Judge: Ex-Black Panther should get 3rd trial

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

Judge: Ex-Black Panther should get 3rd trial

AP foreign, Wednesday June 11 2008

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A former Black Panther who was
convicted of killing a prison guard in 1972 should get a
third trial because his attorney previously failed to
object to certain testimony and hire experts for his
defense, a federal magistrate said.

Albert Woodfox, 61, one of the prisoners known as the
“Angola Three,” spent most of the past three decades in
solitary confinement after he was convicted in the
stabbing death of guard Brent Miller during a prison riot.

Magistrate Judge Christine Nolan wrote that Woodfox's
attorney's omissions denied him a fair second trial in 1998.
The attorney should have objected to testimony from
witnesses who had died since the original trial, the
magistrate wrote Tuesday in a nonbinding recommendation
to U.S. District Judge James Brady, who will rule later.

The witnesses who died included an inmate who was the
prosecution's main witness and an expert who talked
about blood spatters on clothing that state officials
said had been lost, Noland wrote. The attorney also
should have asked for money to hire experts to talk the
blood, DNA and fingerprints, the magistrate wrote.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7578439

[David__77]

1. These people should be freed.

It seems that the cops who did the killing and the COINTELPRO operatives roam free: why should others in this conflict remain behind bars?