The Absurdity of a Retrial After 43 Years in Solitary Confinement by Charles P. Pierce

[bluedigger]

Albert Woodfox is old and sick, and all the witnesses used to convict him are dead.

Remember what we said earlier on Tuesday about the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, about how it was as notoriously conservative a panel as can be found in the federal system? It's been a few hours, so I thought you needed a reminder.​

"The district court abused its discretion," wrote Judge Carolyn King in a 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, referring to U.S. Middle District Court Judge James J. Brady's bold move over the summer to not only release Woodfox but also prohibit the inmate from being retried. King was joined by Judge Priscilla Owen. Monday's announcement came as a blow to Woodfox and his legal team, which had argued the inmate would not have access to a fair trial since the state's key witnesses are dead. Woodfox was convicted once in 1973 and again in 1998 in the killing of corrections officer Brent Miller at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Miller was found stabbed to death in the prison in 1972. Woodfox's first conviction was overturned because he had ineffective counsel. The second time, Woodfox, who is black, demonstrated among other factors that black jurors were underrepresented in the grand jury, given their share of the overall population. Judge James L. Dennis, in his dissent of King's opinion, wrote, "If ever a case justifiably could be considered to present 'exceptional circumstances' barring reprosecution, this is that case." Dennis cited Woodfox's age of 68, failing health and imprisonment in solitary confinement on two unconstitutional convictions. But King argued Woodfox's claims about his current physical condition were irrelevant to his case and that the absence of living witnesses is better addressed by a state court. King wrote, "This case … does not present a constitutional defect that cannot be cured at retrial."

​Woodfox was in solitary at Angola for 43 freaking years. That's not American jurisprudence. That's a dungeon out of medieval Europe. He's old and he's sick. If the Louisiana authorities waste time and money retrying this case, when all the witnesses are dead, they deserve every bit of waste-fraud-and-abuse scorn that gets heaped on imaginary welfare queens and their imaginary Cadillacs. Put an ankle bracelet on the guy, if you must, and let him go home.

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a39590/fifth-circuit-appeals-woodfox-retrial/

[Mnemosyne]

1. It is a travesty and should be a crime. 43 fucking years in solitaire?! nt

[riversedge]

2. K and R-