We may be on the brink of inaugurating a Black president, but the miscarriage of justice unfolding in Louisiana with the case of the Angola 3 tells a different story about race, power and accountability in our criminal justice system. At the top of the food chain is self-styled reformer and the GOP's supposed answer to Obama, Governor Bobby Jindal.
Albert Woodfox has spent the last 36 years in solitary confinement -- 23 out of 24 hours each day in a 6×9 cell -- for the murder of a white prison guard, a crime he didn't commit.
Despite increasing evidence of Woodfox's innocence, the State of Louisiana is digging in its heels. They've pushed back against a federal judge who has overturned Woodfox's conviction and ordered his release. The reason is becoming crystal clear: It's not because they believe that Woodfox or the other two people referred to as the "Angola 3" murdered anyone. It's because the three men were organizing within the prison for better conditions, an end to sexual abuses, and the fair treatment of inmates. Apparently, in Louisiana, seeking justice means you deserve to be framed for murder and locked away forever.
James "Buddy" Caldwell, the state's Attorney General, has led the state's fight and Burl Cain, the warden at Angola, is acting as Caldwell's henchman. Ultimately, it's Governor Bobby Jindal who is giving them cover despite being presented with all the facts and being asked repeatedly to intervene. So much for the promise of Jindal and his self-description as a "reformer."
A look at recent proceedings shows that the desire to keep Woodfox behind bars has nothing to do with whether Woodfox is guilty or innocent. Cain has made it clear that he doesn't care. Cain wants him behind bars for no reason other than the fact that Woodfox has been a force for reform from within the prison walls. Says Cain, "The thing about him is that he wants to demonstrate. He wants to organize. He wants to be defiant." Cain has said that even if he knew Woodfox hadn't killed the guard, he would still want the man isolated. "I still would not want him walking around my prison because he would organize the young new inmates," Cain said. It's not that Woodfox is dangerous. It's that he is unrepentant in organizing inmates to achieve a basic sense of decency and livable conditions.
Several months before Judge James Brady overturned Woodfox's conviction, more than 25,000 ColorOfChange.org members appealed to Governor Jindal to get involved. The head of the state legislature's judiciary committee, Cedric Richmond, delivered the petitions to Governor Jindal and requested he intervene. Around the same time, Congressman John Conyers, chair of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, met with both Woodfox and Herman Wallace (one of the other Angola 3) and has publicly called for intervention. Jindal's response has been utter silence.
In recent weeks, as pressure has mounted for Woodfox to be released, Caldwell, the Attorney General, has gone deeper in attempting to demonize Woodfox. He has taken to publicly referring to Woodfox as a "serial rapist," a completely unsubstantiated claim. Once bail was ordered and it was expected that Woodfox would be released, Caldwell's office clandestinely contacted members of the gated community where Woodfox was supposed to live, telling them that a murderer would soon be living among them. Woodfox had been planning to live with his niece. She and her family have now been subject to harassment, and the option of Woodfox living with her has been made virtually impossible.
We've seen unequal and unfair justice before in Louisiana. We can just look back at the case of the Jena 6 a year and a half ago. In that case, six black boys were charged with attempted murder at the hands of a District Attorney who threatened that he could "take away [the students'] lives with a stroke of [his] pen." The threat followed black students protesting the hanging of a noose above a "white tree" at their school, with the charges coming after a racially-charged fight characterized by some as a school-yard fight, where the victim was white.
In the case of the Jena 6, there was an outcry from across the country, culminating in a march of more than 20,000 in the town of Jena. While leaders across the country decried the injustice in Jena, surprisingly, Jindal called those protesting "outside agitators" -- a phrase that echoed racist Southerners' response to Civil Rights-era organizing efforts.
While Governor Jindal claims to be a reformer and has his eyes on the White House, his silence in the Angola 3 case and his language around the case of the Jena 6 tell a different story. His idea of "reform" seems more like an empty slogan and catchy rhetoric than something he's willing to put into practice. Perhaps it's time to confront Jindal and ask him what his idea of reform looks like.
I was in rural western New York recently, and spotted more than one Confederate stars and bars flag flying, and plenty of McCain/Palin signs. Just weeks earlier, Louisiana's capitol city, conservative, white Republican majority Baton Rouge, re-elected with a whopping 71% of the vote, its first black mayor, a moderate Democrat, without a run-off. The same parish(county) went for Obama for President. So, things are changing here, though not fast enough for many of us.
Unquestionably, there is a nationwide problem with inherent equities in the criminal justice system. Eye-witness testimony in general, has been proven to be unreliable, even when it's the same race. Prisons are packed with non-violent offenders and the wrongfully convicted, who then get into more trouble while incarcerated. The US has more per capita prisoners than any other Western nation, and Louisiana has more per capita in prison than any other state. And, we have more poverty and more violent crime per capita than many other states.
And, yes, there is a racial component to all of this, but it's not the only aspect of the problem.
Please continue to encourage those Louisianians who are working to do better.
We must shout louder to get these politicians free of their paranoia so that they will allow Albert (and Herman) to be released. Then we must reject them form their alleged public service!
Robert Gartner
I feel angry and helpless.
http://www.gov.la.gov/index.cfm?md=form&tmp=email_governor
Last I heard President Elect Obama is half-White.....
Out of every 100,000 citizens, 1479 blacks are incarcerated, 1270 mexicans are in prison and 479 whites are locked up.
American is addicted to prisons. The "officers" are TRAINED to antagonize and bully the offenders and when an offender makes a mistake, he/she is "written" up. After a few of thoset you are sent to administrative segregation (sp? i have a headache) and frequently they are
then sent back to Huntsville. Seg usually lasts from 4 days to 14.
The private prisons can say that they are over
crowded and they get to build a new prison, which incidentally Bush promotes, and make millions. Geo made $869,000,000 in 2006 and spent $69,000,000 on offender services. Food is now down to fifty cents a meal. The "milk" in the cereal looks like water..it is powdered and watered to be so weak that it has no taste. And they don't serve enough food, so the offenders are always hungry.
If an offender chooses to work at the private industry that is housed in the prison, ($1.00 a year rent)they are paid around $9.00 hourly. Child support and such is taken out and they then have to pay for "room and board". An offender ends up with $1.34 an hour! That is put in the prison owned commissary fund and guess who is making money by selling the offenders food?