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

Chapter 44
Cruel and Unusual
One way Herman and I could track King’s movements was through our mail.
When we received sudden batches of letters and cards from one place, we
knew he’d been there: Amsterdam, Belgium, Paris, London, Lisbon, Rio. He
traveled extensively throughout the United States too: Washington, DC;
Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston. His words moved people to action.
Dozens of supporters, journalists, and new friends wanted to talk to us and
took our collect calls from prison.
We were all frustrated because the civil lawsuit we filed in 2000 against
our solitary confinement seemed to be stuck in court. State officials used
seemingly endless delay tactics, filing numerous appeals asking that the suit
be dismissed, arguing that prison and state officials should be immune from
such lawsuits. All that changed in 2005, when a team of New York–based
lawyers led by George Kendall took on our civil case pro bono. George, a
former staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Eleventh Circuit
Capital Litigation Project, had worked closely with the Innocence Project and
the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund on policy issues and taught
courses on criminal justice issues at several schools, including Yale Law
School, the Florida State University College of Law, and the St. John’s
University School of Law. George had heard about our case from Nick
Trenticosta. At first George was only involved in our civil suit claiming that
our constitutional rights were being violated by our being kept in solitary
confinement for decades. To get started, he sent four lawyers to Angola to go
through thousands of Louisiana State Penitentiary paper records. The task
took more than two weeks. He put together a team of brilliant young lawyers
to work on our case, including Carine Williams, Corrine Irish, Sam Spital,
and Harmony Loube. Later, Katherine Kimpel and Sheridan England, in
Washington, DC, joined the legal team (focusing on solitary confinement

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conditions), and Billy Sothern and Robert McDuff, in New Orleans, also
joined (focusing on my criminal appeal.) (Years after we met George in
2005, his team would take on my criminal appeal, and then Herman’s.)
Over the next two years, George’s team deposed more than 60 witnesses
for our civil case. We were bound by the limits of what we could legally ask
for in terms of damages or injunctive relief, but these lawyers never had an
underlying attitude of “Let’s just get them out of CCR.” It was always “Let’s
get them out of prison.” I think that made a huge difference in how George
and his team represented us. When George and his legal team were recruited
to another firm, Squire Patton Boggs, in 2009, they didn’t abandon us. One of
the conditions George made was that he wouldn’t move unless his new firm
would continue to represent us.
Meanwhile, Herman and I were dealing with numerous delays in our
criminal cases. Scott Fleming filed my postconviction writ in the Louisiana
Court of Appeal, First Circuit, in 2002. It took nearly three years for the state
court to deny it, on August 8, 2005. It took another year for the Louisiana
Supreme Court to deny our appeal of that denial, on September 29, 2006. All
together it took seven years from when I filed my original direct appeal in
1999 to “exhaust all state remedies” before I would be allowed to file in
federal court.
Herman’s case was also being drawn out. On September 9, 2000, he filed
his application for postconviction relief, which went to a state court
commissioner. A year later, on September 10, 2001, the commissioner ruled
he should get an evidentiary hearing. Two years and nine months later, in
June 2004, the 19th Judicial District Court ruled Herman’s claim with respect
to Hezekiah Brown was unwarranted and dismissed all the other claims in
Herman’s petition. Herman and Nick Trenticosta appealed that ruling to the
First Circuit Court of Appeal, in 2005. The First Circuit reversed part of the
lower court’s ruling, adopting the dismissal of every issue except for the
allegations concerning Hezekiah Brown, ordering a new hearing on that
issue.
I didn’t expect anything more. I knew from experience the judicial system
is not concerned with innocence or justice. (The state had already recognized
I had a meritorious grand jury discrimination claim filed in 1973 but chose to
ignore it.) An innocent man could be hanged and the court system would only
rule on what kind of rope was used for the hanging. In legal terms this is
called “due process.” But the pain of each of our denials in court was

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magnified for me now because of the men and women who worked on our
cases and all of our supporters. I didn’t want them to lose heart. I felt
responsible, each time a ruling didn’t go our way, to stay positive, to reach
out, to encourage them. I wrote messages that were distributed to our
supporters through newsletters and on websites. After my 2006 denial, I
wrote,
I say onward with the fight! . . . One must never hope to escape the battle without setbacks or
injury. The art of a great soldier is not in his ability to fight but in his ability to maintain his
dignity, pride, and self-respect, and most of all, his humanity in his darkest hour! To the friends,
family, comrades, and supporters of the National Coalition to Free the Angola 3, I salute you for a
job well done. I embrace all of you in my heart, soul, and spirit and I take great comfort in
knowing that in the battle ahead for myself and Herman Wallace we will not be alone! Dare to
Struggle. Dare to Win!
Herman’s evidentiary hearing took place on September 20, 2006. It was
held at Angola. Because so many people had attended his 2004 hearing in
Baton Rouge, authorities wanted to try to thin out the crowd in attendance.
Still, Herman’s family and many supporters made it there. Nick Trenticosta,
Scott Fleming, and Susana Herrero represented Herman, once again before
Commissioner Rachel Morgan of the 19th Judicial District Court. They laid
out the merits of his Brady claim that he had raised in his postconviction
relief application. They showed the commissioner five letters Warden C.
Murray Henderson wrote between February 1974 and November 1975
attempting to get a pardon for Hezekiah Brown. They showed her how, even
after Henderson left Angola, officials kept his original deal with Brown. In
1978, the warden at that time, Frank Blackburn, wrote to the secretary of
corrections, C. Paul Phelps, asking that Brown be paid one carton of
cigarettes a week. “This, I feel, would partially fulfill commitments made to
[Brown] in the past with respect to his testimony in the state’s behalf in the
Brent Miller murder case,” Blackburn wrote. In a handwritten note Secretary
Phelps responded, “I concur. Warden Henderson made the original agreement
with Brown . . . I think we should honor the agreement.”
Bobby Oliveaux, a retired Angola guard, testified at the hearing that he
was told by authorities to make sure Hezekiah Brown did not run out of
cigarettes while he was in custody, and that if none were available from the
prison, Oliveaux should pay for them himself. Oliveaux also testified that
before Brown was released from Angola, he was moved from the dorm at the
dog pen into an “outbuilding” with a TV by himself. He was also paid as an

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orderly but, Oliveaux said, didn’t do any work. Oliveaux said he knew Brown
well, that the prisoners he oversaw “were like children” to him. (Oliveaux
was the “handler” who was rumored to have been called to the courthouse the
day of my 1993 indictment to talk Hezekiah Brown into testifying against me
before the grand jury.)
The commissioner was also shown a letter dated December 10, 1984,
written by Howard Marsellus, chairman of the pardon board, to Governor
Edwin Edwards, recommending clemency for Hezekiah Brown. Marsellus
wrote that even though Brown’s request for clemency was opposed by the
New Orleans Police Department and the Orleans district attorney, “We . . .
recommend that Your Excellency grant applicant a commutation of sentence
to time served.”
Less than two months later, Commissioner Morgan ruled in Herman’s
favor, recommending the court reverse his conviction. In a 27-page
recommendation she found Herman’s conviction was fundamentally unfair
because the state suppressed material impeachment evidence. She cited
Warden Henderson’s promise to help Hezekiah Brown obtain a pardon for
his testimony, expressed by Henderson at my trial, quoting from my 1998
trial transcript, in which my attorney Bert Garraway questioned Henderson: