After 40-plus years in solitary confinement, the third and final imprisoned member of Louisiana’s Angola 3, Albert Woodfox, might be headed home, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune. A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a decision to a overturn Woodfox’s conviction related to the 1972 stabbing of a Louisiana State Penitentiary prison guard, Brent Miller, according to federal court documents.
The decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals was unanimous, but the state could still appeal it. The decision upheld part of District Court Judge James J. Brady’s ruling that found racial discrimination in the selection of the grand jury foreperson in a 1998 retrial of Woodfox’s original conviction. Woodfox, 67, and two others were implicated in prison murders, including the killing of Miller, but advocates maintain they were singled out for organizing a Black Panther Party chapter at the prison.