A judge in the US state of Louisiana has ordered the release of an inmate who has been in solitary confinement for more than 40 years.
Judge James Brady also banned prosecutors from trying Albert Woodfox, 68, for a third time.
Following Brady’s orders, Woodfox could be released from jail within days.
He has been in solitary confinement since April 1972, after he was blamed for the death of a guard during a prison riot.
Woodfox was tried twice for the guard’s death, but both convictions were later overturned. He denies all the charges.
He was confined for 23 hours a day, with an hour outside his cell to “walk alone along the tier on which his cell is located”, according to court documents from a case challenging his prison conditions.
Exercise was permitted three times a week and there were restrictions on “personal property, reading materials, access to legal resources, work, and visitation rights”.
Originally convicted and imprisoned for armed robbery, he was found guilty of murder after the riot in which prison officer Brent Miller was stabbed to death with a lawnmower blade.
On Monday, Judge Brady ordered the unconditional release of Woodfox and said a third trial could not be fair.
But a spokesman for the Louisiana attorney general said prosecutors would appeal “to make sure this murderer stays in prison and remains fully accountable for his actions”
Woodfox is currently being held at a detention centre where he was placed in isolation ahead of his trial.
He is one of three men who were held in solitary confinement at the maximum security Louisiana State Penitentiary and known as the “Angola Three”, as the prison lies next to a former slave plantation called Angola.
The other two men, Robert King and Herman Wallace, were released in 2001 and 2013 respectively. Wallace, also convicted over Mr Miller’s murder, died soon after his release pending a new trial. King’s conviction was overturned.
King and Wallace were also initially imprisoned for armed robbery.
Woodfox and Wallace were involved with the Black Panthers, a militant black rights movement formed in 1966 for self-defence against police brutality and racism, which later embraced “revolutionary” struggle as a way of achieving black liberation. Woodfox, Wallace and King consistently maintained they were imprisoned for crimes they did not commit, with convictions only obtained after mistrials.
King, who spent 29 years in solitary confinement, described his experience.
He said he remained strong but it was “scary” to see how others crumbled through lack of human contact.
The three men have been the focus of a long-running international campaign.
Tory Pegram of the International Coalition to Free the Angola Three, said she had spoken to Woodfox late on Monday and he was “excited and nervous”.
Jasmine Heiss, a campaigner with Amnesty International USA, said the decision to release Woodfox was “a momentous step toward justice”.[ATTACH=full]6994[/ATTACH]
Saddening…
43 years in solitary must have being painfully unbearable, the longest i have been locked up was 15 hrs and it felt like a lifetime for me.
and even worse he is most probably a political prisoner, he is strong mentally though
Solitary confinement destroys your brain…
I can imagine what the lad went through. Me nishawahi spend 3days in solitary. A very dark room . The only opening ilikua ni kashimo kadogo yakupitishia food… na food yenyewe ni one meal a day. Githeri chemsha na glass ya maji… and this guy did 43yrs… damn…!!!
ANGOLA , I REMEMBER THAT NAME FROM THE SERIES TRUE DETECTIVE,
ANGOLA, I REMEMBER THAT NAME FROM THE SERIES TRUE DETECTIVE
Very sad… More so that he was condemned to solitary for supposed crimes committed while serving time in prison.
Discrimination against the black race has continued for too long… US, Gulf, India, China, Europe, Russia,…
Today I just saw how African immigrants are being treated in Italy… sijui masks, prongs… very disheartening
Colonel kakende = Tony Gachoka
hehe… kwani huyo msee aliachiliwa??
Someni novel ya papillon ndio mjue how to deal with solitary confinement
:D:D:D
And the nigga can afford a smile? Ama that’s an old photo?
But let him pay for his sins. Armed robbery deserves such a sentence.
though you can’t rule out foul play, there was a covert CIA operation to break black nationalist movements like the black panthers and the black liberation army. he is a political prisoner, and there are thousands more
:eek::eek::eek::eek::D:D:D:D:D…Hell Nooooo
the guy is nuts already.damage has been done.theres no way he can go back to normal