BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - Louisiana's attorney general said Wednesday he plans to appeal a federal judge's decision to overturn the conviction of a former Black Panther in the 1972 killing of a prison guard.
Albert Woodfox, who was held in solitary confinement for over 30 years, is one of three former Panthers known as the "Angola Three." He and two other black prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary were convicted in the stabbing death of guard Brent Miller.
U.S. District Judge James Brady on Tuesday approved a federal magistrate's recommendation, issued in June, that Woodfox's conviction be overturned because one of his former lawyers failed to object to a prosecutor's testimony about a witness' credibility during his second trial. Brady also found the lawyer failed to object to testimony from a witness who had died after the first trial.
Attorney General Buddy Caldwell released a statement saying he is "taking the steps necessary to perfect our appeal of the matter to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Since this is a matter in litigation, we will not comment further on the specifics of this case."
Woodfox, 61, was convicted of murder in 1973 and again at a second trial in 1998. He was in solitary confinement at the Angola prison from 1972 until this year, when he was moved into a maximum-security dormitory with other inmates.
Nick Trenticosta, the current lawyer for Woodfox, said he hopes to talk with officials in Caldwell's office and persuade them to drop the case and allow Woodfox to go free.
"We can still have meaningful discussions with them about why they shouldn't go forward" with an appeal, he said.
One of the "Angola Three" has been released, after 29 years in isolation. Robert King Wilkerson was freed after his conviction was overturned in 2001 and he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder.
Trenticosta has also been appealing the conviction of the third man, Herman Wallace, using arguments similar to Woodfox's appeals.
Wallace was also moved out of solitary into a dormitory at Angola earlier this year.