Wilbert Rideau

by In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment

  All inmate activity in the Main Prison was being shut down, traffic frozen, and all inmates sent to their respective dormitories—except the Angolite staff, which was allowed to remain in our offices. Soon afterward, a small army of guards in riot gear, led by Whitley, went to the Big Yard and methodically extracted more than three hundred striking farm workers from the thousand-man population there. The strikers went peaceably to the lockdown cells, where they were crammed four and five into each one. Still, in a world that broke down under stress to us against them, tension remained, with guards and the remaining seven hundred Big Yard inmates on edge.

  Later that afternoon, Whitley phoned. “I’m sure you’re aware of what’s been happening,” he said.

  “I’m told you personally led the guards down into the Big Yard.”

  “You’d better believe I did,” he said. “There would’ve been a helluva lot more than three inmates injured if I hadn’t.” While most guards preferred to avoid conflict with prisoners, some did not. Some employees were just as radical in their viewpoint as the most radical prisoners, and the more rational always had to be on guard for them, which accounted for Whitley’s decision. “If I’m going to be judged and held responsible for what my men do, then I’m going to make sure they do no more than I want them to do,” he said.

  “Chief, I can’t believe that after executing Jones yesterday, you decided to order the inmates at the metal fab shop to build that deathbed,” I said.

  “Wilbert, this is so stupid that I’m having a hard time believing it,” he said. “I’ve just learned that Jimmy LeBlanc and that crew in Prison Enterprises tried to pull a fast one on the inmates. They wanted the contract to build the death gurney and planned to pass it off as a hospital table, figuring the inmates wouldn’t know the difference.”

  Then he got around to why he had called: “Our information is that the Main Prison is going to stage a general strike in the morning. I don’t have to tell you that puts the inmate population and the security force on a collision course, and people are gonna get hurt.”

  A general strike? That quickly? My instincts told me no. “It sounds like your people are either lying to you or functioning with bad information,” I said. “Think about it—the inmates were all locked in their respective dorms right after the fieldworkers struck. A general strike has to have a basic consensus among all the inmates, but they haven’t had a chance to meet and discuss anything. So how could they reach an agreement to strike in the morning? I don’t believe it.”

  “What you say makes sense. Do you think it’s too late to try to resolve this before it gets out of hand?”

  “It’s never too late. Like always, there are those who want to see it happen and those who don’t.” Despite their intimidating utterances and oft-threatened violence, most prisoners shied away from trouble; they wanted to be able to pursue their prison existences with a minimum of difficulty and disruption. But I didn’t tell him that. “I do know that you should let at least the lawyers and officers of all the civic and religious organizations out of their dorms. Most have a stake in the established order. They need to return to their offices and resume their normal activities after the evening meal so they can meet and communicate with each other.”

  “What you’re suggesting runs counter to everything that’s taught in corrections about how to deal with prison disturbances—and that’s not to let inmate leaders get their heads together.”

  “But we both know, Warden, that all prison leaders aren’t the same. Some are positive forces; others, negative. The problem will most times come from the ambitious who are trying to become leaders and the radicals,” I said. “They function on emotion; they’re opportunistic and will exploit any situation. If you want a solution, you have to create an opportunity for those vested inmate interests, the cooler heads, to pursue one.”

  Whitley was hesitant. “You’re suggesting I put the welfare of a lot of people, both guards and inmates, on the line, people who could get hurt if this thing spreads and goes bad.”

  “Chief, you’re already facing that prospect if you just wait it out and see what happens, which is what most of your colleagues would probably advise,” I said. “What I’m suggesting is a small, calculated gamble that will give us a measure of the pulse of the population.”

  He was quiet for a while. “I really hate this shit,” he finally said with force, exasperated. “This is one time the inmates are right, and they’re going to end up getting fucked over because of some stupid shit that should have never happened.” He paused, then said, “We need to do whatever we can do to head this off, Wilbert.”

  “Warden, I’m looking at getting out of here, and given my druthers, I’d really prefer not getting involved in something as unpredictable as a strike.”

  “Frankly, I don’t see how you can stay out of it,” Whitley said. “You know who’s who, who to deal with and who not to. I don’t.” He was right, and he was trying to do the right thing. I agreed to help him try to resolve the strike, and we agreed to talk to each other only directly, without middlemen.

  He ordered the resumption of normal activities for the sixty or so inmate lawyers and organizational officers, but the general population remained confined to their dormitories. “You can tell the fellows that the gurney issue is dead,” he said. “It will not be built in this prison.”

  That evening, inmate lawyers and officers of organizations flooded the Main Prison Office and education building to escape the stifling heat and boredom of the dorms and gather in air-conditioned offices to swap information and learn more about the day’s events. Ron and I circulated, gathering information and conveying Whitley’s message that the gurney would not be built in Angola, and his desire to resolve the strike.

  The leaders were pleased to hear the news. Everyone sympathized with the welders and hoped their release from lockdown could be won by the inmate counsels representing them in disciplinary court, where Angola prisoners challenged the disciplinary infractions they’d been charged with. Most leaders felt that an expanded strike was unnecessary, especially because if there was one it would be almost impossible to control the actions of the angry, the hateful, the crazy, the hopeless, and the ambitious political opportunists on both sides, which could result in disaster.

  It had been a long time since Angola had been a violent place. Since 1977, violent deaths at Angola had averaged about one per year, which is probably as good as it gets in a maximum-security prison with more than 5,000 mostly violent offenders serving sentences that preclude their ever walking out, especially since the practice of paroling lifers after ten years and six months had ended. Indeed, contrary to popular perception, an inmate was now more likely to die of natural illness, execution, or suicide than to be killed by another prisoner. This was also true of prison deaths nationwide—thanks to the intervention of federal courts during the 1970s and 1980s, which forced state authorities to curb the violence. Of the 1,729 prisoners who died in the nation’s prisons in 1990, the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that only 65 had been killed by another inmate. The major killers of prisoners in 1990 were illness (1,462) and suicide (134). And that was among a nationwide prisoner population that now topped a million for the first time in history.

  Rule-abiding inmates—always the majority—would typically strike only as a last resort. A strike means disrupted lives, lost visits, and canceled activities, not to mention retaliatory administrative action. Criminal and black-marketing inmates saw strikes as interfering with their illegal pursuits. Riots, unplanned and driven by passion, are an entirely different thing. They are contagious. No one knew what morning would bring.

  Norris Henderson and Gerald Bosworth were influential Big Yard residents who worked in the prison’s legal assistance program. They were model prisoners concerned both about the fate of the strikers and what was happening in the prison. Norris was my close friend and ally. After ten years in the federal prison system for bank robbery, the New Orl
eans native had been transferred to Angola in 1985 to serve life for murder (he would win his freedom years later through litigation). He was easily the most popular of Angola’s prisoners. A proficient paralegal who stayed on top of developments in criminal law, he served as librarian of the prison’s law library. He was involved in sports activities, was the leader of Angola’s Muslims, the president of the Jaycees, and director of the Angola Special Civics Project. He was honest and generous to a fault. Gerald was a stocky, quick-witted, real-world Cajun lawyer convicted of murder who would eventually win a new trial and acquittal. Because of his professional legal abilities, he had become a major influence among white Main Prison inmates.

  Norris, Gerald, Checo Yancy of the lifers’ association, Ron, and I met and concluded that the key to ending the strike lay with the thirty-nine predominantly white welders who had objected to building the deathbed as a matter of principle. They didn’t know yet that their demand had been met. They had good prison jobs that they did not want to lose, so pacifying them would end their strike.

  Norris and Gerald took the lead in trying to resolve the strike with the inmates. Recruiting the assistance of their colleagues in the legal aid office, they visited with the strikers in general and the welders in particular. Both groups were willing to end the strike if they were exonerated and the welders kept their jobs. I phoned Whitley at his home to convey this information.

  “I won’t do that,” Whitley said. “Violating a rule or regulation is one thing, but they disobeyed direct orders. They have to be disciplined for what they did. They should not have been ordered to build the gurney, but this is prison, and I am not going to do anything that will feed the perception that it’s okay for them not to obey orders.”

  We conveyed this message to the inmate leaders. They eventually were given a deal that would find them guilty of disobeying orders but gave them a suspended sentence and no actual punishment. We turned in for the night feeling we had accomplished something good.

  The general inmate population was released from their dorms Wednesday morning and instructed to report to work at their respective jobs following breakfast. Twenty-five additional fieldworkers who hadn’t heard of the settlement now refused to work and were locked up. Everyone else went to their jobs. “What the twenty-five did this morning has nothing to do with the agreement made last night between the original strikers and your administration,” I told Whitley. He agreed, and his disciplinary court officers began processing the cases of the strikers, who were released from the cellblocks beginning in the afternoon and continuing late into the night.

  Everyone thought the gurney affair was Whitley’s fault. That bothered me. I phoned United Press International and told them, off the record, that they should question the director of Prison Enterprises, Jimmy LeBlanc. When they did, LeBlanc acknowledged responsibility and said his department’s behavior had been “a mistake.” I also called James Minton, local bureau chief for the Baton Rouge Advocate, an honest, good reporter who covered Angola. We swapped information all the time. I suggested to James that he call the warden, who liked him, and ask certain questions about the strike, in particular if he thought it was morally right to ask Eddie Sonnier (whose brother had been executed) to build the gurney. I figured Whitley would answer honestly. James called me back later that afternoon to say, “Mission accomplished. See tomorrow’s paper.”

  On July 25, the Advocate carried a front-page story in which Whitley acknowledged that asking the inmates to construct the gurney was “putting them in a bad position.” It also reported that the gurney would not be built in the prison. It was perhaps the first time in history that a prison warden admitted that authorities had been wrong and the inmates right, and acted to remedy the situation—a candor so unprecedented it ultimately reaped him complimentary newspaper editorials and a profile in Time magazine. We immediately distributed thousands of copies of Minton’s article throughout the prison.

  But peace would not come so easily. The skies turned dark Thursday afternoon, threatening to soak the six hundred Main Prison inmates working in the fields. The field foreman radioed his superiors for permission to begin marching the inmates back to the Main Prison. Permission, which was granted routinely, was not given until after the rain began. Guards and inmate fieldworkers made the long march back, drenched and fuming. Whoever delayed giving permission had done it deliberately to aggravate the inmates and undermine the peace. The inmates’ clothes were wet and they had nothing else to change into, since their second set of clothing had gone to the laundry earlier. The more radical inmates were urging them to strike Friday morning. Wilfred Cain, a close friend and inmate minister of the Church of God in Christ congregation, ran the prison laundry and assured me that if I could get Whitley to order the laundry opened, he would clean and dry the fieldworkers’ clothes that night with a crew of volunteer workers. Whitley agreed, which calmed the smoldering dissent.

  Because we on The Angolite had unfettered telephone access to authorities, our office had, as in former crises, become an unofficial command central for the effort to restore the peace. As several inmate leaders sat around comparing notes with us, the phone rang.

  “What demonstration?” Ron asked the caller. All eyes turned to him. He listened carefully and hung up.

  “That was a TV reporter. She wanted to know if the inmates here were planning any action to coincide with the demonstration tomorrow.” Sister Helen Prejean had apparently announced that Pilgrimage for Life, the anti-death penalty group she headed, would demonstrate at noon in support of the striking inmates. Sister Prejean was spiritual advisor to Eddie Sonnier, one of the freed strikers Gerald overheard telling other inmates about a demonstration, which implied Sonnier and the nun were acting in concert.

  “Aw, man, we’ve just put this thing to rest,” Checo said wearily. “We don’t need outside agitation. It can have the reverse effect.”

  Then Whitley called. His security people were hearing word of a strike being called for the next day, and he also knew of the demonstration. He asked if I knew Eddie Sonnier. “Not personally,” I replied. “I know his brother was executed, which provided the strikers moral standing. Before the strike, he was just another low-key prisoner.”

  “He can’t be that low-key,” Whitley said. “As soon as I let him out of lockdown, he called the State-Times and made himself the spokesman for the strikers, declaring ‘a big victory for human rights.’ At the same time, I hear that the nun who visits him says she’s going to lead a demonstration. That’s no coincidence. Didn’t he agree to the deal to end the strike?”

  “He did, Chief,” I said, “but if you’re considering moving against him, I’d suggest you don’t. Even if he doesn’t keep his part of the bargain, it’s important that the inmate population sees that you keep your word. Besides,” I said, “what he did could have all been perfectly innocent. I mean, he’s been used as part of the strike rationale, so the media naturally want to talk to him. He might just be trying to capitalize on the situation to get a little personal attention.”

  “Well, that’s possible, I guess. What do you make of the nun?” Whitley asked.

  “Sister Prejean, like most activists, means well and wants to help the inmates, but she’s operating on half-baked information,” I said. I told him I didn’t believe she was talking to the leaders, because they would’ve tried to dissuade her. I thought some opportunist with his own agenda probably had gotten her ear.

  “Would it do any good if you called her and explained the situation?” Whitley asked.

  “Warden, I don’t know how she’d interpret that,” I said. “She might see me as a sellout, an administrative lackey, trying to stop citizens from demonstrating their support for prisoners who’ve been victimized by prison authorities. I don’t need her conveying that image of me to everyone she knows.” I suggested he call her.

  “Wilbert,” he said. “Remember? I’m the guy who’s supposed to be fucking over y’all, the one y’all struck against. Ho
w much credibility do you think I’m going to have with her?”

  Copies of a front-page story from Thursday’s Baton Rouge State-Times about Sonnier and outside support for the strikers by a couple of groups of anti-death penalty lawyers and activists were being circulated among the inmate population by Friday afternoon. Sarah Ottinger was critical of prison officials, while Clive Stafford Smith and David Utter of the Southern Center for Human Rights threatened legal action. Prejean, the article also reported, was to lead a demonstration in support of the inmates.

  This stoked the embers of the dying strike. Inmate radicals and opportunists trying to capture center stage cited the news article as evidence of public support and argued that it was outside pressure that had forced prison authorities to release the strikers from lockdown. They exhorted the inmates to stage a general work strike to show support for those participating in Prejean’s demonstration. Our allies in the leadership argued that Prejean’s demonstration would be only about supporting the inmates who refused to build the deathbed, not about the general inmate population and issues affecting them. Anti-death penalty activists cared only about stopping capital punishment.

  Although the twenty-five additional striking fieldworkers had been released from lockdown, their fellow workers, Norris said, were clamoring to push for as many concessions from the authorities as they could get. “They don’t really appreciate the significance of what we’ve accomplished because the victory didn’t translate into any material benefit for them. They want to piggyback some demands.” He shook his head to emphasize his sadness. “And they’re stupid demands. They want to make the Man change their work hours, they want to be able to buy donuts X times a week, they want a different kind of peanut butter and biscuit at breakfast—stupid things. I had to remind one fool that he’s in prison, not a luxury hotel.”

  Still, agitators played on emotions, resentments, us-against-them attitudes, and, by Saturday noon, the desire for a general prison-wide strike had been revived and was gathering momentum. The strike was tentatively scheduled for Monday morning. Tactical units from other prisons would arrive at Angola over the weekend in preparation for it, but would remain out of sight so as not to provoke the inmates. If the strike started, it was going to end badly.