ST. FRANCISVILLE, La. — Prison activist Albert Woodfox, the last member of the “Angola Three” inmates held in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, will have to wait at least several more days to see if he’ll experience the “immediate” and “unconditional” freedom ordered by a federal judge.
A federal appeals court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the release of Woodfox, who spent decades in isolation after forming a Black Panther Party to protest prison conditions.
Tuesday’s order came a day after a federal judge ruled that the state can’t fairly try Woodfox, now 68, a third time for the killing of a prison guard 43 years ago and that the “only just remedy” would be setting him free after all the years he spent in “extended lockdown.”
Woodfox has long maintained his innocence in the guard’s killing, which happened during protests of brutal conditions inside the huge penitentiary built on a former slave plantation in Angola, La.
His two previous convictions were overturned for racial prejudice and lack of evidence.
Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell is appealing the order by U.S. District Judge James Brady, saying Woodfox is a killer who should remain locked up. The stay by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans blocks his release until 1 p.m. Friday, providing time for the court to decide whether to accept the state’s appeal.
“We are hopeful that the Court of Appeals will grant this stay, for the sake of the families of his victims and the multiple juries and grand juries that independently determined that this inmate should be held accountable for his multiple crimes,” Caldwell spokesman Aaron Sadler said.
Woodfox is being held at the West Feliciana Parish Detention Center in St. Francisville, where he was transferred in preparation for a third trial. His attorney, George Kendall, met with Woodfox inside the jail Tuesday and said he’s “guardedly hopeful.” Woodfox has been through arduous court fights before and “understands how the system works,” Kendall said.
“Judge Brady was correct in granting this release. There is no way possible for the state to afford a fair trial in this case because nearly all of the critical witnesses are dead,” Kendall said. “This case ought to end.”
While not awaiting trial or attending hearings, Woodfox has remained at the prison at Angola, where for decades an “extended lockdown review board” has renewed the decision to hold him in isolation every 90 days.
He is denied contact with the general prison population and kept in a 9-foot-by-6-foot cell 23 hours a day.
Amnesty International and the United Nations have condemned Woodfox’s imprisonment as inhumane. Human rights advocates call it a form of torture.
But he has been allowed visitors and reading material and can see a television through the bars on his cell, which prison officials cite in denying that it’s solitary confinement.
