NEW ORLEANS — Two former Black Panthers convicted of killing of a prison guard in 1972 should be freed after a federal magistrate found a previous attorney made mistakes during a trial, their new lawyer said Wednesday.
Magistrate Judge Christine Nolan wrote that Albert Woodfox's conviction should be overturned because his former attorney should have objected to testimony from witnesses who had died after his original trial.
The attorney's omission denied Wilcox a fair second trial in 1998, Nolan wrote in a recommendation Tuesday to U.S. District Judge James Brady, who will rule later.
Woodfox, 61, and Herman Wallace, 66, were convicted in the stabbing death of guard Brent Miller on April 17, 1972.
An attorney for the men said they were targeted because they helped establish a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party.
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Wallace has been appealing his conviction based on arguments similar to Woodfox's, and believes his second trial also wasn't fair.
Along with another ex-Black Panther convicted of killing an inmate at the prison, the trio became known as the "Angola Three" because they were held in isolation for about three decades at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. The prison is in Angola, La., about 40 miles northwest of Baton Rouge.
The witnesses who died before Woodfox's second trial included the prosecution's main witness, an inmate who made a deal in exchange for his testimony and an expert who talked about blood spatters on clothing that state officials said had been lost, Nolan wrote.
The attorney also should have asked for money to hire experts to testify about blood, DNA and fingerprints in Woodcox's defense, the magistrate wrote.
Messages left with the Louisiana Justice Department and state corrections office were not immediately returned.
Attorney Nicholas Trenticosta, who represents Woodfox and Wallace, said Wednesday he would ask the Louisiana Supreme Court to consider Wallace's case. A state appeals court rejected Wallace's arguments last month.
Wallace and Wilcox were kept in solitary confinement from 1972 until March, when they were moved to a maximum-security dormitory. Woodfox was serving 50 years for armed robbery before the 1972 charge.
The third member of the "Angola Three" spent 29 years in isolation before his conviction was overturned in 2001.
Robert King, known as Robert King Wilkerson in the 1970s, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and was freed.
