It has been my experience that because of institutional and individual racism

responsibility 
of every citizen to serve when
called.
As expected, I was reindicted on March 17, 1993. When I was arraigned
two public defenders were appointed to represent me at trial: Baton Rouge
attorney Bert Garraway and Richard Howell from St. Francisville. They
immediately submitted a motion to quash my indictment since Anne Butler
had passed her biased, inaccurate, inflammatory version of Brent Miller’s
murder around to other grand jurors. Judge Bruce Bennett refused the motion,
writing, “There’s nothing wrong with a grand juror having some knowledge
of a case, even if they happened to have written a book about the case.”
Meanwhile, Herman, representing himself, tried to ferret out suppressed
evidence we figured the state had about our case by filing a pro se (without a
lawyer) Public Records Act request, asking for “all documents . . . pertaining
in any manner to the arrest, investigation and prosecution of Herman Joshua
Wallace.” On May 27, 1993, he filed another records request with the 20th
Judicial District. In both cases the state refused to provide him with public
records. Herman went to court and eventually both the 19th and the 20th
Judicial District Courts ordered the state to provide the records he requested.
The state said there were no documents pertaining to his case; a decade later
we proved this was a lie. Herman then attempted to subpoena the Louisiana
State Penitentiary, asking for “the entire investigative file . . . concerning the
death of Brent Miller.” In response, Angola claimed “there are no record [
sic
]
at the Louisiana State Penitentiary regarding the Investigation into the [
sic
]
Brent Miller’s death.”
That May, Herman challenged his 1974 conviction in an application for
postconviction relief, raising, among other claims, the issue that Chester
Jackson’s deal with prosecutors to turn state’s evidence should have been
revealed to him, his attorney Charles Garretson, and the jury. To support his
allegation, Herman included an affidavit he got from an inmate who swore
that in 1985 he asked Jackson why he was abusing prescription drugs.
Jackson told the inmate he had testified in court to things that were absolutely
untrue and that Associate Warden Hayden Dees had threatened his life if he

---

didn’t sign a statement implicating himself, Herman, and me in the murder of
Brent Miller. Herman asserted he was denied his constitutional right to due
process of law. He didn’t get a response for years.
The first time Garraway and Howell visited me at Angola they asked me
if I’d be willing to take a lie detector test. I think they were surprised when I
said yes. They came sometime later with a tester who brought his polygraph
machine with him to Angola. I passed the lie detector test, affirming that I did
not kill Brent Miller. I asked Garraway and Howell if they could get me a
change of venue so my trial wouldn’t be in St. Francisville, where I had been
indicted twice and where a large percentage of the population either worked
at Angola or were related by marriage or blood to someone who worked
there.
The judge granted me a change of venue to Amite City, an hour and a
half drive east of Angola and north of New Orleans. Amite was a small,
white, conservative, Bible Belt community of 4,000 people located in
Tangipahoa Parish, where the Ku Klux Klan had a very strong presence. I
later found out that the Miller family had lived in Tangipahoa Parish, and that
Brent Miller, considered a “native son,” was buried outside the city of Amite.
So in effect the change of venue for my trial was from the frying pan to the
skillet.

---