News Angola 3 media coverage

Campaigners against one of the great injustices of modern American history promised to fight on after a federal judge overturned the murder conviction of a former Black Panther who had served 41 years in solitary confinement.

Update, 10/4/15, 10 am: Herman Wallace died early this morning, a free man. He was 71 years old. In a long article we wrote in 2006 on Herman Wallace and his case, we ended with a quote from a letter he wrote to Jackie Sumell: “I’m often asked what did I come to prison for; and now that I think about it Jackie, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what I came here for, what matters now is what I leave with. And I can assure you, however I leave, I won’t leave nothing behind.”

In the last 41 years, Herman Wallace has been incarcerated for a robbery he did commit, indicted for a murder a court ruled he didn’t and diagnosed with a cancer that will end his life. But Tuesday night, he passed through the prison gates and, as a free man, made his way back to the city in which he grew up — New Orleans.

A Louisiana man released from prison on Tuesday after 41 years in solitary confinement has died of liver cancer.