home > on-air > tossing away the keys >

After the broadcast of Tossing Away the Keys, some of the prisoners profiled in the documentary were released from Angola.

• Moreese Bickham, who spent 14 years on death row, was released from Angola in January 1996 after the Governor of Louisiana commuted his sentence to 75 years.He spends his days fishing near his home in Kalamath Falls, Oregon. In December, 2002 he lost his wife of 65 years, Ernestine.
  
  
• Joe White was released from Angola in 1992, graduated from community college in Los Angeles, and is launching a career as a poet. He recorded an audio update for Sound Portraits in 1999.
  
  
• Wilbert Rideau was granted freedom on January 9, 2005, after 44 years behind bars.
  
  
• Ron Wikberg, associate editor of The Angolite, was released from Angola in 1994 and moved to Maryland to marry Kay Smith. He died of cancer shortly thereafter.
  
  
• Donald Buffet died at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.
  
  
• Henry Patterson died at the Louisiana State Penitentiary.
  
  
• Monroe Green died on October 10th, 2004 at the Earl K. Long Medical Center in Baton Rouge after a 39-year confinement. He was buried in his home-town, where the funeral service was attended by dozens of family member and friends.
  

Murder conviction of acclaimed prison journalist overturned

Loyola University Rideau Project
February 23, 2001

On December 23, 2000, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans threw out the 1961 indictment and subsequent murder conviction of award-winning prison journalist Wilbert Rideau.

The Court cited racial discrimination in the selection of the 1961 grand jury, because five white jury commissioners in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, used race-coded cards to handpick the jury pool. The only African American in Rideau's jury pool that found Rideau guilty was the yardman of one of the white jury commissioners, by the commissioner's own admission in court.

After the Circuit Court threw out the indictment, the Calcasieu Parish district attorney asked the court to rehear the case and reverse the decision. On January 23, 2001, the Court denied that request. The district attorney now has 90 days to appeal to the United States Supreme Court to overturn the 5th Circuit's decision. If the U.S. Supreme Court upholds the 5th Circuit, the Calcasieu Parish district attorney will have the option to retry Wilbert Rideau.

In March 1993, Life magazine labeled Rideau "The Most Rehabilitated Prisoner in America," following the lead of corrections officials who have known him for decades. He has also become one of the most severely punished prisoners in America, having spent 40 years in prison, 12 of them on death row. Rideau has become the longest imprisoned criminal offender in the history of Calcasieu Parish. Never before has an inmate who has spent as much time in Louisiana prison been retried, and, according to many legal scholars, such a retrial after 40 years' imprisonment would be unprecedented anywhere in America.

Those interested in helping the effort to free Wilbert Rideau can contact Loyola University's Rideau Project at P.O. Box 64754, Baton Rouge, LA 70896-4754. Further information can be found at www.wilbertrideau.com.

		intro
		transcript

home  |  ON-AIR |  in-print |  about |  education |  support |  store

Sound Portraits Productions, 80 Hanson Place, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Telephone (646) 723-7020 | Fax (646) 723-7026

Copyright © 2010 Sound Portraits Productions. All rights reserved.