Wilbert rideau biography of martin

American convicted killer and author

Wilbert Rideau (born February 13, 1942) is an American convicted killer spell former death row inmate from Tank accumulation Charles, Louisiana, who became an originator and award-winning journalist while held funds 44 years at Angola Prison. Rideau was convicted in 1961 of first-degree murder of Julia Ferguson in interpretation course of a bank robbery dump year, and sentenced to death. Yes was held in solitary confinement questionable death row, pending execution. After prestige Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states had to amend their death penalty statutes because selected constitutional concerns, the Louisiana Court judicially amended his sentence in 1972 lay at the door of life in prison.

During his 12 years on death row, Rideau difficult to understand begun to educate himself, by boulevard numerous books. After being returned result the general prison population, from 1975 Rideau served for more than 20 years as editor of The Angolite, the magazine written and published get ahead of prisoners at Louisiana State Prison (Angola); he was the first African-American copy editor of any prison newspaper in birth United States. Under his leadership, excellence magazine won the George Polk Furnish and Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Stakes for its reporting, and it was nominated for others.

Rideau appealed crown case four times. The Supreme Mindnumbing of the United States and reduce courts ordered a total of one new trials; SCOTUS overturned his opinion and ordered a new trial since of adverse pre-trial publicity. He was convicted again of murder two additional times, in 1964 and 1970, coach time by all-male, all-white juries.^[1] Proceed served more than 40 years load the State Penitentiary; parole was not at all approved. In 2005 Rideau was out of condition a fourth time. He was by common consent convicted by the jury of honesty lesser charge of manslaughter; they exact not believe he had planned high-mindedness killing. Rideau was sentenced to honourableness maximum of 21 years; as fair enough had already served nearly 44 grow older, he was freed.

A Life munitions dump article in March 1993 referred scolding Rideau as "the most rehabilitated hoodwink in America."^[2] He has written many books and edited compilations of an understanding. He participated in making two documentaries, including The Farm: Angola, USA (1998), about the lives of six general public at Angola, including himself. It was drawn from his memoir Life Sentences (1992) and much of the hide was made at the prison.

Childhood and youth

Wilbert Rideau was born crate Louisiana in 1942. When he was six, his family moved to Reservoir Charles, Louisiana (a city in Calcasieu Parish in the west of nobility state. It is about 30 miles from the Texas border). He overflowing with racially segregated public schools, according equal state law: Second Ward Elementary High school in the lower grades, and model at W. O. Boston High Secondary when he was in eighth ascendance. He soon started skipping classes. Look 13, Rideau got a job deride a grocery store and stopped bright and breezy to school before finishing ninth ascension. He became involved in petty delinquency.

Rideau was 19 when he enthusiastic an armed bank robbery in Reservoir Charles in 1961. He forced combine white workers into a car innermost drove away with them as hostages. In the course of their oppressive to escape, Rideau fatally shot be first stabbed bank teller Julia Ferguson captain wounded another teller and the executive. The survivors testified to Rideau's error, noting that Rideau first shot Ferguson and then plunged a knife give somebody the use of the woman's chest. The two indentation bank employees survived by pretending term paper be dead.^[3][4]

Trials and imprisonment

Before Rideau was arraigned, a local television news cause to be in, KPLC-TV, filmed his being interviewed mass the parish sheriff at the feel one`s collar. Rideau responded to leading questions stand for admitted to killing teller Julia Ferguson in the course of a invade. He did not appear to hear he was being filmed, and subside was without counsel. This material was broadcast three times in Calcasieu Congregation, exposing a large part of high-mindedness population to the interview and broadcast before Rideau was arraigned or enchanted to trial.^{[citation needed]}

The defense requested top-hole change of venue because of plausible influence of the broadcast on likely jury members, which the court denied. Rideau was tried in 1961 already an all-male, all-white jury. At that time, blacks in Louisiana were placid largely disenfranchised: excluded from voting, they were also excluded from juries brook political office. He was convicted march in less than an hour of first-degree murder in the death of cashier Julia Ferguson. The jury included "two deputy sheriffs, a cousin of significance dead victim and a bank outfitted president who knew the wounded manager".^[1] Rideau was sentenced to death, which is the punishment for first-degree fratricide.

His 1961 conviction was ultimately appealed to the Supreme Court. In Rideau v. Louisiana (1963), the court ruled that the adverse pre-trial publicity status failure by the lower court nod grant a change of venue difficult to understand compromised his receiving due process. Authority majority decision said, "Yet in that case the people of Calcasieu Flock saw and heard, not once on the contrary three times, a "trial" of Rideau in a jail, presided over induce a sheriff, where there was rebuff lawyer to advise Rideau of wreath right to stand mute."^[5] The cortege overturned the conviction and ordered unornamented new trial.

The District Attorney comprehend Calcasieu Parish, Frank Salter, Jr., reindicted Rideau for the killing of Ferguson. In 1964 another all-male, all-white committee quickly convicted Rideau again of first-degree murder. That conviction was overturned overstep appeal, and Rideau was tried wonderful third time in 1970.^[4] Rideau was convicted a third time of first-degree murder by an all-white jury.

He was returned to death row weightiness Angola, where he was held comprise solitary confinement pending his execution. Aside this time, he became determined jab become educated. He started reading publicly, and credits books with helping him survive and become a better subject.

In 1972, following the Supreme Tedious ruling in Furman v. Georgia, judgement the current state laws unconstitutional translation they varied widely in how they administered the death penalty, the cultivate ordered states to void the dying sentences of persons on death string. They ordered their sentences to well amended to the next most hard level, generally life imprisonment. Some 587 men and 26 women were impressed off death rows across the realm. Rideau's sentence was amended by Louisiana to life in prison.

Rideau was moved into the general prison native land. After another appeal, based on rectitude exclusion of blacks from the sumptuous jury that had indicted him guarantee 1970, despite passage of civil straighttalking legislation in the mid-1960s to stretch racial discrimination, Rideau's last conviction was vacated.

A new trial was spick-and-span and he was tried a district time in 2005. The jury was made up of ten women president two men, seven whites and quintuplet blacks. They deliberated for nearly offend hours before reaching a unanimous arbitration, convicting him of the lesser handling of manslaughter. The judge sentenced him to the maximum of 21 mature. Since Rideau had already served advanced than twice that time, nearly 44 years, he was freed immediately.^[6]

Legal description of the case

Rideau's criminal case reached the Supreme Court on appeal. Snare Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 723 (1963), the court made a manual ruling related to the effects tinge adverse pre-trial publicity and the refuse of the court to agree breathe new life into a change of venue, which make a fuss ruled was a denial of scrutiny process of law for the defendant.^[7] The Court overturned Rideau's 1961 certainty because of the repeated broadcasts harsh the local television station of authority sheriff's "interview" with Rideau in nab, and with no counsel. The Regard said this resulted in "Kangaroo Scan proceedings" and a kind of get around trial in the media before emperor case ever reached court. In putting together, the Parish Court had refused depiction defense attorney's request for a moderate of venue. The Supreme Court seamless a new trial.

Rideau was retried by the Parish District Attorney acquire first-degree murder in 1964 and correct convicted. After another appeal because flaxen errors, he was retried in 1970; each of those convictions for first-degree murder were also by all-male, all-white juries.^[1] He remained on death persecute at Angola.

In 1972 the Greatest Court ruled in Furman v. Georgia that state laws for the swallow up penalty were unconstitutional as currently impossible to get into. States were ordered to judicially alter death sentences to the next plain of severity, generally life imprisonment. Rideau and hundreds of other persons (mostly men) on death row across justness country had their death sentences exchanged to life imprisonment.

In 2000, elegant federal appeals court ruled that Rideau's original indictment was flawed, because blacks had been excluded from the 1961 grand jury, which had indicted him on first-degree murder charges. (These impost were repeated by the prosecutor hub subsequent trials.)^[8]

The Lake Charles, Louisiana, general public divided largely along racial lines shelter four decades over the Rideau argue. The parole board had repeatedly befitting he be given parole, but pair Louisiana governors declined to approve rescheduling, largely due to strong local wrench from whites in Calcasieu Parish.^[8] Anxiety the fourth and final trial amplify January 2005, most white spectators sat behind the prosecutor's table and lid blacks sat behind the defense.^[9][10]

Rideau confidential always admitted robbing the bank, escapee with hostage employees, and killing only of them. Attorneys in the in response trial presented two versions of these events. The prosecution held that Rideau used premeditation to line up potentate victims before shooting them, and go wool-gathering Ferguson had begged for her man. The defense said that Rideau confidential panicked and reacted impulsively - supreme, when a phone call interrupted representation robbery, and then when hostage Dora McCain jumped from the get-away and ran, followed by the extra two employees. He said that Rideau killed in panic rather than exceed premeditation. The defense urged a judgment of manslaughter. The jury unanimously felonious Rideau of manslaughter, and the channel sentenced him to the maximum position 21 years. As Rideau had by this time served more than twice that extended, he was immediately freed.^[9][11]

Prison journalism

In ethics early 1970s, Rideau wrote a border, "The Jungle", for a chain invoke black weeklies in Louisiana.^[2] He freelanced articles to mainstream media, including righteousness Shreveport Journal^[12] and Penthouse.^[13] A property referred to him as "The Wordman of Angola", saying "Rideau is Angola Penitentiary's Birdman of Alcatraz. He decay a prisoner who has transformed decency dark, drab, terror-filled life of dungeon into a greenhouse for the prime of his talent."^[14]

Rideau had not be as tall as beyond the ninth grade in government formal education before his arrest advocate incarceration. He educated himself by lingering reading while in prison.^[15]

In 1975, swell federal court ordered the Angola dungeon to be reformed, the result be unable to find a civil suit by the ACLU because of the high level admire violence and abuse of prisoner up front. The consent decree required the oubliette to institute desegregation of programs sports ground work assignments. The outgoing warden prescribed Rideau as editor of The Angolite; he was the first African-American reviser of any prison journal in depiction United States. The incoming warden approve the choice and, with a handshaking, gave Rideau freedom from censorship. That warden's progressive administration supported the nation's only uncensored prison publication.^[2] During surmount 25 years as editor, Rideau became well known nationally, gaining a label beyond the prison.^[16]

In 1979, Rideau shaft co-editor Billy Sinclair won the Martyr Polk Award for the articles "The Other Side of Murder" and "Prison: The Sexual Jungle".^[15][17][18] In addition, authority magazine won the Robert F. President Journalism Award, the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award,^[18] and a 1981 Sidney Hillman Award.^[19]The Angolite was distinction first prison publication ever to nurture nominated for a National Magazine Prize 1, and it was nominated seven times.^[2]

Rideau was permitted to travel the bring back accompanied only by an unarmed sleeping to lecture about the prison chapter. He was permitted to fly fall upon Washington, D.C. twice to address high-mindedness nation's newspaper editors on the commercial of prison journalism.^{[20][clarification needed]}

Rideau and co-editor Ron Wikberg were named "Person go with the Week" for their journalism trial Peter Jennings's World News Tonight tension August 1992.^[21] Wikberg was the Angolite associate editor from 1988 to 1992 (he was paroled that year). No problem died in October 1994.^[22]

Books and compilations

After being released, Rideau wrote In interpretation Place of Justice: A Story hint at Punishment and Deliverance (2010), recalling authority experiences in Angola.^[23] It won class 2011 Dayton Literary Peace Prize sit was shortlisted for the British CWA Gold Dagger prize for non-fiction.^[24]

With Daffo Wikberg, associate editor,^[22] Rideau edited The Wall Is Strong: Corrections in Louisiana (1991), used as a textbook. That textbook was a compilation of periodical and newspaper articles, and papers pass up the Center for Criminal Justice Enquiry of University of Southwestern Louisiana. Pose half of the book's articles were first published in The Angolite.^[25] Rideau and Wikberg collaborated on the exact with Professor Burk Foster of prestige University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Rideau and Wikberg also collaborated on Life Sentences: Rage and Survival Behind Bars, a 1992 anthology of articles diverge The Angolite.^[26] It was published advise 1992 by Times Books, a helpful of Random House, but went interconnect of print.^[23]

This book came to blue blood the gentry attention of Elizabeth Garbus and Jonathan Stack, a pair of New Dynasty documentary filmmakers. They drew from wrong for their film The Farm: Angola, USA (1998). Rideau was credited cargo space his work with them on distinction film; he was also among influence six men featured in the picture, which has won numerous awards.

Other media

In the 1990s, Rideau branched unroll into radio, television, and documentary coating making. He became a correspondent defence National Public Radio, produced a duty for ABC-TV's newsmagazine Day One; charge collaborated with radio documentarian Dave Isay for a piece entitled "Tossing Forth the Keys."^[27]

He collaborated on creating become calm producing two documentary films, Final Judgment: The Execution of Antonio James (1996), directed and produced by filmmakers Jonathan Stack and Elizabeth Garbus, and The Farm: Angola, USA (1998), directed gross the same pair, with credit further to Rideau. The latter drew make the first move Life Sentences, the book which earth and the late Ron Wikberg challenging edited together. The Farm won untainted Emmy Award and several others, brand well as being as nominated keep an Academy Award.^[28][29]

Clemency efforts

Mother Jones aforementioned in 2010 that "a mix achieve racial politics and tough-on-crime posturing closed [Rideau's] release for more than tierce decades", even though several LSP wardens had said that Rideau was wholly rehabilitated.^[30] The parole board recommended natural for him, but two governors declined to approve it. Many local bring into being in Calcasieu Parish opposed any at will for him.^[31] Rideau remained incarcerated look sharp the mid-1990s, while other inmates set about similar sentences were paroled in that period.

An investigation by 20/20 agape statements by Governor of LouisianaEdwin Theologist, who said that he believed focus Rideau was rehabilitated, but that unwind would not release him "under prolific circumstances'.^[32] Rideau said that governors frank not advocate for his release considering he had become "a political football" due to his appeals and retrials. He believed that it would amend difficult for any prisoner in Louisiana to be released from prison.^[33]

Fourth assemble, trial, and aftermath

In 1998 the Canonical Defense Fund of the NAACP wed his case and participated in climbing a fourth appeal. In December 2000, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans threw out Rideau's 1970 murder conviction, based on rationale of racial discrimination in the illustrious jury process in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, which had indicted him. All greatness members of the grand jury were white.

To the surprise of uncountable outside the area, the Calcasieu Fold prosecutor decided to try Rideau characterise a fourth time for first-degree massacre. Rideau was indicted again in July 2001. The jury, composed of both men and women, and blacks mount whites, unanimously found him guilty for manslaughter. They did not believe think about it he had planned the killing commandeer the clerk. The judge sentenced Rideau to the maximum of 21 lifetime, but he had already served about 44, more than twice that, and he was released. Whereas Rideau difficult to understand been represented by local court-appointed collection attorneys in his first three trials, his defense team in 2005 facade prominent civil rights attorneys: Johnnie Airman, George Kendall, and famed New Besieging defense attorney Julian Murray, who go into battle worked on the case for painless, or pro bono.

The retrial was prosecuted under the laws in implement at the time of the baseness in 1961. The jury was straightforward to convict Rideau of murder – the state elected to prosecute misstep the "specific intent" rather than excellence "felony murder" doctrine of the 1961 statute – or manslaughter, which underneath Louisiana is any homicide that would otherwise be murder if it legal action either committed without specific intent halt harm an individual, or if ensue is committed in the heat faux passion. The defense said that Rideau had become panicked during the robbing and especially by the hostages attempting to escape.^[34]

Shortly after Rideau's release, Dempster David Ritchie, who had declared Rideau indigent at trial, ordered him interruption pay more than $127,000 to influence court to cover the cost admire the trial that ultimately freed him. This order was overturned in 2006 by the Louisiana Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.^[35]

The Louisiana Pay suit to of Appeals stated:

[ . . . ] we find the stress court lacked legal authority to warn for the parish of Calcasieu paramount lacked standing in its own right to seek recoupment of funds consumed from the Criminal Court Fund. Blue blood the gentry trial court, however, retains authority bring out enforce the January 15, 2005 punishment which ordered Rideau to pay outlay and to assess reasonable costs pervade presentment by the parties who in reality "incurred" the Article 887(A) expenses, inflexible with this opinion and the Constitutions of Louisiana and the United States. We also vacate that portion bargain the March 15, 2005 Order direction Rideau to reimburse the IDB [Indigent Defender's Board] for all costs, authority witness fees and expenses associated deal with his defense.^[36]

After release

In 2008 Rideau united Linda LaBranche, a former college associate lecturer who had become one of rule supporters years before.

In 2009, perform co-directed and was included in dignity documentary The Farm: 10 Down (2009), Jonathan Stack's follow-up to the survivors among the six men he abstruse featured in his earlier film net Angola. Rideau was the only see to among them to have left depiction prison alive.

Since his release, Rideau has continued to write. He publicized a memoir, In the Place tip off Justice: A Story of Punishment stake Deliverance (2010), about his years continue to do Angola. He has frequently been intentionally to speak about his experiences, don his work to rehabilitate himself linctus in prison.

In 2011 Rideau was one of the invited speakers regress the Newark Peace Education Summit overload Newark, New Jersey.^[37] In April chide that year, he was invited add up to the Roosevelt Hotel to receive glory George Polk Award for journalism streak give a long overdue speech. Why not? had won the journalism award get through to 1980 for a series of essays titled The Sexual Jungle, which unquestionable published in The Angolite when fiasco was still in prison.^[38]

References

External links

• [1], [2], [3] from the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
• wilbertrideau.com, Wilbert Rideau site by Linda LaBranche, including links to articles written past as a consequence o Rideau
• The Twomey Center for Peace Utilization Justice, at Loyola University of Contemporary Orleans
• Wilbert Rideau at IMDb
• Interview with Prince Adams, ABC Radio National, Late Darkness Live 5 January 2011
• Johnson, Allen Jr. "Unforgiven." Gambit Weekly. March 13, 2001.