Woodfox to remain at Angola

By BILL LODGE, Advocate staff writer
Published: Dec 12, 2008

Albert Woodfox has spent more than half his 61 years at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. And Woodfox will remain there until at least March while a federal appellate panel decides whether he should be released pending a third trial for his alleged murder of a security officer.

The panel will hear oral arguments in the case in March.

The decision was announced today by a three-member panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

U.S. District Judge James J. Brady of Baton Rouge overturned Woodfox's conviction and ruled last month that he should be released from prison until the next trial for the 1972 fatal stabbing of 23-year-old Officer Brent Miller.

But Louisiana Attorney General James D. "Buddy" Caldwell appealed to the 5th Circuit, arguing that Woodfox poses a potential threat to society because he was serving a 50-year sentence for armed robbery at the time of Miller's death and has never been prosecuted on at least 10 armed robbery and aggravated rape charges pending since the 1960s in Orleans Parish.

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