Terminally ill inmate released from prison to die with dignity in hospice care

Dying 'Angola 3' inmate is released in Louisiana

By Phil Gast and Joe Sutton, CNN

Wed October 2, 2013

Herman Wallace, left, and his legal team discuss his trip home to New Orleans after his release from Elayn Hunt Correctional Center.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Inmate is released, according to attorney
• Federal judge orders release of terminally ill inmate, 71
• Herman Wallace was in solitary confinement for more than 40 years
• He was convicted of killing a guard at prison in Angola, Louisiana

(CNN) -- After more than 40 years of having his claims of an unjust murder conviction go unanswered, Louisiana inmate Herman Wallace is now a free man.

But it may be a Pyrrhic victory.

Wallace, who spent decades in solitary confinement, is terminally ill with liver cancer.

He was released after a judge vacated his murder conviction and sentence, one of his attorneys told CNN.

State officials had been threatened with contempt if they did not release Wallace immediately.

Wallace, 71, is one of the "Angola 3" -- three inmates who claim they tried to point out injustices at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola during the late 1960s and 1970s.

Wallace's sisters, nieces and nephews wanted him moved to hospice care in New Orleans, said one of his attorneys.

"He has claimed there was an unfair trial for 41 years and finally we have that ruling," attorney Nick Trenticosta told CNN on Tuesday night. "For him to pass on from this world with friends and family at his side is extremely important."

The release came hours after U.S. District Chief Judge Brian A. Jackson in Baton Rouge said that women were systematically excluded from the grand jury that indicted Wallace in the 1972 slaying of a guard at Louisiana State Penitentiary.

Jackson declined to address Wallace's other claims, including an allegation that the state knowingly used false testimony and withheld exculpatory evidence at trial.

East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore's office subsequently filed an appeal with the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals and asked that Wallace not be immediately released.

But, in a strongly worded order, Jackson later Tuesday repeated his demand that Wallace be freed immediately, saying the state has failed to show Wallace would be a flight risk or public danger if released. He threatened them with a contempt judgment.

The judge ruled that prosecutors have 30 days to notify Wallace whether they intend to seek a new indictment in the case.

Wallace's legal team lauded the release of their client.

"Tonight, Herman Wallace has left the walls of Louisiana prisons and will be able to receive the medical care that his advanced liver cancer requires," they said in a statement. "It took the order of a federal judge to address the clear constitutional violations present in Mr. Wallace's 1974 trial and grant him relief. The state of Louisiana has had many opportunities to address this injustice and has repeatedly and utterly failed to do so."

 

Read it all:  http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/01/justice/angola-3-former-black-panther-ordered-released/index.html?sr=fb100213solconfine930a