IN THE PLACE OF JUSTICE

The life story of the author, who spent 44 years in prison thanks to an inept, often racist Louisiana criminal-justice system.

That’s not to say Rideau was a wrongly imprisoned innocent. In 1961 he was an angry 19-year-old who robbed a bank in Lake Charles, La., and took three employees hostage. When a hostage bolted from his car, he panicked, shooting one and stabbing another. The Louisiana jury that freed him in 2005 determined that his lack of premeditation merited only a manslaughter charge, but at the time he was charged with murder, after a biased trial in which prosecutors claimed he conducted a cold-blooded killing execution-style. The book is a testimony to his hopeful temperament, as well as a glimpse into the complex and violent society inside Louisiana prisons. His writing on prison rape, racism and poor management is firmly objective without being bloodless, reflecting the author’s work as a staffer and eventual editor of the Angolite, the magazine published at Louisiana State Penitentiary (aka “Angola”). Under his stewardship, the Angolite exposed numerous serious flaws in the prison system, such as routine electric-chair malfunctions, and Rideau’s reporting earned him national attention and mainstream journalism awards. In some ways the book more closely resembles the memoir of a media mogul than a prison memoir—its pages chronicle numerous tussles between prison authorities over what he could and could not publish. Though the narrative is stuffed with detail about legal points regarding his trials, Rideau isn’t narcissistic. He gives plenty of attention to the difficulties that prisoners suffered, and how much damage law-and-order Louisiana politicking—and well-meaning activists—could do to their morale. His deepest respect is reserved for his girlfriend (now wife) Linda, who spent more than a decade working toward his release. The brief closing chapter emphasizes how much freedom transformed him, as the narrative shifts from legal concerns to navigating supermarkets, caring for his cats and starting a new life.

An inspiring but never saccharine study of one prisoner’s redemption.