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When he was six, his family moved to Lake Charles, Louisiana (a town near the Texas border). He attended the all-black Second Ward Elementary School . He was poor and when his parents later divorced, his became even poorer. He transfered to W.O. Boston Colored High School when he was in eigth grade and soon started playing hooky , shooting dice and vandalizing tombs in a cemetery. Then, he started selling cigarettes, three for a nickel. At 13, he got a job at a grocery store (pretending to be 16) and eventually stopped going to school. The pressure of the racism around him, amplified by his poverty, was getting to him.
On February 12, 1961 (age 19) Rideau robbed $14,000 from the Gulf National Bank , kidnapped three bank employees, and subsequently murdered one of them, 49-year-old Julia Ferguson. Rideau, who is African-American was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white all-male jury. While on death row, Rideau began to read books (smuggled in to him by guards) and also began to write. He began corresponding with Clover Swann , an editor at the New York Times, who taught him how to write.
Later, the United State Supreme Court overturned that conviction on the basis that a secretly taped interrogation session was aired repeatedly on the evening news, resulting in a biased jury pool. A second trial in 1964, again by an all-white male jury, reached the same result, but in 1969 a federal appeals court overturned this conviction as well: the prosecution had removed numerous qualified jurors because of their hesitancy to impose the death penalty.
In 1970 he was retried — again by an all-white, all-male jury — again with the same result. The death sentence was overturned in 1973, by the Louisiana Supreme Court, in accord with Furman v. GeorgiaFurman v. Georgia 408 U. 238 ( 1972) was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty. Jackson v. Georgia and Branch v. Texas death sentences for rape, had the sam, which had voided all death penalty statutes then extant in the U.S., but let the conviction stand. Rideau asked to be transferred to the " Angolite " prison magazines' all-white staff and, when that was refused, he started a prison magazine called " The Lifer " with an all-black staff. He started writing a column called "The Jungle" for various black newspapers in the South.
In 1975, the federal court ordered the Angola prison to be reformed, the outgoing warden C. Murray Henderson appointed Rideau editor of the "Angolite". The incoming warden, C. Paul Phelps , ratified the choice and made it so that the "Angolite" had to be held to the same standards as any respected publication. Rideau brought on two co-editors, Tom Mason and Ron Wikberg . Soon, the magazine transformed from a mimeographed newsletter into a glossy magazine. And it started winning awards.
In the 1980s, four pardon boards unsuccessfully recommended Rideau for release; he has been an examplary prisoner, and nearly all other surviving prisoners convicted of murder in the same time period in Louisiana have been released.
In 1988, Loyola University of New Orleans ' Twomey Center for Peace Through Justice established the Rideau Project . The purpose of the project is to obtain freedom for Rideau.
Rideau became a sought-after lecturer. In 1991, he along with Ron Wikberg and University of Louisiana Professor Burk Foster wrote a criminal justice textbook.
In December 2000, in the case of Rideau v. Louisiana , the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans threw out the 1970 conviction on the basis that "purposeful" racial discrimination tainted the grand juryA grand jury is a type of common law jury; responsible for investigating alleged crimes, examining evidence, and issuing indictments. The grand jury can compel witnesses to testify. During the proceeding, the defendant and his or her counsel are generally process. The case returned to Calcasieu ParishCalcasieu Parish is a parish located in the U. State of Louisiana. As of 2000, the population is 183,577. Geography The parish has a total area of 2,834 km2 (1,094 mi2). 2,774 km2 (1,071 mi2) of it is land and 60 km2 (23 mi2) of it is water. The total are, which to the surprise of many decided to try Rideau for a fourth time. He was re-indicted in July of 2001.
After much legal maneuvering, that trial is currently as of September 2004 set to take place in January 2005 in Lake Charles, LouisianaLake Charles is a city located in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana, USA. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 71,757. The city is a major petrochemical refining center, and home to McNeese State University. Geography The city is located on in the court of Louisiana 14th Judicial District Judge David Ritchie . Jury selection (in Monroe, LouisianaMonroe is a city in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, United States. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 53,107. Monroe was the birthplace of basketball star Bill Russell and is the home of the University of Louisiana at Monroe. It also ho rather than Lake Charles, because an unbiased jury in Lake Charles at this point would be an impossibility) is set to begin January 3, 2005. The prosecution will be led by District Attorney Rick Bryant . The defense team will include Johnnie Cochran.