Albert Woodfox, the author and activist who spent 43 years in solitary confinement, died this week at the age of 75.
He was one of three men known as the Angola 3, with long stretches spent in isolation at the notorious Angola prison farm in Louisiana. 2019 we asked Mr. Woodfox to read from his memoir, “Solitary,” in which he detailed the decades where he spent 23 hours a day confined to a 6-by-9-foot cell.
Albert Woodfox was sent to jail in 1965 on armed robbery charges and placed in solitary confinement after being accused of killing corrections officer Brent Miller.
Mr. Woodfox always maintained his innocence and said he was blamed for the crime after he helped set up a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party. He was finally set free in 2016 after pleading to lesser charges.
Why was Albert Woodfox in solitary confinement?
Mr. Woodfox was placed in solitary confinement in 1972 after being accused of murdering Brent Miller, a 23-year-old corrections officer. A tangled legal ordeal ensued, including two convictions, both overturned, and three indictments stretching over four decades.
The case struck most commentators as problematic. No forensic evidence linked Mr. Woodfox to the crime, so the authorities’ argument depended on witnesses, who over time were discredited or proved unreliable.
