Please take action here!
Today Amnesty International launched an online campaign asking Louisiana Attorney General James Caldwell to not appeal the District Court's ruling to either release or retry Albert Woodfox, declaring: "After decades of injustice, let the Angola 3 ruling stand!"
Please support Albert by taking action, forwarding it to your email list and asking your networks to spread the word. Now is a critical time in the fight for Albert's freedom. We want Caldwell's office to be inundated with emails so he hears it loud and clear that the cycle of injustice and cruelty must end.
Introducing their online action campaign, Amnesty writes:
Albert Woodfox has spent nearly 41 years in solitary confinement in conditions that are cruel, inhuman and degrading. In 1972, he and two others were convicted of murdering a guard at Angola prison. The "Angola 3" were sentenced to life imprisonment - although no physical evidence linked them to the crime and serious legal flaws came to light.
Albert Woodfox's conviction has been overturned several times, but Louisiana Attorney General Caldwell has dogmatically appealed every ruling in Woodfox's favor. On February 26, a federal district court ruled again to overturn the conviction. Call on Attorney General Caldwell not to appeal the ruling so that Woodfox can be retried or released.
Below is the full text of the email to AG Caldwell:
On February 26, Albert Woodfox's conviction for the 1972 murder of a prison guard was overturned once again, this time on the basis of racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson. I know that you have already indicated that you intend to appeal the ruling, but I write to you today with one simple request - make history. Let the federal district court's ruling stand.
The court's ruling lends weight to widespread concerns that there have been significant flaws in the legal processes that have kept both Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace behind bars. These flaws include inadequate legal counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, lack of physical evidence, potentially exculpatory evidence lost by the State, evidence that the key eyewitness testimony was paid for in bribes by the State, other eyewitnesses retracting their testimony, and now racial discrimination. To appeal this latest ruling would compound injustice and delay the legal process by years, as the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals would have to rule before justice could be served.
I am also deeply concerned that, since his conviction, Albert Woodfox has been held in conditions that can only be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading. He has been denied access to work, group activities and rehabilitation programs. The negative physical and psychological effects of these conditions have taken a heavy toll on the 66 year old.
The State should move to either retry Albert Woodfox, or to release him. To delay the legal process by appealing this ruling would be both cruel and unnecessary. Please break the cycle of injustice and cruelty. Let the ruling stand.
(Featured below is the full text of Amnesty's earlier statement, released the day of Albert Woodfox's ruling.)
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA
PRESS RELEASE
27 February 2013
State of Louisiana Must Not Appeal Federal Ruling Overturning Conviction in Angola 3 Case
Contact: Suzanne Trimel, strimel@aiusa.org, 212-633-4150, @AIUSAmedia
(BATON ROUGE) – Amnesty International called on Louisiana Attorney General James Caldwell today not to appeal a federal court ruling overturning the conviction of Albert Woodfox of the ‘Angola 3’ for the second-degree murder of a prison guard in 1972. Amnesty International has raised serious human rights concerns over the case for many years.
In a ruling on Tuesday, Judge James Brady of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana found that racial discrimination lay behind the under-representation of African- Americans selected to serve as grand jury forepersons in the jurisdiction in which Woodfox, 66, who is African-American, was retried after his original conviction was overturned in 1992.
Judge Brady found that the state had failed to meet its burden “to dispel the inference of intentional discrimination” indicated by the statistical evidence covering a 13-year period from 1980 to 1993 presented by Albert Woodfox’s lawyers. The state, Judge Brady found, had failed to show “racially neutral” reasons to explain the under- representation of African-Americans selected as grand jury foreperson during this period.
Woodfox was convicted in 1973 along with a second prisoner, Herman Wallace, of the murder of Brent Miller. This conviction was overturned in 1992, but Woodfox was re-indicted by grand jury in 1993 and convicted again at a 1998 trial, and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999. In 2008, a U.S. District Court ruled that Woodfox had been denied his right to adequate assistance of counsel during the 1998 trial and should either be retried or set free. The court also found that evidence presented by Woodfox’s lawyers of discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson warranted a federal evidentiary hearing. While the State appealed the District court for a retrial – and won – yesterday’s ruling from the evidentiary hearing, once again sees the conviction overturned.
Amnesty International has repeatedly expressed concern that many legal aspects of this case are troubling: no physical evidence links Woodfox and Wallace to the murder, potentially exculpatory DNA evidence was lost by the state, and their conviction was based on questionable testimony – much of which subsequently retracted by witnesses. In recent years, evidence has emerged that the main eyewitness was bribed by prison officials into giving statements against the men. Both men have robustly denied over the years any involvement in the murder.
Woodfox has been held since his conviction over 40 years ago in solitary confinement. The extremely harsh conditions he has endured, including being confined for 23 hours a day, inadequate access to exercise, social interaction and no access to work, education, or rehabilitation have had physical and psychological consequences. Throughout his incarceration, Woodfox has been denied any meaningful review of the reasons for being kept in isolation; and records indicate that he hasn’t committed any disciplinary infractions for decades, nor, according to prison mental health records, is he a threat to himself or others. Amnesty International has repeatedly called on the authorities that both he and Wallace be removed from such conditions which the organization believes can only be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading.
"The fact that Woodfox’s conviction has been overturned again gives weight to Amnesty International's longstanding concerns that the original legal process was flawed," said Tessa Murphy, an Amnesty researcher.
Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 3 million supporters, activists, and volunteers in more than 150 countries campaigning for human rights worldwide. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth, and dignity are denied.
(PHOTO: Albert Woodfox, right, with Herman Wallace, left)
