CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT? Last remaining 'Angola 3' prisoner may be released after four decades of life in solitary

Albert Woodfox has insisted he was innocent the entire time.

After more than 40 years in solitary confinement, Albert Woodfox may finally be released from prison for a crime he has long said he did not commit.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Woodfox is the last imprisoned member of the "so-called" Angola 3. Woodfox, Herman Wallace, and Robert King were accused of killing prison guard Brent Miller at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in 1972.  

For years, activists have fought against the charges, crying out there was no evidence to tie the men to the accusations and "decrying the decades they each spent in solitary confinement," according to CNN.

King was never convicted of the murder of Miller and was freed in 2001. Wallace was released in 2013 and died a few days after his release. 68-year-old Woodfox, initially imprisoned for an armed robbery, has remained behind bars.

Although a federal appeals court overturned Woodfox's conviction in 2014, he awaits a third trial.

"Now, because the state's key witnesses are deceased, and Mr. Woodfox's alibi witnesses are also deceased, there is no practical way for there to be a third trial which comports with the standards of a fair, American trial," Woodfox's attorneys', George Kendall and Carine Williams, statement said.

According to CNN, even the slain prison guard's widow, Teenie Rogers, believes the men, including Woodfox, are innocent.

"Woodfox has spent 43 years trapped in a legal process riddled with flaws," said Jasmine Heiss, a senior campaigner for the human rights group, to CNN. "The only humane action that the Louisiana authorities can take now is to ensure his immediate release."

However, according to Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, Woodfox is not innocent and has never been in solitary confinement. Rather, he was held in a lock down known as "closed cell restricted," designed to protect others in the prison.

To those living in the cells and the many Watchdog groups, the closed cell restricted areas are the same thing as solitary confinement.

"I think the cost of solitary confinement is now being critically examined and rethought, and prison systems are beginning to ask themselves whether this is worth it, and whether or not it does not create more harm than good," Craig Haney, director of the program in legal studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, explained to CNN. "Courts are pushing them to consider the inhumanity of the practice, as well."

According to The National Alliance on Mental Illness, an increasing amount of corrections officers respond to "violence and 'acting out' -- behavior they do not understand -- by isolating prisoners in lockdown."

Around 80,000 American prisoners are in solitary confinement; 25,000 are held there for long-term isolation. These prisoners spend at least 22 hours a day trapped in their windowless cell, no larger than eight by 10 feet, with minimal human contact.

"People have to structure their lives around the absence of other human beings," Haney said. "They [prisoners in solitary confinement] go for years on end without touching anyone with affection."

According to Huda Akil, a neuroscientist at the University of Michigan, "Positive experiences, including social interaction, have positive impacts on the brain, such as the activation of molecules called growth factors, which are akin to fertilizers for brain cells, helping them regrow and interact." If you take this away from a human, you are "physically depriving the brain from its nourishment."
 
Prisoners often begin to hallucinate and become explosive in their emotions.

"I get confused as to where I am, where I should be," King expressed on what life is like now after years in solitary. "The brain somehow won't register things, and it won't register exactly where I am."

If trapping a human being in a box with no windows and little to no human interaction is deemed OK by the prison system, what exactly is cruel and unusual punishment? Prisoners' brains are severely altered after years spent in solitary.

U.S. District Judge James J. Brady ruled Monday that Woodfox should be released from prison. Caldwell appealed the ruling, insisting he is guilty. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has not made a decision yet, but Woodfox's release will be temporarily blocked until at least Friday afternoon.

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