In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Leontine “Teenie” Rogers said she wants Louisiana to stop blocking a judge’s order to release the man accused of killing her husband in 1972. Each of Albert Woodfox’s two convictions in the case have been overturned.
Angola 3 member Albert Woodfox walks into a courthouse in Louisiana in February.
AP
The wife of a Louisiana prison guard killed in 1972 wants one of his accused killers — incarcerated for 43 years despite his conviction being overturned twice — to be released.
In a statement to BuzzFeed News on Thursday, Leontine "Teenie" Rogers said there is no evidence tying Albert Woodfox, now 68, to the death of her late husband, who was 23 when he was fatally stabbed at Louisiana State Penitentiary — commonly referred to as Angola, the town where it's located.
Woodfox was ordered released from prison on Monday, but remains incarcerated after an appellate court temporarily blocked his release.
"I remain stunned that I am still forced to relive the worst thing that ever happened to me every year," Rogers said in the statement. "I wish the state of Louisiana would stop spending all this money paying lawyers to keep Albert in prison for even longer than the 43 years he has already been there.
The three men convicted of killing him came to be known as the Angola 3. The other two — Robert King and Herman Wallace — were released in 2001 and 2013, respectively. Wallace died shortly after his release pending a new trial. King's conviction was overturned.
Woodfox has twice been tried for the death of Brent Miller, and each time his conviction has been overturned. Still, he had remained incarcerated, spending decades in solitary confinement and becoming a cause célèbre for activists seeking his release. That goal appeared to have been realized on Monday, when the federal judge in Baton Rouge not only ordered Woodfox be unconditionally released, but took the additional measure of preventing prosecutors from attempting a third trial.
Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, however, successfully secured a emergency order from an appellate court temporarily blocking Woodfox's release.
In her letter, Rogers blasted the state for spending so many resources on keeping Woodfox in prison. Instead, she said, prosecutors "should have used some of my taxpayer money to find out who left a fingerprint in Brent's blood at the crime scene, because it wasn't Albert Woodfox, and it wasn't Herman Wallace, and it certainly wasn't Robert King."
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1S8Ov3s
No comments:
Post a Comment