via Democracy Now
Wrongfully convicted Herman Wallace spent more than 23 hours per day in a cell that was 4 or 5 footsteps long and 3 steps wide and was subjected to up to 6 anal cavity searches per day! He spent the longest amount of time in solitary confinement than any other US prisoner in history. The Angola 3 believe they were targeted because they often spoke out against the injustices of the prison system.
A dying prisoner has been released in Louisiana after serving nearly 42 years in solitary confinement, longer than any other person in the United States. Herman Wallace, and two others known as the Angola 3, were placed in solitary in 1972 following the murder of a prison guard. The Angola 3 and their supporters say they were framed for the murder over their political activism as members of one of the first prison chapters of the Black Panthers.
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In a surprise development on Tuesday, Wallace was released from prison after a federal judge overturned his conviction, saying he did not receive a fair trial. Wallace, who is near death from advanced liver cancer, was taken directly to a New Orleans hospital where supporters greeted his arrival. We are joined by three guests: Robert King, who until Tuesday night was the only freed member of the Angola 3 and helped deliver to Wallace the news of his release; Wallace’s defense attorney, George Kendall; and Jackie Sumell, an artist and Wallace supporter who is with him at the Louisiana State University medical center in New Orleans. “This is a tremendous victory and a miracle that Herman Wallace will die a free man,” Sumell says. “He’s had 42 years of maintaining his innocence in solitary confinement, and if his last few breaths are as a free man, we’ve won.”
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Click here to visit the official site dedicated to the Angola 3 to learn more.
Angola Prison a “cauldron of brutality” ► Louisiana State Penitentiary is known as Angola after the land that it is on. The land used to be a plantation that the owners named after the home country of many of the slaves who worked there. The land was eventually bought by the prison system.
Angola became known as the “bloodiest prison in the South” because of the number of inmate assaults.
SOURCE: CNN
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