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Louisiana's attorney general, Buddy Caldwell, also appears determined to keep the two men in prison at all costs--a vow that he will likely try to uphold even if Wallace's case succeeds in federal court. Caldwell's resolve has already been tested in the case of Woodfox: When a federal judge overturned Woodfox's conviction in 2008 and ordered him released on bail, the attorney general sprang into action--filing an emergency motion to keep him behind bars, sending fearmongering emails to the community where Woodfox was planning to stay with his niece, and telling the press that he was "the most dangerous person on the planet." Persuaded by Caldwell's plea and Cain's testimony about his dangerous nature, the federal appeals court granted the motion and denied Woodfox bail; he remains in lockdown, awaiting his appeal. In a recent letter, Wallace wrote of Caldwell, "Like most prosecutors, he will never admit he made a mistake, he's fighting to keep us imprisoned. The reputation of the Louisiana justice system is at stake here. If we gain our freedom it would expose the corruption that is rampant throughout the system."
The fate of both Wallace and Woodfox ultimately lies in the hands of the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans--and here, they are worse off than they might have been 40 years ago. In the 1950s and 1960s, a small group of Fifth Circuit judges--mostly Southern-bred moderate Republicans--won a reputation [8] for advancing civil rights and especially school desegregation. But today the Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, is among the most ideologically conservative of the federal appeals courts. It is notable for its overburdened docket and for its hostility to appeals from defendants in capital cases, including claims based on faulty prosecution and suppressed evidence. In particular, the Fifth Circuit has kept the gurneys rolling in Texas' busy execution chamber. The court has even been reprimanded by the US Supreme Court, itself no friend to death row inmates: In June 2004, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote [9] that in handing down death penalty rulings, the Fifth Circuit was doing no more than "paying lip service to principles" of appellate law.
It will almost certainly be years before Herman Wallace's criminal appeal is
finally resolved. While their case is exceptional, Wallace, now 68, and
Woodfox, 62, are in certain respects emblematic of an entire generation of
prisoners who came of age in a time of lengthening sentences and tightening
parole restrictions--spared execution to live out their lives in prison,
sometimes in complete isolation. "I'm in this cell or in the hall 24/7, 23
hours in the cell, one hour on the hall,'' he wrote in a letter earlier this
year. "Either way you look at it I am locked up with no contact with any
others. I use stacks of books for exercise and thereafter I am either writing
or reading.'' Wallace keeps himself together by concentrating on his case.
"I have no time for foolishness," his letter continues. "I am in
a struggle against the state of Louisiana
on two strategic fronts, and hear me when I tell you they are not fighting
fair."
Perhaps the ultimate irony of Woodfox and Wallace's predicament is that while
their political beliefs may have doomed them to a life in lockdown, these same
beliefs have also given them the strength to endure it. In his New Yorker piece
on solitary confinement as torture, Atul Gawande describes how frequently
prisoners have mentally and physically disintegrated in such conditions. What
is remarkable about Wallace and Woodfox is how lucid and resolute they remain.
They stay in close touch with their supporters. They know every detail of their
cases, and when they find the opportunity, they provide counsel to other
prisoners. They take pride in refusing to submit to the dictates of the state
or of the warden, to accept anyone else's rules or anyone else's god. It's what
keeps them sane, and perhaps what keeps them alive.
Herman Wallace writes dozens of letters each week. He composes poems and makes
drawings and elaborate paper flowers. For the past five years, he has also been
collaborating on a project with Jackie Sumell, a young artist who first
contacted him in 2002 with the question "What kind of a house does a man
who has lived in a six-foot-by-nine-foot cell for over 30 years dream of?"
Together they designed a home
[10], which Sumell has translated into
architectural plans, models, a traveling exhibit, and a book of drawings and
letters called The House That Herman Built. Wallace describes a house with
"a swimming pool with a light green bottom and a large Panther in the
center. I want flower gardens surrounding the house enclosed. A garage for two
cars. A large tree in the backyard under which will be my patio.''
"To build this house is to build my soul," Wallace wrote in a 2006 letter to Sumell. He continued, "I'm often asked what did I come to prison for; and now that I think about it Jackie, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I came here for, what matters now is what I leave with. And I can assure you, however I leave, I won't leave nothing behind."
Among the activists who took up the cause of the Angola 3 were the late Anita Roddick [11], founder of the Body Shop (and a former Mother Jones board member), and her husband, Gordon. The Roddick's family charity, the Roddick Foundation [12], contributed funding for this story.
This article was first published by Mother Jones. Permission is granted to reprint in full as long as Mother Jones is cited as the original source. URL:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/herman-wallace-angola-3-solitary-confinement
Links:
[1] click here=1
[2] click here
[3] click here
[4] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=96199165
[5] click here
[6] click here
[7] http://www.alternet.org/rights/50663
[8] http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040503/bass
[9]
click here=2&pagewanted=1
[10] http://www.hermanshouse.org/
[11] click here
[12] http://www.theroddickfoundation.org/
Read the Mother Jones series "Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude" here.
