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On Tuesday, a federal judge in Louisiana ordered the immediate release of Herman Wallace, a 71-year-old man who has spent more than 40 years in solitary confinement conditions for the murder of a prison guard. Mr. Wallace, who maintains his innocence, was wheeled out on a stretcher and taken to a local hospital because he is dying of advanced liver cancer. Prosecutors fought his release up to the moment of his departure.

After decades of public activism and hard-fought legal battles, Herman Wallace has been released from prison. Federal District Court Judge Brian Jackson overturned the “Angola 3” member’s conviction yesterday morning and ordered the State to immediately release Herman from custody.

After close to 42 years in solitary confinement, Herman Wallace is free. Wallace is dying of liver cancer, with days if not hours to live at the time of this writing. In a stunning legal ruling, Judge Brian A. Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana ordered Wallace’s release by overturning his 1974 murder conviction. As he lies dying, Herman Wallace knows that after a lifetime of enduring the torture of solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit, he is now a free man.

Civil rights activist Robert King and artist Grayson Perry are among 12 people receiving honorary awards from Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge.