Angola 3 Urgent Action:  March 11, 2013

Amnesty International launches a new online action campaign for Albert Woodfox declaring:  

After decades of injustice, let the Angola 3 ruling stand!

International Coalition to Free the Angola 3

Please take action here!

Today Amnesty International launched an online campaign asking Louisiana Attorney General James Caldwell to not appeal the District Court's ruling to either release or retry Albert Woodfox.

Please support Albert by taking action, forwarding it to your email list and asking your networks to spread the word. Now is a critical time in the fight for Albert's freedom. We want Caldwell's office to be inundated with emails so he hears it loud and clear that the cycle of injustice and cruelty must end.

Introducing their online action campaign, Amnesty writes:

Albert Woodfox has spent nearly 41 years in solitary confinement in conditions that are cruel, inhuman and degrading. In 1972, he and two others were convicted of murdering a guard at Angola prison. The "Angola 3" were sentenced to life imprisonment - although no physical evidence linked them to the crime and serious legal flaws came to light.

Albert Woodfox's conviction has been overturned several times, but Louisiana Attorney General Caldwell has dogmatically appealed every ruling in Woodfox's favor. On February 26, a federal district court ruled again to overturn the conviction. Call on Attorney General Caldwell not to appeal the ruling so that Woodfox can be retried or released.

Below is the full text of the email to AG Caldwell:

On February 26, Albert Woodfox's conviction for the 1972 murder of a prison guard was overturned once again, this time on the basis of racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson. I know that you have already indicated that you intend to appeal the ruling, but I write to you today with one simple request - make history. Let the federal district court's ruling stand.

The court's ruling lends weight to widespread concerns that there have been significant flaws in the legal processes that have kept both Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace behind bars. These flaws include inadequate legal counsel, prosecutorial misconduct, lack of physical evidence, potentially exculpatory evidence lost by the State, evidence that the key eyewitness testimony was paid for in bribes by the State, other eyewitnesses retracting their testimony, and now racial discrimination. To appeal this latest ruling would compound injustice and delay the legal process by years, as the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals would have to rule before justice could be served.

I am also deeply concerned that, since his conviction, Albert Woodfox has been held in conditions that can only be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading. He has been denied access to work, group activities and rehabilitation programs. The negative physical and psychological effects of these conditions have taken a heavy toll on the 66 year old.

The State should move to either retry Albert Woodfox, or to release him. To delay the legal process by appealing this ruling would be both cruel and unnecessary. Please break the cycle of injustice and cruelty. Let the ruling stand.

Please take action now! 

Keep in Touch with Herman and Albert


H&A 

Albert Woodfox #72148            Herman Wallace #76759

David Wade Correctional Center        Elayn Hunt Correctional Center
N1 A3                                                        CCR D #15
670 Bell Hill Road                                    PO Box 174
Homer, LA  71040                                  St. Gabriel, LA  70776
This email was sent to docgee@juno.com by marina@communityfuturescollective.org |  
Community Futures Collective/ Angola 3 | 221 Idora Ave. | Vallejo | CA | 94591