Crack in Herman Wallace case

A crack has developed in the state’s case against Herman Wallace, a Black Panther Party member who is one of the longest-confined political prisoners in the United States.

The Angola 3: Herman Wallace, left, Robert King Wilkerson, and Albert Woodfox.

Wallace, along with Albert (Cinque) Woodfox, has been in solitary confinement for 32 years in Louisiana’s maximum-security Angola Penitentiary.

In 1971, while in Angola, Wallace and Woodfox were founders of the only chartered prison chapter of the Black Panther Party. They were then framed in the death of prison guard Brent Miller and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

In the early 1970s, Angola was notorious as one of the most brutal prisons in the United States. The state created the prison in the late 19th century from thousands of acres of former plantations of the Confederate slavocracy. Many of the enslaved people forced to work this land came from the area of Africa named Angola by Portuguese colonizers.

A rejuvenating victory

Now the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans has ordered a lower court to hear evidence about the testimony of Hezekiah Brown, a prison inmate who alleged he saw Wallace and Woodfox commit the crime. After the conviction of Wallace and Woodfox, the state admitted that Brown was promised, and received, rewards for his testimony.

The fact of the bribery was illegally withheld from defense lawyers during Wallace’s trial. Obviously, this omission severely damaged Wallace’s chance to get a fair trial.

Wallace and Woodcox were charged along with Robert King Wilkerson, a Black Panther Party member at the time he was imprisoned. They became known as the Angola 3. After a 30-year struggle, Wilkerson won his freedom in 2001.

Angola’s Herman Wallace said about his legal victory: “It is time for everyone to rejuvenate their energy ... calling for justice! And I mean bullhorn justice!”

This article is based on information from the National Coalition to Free the Angola 3, on the web at www.angola3.org.