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

foreperson. 
Rather, it is also about the selection of the grand jury itself. The grand jury
system used for Woodfox’s re-indictment was the same as the one challenged in 
Campbell v.
Louisiana
. As the Supreme Court explained, the Louisiana system of grand jury foreperson
selection, at that time, was unlike most other systems. Under most systems, “the title ‘foreperson’
is bestowed on one of the existing grand jurors without any change in the grand jury’s
composition.” But under the Louisiana system at issue, “the judge select[ed] the foreperson from
the grand jury venire before the remaining [eleven] members of the grand jury [were] chosen by
lot.” The foreperson had the same voting power as all the other grand jurors. Thus, in effect, the
judge chose one grand juror. This case then is one that alleges discrimination in the selection of
the grand jurors, an important constitutional challenge. For well over a century, the Supreme Court
has held that a criminal conviction of an African-American cannot stand under the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if it is based on an indictment of a grand jury
from which African-Americans were excluded on the basis of race.
The state appealed the decision, asking for what’s called an “en banc”
review so it could present its case before every judge in the Fifth Circuit, the
full court, and if a majority of the active judges on the Fifth Circuit agreed to
rehear the case, the three-judge panel’s decision would be vacated, and the
full court would deliberate and decide my fate. Not one judge called for a
rehearing. The state lost that round. Undeterred, Louisiana appealed to the
U.S. Supreme Court, and lost again. Judge Brady’s ruling would stand. I

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would get a new trial.
On February 11, 2015—seven years after my conviction was overturned
by Judge Brady the first time and two years after it was overturned the
second time—the Fifth Circuit issued a mandate to Judge Brady to issue the
final writ of habeas corpus. The next day, the state once again brought my
case before a West Feliciana grand jury. I was reindicted for the murder of
Brent Miller.
Later I would read the affidavit for my arrest warrant, written by an
investigator from the attorney general’s office, which rehashed Buddy
Caldwell’s false claims of rape and robbery as if they were fact. Everything
in boldface type in this arrest affidavit is a lie: