Oct. 14, 2013
Man Who Spent 41 Years in Solitary Confinement Dies Surrounded by Friends
Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNews.com
Jackie Sumell and Herman Wallace
"About sunrise this morning, Herman Wallace passed away a free man, unshackled, in a New Orleans home, surrounded by supporters who loved him dearly," Jackie Sumell, Wallace's close friend, wrote on her Facebook page. "His dying words were 'love y'all,'" Sumell wrote.
Prison officials released Wallace, who was suffering from terminal liver cancer, to Interim Louisiana State University Hospital in New Orleans. Hospital officials released him to friends and to supporters so he could die in a home. He was 71 years old.
Wallace was serving a 50 year-prison sentence for armed robbery at the Louisiana State Prison in Angola, La., when he and two others were convicted of the 1972 stabbing death of prison guard Brent Miller.
Miller's widow, Leontine Verrett, has said in a video that she did not believe Wallace, Robert King and Albert Woodfox were involved in her husband's murder. All three men denied involvement in the crime.
There was no DNA evidence linking Wallace to the crime, said Amnesty International.
The men, known as the Angola 3, were framed for the murder because they had founded a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party, argue supporters. The three were sentenced to solitary confinement, which according to the website Solitary Watch, means inmates are locked in their cells 22 to 24 hours a day.
Amnesty International said during his more than 40 years in solitary confinement, Wallace was allowed out of his six-foot-by-nine-foot cell only seven hours each week to shower and to engage in solitary recreation.
"Under international law, these conditions amount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment," said Steven Hawkins, executive director of Amnesty International USA, which is based in New York.
In 2011, Amnesty International published "USA: 100 Years In Solitary: The 'Angola 3' And Their Fight For Justice."
King was exonerated of Miller's murder and released from prison in 2001 after 29 years in solitary confinement. Woodfox still remains in solitary confinement.
On Oct. 1, in the case of Herman Miller versus Howard Prince, warden of Angola prison, Judge Brian A. Jackson, chief judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, overturned Wallace's murder conviction because women were prohibited from serving on the Grand Jury that indicted Wallace. The ruling, however, was moot because Wallace's life was quickly coming to an end.
After learning of his death, Hawkins issued this statement: "Today is a very sad day for the family and friends of Herman Wallace and for those who spent so many years working toward his freedom. We at Amnesty International offer our condolences to his loved ones."