Wilbert Rideau The Real Story

           In an October 6, 2010 interview with AltDaily, Katie Anderson presented the following question/statement to Wilbert Rideau for his response: “Between trials that netted the same dismal result, watching prisoners convicted of more serious crimes being released before you, and your own failure to see the depth of your own intellect, the sheer amount of rejection that you have experienced in your life is staggering. How were you able to carry on in prison without becoming an angry person?”

            The misinformation packed into that one question/statement is offensive enough to gag the proverbial maggot! But it is not uncommon for naïve reporters like Katie Anderson—if you can even call them reporters—to ask Rideau such loaded questions designed to elicit a self-serving response.

           So I will focus on the primary misrepresentation put forth in Anderson’s goofy question: that prisoners “convicted of more serious crimes” were released while Rideau was unjustly kept in prison. This is a theme the former famed prison journalist started promoting shortly after he began receiving national media attention in the wake of his award-winning journalism success in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the Louisiana prison system. It played well in the national media: a poor, uneducated black man in a racist southern prison who taught himself to read and write and to become a famous convict-editor of the only free penal press in America. Hell, that’s Nelson Mandella kind of stuff!

           It also provided a perfect media market for Rideau to peddle his contention that he had been locked up longer than 99.9 percent of all murderers in Louisiana penal history. This “injustice” theme gained momentum after Rideau’s wife (then girlfriend), Linda Labranche, did some research at the Louisiana Secretary of State’s office into the number of executive clemencies granted to former condemned murderers between 1961 and 1990. According to Rideau’s memoir, In The Place of Justice (Random House 2010), Labranche “found forty-eight executive clemencies granted to thirty-nine formerly condemned prisoners who had been freed since I entered prison in 1961. There were more than five hundred clemencies granted to murderers since 1961. None of those released had served as much time as I had.

            “From Ron Wikberg, who used sheriff’s receipts, prison admission and discharge cards, and fingerprint cards in the prison’s Identification Department to identify the arrival and departure of lifers from the penitentiary, she learned that thirty-one convicted murders had entered the gates of Angola in 1962, the year I arrived. Six carried death sentences; the other twenty-five, life sentences. All had been freed, except me.”

            Wikberg was Rideau’s co-editor on The Angolite. His data can be dismissed for lack of credibility. It had been gathered in the early 1980s as part of a so-called “10-6 lifer research” project that was done in support of court litigation Wikberg and a number of other lifers had pending in court. So this convicted murderer entered the clemency “data gathering” process with a biased perspective and self-serving motives: he needed support for his court litigation. And the truth is that Ron Wikberg was a pathological liar, an incurable thief, and one of the prison’s most notorious “con artists.” He used every job assignment during his prison experience for self-gain: as an orderly in the prison infirmary, he stole and sold drugs from the pharmacy; as a trusty at the State Police Barracks, he embezzled state funds; and as a “jailhouse lawyer,” he sold his legal services by manipulating and exploiting the hopes of desperate inmates. He was one of the many typical Angola “inmate leaders” Rideau foisted off as a “class act” kind of guy.

            With respect to the Labranche “research,” Rideau once again displays his mastery of manipulation and misrepresentation, and once again I will correct the public record as best I can.      

            In 1972 when the U.S. Supreme Court effectively declared the death penalty unconstitutional as it was then administered across the country, Louisiana’s death row was comprised of 41 cells on three tiers in the Reception Center at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. All those cells were occupied by condemned inmates. Thus, death row was at capacity. There were as many as another two dozen condemned inmates, including Rideau, who were housed at the parish jail level awaiting outcomes of their appeals or cell space at Angola. I would estimate that there were approximately a total of 65 condemned inmates in Louisiana in 1972 when the death penalty was struck down.

            How did I arrive at that estimate?

            Death row was established at the state penitentiary in 1957. Before then, executions were carried out by a portable electric chair in the parish where the condemned inmate was convicted. The first inmate placed on death in 1957 was given the number “C-1,” denoting “Condemned Inmate One.” Rideau was first placed on death row on April 12, 1962. His number was “C-18,” meaning he was the 18^th condemned inmate placed on death row. I was placed on death row on March 1, 1967 My condemned number was “C-43.” Thus, during the first five years of death row’s existence, an average of 3.6 inmates were assigned to death row each year based on Rideau’s condemned number and during the first ten years of death row’s existence, an average of 4.3 inmates were assigned to death row each year based on my condemned number. So, at an average of four condemned inmates being assigned to death row each year between 1957 and 1967 (approximately 43 inmates), a reasonable surmise can be made that another 20 condemned inmates were added to the total condemned list between 1967 and 1972. That would make the total number of condemned inmates in 1972 somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 to 70 inmates. I will, for the sake of this post, place the number at 65.

           Approximately 22 (or one-third) of those condemned inmates had been sentenced to death for aggravated rape by 1972. They did not murder anyone. Burk Foster, a longtime Rideau colleague (although since Rideau did not mention Foster’s name in his memoir, they may no longer be colleagues, much less writing buddies), identified the following twelve condemned inmates who were convicted of aggravated rape and who were on death row in 1966: Edgar Labat; Alton Poret; Isaac Pert; Wilbert Augustine; Clarence Wilson; Andrew Livingston; Eugene Scott; Emmitt Henderson; Roosevelt Hughes; Bruce Barksdale; Earl Clark; and Hezekiah Brown. Rapists, therefore, comprised a total of about one-third of Louisiana’s condemned population in 1966.

           I know at least three of condemned inmates convicted of aggravated rape who were sent to death row after 1966: Robert Jackson, Clarence Douglas; and Earl Williams. Rideau identified another condemned rapist, Emile Weston, who was on death row when he arrived in 1962 but was no longer there when Foster compiled his 1966 list. These additional condemned rapists lend credence to the “one-third” proposition (or “22” number I used as a proximate).

           Of these 16 identified former condemned rapists, I know of only two who were released from prison through the executive clemency process: Hezekiah Brown and Robert Jackson. Emmitt Henderson died on death row. Several of the other inmates (such as Poret and Labat), like Rideau, were granted new trials and were released after being found guilty of a lesser charge or after being allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge. Louisiana governors have never historically granted clemency to rapists, especially those who were formerly condemned to death.

           One of the rapists on Foster’s list, Bruce Barksdale, was arrested in 1962, one year after Rideau. Like Rideau, he was granted a new trial by a three-member panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on the same issue Rideau was granted a new trial—exclusion of blacks from grand jury system—only to have his conviction reinstated by the full Fifth Circuit (here, here and here). If alive, Barksdale is still in the Louisiana prison system. He has been locked up 48 years—four years longer than Wilbert Rideau was incarcerated. Unlike Rideau, Barksdale did not kill his victim after he robbed her. He raped her. As I indicated above, rape in Louisiana is punished more severely than murder, particularly if the victim is white and the offender is black. And that’s why Labranche confined her “research” to just former condemned murderers. It would be hard to sell Rideau as a “victim of injustice” when rapists were being punished more harshly than murderers in Louisiana.

           Thus, I can safely say that more than 90 percent of all the former condemned rapists were not released from prison through the executive clemency process—and I will say unequivocally that their crimes were not “more serious” than Rideau’s horrific murder. They endured a fate far worse than Rideau.

            To illustrate further how Rideau skews “research” information, I need only to point to his memoir. The former award-winning “convict editor” said eleven condemned inmates were executed “at Angola” between 1957 and 1961. When Rideau was placed on death row in 1962, he identified three white condemned inmates who were there when he arrived: Brodie Davis, Roy Fulghum, and Delbert Eyer. None of those inmates, all of whom were convicted of murder, were released through executive clemency. Davis died in prison in the early 1980s and Fulghum was released on a “terminally ill” medical furlough in 1984. I don’t know what happened in the Eyer case. I suspect he received a new trial and pled out to a reduced charge.

           In addition to these three white inmates, Rideau identified the following nine black inmates who were on death row when he arrived: Andrew Scott, Alton Poret, Edgar Labat, and Emile Weston—all of whom were convicted of aggravated rape—and Edward “Bo Diddley” Davis, Freddie Eubanks, Thomas “Blackjack” Goins, Parnell Smith and Ora Lee Rogers, all of whom had been convicted of murder.

           Thus, by his own account, Rideau found 12 condemned inmates on death row when he arrived. He said another 11 condemned inmates had been executed between 1957 and 1961. That’s a total of 23 inmates who had been assigned to death row before Rideau. Since Rideau was the 18^th condemned inmate assigned to death row, that’s a discrepancy of five inmates. The “Espy File” on the Death Penalty Information Center website reveals there were in fact 11 inmates executed in Louisiana between 1957 and 1961. That means either five of the inmates Rideau identified as being on death row when he arrived were not there or five of the 11 inmates executed in Louisiana between 1957 and 1961 were not put to death at the state penitentiary as claimed by Rideau in his memoir. They may have been executed at the parish jail. The only independent source I could find for the 11 executions being carried out at the state penitentiary “at Angola” was a September 1996 Burk Foster article, “Struck by Lightning: Louisiana’s Electrocutions for Rape and Murder in the Forties and Fifties.” Since Foster has a history of being “loose with the facts,” he may have been the source Rideau relied upon when the famed prison journalist said 11 inmates were executed “at Angola” between 1957 and 1961. It’s possible that Foster’s “research” may be as skewed as Rideau’s.

           One thing is absolutely clear: Random House (Rideau’s memoir publisher) fact-checkers and none of the book reviewers for The New York Times, National Public Radio, and Associated Press caught this significant factual error: one of the two “facts” is definitely incorrect. All it took was a little scrutiny of the numbers and math involved. It’s obvious that the “award-winning journalist” himself did not realize the error or simply did not care about it. Given Rideau’s history, either could be true.                

            So why should we place any credence in the clemency research on former condemned murderers Rideau attributes to Linda Labranche?

            Well, let’s examine the data.

            We can safely say that at least 90 percent of the approximately 22 former condemned rapists were not released through the clemency process. They either died in prison (like Emmitt Henderson and Edward Crook) or they are still serving life sentences at the state’s prison system. All of the condemned rapists, except Edward Crook, were black—like Rideau. The overwhelming majority were not released from prison.

            In 1972 when the Supreme Court did away with the death penalty, besides myself, there nine white inmates were on death row: Francis Clifton, Gary Don Franklin, William Cribbs, Larry Jo Purkey, Bobby McAlister, Robert Gregorie, Brodie Davis, Edward Crook, and Roy Fulghum. I am the only white condemned inmate who gained his release through executive clemency. I was resentenced to life imprisonment in 1972, my life sentence was commuted to 90 years in 1992, and I was paroled in 2006—having served 40 years, four months, eleven days.

            McAlister was stabbed to death on death row shortly after the Supreme Court did away with the death penalty while Davis, Clifton, Cribbs, Purkey, Gregorie, Crook, and Franklin all died in prison. Fulghum was released on a medical furlough.

            Two other former condemned white murderers, Douglas “Swede” Dennis (here and here) and Jack Craven (Ron Wikberg’s co-defendant), who had been removed from death row before 1972, also died in prison.

            I know of at least one other former condemned murderer, David Foy, who was black and who also died in prison.

            At least five black murderers on death row in 1972—Shelton Williams, Adam Mack, Daryl Evans, Bernard Butler, and James Bullock—were released through the court system.

            Finally, I know at least two black murderers death row in 1972, Jessie James Washington and “Wing-Ding” (don’t know real name), who are still in the Louisiana prison system.

            So here is the final tally of the 65 total inmates condemned to death and/or assigned to death row in Louisiana between 1957 and 1972: 11 were executed; 13 died in prison; at least 3 remain in prison; and at least 7 (including Rideau) were released through the court system. That’s a total of at least 34 former condemned inmates of all stripes and colors who were definitely not released through the clemency process.

            Since Labranche’s research supposedly focused on just former condemned murderers who had been released through executive clemency between 1961 and 1990, the 11 executed inmates and the 22 condemned rapists must be the first ones excluded from the list of 65 former condemned inmates in Louisiana in 1972. That’s 33 condemned inmates. The 10 former condemned murderers who died in prison, the 5 former condemned murders who were released through the court system, and the 2 former condemned murderers who remain in prison must also be excluded from the 65 list.

            That’s a total of 50 former condemned inmates who could not be on Labranche’s executive clemency “murderers” list. So I don’t know how or where Labranche supposedly found 39 former condemned murderers who were released through executive clemency. To accept Labranche’s reported findings, one would have to believe that every former condemned murderer who did not die in prison or who were not released through the court system was released through executive clemency as I was.

            But that dog ain’t gonna hunt in these woods either! I did not receive my executive clemency until January 1992—two years after Labranche completed her “research.” So not even I could have been on her list of 39 former condemned murderers released through executive clemency. And I’m sure there were other former condemned murderers besides me who were not on her list as well.

            But assuming arguendo that Labranche did find 39 former condemned murderers who were released executive clemency (all of whom had to be released before 1990), the overwhelming majority of them did not commit murders as premeditated and as heinous as Rideau. Their crimes did not involve as many victims as the Rideau robbery/kidnapping/murder case. Rideau apparently believes that all murders resulting in a death sentence were equal in gravity and circumstances. That reasoning defies normal logic and human experience. How many of Labranche’s 39 former condemned murderers released through executive clemency cut their victim’s throat and stabbed them through the heart as they begged for their lives as Rideau’s victim did? And how many of those murderers left two other victims permanently damaged, both physically and emotionally, as Rideau did? None.

            Finally, to my knowledge, I was the only white former condemned murderer released through executive clemency. With the exceptions of Fulghum and Eyer, all the other former white condemned murderers died in prison. Thus all (or at least the overwhelming majority) of Labranche’s so-called 39 former condemned murderers released through executive clemency had to be black. So how could any rational thinking individual buy into the repeated argument made in Rideau’s memoir that he was somehow a victim of southern racism and, therefore, treated unjustly in the executive clemency process because he was a black man who murdered a white woman? Virtually every one of the former black condemned murderers on Labranche’s list released through executive clemency killed a white victim. That’s why they received the death sentence to begin with. And if all the white former condemned murderers except me and Fulghum died in prison because they could not get executive clemency, where the hell is the “racism” Rideau harps on?

            Rest my case!

            Perhaps one day the media, like Katie Anderson, will recognize the myth they have created with Wilbert Rideau, the famed prison journalist and celebrated writer, and pay a little homage to the truth.