Following a manslaughter conviction for a crime committed when he was 19 years old in Louisiana in 1961, Wilbert Rideau, the acclaimed prison journalist, was set free by the trial judge on Saturday. January 15. His conviction carries a maximum sentence of 21 years and Rideau has already served 44 years in prison, primarily in Angola. Rideau, who is black, was originally convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white, all-male jury for killing a white woman. His death sentence was overturned when the U.S. Supreme Court found that the death penalty was being applied in an arbitrary manner in 1972. He has had three previous trials. In 2000, a federal appeals court granted him a new trial because blacks had been excluded from the original grand jury that indicted him in 1961. In his current trial, he faced a mixed-race jury for the first time.

During his years in Angola, Rideau served as the editor of the prize-winning publication, The Angolite, and has received numerous awards for his writing and his part in producing the documentary “The Farm” about life in the prison.