Solitary
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None of the above evidence was turned over to my defense. We never had a chance to investigate any of it. No jury ever heard any of it. We could never follow up the leads that might have shed light on what happened. To us this was clearly prosecutorial misconduct. But Julie Cullen got away with it the same way all prosecutors do. There is no oversight of prosecutorial conduct in this country, even though reckless and irresponsible actions by prosecutors, who are out not for justice or truth but only for their own careers and to win, have enormous lifelong consequences on people’s lives that can never be undone.
In my application for postconviction relief Scott also made note of what the sheriff’s deputies’ file did not contain: the names of police personnel who participated in the search for evidence; the names of police personnel who discovered evidence; photographs of the undisturbed crime scene (prison personnel had Miller’s body moved before the police arrived); a complete listing of evidence collected; documentation of how, when, and where evidence was collected; and photographs or notes explaining locations from which fingerprints were lifted.
In addition to listing the Brady material, Scott raised more than 22 issues of ineffective counsel, including the fact that my lawyers Bert Garraway and Clay Calhoun did not investigate and consult with expert witnesses, did not object to flawed blood analysis, did not object to the way Julie Cullen questioned Leonard Turner on the stand, acted deficiently in allowing the prosecutor from my original 1973 trial to testify about his opinion of Hezekiah Brown’s credibility and demeanor, did not investigate bloodstain evidence, did not investigate the bloody print found at the scene, and did not establish that physical evidence was lost.
Scott also included an analysis of the jury selection for my trial. He raised issues uncovered by Mike Rocks about the voir dire of the jury and the fact that none of the jurors were asked questions that would determine their feelings about race and their attitudes about black people, which should have been done to guarantee me an impartial jury, especially since we knew the prosecution was going to make my race and membership in the Black Panther Party an issue. He raised issues about the constitutionality of my grand jury and grand jury foreperson as well, noting there had been a pattern in West Feliciana Parish whereby the judge selected the jury foreperson rather than allow that person to be randomly selected.
Leonard Turner also gave a sworn statement to investigator Gary Eldredge that, after all his testimony saying he didn’t see anything the morning of Brent Miller’s murder, he was, in fact, in Pine 1 the morning Miller was killed. He said Herman, Gilbert Montegut, and I didn’t do it, but he didn’t say who did. Turner swore,
In 1972 when Mr. Miller was killed I was an inmate at Angola in the Pine 1 dormitory. That morning I was doing cleanup in the lobby like I always did. Mr. Miller was inside the dorm talking with Hezekiah. While I was cleaning, two guys from another dorm came in. I said to them, “Hey the police in there.” “We know,” one of them said back. They both walked into the dorm. Then a third guy came in. He walked straight up to Mr. Miller (who had his back turned to him). The third guy grabbed Mr. Miller around the neck with one arm and stabbed him with a knife he had in his other hand. Then the other two . . . rushed up with knives and started stabbing him too. I took off. I knew Hooks Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Gilbert Montegut. None of them were in the dorm or the lobby at the time. I saw what happened and I know for an absolute fact that none of these three guys were involved in killing Mr. Miller.
Investigator Eldredge interviewed a number of witnesses and located evidence. Scott Fleming and attorneys Mike, Nick, and Susana worked long hours for weeks to look at all our research and hammer out my appeal. In it, Scott also summed up the contradictory witness testimony against me. Scott wrote,
In this case, the State has shamelessly presented no fewer than four irreconcilable theories of who killed Brent Miller. Hezekiah Brown said the murder was committed by Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace, Chester Jackson, and Gilbert Montegut. Chester Jackson said it was himself, Albert Woodfox, and Herman Wallace. Paul Fobb said he “saw” Albert Woodfox alone. Howard Baker claimed it was Herman Wallace and “Pedro.” For the State to have presented so many contradictory theories of the case was fundamentally dishonest. Even without the benefit of any background knowledge as to the back-alley methods the State employed to secure its testimony against Mr. Woodfox, it is obvious that the State’s witnesses must have been lying, for logic alone dictates the conclusion that such irreconcilable stories could not possibly all be true. . . .
Brown and Jackson both claimed to have witnessed the stabbing of Brent Miller. Brown testified that he and Miller were alone in Pine 1 when four men, armed with four separate knives, entered the building and killed Brent Miller. Jackson, on the other hand, claimed that three men, carrying only two knives, entered Pine 1 and found Brown, Miller, Specs [Leonard Turner], and “five or six” other men. Jackson was unable to say whether the five or six men in the back of the room participated in the attack. Brown was positive that the attack began when Mr. Woodfox stabbed Miller in the back. Jackson claimed to be equally sure that Mr. Woodfox stabbed Miller in the chest. Brown said that Miller was sitting on the bed facing the rear of the building. Jackson testified that Miller was facing towards the front of the building (which begs the question: How was Mr. Woodfox able to surprise Miller from behind after entering the room wearing a handkerchief over his face and walking directly past Miller?). Brown testified that the entire attack took one or two minutes and said Miller was incapacitated and fell (or, in his other version, was thrown) to the ground almost immediately. Jackson, on the other hand, testified that the attack took more than 10 minutes and said that Miller stayed on his feet until the very end. Richey said that he saw the men run out of the dorm only “two or three minutes” after they entered. However long it took, Paul Fobb claimed to be standing outside, “shocked and stunned” and “waiting” for Mr. Woodfox to walk back out of Pine 1. Brown said that he cowered against the wall in fear until Miller was dead and the attackers had left, after which he ran out of the building. Jackson said that Specs—whom Brown never mentioned—and Brown both ran out of Pine 1 while the attack was taking place.
Joseph Richey[’s] and Paul Fobb’s accounts began where Brown’s left off—at the point when they claimed they saw the attackers run out of Pine 1. Richey testified that he saw Mr. Wallace, along with Woodfox, Jackson, Montegut, Brown, and Specs, run out of Pine 1. In his trial testimony, all six men ran down the walk towards the dining hall. In his initial statement, Mr. Woodfox went the opposite direction, towards the Hickory dormitories, while only Brown and Jackson went towards the dining hall. In his written statement, Richey didn’t know where Mr. Wallace or Specs went (although he was able to remember when he testified nearly two years later). Fobb, on the other hand, said he saw only Mr. Woodfox but none of the people the other witnesses claimed to have seen.
Perhaps most importantly, the prosecution witnesses—who placed themselves only feet apart from one another in the moments after the murder—failed to notice each other. Richey said that he didn’t see Fobb. Fobb didn’t see Richey (even though he claimed, by necessary implication, that Mr. Woodfox threw a rag past Richey). Brown didn’t see Baker or Richey or Fobb. Jackson didn’t see Baker or Richey or Fobb. Fobb said he didn’t “see” anybody else. All of them, in fact, said that nobody else was present. Yet the state’s witnesses would have us believe that they were all present in and around the Pine 1 dormitory when Brent Miller was killed. . . . This case amounted to a swearing contest between 10 prisoners who testified for the defense (Woodfox, Wallace and Montegut) and three who testified for the state.
Years later we came across more of what appeared to us to be prosecutorial misconduct. My lawyers were never informed that Joseph Richey was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the 1960s and was prescribed Thorazine, which he was taking, along with other antipsychotic medications, when he testified at both of my trials, a fact he would disclose in a sworn stateme
nt in 2008. Before my 1998 trial, Richey said, he told prosecutor Julie Cullen he was taking antipsychotic medications. She told him to bring the drugs with him to court but never disclosed to my lawyers that he was on any kind of medication. By the time we learned about this, in 2008, it was obviously too late to include the issue in my appeal. As usual, since there is no recourse for victims of apparent prosecutorial misconduct against prosecutors who violate the rules of professional conduct, there was nothing we could do.
Chapter 42
King Leaves the Belly of the Beast
In December 2000, we got the incredible news that King was granted a new trial by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruling on a habeas corpus petition written by Mandeville attorney Chris Aberle. Chris had been with King for a while. He was appointed to represent King by the U.S. Fifth Circuit back in the early 1990s and wrote his appeal on the federal district court’s denial of his habeas corpus relief. When that appeal was denied Chris volunteered to help King get back into federal court. King always described Chris’s next habeas corpus petition as “a work of art.” His hearing that December was attended by dozens of A3 supporters. The court granted King habeas relief, ruling that he made a showing of innocence and that a constitutional violation had been committed in his trial.
Now the state was up against a wall. Prosecutors had no way to reindict King for the murder of August Kelly. The actual murderer had testified that he alone killed Kelly. There was never any physical evidence linking King to the murder and the prosecution’s witness who testified against King at his 1973 trial recanted in the late eighties, admitting he had lied on the stand because authorities had threatened him. Prosecutors offered King a plea deal. If he pleaded to “accessory after the fact” they would give him a sentence of time served and he could leave Angola. King didn’t want to take a plea. It was a lie. He wanted to be exonerated at a trial. But we all had just seen what had happened at my trial. Herman and I urged him to take the plea and get out, to go home. He didn’t want to leave us behind. He didn’t want us to be shorthanded. I would have felt the same way but I wanted him to leave. “Man, you gotta go home,” I told him. “If one of us is free, all of us are free.” King thought about it. Eventually he told us he decided to take the plea.
When he got to the courtroom on the day he was to be released, February 8, 2001, he was told the state changed the plea. Now the plea being offered was “conspiracy to commit murder.” I believe the prosecutors used the lesser plea to lure him to court before they gave him the plea they planned to give him all along. It was a deliberate and duplicitous ploy to get King to the courthouse, where his family and friends were outside, waiting to bring him home. He’d already gone through the soul-searching required to take the first plea. Now this was a different lie. He was innocent. In the end King chose freedom over justice. Standing at the defense table he was told to raise his right hand to be sworn in. King raised his left hand. He took the plea. After court he was taken back to Angola to get the paperwork for his release and pick up his property. Herman was living on his tier and they said their good-byes. The tier sergeant allowed King to come onto my tier to say good-bye to me. King and I had lived on the same tier for 17 years. He had always been a stabilizing force for me. Most guys only talked about what was going on in prison; they couldn’t see any further. King and I had wide-ranging conversations about philosophy and life, our political beliefs, world events, books we’d read, Supreme Court rulings, presidential elections, sports. We knew each other’s weaknesses and strengths, our habits and ways. When he got to my cell door we hugged through the bars.
If King had started a new life—a life he deserved—and never looked back, Herman and I would have been happy for him. But he did something else. He met with our grassroots support committee and planned actions. He traveled with former Panther Althea Francois to universities to talk about us and speak out against solitary confinement. He planned a trip to speak in Europe with former Panther Marion Brown. Within three months of being locked in a cell 23 hours a day for 29 years, King was in New York City, telling our stories at the Black Panther Film Festival. Later that month he was back at the front gates of Angola, this time shouting through a megaphone, surrounded by supporters protesting solitary confinement and the injustice that Herman and I were facing.
On June 28, 2001, Scott Fleming argued Herman’s PCRA before Commissioner Rachel Morgan of the 19th Judicial District Court in East Baton Rouge. In Louisiana, appeals in state court can go before a commissioner who reviews the case and writes a preliminary opinion before a judge gets the case. King was there with two busloads of supporters. He held a press conference on the steps of the courthouse, explaining to reporters how the state suppressed evidence that could have proved Herman’s innocence. The commissioner recommended Herman get an evidentiary hearing with respect to the suppressed exculpatory and impeachment material that had come to light at my trial—the fact that Hezekiah Brown was paid for his testimony, among other things. He would have to wait years for that hearing.
That summer, using the recipe he perfected in prison, King started making bulk orders of his praline candy to raise money for A3 campaigns and for his travel. He called the candy Freelines. A friend donated large cooking pots for him to use; another friend created a package label that included the message FREE THE ANGOLA 3.
King would spend the next 15 years in courtrooms, at press conferences, on the state capitol steps, at hearings, in lecture halls, at protests and marches, in bookstores, at radio stations, at universities, and in the British Parliament, telling people about me and Herman, standing against the abuses of solitary confinement, and fighting for our freedom. “I am free of Angola,” he often said, “but Angola will never be free of me.” Wherever King went, support for us grew; people got involved. At every event people who were desperate about their own loved ones in prison or in solitary confinement approached him. He always took the time to talk to them. He perceived each family’s struggle, each prisoner’s struggle, as if it were his own. King always said being in prison was like being in a tunnel and freedom was the light at the end of the tunnel. Once he got out of prison, he told me, he discovered he was in a new tunnel and there was another light in the distance. “I think the struggle is unending,” he told a reporter. “Actually, it’s always beginning.”
Chapter 43
Torture at Camp J
In March 2002, U.S. Magistrate Judge Docia Dalby ruled that our civil suit against cruel and unusual punishment could move forward. “Given the natural limits on the length of human life, especially one in prison, it is difficult to imagine a more atypical or extraordinary confinement,” she wrote. Thirty years in solitary confinement, she continued, is “far beyond the pale.”
The retaliatory harassment against us started almost immediately. Prison officials targeted Herman. A shakedown crew showed up at his cell early one morning. They didn’t find any contraband. A different crew came at eight p.m. the same day, searching his cell again, finding nothing. The next day, while Herman was out on the yard, his cell was shaken down again: the third time in two days. This time a guard “found” a handmade handcuff key, what we call a “shim.” Herman was immediately placed in the dungeon. Four days later he was brought before the disciplinary board. He denied having a shim and asked if he could pay for a lie detector test to prove it. They refused to let him take the test and sentenced him to Camp J for the six-month program, but first he had to spend 30 days in the dungeon.
They put him in the dungeon at Camp J. Herman wrote to me saying it seemed like prison officials were intentionally moving mentally ill prisoners out of their normal housing—the Treatment Unit (TU)—to put them in the dungeon with him. These prisoners, he wrote, “would scream, holler and talk to themselves all through the day and night.” When one stopped, he said, another started. “It was as if they were doing shifts to keep the noise going.” Herman wrote to the Camp J warden about his concern that keeping the
mentally ill men in the dungeon was aggravating their conditions. He wrote to supporters asking them to call the prison to complain. Eventually he got word to us that Angola’s lead psychiatrist finally spoke up and moved the prisoners back to their regular housing at TU.
After his 30 days in the dungeon Herman was put at Level 1 in Camp J. He wasn’t getting enough food and had no way to buy any because Camp J prisoners could only buy food out of the canteen when they were on Level 3. After 30 days at Level 1, when he was supposed to be moved to Level 2, Herman was held back to do another 30 days at Level 1. I hated that they were persecuting Herman and not me. We always thought they didn’t fuck with both of us at the same time because they didn’t want what they were doing to be obvious. In their minds they could have deniability. They also knew that I knew what was going on at Camp J and they knew it affected me.
That spring, Scott Fleming met the UK-based human rights activist and founder of The Body Shop, Anita Roddick, out in California. He told her about us. She was shocked that we’d been in solitary confinement for 30 years and immediately wrote about us on her blog. “No major media outlet has shown any interest at all,” she wrote. “I hereby challenge the media: tell the story of the Angola Three. The truth might just set them free.” To my surprise she wrote to me, asking to be put on my visitors list. In August 2002, she came for a contact visit.
Very few people surprise me. Anita was like nobody I’d ever met before. A highly successful, world-renowned business mogul, founder of The Body Shop, and human rights activist was visiting me in a maximum-security cellblock in Louisiana, and she couldn’t have been more at ease. She was intelligent, funny, and irreverent, so I was comfortable with her. She was humble, which impressed me. Her passion and enthusiasm for people and human rights and prisoners’ rights were obvious. Her knowledge of social justice issues was extensive; her sincerity was pure. We talked about everything, no holds barred. She asked me, a man who had been in solitary confinement for three decades, if I missed having sex. I told her yes. She made me laugh. When we rose to say good-bye after that first visit we hugged and she was smiling hard. “I was just thinking about the huge party we’re going to have when you and Herman get out of here,” she said.