Angola 3 Update

http://news.lp.findlaw.com/ap/o/632/09-19-2006/f28800127b5158ad.html

Ex-Black Panther Asks for New Trial

By DOUG SIMPSON Associated Press Writer

(AP) - BATON ROUGE, La.-A former Black Panther convicted of killing a Louisiana prison guard in the 1970s is attempting to get a new trial 30 years later, arguing that prosecutors improperly withheld information that could have swayed the jury in his favor.

Herman Wallace was convicted in 1972 in the stabbing death of Brent Miller, a guard at the state penitentiary at Angola, after a fellow prisoner testified against him. Wallace has been in solitary confinement since then - one of three black convicts known as the "Angola Three."

Wallace's lawyer, Nick Trentecosta, said he will argue at a hearing on Tuesday that prosecutors never told the defense that the prison warden assured the prosecution's star witness that he would help get him a pardon. Trentecosta said such help would amount to a bribe in exchange for testimony against Wallace - an arrangement that prosecutors should have told the defense about.

Prosecutors dispute the basis of Trentecosta's argument. They say no evidence exists that the warden made such a deal with the witness.

"Nowhere have I seen any proof that there were any promises made," said Dale Lee, an assistant district attorney.

The man who testified against Wallace, Hezekiah Brown, was at Angola on a rape conviction at the time of Miller's killing. He was pardoned in the early 1980s and died after his release, Trentecosta said. C. Murray Henderson, the warden of Angola in the early '70s, died in 2004.

Trentecosta said he would produce documents and a witness to prove that Brown and the warden made a pardon deal before Wallace's trial.

The "Angola Three" - Wallace, Albert Woodfox and Robert Wilkerson - are convicts considered by activists worldwide to be political prisoners punished with solitary confinement for their political activities with the now-defunct militant group the Black Panthers.

Wilkerson was released in 2001 after a judge overturned his conviction for killing another inmate. Prison officials have said Wallace and Woodfox are in solitary because they would be endangered if returned to the general prison population.