Chapter 48
Torture
In April 2011, the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3 and the ACLU
National Prison Project held a congressional briefing on the abuses of solitary
confinement, at the request of Congressmen John Conyers, Cedric Richmond,
and Robert “Bobby” Scott. Tory Pegram
co-organized the program and
moderated the panel discussion with Robert King; Laura Rovner, an associate
professor of law in the Civil Rights Clinic at the University of Denver
College of Law; David Fathi, director of the National Prison Project; and
Michael Randle, program manager for the Judge Nancy R. McDonnell
Community Based Correctional Facility. There was a screening of a
documentary about us called
In the Land of the Free
, directed by Vadim Jean
and produced by the Mob Film Company, released the year before. (That film
would be updated with new information and interviews and renamed
Cruel
and Unusual
years later.) King and our attorney Carine Williams spoke after
the film was shown.
That spring I got the news that my childhood friend Ernest Johnson had
died from an illness. That was a shock because he was my age, 64. On June
2, 2011, former Panther Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt died of a heart attack. He was
63. There was no place in my cell to put these aching losses. I was still
grieving for Althea Francois, a founding member of our support committee,
who had died a year and a half before, after a long illness, on Christmas day.
Althea, as a young member of the Black Panther Party in the 1970s, first
visited me at Angola after I was accused of killing Brent Miller. In 1999, we
reunited in the prison visiting room. A gentle but determined warrior, Althea
was an activist in the black community her entire life.
In the months after
Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, she worked to establish the city’s
Office of the Independent Police Monitor to uncover and expose the role of
New Orleans police in post-Katrina killings. Herman and King were, of
course, also devastated by Althea’s death. When the
San Francisco Bay View
newspaper asked King for a few words about her, he spoke of Althea’s giving
nature, invoking a passage from the Bible, Matthew 25:35–36: “For I was
hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me
something to drink . . . I was in prison and you came to visit me.” I was used
to being separated from people I loved, but separation by death was different.
Althea Francois, Ernest Johnson,
Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt, Anita Roddick,
Michael Augustine, one of my very first supporters Opal Joyner, my sister
Violetta Mable Augustine, my mom Ruby Mable. If I ever got out of prison,
a part of me would always be looking for them.
I started getting swelling in my legs and ankles. As usual, I tried to run it
off, but that didn’t help. At one point my ankles were so swollen the guards
couldn’t put the leg irons on—they had to use two plastic restraints joined
together for each of my ankles and attach the chain between my ankles to
them. Eventually I saw a doctor and got a prescription for fluid pills and the
swelling went down, but anytime my ankle
restraints were too tight my
ankles blew up like balloons.
I was still, after 39 years, being hassled about my books and mail. If I was
sent anything that mentioned the Black Panther Party it was confiscated for
“teaching racial hatred.” “Give me a break,” I wrote to Herman, describing
the petty harassment. “I’m tired of this shit.” One of my supporters sent me
the book
The New Jim Crow
by Michelle Alexander, and, luckily, it got
through. I shared it
with the prisoners on my tier, telling them what a
powerful book it was. There were issues in the book we used to discuss in the
1970s.
I stayed in close touch with Herman at Hunt and Zulu at Angola through
letters, writing often. Although, as I wrote to Hooks, “It’s hard to write to you
and Zulu, what can I tell you about the beast’s belly. Both of you are living
my hell.”
On October 18, 2011, the United Nations released a statement against solitary
confinement:
A United Nations expert on torture today called on all countries to ban the solitary confinement of
prisoners except in very exceptional circumstances and for as short a time as possible, with an
absolute prohibition in the case of juveniles and people with mental disabilities.
“Segregation, isolation, separation, cellular,
lockdown, Supermax, the hole, Secure Housing
Unit (SHU) . . . whatever the name, solitary confinement should be banned by States as a
punishment or extortion technique,” UN Special Rapporteur on torture Juan E. Méndez
told the
General Assembly’s third committee, which deals with social, humanitarian and cultural affairs,
saying the practice could amount to torture.
“Solitary confinement is a harsh measure which is contrary to rehabilitation, the aim of the
penitentiary system,” he stressed in presenting his first interim report on the practice,
calling it
global in nature and subject to widespread abuse.
Indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement in excess of 15 days should also be subject to an
absolute prohibition, he added, citing scientific studies that have established that some lasting
mental damage is caused after a few days of social isolation.
“Considering the severe mental pain or suffering solitary confinement may cause, it can amount
to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment when used as a punishment,
during pretrial detention, indefinitely
or for a prolonged period, for persons with mental
disabilities or juveniles.”
