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

Chapter 36
Amite City
At the Amite City jail I was processed and put in a new cell for 23 hours a
day. First, one with a concrete bunk and a hole in the floor as a toilet. After
complaining to the deputies, I was told a cell was being prepared for me and
I’d be moved soon. I waited for hours. Eventually I was moved to a cell
called E-1, used for psychiatric patients, which had a big picture window
built for observation. I had no privacy. One day I was sitting on the toilet
with my sweatpants and underwear down to my ankles when a group of
schoolchildren were brought in front of my cell on a tour. When they passed
the plate glass window, the children paused and stared through the glass. It
was one of the most humiliating moments of my life. I stared ahead, trying to
project as much dignity as possible in that situation. After this incident, I
banged on the door of the cell until one of the guards came and I demanded
to see someone with authority. I talked to a lieutenant; it was decided they
would give me a garbage bag that I could place over the window when I used
the toilet.
I wrote to the warden telling him I had an exemplary record of conduct at
Angola and asked him why I was in solitary confinement and asked to be
placed in the general population. He came to my cell and told me that based
on the information placed in my prison file by Angola officials I was a “high-
priority” prisoner, “dangerous to self or others.” The stupidity and hypocrisy
of it was that while they kept me locked up by myself for 23 hours a day
because I was supposedly a threat to others, they let me on the yard three
times a week with other prisoners. That was a surprise. When it was time to
go to yard they electronically opened my door from the control center and I
walked out by myself down the hall. They told me which door to walk to and
when I reached it they opened it and I got to the yard. On my first time out in
the yard I started running laps when suddenly the door opened again and all

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the prisoners in the general population came out. It was nerve-racking
because I’d just been told that because of my “high-priority” status I couldn’t
be around other prisoners. I thought prison officials were creating a situation
in which I’d have to fight for my life. I slowed down my running and started
looking at the men to see which one of them might attack me. To my
surprise, nothing happened. There was no setup. Because of the prisoner
grapevine, and the fact that many of these prisoners had been to Angola, a lot
of these men knew who I was, what I believed in, and what I fought for. They
left me alone.
After I’d been at Amite for six months a group of Cubans—some of whom
had been in jail since they came to the States on the Mariel boatlift in 1980—
attempted to escape from a nearby parish jail not far from where I was. One
of them thought he’d be able to jump from the rooftop over a fence that
surrounded the jail but he fell and shattered his leg. After he was treated at a
hospital he was transferred to the Amite jail. A captain came to my cell and
asked me if it would be OK to put him in the cell with me. “It’s OK,” I told
him, “but I thought I was too dangerous to be housed with other prisoners.
Tell the warden that if he’s OK with putting a man in my cell why can’t I be
released into the main prison population?” The guard came back within the
hour. “Pack up your shit,” he told me. “We’re putting you on the west wing.”
I put my possessions in a bag and picked up my mattress. At the Amite jail
we had to carry our mattresses wherever we were moved. They took me to
what everybody called the immigrant dorm, where they had prisoners from
other countries, mostly Cubans. It was a small cellblock (called a “pod”) with
a day room and shower. There were eight cells total in the pod, four on an
upper tier and four on the bottom tier. The cells were made for one prisoner
but each held bunk beds for two. Our cell doors were opened at six a.m. and
stayed open throughout the day. At count time the sergeant would tell us over
the loudspeaker to “freeze” and he’d come to the door to count us. Some
sergeants wanted guys in the cells for the count so we’d pile into the first-
floor cells, five or six at a time, to be counted. Theoretically we were all
locked down in our cells at night but sometimes they had 30 prisoners in a
pod made for eight. Prisoners slept on the floor of the day room, under the
stairway, or on tables. There was a food slot under the window of the pod that
could only be unlocked from outside. At mealtime we stood in line and our
trays were passed through the food slot.

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I didn’t speak a word of Spanish but through sign language and broken
English the other prisoners and I were able to communicate. Since none of
them could read or write in English they hadn’t been able to do the proper
paperwork for sick call. Unless they filled out the sick call forms authorities
wouldn’t let them see a doctor. I started filling out sick call forms for them
and that led to some asking me to write letters to their families. Some hadn’t
been able to tell their loved ones where they were for months. The next thing
I knew I was writing to the Immigration and Naturalization Service on behalf
of many of them. Over time I started to comprehend some Spanish: “sí” for
yes; “alto” for stop; “no tengo nada” means “I have nothing.”
Eventually some prisoners came in who were bilingual and translated for
us so I could help inmates prepare for the immigration board that met at the
prison once a month. I had no idea that word spread among the Cuban
prisoners in the jail. One day on the exercise yard about five or six young
Cuban prisoners I didn’t know started to walk toward me. I mentally prepared
for a physical confrontation. When they got close they stood around me and
greeted me like a friend, thanking me for helping the Cuban immigrants in
my pod. It reconfirmed my faith in humanity.
Being out of the cell after 24 years was strange. When I was in CCR at
Angola, everyone I talked to was always in front of me, standing at the bars
outside my cell. In the pod it was unnerving at first to have people moving all
around me, talking to me from all sides, coming up behind me. Being able to
move around without restraints also took some adjustment. I wasn’t
accustomed to walking around the jail without an escort. They used cameras
and electronic doors to lead prisoners from one area to another. The first time
I had to go to central control for a call-out to see my lawyer, I stood at the
door and heard the lock pop but didn’t open it. I was waiting for a guard to
come and get me. The prisoners behind me told me to open the door. I pushed
the door then walked down a long hallway by myself. The whole time I
thought about how for almost half my life I’d been wearing shackles and
wrist restraints, with two escorts alongside me wherever I went.
In the day room, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d held a phone
receiver with my hand, instead of between my ear and shoulder, or watched
television out in the open, instead of viewing it between the bars of a cell
door. I was very conscious that I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Do I
put my hands in my pockets? I asked myself. Should I put them on the table?
Gradually I became more comfortable and more self-assured. I ate meals with

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other prisoners and we played cards and dominoes at the metal tables. But the
unknown factor was always there. There was the potential for danger every
day, 24 hours a day. Everybody makes associations or friendships for his own
protection. I did that too, but I didn’t trust anyone. I was always aware that at
any moment I could be attacked. It was a state of existence that I lived with.
The turnover in the pod was constant. After several months, we weren’t
an “immigrant dorm” anymore; there were more Americans than any other
nationality. Prisoners were moved to other jails, other parishes, other pods in
the Amite jail; some left to go to trial, others were released on bail, others
took plea deals and got out.
I could have three to four cell partners in one day. From my bed I’d hear
the cell door pop at one a.m., someone would be brought in, he’d put his
mattress on the bunk to sleep, by seven that morning he’d be gone.
Sometimes the guy they brought in would be so drunk he’d pissed himself.
He’d throw his mattress on the floor and pass out, then they’d take him out
the next day. Every time I had to be wary. I had to read the signs, the body
language, how a dude talked when he came into the cell; is he normal, is he a
bullyboy, is he crazy, is he timid? I had to make an instant analysis based on
his body language and how he conducted himself to categorize him so I knew
how to deal with him. As soon as I got used to one guy he was gone and
somebody brand-new was brought in. I tried to get a cell partner who had a
more serious charge, like murder, so I wouldn’t have the constant turnover. I
wanted somebody in my cell who would be there for a while. Even with that,
there were no guarantees. My cell partner could seem normal for weeks and
then go wacko and start messing with me, looking for a fight, or start beating
on the toilet one night out of the blue, screaming.
Most of the prisoners were so young it broke my heart. I listened to them,
trying to understand them. I asked them why they were in prison. From what
they described the techniques used on them by police and the criminal justice
system were the same used in black and Latino communities in the sixties.
Targeting blacks and Latinos on the street, cleaning the books on them so
they’d be pressured to take plea deals, sentencing them to long jail terms for
minor offenses. One kid told me his parole officer had him picked up for
“consorting with a known convicted felon” who turned out to be his
grandmother. She had done two years in jail 30 years earlier on a drug
charge. I talked to them about how important it was for them to stay focused
on life outside the jail. They called me OG, for old gangster. They meant it as

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a term of respect.
From the beginning, I was concerned about the jury pool in Tangipahoa
Parish. I knew some of the guards were Klansmen. I was in the heart of what
was known as “David Duke territory.” The town was very conservative. I
wrote to my lawyers about it. Richard Howell wrote to me to say he was
running for district attorney in Baton Rouge and would no longer be able to
represent me and that a new attorney would take over my case. Clay Calhoun,
an attorney practicing law in East Feliciana Parish, was named to replace
him. The months passed. Two years passed.
On March 27,1998, five years after Herman had filed his postconviction
relief application, he got a hearing before the 19th Judicial District Court on
the issue of whether he received ineffective assistance of counsel because of
the conflict of interest created when his codefendant Chester Jackson turned
state’s evidence against him. Our former attorney Charles Garretson testified
that all the information about a deal between the state and Jackson had been
withheld from him. Garretson testified he was “blindsided” when he returned
from lunch and was “missing a defendant.” “I felt that I was the only one in
the courthouse that didn’t know,” Garretson said. “I felt that—I know all the
deputies knew it. I felt the judge knew it, you know, and I felt I was the only
one who did not know this.” Garretson testified that before he cross-
examined Chester Jackson at Herman’s trial, Jackson’s mother told Garretson
that there was a “done deal” and if her son testified he would “get
manslaughter” and “he would get a much lesser sentence” than what he was
then serving. In addition, she told him, “he would get moved out of the
Angola facility and put in a camp.” When confronted with questions about a
deal at trial, however, Jackson denied one existed.
In September 1998, Commissioner Allen J. Bergeron denied Herman’s
petition. He determined that when Chester Jackson took the stand and denied
that he had been promised anything in exchange for his testimony against
Herman, he “spoke the truth in the most narrow sense.”

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