, 23 hours in the cell, one hour on thehall,'' he wrote in a letter earlier this year. "Either way you look atit I am locked up with no contact with any others. I use stacks ofbooks for exercise and thereafter I am either writing or reading.''Wallace keeps himself together by concentrating on his case. "I have notime for foolishness," his letter continues. "I am in a struggleagainst the state of Louisiana on two strategic fronts, and hear mewhen I tell you they are not fighting fair."
 
Perhaps the ultimate irony of Woodfox and Wallace's predicament is thatwhile their political beliefs may have doomed them to a life inlockdown, these same beliefs have also given them the strength toendure it. In his New Yorker piece on solitary confinement as torture,Atul Gawande describes how frequently prisoners have mentally andphysically disintegrated in such conditions. What is remarkable aboutWallace and Woodfox is how lucid and resolute they remain. They stay inclose touch with their supporters. They know every detail of theircases, and when they find the opportunity, they provide counsel toother prisoners. They take pride in refusing to submit to the dictatesof the state or of the warden, to accept anyone else's rules or anyoneelse's god. It's what keeps them sane, and perhaps what keeps themalive.
 
Herman Wallace writes dozens of letters each week. He composes poemsand makes drawings and elaborate paper flowers. For the past fiveyears, he has also been collaborating on a project with Jackie Sumell,a young artist who first contacted him in 2002 with the question "Whatkind of a house does a man who has lived in a six-foot-by-nine-footcell for over 30 years dream of?" Together they designed a home,which Sumell has translated into architectural plans, models, atraveling exhibit, and a book of drawings and letters called The HouseThat Herman Built. Wallace describes a house with "a swimming pool witha light green bottom and a large Panther in the center. I want flowergardens surrounding the house enclosed. A garage for two cars. A largetree in the backyard under which will be my patio.''
 
"To build this house is to build my soul," Wallace wrote in a 2006letter to Sumell. He continued, "I'm often asked what did I come toprison for; and now that I think about it Jackie, it doesn't matter. Itdoesn't matter what I came here for, what matters now is what I leavewith. And I can assure you, however I leave, I won't leave nothingbehind."
 
Among the activists who took up the cause of the Angola 3 were the late Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop (and a former Mother Jones board member), and her husband, Gordon. The Roddick's family charity, the Roddick Foundation, contributed funding for this story.

James Ridgeway is a senior correspondent at Mother Jones, where this story first appeared. For more of his stories, click here.