US judge releases dying former Black Panther who spent last 40 years in solitary confinement Wallace, who was behind bars for armed robbery, and fellow Panther Albert Woodfox, were sentenced to life after being convicted of stabbing a white prison guard to death in 1972. A third, Robert King, was never charged but blamed for the murder nonetheless and, like Wallace and Woodfox, placed in solitary confinement. He was released after 29 years. According to Wallace's defence counsel, the charges against him rested on the "incoherent" testimony of four prisoners who later retracted their statements. No fingerprints taken from the scene matched those of the men convicted of the crime, and witnesses said they were working in another part of the prison. With his health deteriorating, Wallace wrote in July to Judge Jackson to plead for an expedited review of his case, noting that it had been three and a half years since he had filed a habeas corpus petition and no action had been taken. On Tuesday, Jackson voided Wallace's "conviction and sentence, on the ground that systematic exclusion of women from the grand jury that indicted him violated the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection of the laws." Jackson also ordered Louisiana to decide within 30 days if it intends to reprosecute Wallace. An ambulance was waiting in front of the prison to transport Wallace to freedom, but it was unclear when that might occur as the state has already filed an appeal to prevent it, Wallace's lawyers said. Louisiana's governor's office and the state Attorney General were unavailable for comment. Amnesty International, which had called for Wallace's release, cheered the decision even as it lamented that it came only as he "is dying from cancer with only days or hours left to live. "No ruling can erase the cruel, inhuman and degrading prison conditions he endured for more than 41 years - confined alone to a tiny cell for 23 hours a day," the group's executive director, Steven Hawkins, said in a statement. Meanwhile, Wallace's defence team pledged that "litigation challenging Mr. Wallace's unconstitutional confinement in solitary confinement for four decades will continue in his name."