In The Land Of The Free...

In The Land Of The Free

The United States of America. The most powerful nation in the world at present, a nation still coming to terms with its legacy of racial tensions and slow adoption of civil rights but still fond of pushing its moral outlook on the rest of the World whenever it feels it like it. The US Constitution is upheld as a beacon of democratic rights that are unassailable but invariably if you look closely, the country fails to uphold many of its own principles within its own borders for its own citizens.

The 8th Amendment of the US Constitution states excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. Its the latter part of this Amendment that I'm concerned about today, that of cruel and unusual punishment. In the state of Alabama the state penitentiary is called Angola and three prisoners (one now released) have been incarcerated in solitary confinement for up to 37 years. Yes, you read that correctly. 37 years in solitary confinement.

Their crime? The murder of prison guard Brent Miller in 1972. A crime that these men almost certainly did not commit.

Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King are the Angola 3. Three men found guilty of murder in a case that is just too easy to pick apart but has still not been investigated as fully as it should have been and leave Wallace and Woodfox behind bars in solitary. How did this happen?

To attempt to put some context on the matter, you need to know a bit about Angola. The state penitentiary was built in the 1890's on the grounds of a former slave plantation, populated by slaves from Angola, Southern Africa. Angola is the largest US prison with around 5,000 inmates. During the 60's it is alleged that sexual slavery was an integral part of prison life at Angola with weak inmates traded like cattle to be raped or gang-raped - an activity apparently sanctioned and facilitated by the guards at the prison. The prison authorities were also struggling with integrating prisoners as a response to the civil rights movement.

It was in the shadow of these events that Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert King arrived at Angola. Woodfox had initially escaped from court in Alabama and made it to New York where he was introduced to the Black Panthers, a more radical section of the civil rights movement who sought direct action against the reluctance of the authorities to tackle racism in the mainstream, especially the lack of right for a black person to be judged by his peers - many black people appeared in court in front of all white juries. Woodfox and Wallace were heavily influenced by the Black Panther movement and so the two organised petitions, hunger strikes and other activities in order to both protest the conditions in which they were held and help protect the weaker inmantes from sexual abuse. To the chagrin of the prison authorities.

Then in 1972, prison guard Brent Miller was murdered - stabbed 37 times. After a very short and flawed investigation, both Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox were charged and tried for this murder, convicted to a sentence of 37 years. Robert King had already been released from prison at this time and was about 100 miles away from the prison at the time of the murder but was inexplicably linked to it by prison authorities and brought back to Angola, where a year later he was accused of murdering another inmate and faced a trial where he and his fellow defendant were actually tied and gagged during proceedings.

All three were then subjected to solitary confinement until 2001 when King was released only after pleading guilty to conspiray to murder, a murder he has always pleaded innocence to. His two friends are still there.

It is clear that there is something wrong within the US prison service where prisoners can be kept in solitary confinement for such long periods of time. It becomes even worse when you consider it is likely that neither Wallace nor Woodfox probably comitted the crime in question. Both had multiple witness alibi's placing them elsewhere in the prison, a bloody fingerprint did not match either of them nor Brent Miller but was never followed up despite having a captive population and the testimony of fellow inmates implicating the two are clearly flawed. Even Miller's widow, 17 at the time of the murder, is convinced of their innocence but still the duo are kept in isolation. Based upon quotes from the State regarding the case, it does really seem as if the men's radicalism and involvement in the Black Panther movement is what is keeping them there rather than the flimsy murder case - overt racism that is still unchallenged by the current Executive.

This documentary, ably narrated by Samuel L Jackson, highlights a rather extraordinary case that flies in the face of justice and reminds us once more that the US is a rather flawed country despite its insistence on holding itself up as a bastion of modern democracy and holding other countries records on human rights up to the light, whilst conveniently allowing its own to remain obscured by shadow.