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Chapter 50
Man of Steel
Maybe my soul is that of concrete
Maybe it is that of the wind
Maybe it is that of fire
Maybe it is the spirit of the people—the spirit of my ancestors,
Whatever my keepers wish my soul to be,
The man of steel is always free.
—Herman Wallace
Herman wasn’t well. He’d been complaining of stomach pain and went to the
prison hospital several times. He wrote to me that the doctors at Hunt told
him he had thrush or a stomach fungus, and they were treating him for a
fungal infection. I was relieved that he was finally getting some medical help.
In June 2013, George Kendall and Carine Williams showed up at Wade for
an unexpected visit. George told me they had asked our medical expert, Dr.
Brie Williams, to update her report about our health status. In reviewing
Herman’s recent medical records, she grew very concerned and asked the
prison health-care providers to further examine him and to allow her to
examine him. The attorneys got permission to take Herman to a hospital in
Baton Rouge. “Albert,” George said, “Herman doesn’t have thrush or a
stomach fungus. He has advanced liver cancer. The doctors say he may have
only three or four months to live.” I started to say something but I wasn’t able
to speak. Herman’s smile flashed in my mind. He was standing on the walk at
Angola.
Dr. Williams didn’t need a CT scan to examine Herman, George
continued. She could see and feel the tumor on his liver as soon as she lifted
his shirt; it was protruding in the shape and size of a toy football. After the
diagnosis, Carine said, prison officials were planning to put Herman back in
his cell. Even though he was dying, George and Carine had to fight to get
officials at Hunt to keep Herman from being returned to lockdown. They
won. When he was sent back to the prison from the hospital, Herman was put
in an isolation room in the hospital unit.
George promised they’d do everything they could to get him out of
isolation and into the hospital dorm. He told me they were filing for an
expedited review of Herman’s habeas petition (which had been sitting
without any attention from the court for four years, since December 2009).
They told me they were working to get prison officials to allow me, Herman,
and King to meet with them together to discuss our civil suit, because the
state was refusing to allow us to meet. “You will see Herman again,” Carine
promised me. After they left I called my brother. Michael took the news hard.
He cried because he loved Herman. He cried because he knew what it would
mean for me to lose Herman. We thought we were invincible.
George and Carine negotiated with the state to get Herman’s
classification reduced from maximum to medium security, threatening to go
to the court if necessary. Because of their actions Herman was taken out of
isolation and housed in a prison hospital dorm with a day room where he
wouldn’t have to wear leg irons. They were also able to persuade the court to
order the prison to allow us to meet together with our lawyers. Because of
this, Herman, King, and I would see one another again.
On July 10, Amnesty International launched a campaign directed at
Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, calling for Herman’s immediate release on
humanitarian grounds. “After decades of cruel conditions and a conviction
that continues to be challenged by the courts, he should be released
immediately to his family so that he can be cared for humanely during his last
months,” wrote Amnesty’s Tessa Murphy. Once again Governor Jindal hid,
refusing to talk to Amnesty representatives and referring questions about
Herman to the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections.
Dr. Brie Williams told George that between Herman’s rapid weight loss,
his medical history, the bloodwork, and the tumor protruding from his
abdomen, there was no way any doctor could have missed Herman’s liver
cancer diagnosis. Yet Pam Laborde, spokeswoman for the Department of
Corrections, insisted the prison “provides adequate health care to inmates.”
(In May 2015, a group of prisoners at Angola would file a class action
lawsuit on behalf of thousands of men incarcerated there, claiming the
prison’s substandard medical care violated the 8th Amendment prohibition
against cruel and unusual punishment. Their attorneys, who came together
from four organizations—the Advocacy Center of Louisiana, the ACLU of
Louisiana, the Promise of Justice Initiative, and Cohen Milstein Sellers &
Toll PLLC—interviewed hundreds of men to build their case, documenting
“one medical horror story after another,” wrote journalists James Ridgeway
and Katie Rose Quandt for
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