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

Advocate
. Since papers weren’t delivered to the CCR dorm on weekends I
called a friend and asked him to read it to me. It was a front-page article
quoting Attorney General Caldwell as stating that if I was released he “would
pursue six aggravated rape cases and six counts of armed robbery from 1967
to 1969” against me.
“If we let him out we will probably never see him again,” Caldwell said
in the article. “The guy’s a serial rapist.” Nick defended me in the article.
“It’s a flat out lie,” he told the paper. “He has never been charged with six
counts of rape. There is no case. It’s offensive to the practice of law.” Chris
Aberle called it “a ridiculously absurd comment,” adding, “If they have
evidence . . . why didn’t they supply it a long time ago?” To add insult to
injury, at the end of the article Caldwell stated, “Albert’s never been in
isolation. He’s had TV. He’s had all the luxuries you can have in prison.”
I sat on my bunk and wrote a four-page statement denying the attorney
general’s accusations. I called Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio and asked
her to record me reading my statement and to broadcast it. I wanted my
supporters to know how I was feeling and what I was thinking, in my own
words. In part, I read,
The attorney general’s office has decided to launch a smear campaign reminiscent of the federal
government’s counterintelligence program (COINTELPRO) to oppose my constitutional rights to

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be released on bail. . . . The techniques and tactics used by COINTELPRO were lies, deceptions,
missing information, and character assassination. These techniques and tactics were used to cause
chaos and disunity among members of any organization or group targeted by the government. . . .
Shortly after my bail hearing on October 14, 2008, a smear campaign was started. First they
spread lies about me in my niece’s neighborhood. Someone contacted the homeowners’
association that my niece belongs to and told them my niece was bringing a murderer and rapist
into their community, which put her in the middle of a firestorm among her neighbors.
On the rape charges, I wrote,
I welcome them [the attorney general’s office] to put the evidence out there. Tell the public what
you got. He says I’m a serial rapist. OK, show us what you got. Witnesses? DNA? Let’s have it.
Where’s the proof. He’s got nothing. There is no way he could bring these accusations through the
courts . . . so he put his accusations before the media.
After I read the statement Noelle interviewed me. “My main concern now
is the safety of my niece and her family,” I told her. “I’m very distressed that
the relationship she had with neighbors in her community may be destroyed
because of this smear campaign by the attorney general’s office, and the thing
is, these people in positions of power and authority, they violate the
Constitution, they break the laws and they have immunity from prosecution.
Then they walk away and continue to live their lives, and all the people
whose lives are destroyed by them, by their illegal actions, are left to fend for
themselves.” I continued, “The attorney general made the statement that two
juries ‘have spoken’ and I have been convicted twice on this murder charge.
What he failed to say is that, had the state of Louisiana followed the
Constitution of the United States and the laws of the state of Louisiana to
indict me and convict me, this case would not have been overturned twice.
They were able to convict me because they used unconstitutional tactics—the
discrimination against blacks in my grand juries, giving me incompetent
lawyers, not turning over evidence that could have shed light on the real
killers of Brent Miller. Everyone says my trials were overturned on a
‘technicality,’” I said. “The Constitution is not a technicality.” I put a copy of
the statement I wrote in the mail to my friend and comrade Gail Shaw in
Sacramento and asked her to post it online, which she did.
Someone in Buddy Caldwell’s office must have decided it didn’t look
good for me to be living peacefully in a dormitory at Angola while Caldwell
was going around telling everyone how dangerous I was. (Later we would
learn prison officials started colluding with the attorney general’s office to
look for reasons to move me and Herman out of the dorm.) One day that fall

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a couple of guards showed up at the dorm and told me and Herman we’d
violated disciplinary rule “30C.” A 30C was a catchall charge standing for
anything that was not specifically spelled out in the disciplinary rule book.
They put us in the dungeon. George Kendall and his team went into action,
filing for discovery on the reason we were put in the dungeon and seeking
our release.
I was still in the dungeon on Tuesday, November 25, 2008, when Nick
called me with surprising news. Judge James Brady had ruled I had the right
to bail while awaiting the state’s appeal, pending court approval of my
housing plan. If I could find appropriate housing, I could go home. Judge
Brady said he found no evidence that I was a danger to society, pointing to
my age and my “exemplary record of conduct” in the last 20 years. He also
pointed to my diminishing health, describing me as “frail and sickly.” I hated
that, but I had to admit it was true. Judge Brady called for my immediate
release while we waited the appeals of my habeas relief.
The state filed an emergency appeal before the Fifth Circuit, asking that
Judge Brady’s ruling granting me appeal bail be put on hold until a hearing
before a three-judge panel could be arranged. Assistant Attorney General
Mary Hunley, citing my criminal convictions for “armed robbery, aggravated
escape, aggravated battery, burglary and car theft,” told the court: “It is
evident that if he is released, this career criminal would be considered both
dangerous and a flight risk.” Notably, she said nothing about rape. A panel of
judges on the Fifth Circuit blocked my release for another week and then
denied appeal bail altogether.
I was in the dungeon for about a month when I was finally handed an
investigatory report that told me why I had been moved there in the first
place. I was removed from the dorm, placed in the dungeon, and then sent
back to CCR based on charges that I had “abused phone privileges.” I’d been
on 10 three-way calls, which generally are prohibited in prison but are very
commonplace. Six of those calls were with our lawyers, and we were allowed
to have those. The other four were with Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio—
the calls I made to her when I was giving her my statement refuting the rape
charges. I was also charged with “deliberate misrepresentation of information
on my call list,” because I’d described Noelle as a “friend” and not as a
journalist. Of course, this was no misrepresentation: I considered her a friend.
Besides that, there was no place on the form that asked for or gave you space
to write down the occupations of your friends. Finally, I was charged with

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releasing an “unauthorized press release” by speaking to her, and prison
officials claimed I was making inflammatory statements that would provoke
security issues in the prison. Herman was also charged with trumped-up
disciplinary violations related to misuse of phone privileges.
Chris Aberle and Nick Trenticosta continued to defend me in the press.
Nick told reporters that Attorney General Caldwell’s charges were
“scurrilous allegations, a litany of offenses that don’t exist.” But the truth
didn’t stop Buddy Caldwell, who continued to tell the
 Advocate
that he would
try me on rape if I was released. “Those charges are still viable,” Caldwell
told the paper. “We’ve got living witnesses out there. If we’re going to err,
let’s err on the side of keeping him in prison.” Recklessly, callously, he made
these claims knowing that he could never support them.
In November 2008, I was deposed again for our civil trial. The state’s
attorney Richard Curry questioned me.
Q.
Mr. Woodfox, what facts are you aware of that would support your
allegation that you’ve been confined in lockdown for 28 to 36 years, and
other adverse actions being taken against you, because of your perceived
political beliefs and affiliations?
A.
Well, the fact within itself that I’ve been held in CCR for approximately
35 years, with the exception of the three years I was in Amite City,
Tangipahoa Parish Jail. I had the opportunity to see all the inmates with
disciplinary records that were just horrible, released from CCR. Basically,
that’s all that we are evaluated on in CCR, conduct. I’ve seen guys come
out of the dungeon or come from Camp J and a couple of months later
they’re released from CCR.