Lawyer: Last of 'Angola Three' inmates to be released

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The last inmate of a group known as the "Angola Three" has pleaded no contest to manslaughter and a lesser offense in the 1972 death of a prison guard and is expected to be released Friday after more than four decades in prison.

Officials said they were kept in solitary because their Black Panther Party activism would otherwise rile up inmates at the maximum-security prison farm in Angola.

The star witness, a serial rapist who left death row and was pardoned by the Louisiana governor after his testimony, died before the second trial.