Wilbert Rideau, a for­mer death row inmate in Louisiana who has since been released from prison, recent­ly pub­lished his mem­oir, In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance. Rideau was sen­tenced to death at the age of 19 for killing a woman in pan­ic dur­ing a botched rob­bery attempt. While on death row, he under­went a trans­for­ma­tion and, after his sen­tence was com­mut­ed to life, he became the edi­tor of The Angolite, an award-win­ning prison mag­a­zine that exposed abus­es in the cor­rec­tion­al sys­tem by guards and inmates at Angola Prison. Several war­dens vouched for Rideau’s reha­bil­i­ta­tion, and decades lat­er, his case was reopened. In 2005, he was found guilty of manslaugh­ter and released with time served. He now resides in Baton Rouge with his wife. He was recent­ly inter­viewed in Mother Jones Magazine. When asked why it took so long to be released despite sup­port from war­dens and parole offi­cers, Rideau said it was, ​“Because they made me a polit­i­cal foot­ball. And when­ev­er that hap­pens, it’s dif­fi­cult for any pris­on­er to get out … the only rea­son I got the help I got was because I was high-pro­file and won awards. Otherwise, I would have been just like a lot of the oth­er guys: alone, try­ing to deal with the system.”

This is an extraordinary book.”  ‑Ted Koppel. 

(“The Inside Scoop,” Mother Jones, May/​June 2010; W. Rideau, ​“In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance” Reed Elsevier (2010)). See more Books on the death penalty.

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