Wilbert Rideau The Real Story

In an April 27, 2010 review of Wilbert Rideau’s recently released memoir, In The Place of Justice, Associated Press reporter Mary Foster noted that the famed prison journalist “surprisingly” had “kind words for Angola’s wardens ….” One of those wardens was John Whitley whom Rideau said had “guts and a mind of his own” and “someone you wanted with you, never against you.” An objective reading of Chapter 10 titled “Hope” in the memoir reveals that Rideau did everything he could to ingratiate himself with Whitley in the interest of The Angolite, the prison’s award-winning publication, and himself.

Rideau sai Whitley went to Angola in 1970 during a particularly violent era of the prison and “quickly established himself as an independent power to be reckoned with.” That’s not the John Whitley I knew in 1973 when I was transferred from the prison’s death row into its general population on the “Big Yard.” Whitley was a young classification officer who sported long, hippy hair, thick mustache, and wore a “peace” headband with love beads around his neck hanging out over his dashiki. Angola’s warden at the time was a “renowned penologist” named C. Murray Henderson who had become a notorious womanizer and alcoholic. He ran the kind of lax prison that allowed inmate clerks to sit around in the classification department smoking weed while blasting rock music dual-speaker stereo sets. Classification officers did little, if anything, to curb this sort of behavior.

Rideau’s was right when he said that by 1990 Whitley was a “criminal justice conservative” who had a penchant for cowboy boots and Stetson hats. Actually he was a Ross Maggio clone. Maggio was one of the toughest, boldest wardens to ever serve at Angola. He singlehandedly transformed Angola from the nation’s most violent prison into the safest in less than a year. Maggio’s trademark appearance was cowboy boots, Stetson hat, and a cigar. He was the undisputed “king” in the Louisiana prison world. His reputation for toughness was legendary.

All of Angola’s classification officers—a breed of prison officials Maggio did not have a lot of respect for—quickly developed a fondness for cowboy boots and Stetson hats. They all became Maggio wannabes, especially Whitley.

The nature of the Whitley/Rideau relationship was clearly defined by the convict editor in his chronology of a 1991 “death gurney strike.” The prison had just experienced an execution. Inmates assigned to the welding shop were instructed to build a “gurney” that would be used in future executions. They refused.  A significant number of other inmates united in a “strike” to support the inmates who had refused to build the death gurney. Whitley responded by locking down the Main Prison complex. He removed a number of inmates from population and placed them in “isolation,” including those who had refused to build the gurney. According to Rideau’s memoir only “three inmates” were injured in the quelling of the strike.

Rideau then described a phone call he received from the warden during which both men effectively congratulated each other on the way the “strike” had been handled. Whitley then informed the convict editor that he had information the other inmates are preparing a “general strike” the next day and warned “people are gonna get hurt.” Rideau’s response is about as comical as it is ridiculous:

“It sounds to me like your people are either lying to you or functioning with bad information. 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,” Whitley responded (according to Rideau). “Do you think it’s too late to try to resolve this before it gets out of hand?”

Rideau paints this cowboy boot/Stetson hat wearing tough guy, first, as too damn dumb to even analyze the information he had received about a “general strike,” and, second, as being so pathetically indecisive that he had to ask the famed convict editor in near desperation, “do you think it’s too late to try to resolve this before it gets out of hand.”

I cannot imagine Ross Maggio—or any warden for that matter, including alcoholic Henderson—telephoning an inmate to discuss information he had received about a “general strike,” and when told that the information was bad, pleading for some kind of resolution before the matter “gets out of hand.” Oh my God, please!

What Rideau intended to do was convey his incredible knowledge and skill at resolving dangerous prison crises. What he accomplished was to make Whitley look like a rufus-goofus. This was evident when Rideau offered up a solution to Whitley: let the prison return to normal the next morning on the gamble that the inmates would go to work as they normally did. Rideau described Whitley as hesitant before replying:: “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 things spreads and goes bad.”

Rideau then calmed the warden’s jittery nerves, creating a quiet pause while Whitley drew upon his cowboy boots and Stetson hat for an answer. “I really hate this shit,” Whitley finally said with force, exasperated (according to Rideau). “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 … We need to do what we can do to head this off, Wilbert.”

Whitley resumed normal activities the next morning. No problem. Rideau had proven at the height of the “death gurney strike” crisis that he was the de facto warden at Angola; that Whitley could not have possibly resolved the crisis without the convict editor’s advice and guidance.

And how did Whitley repay his former co-warden? He testified as a “character” witness for Rideau during the convict editor’s fourth trial, attesting to his status as the “nation’s most rehabilitated prisoner.”

That testimony should forever disqualify Whitley from being the warden of any penal facility again. It is one thing for a warden to support an inmate’s release before a pardon or parole board based on the inmate’s rehabilitation, but quite another for a warden to testify as a “character” witness for any accused murderer at a criminal trial. That’s crossing a professional line that creates an irreparable conflict of interest. I guess if Whitley ever applies for another warden’s position, he’ll put Rideau on his resume as a “reference.” Tit-for-tat.