Billy Wayne Sinclair is a former prisoner at the Louisiana State Penitentiary (also known as Angola) in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana who became famous as a journalist; he co-edited The Angolite with Wilbert Rideau.
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In 1965 Sinclair was convicted of killing James C. Bodden during a robbery attempt in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Sinclair received the death penalty in 1966. In 1972 the Supreme Court of the United States temporarily abolished capital punishment, leading all prisoners who had death sentences to lose them. Sinclair received a life sentence to replace his death sentence.[1] Sinclair was incarcerated from December 11, 1965 to April 21, 2006 for a 40 year span.[2]
Sinclair and Wilbert Rideau became co-editors in 1978.[3] Rideau and Sinclair became famous for their work.[1] The Columbia Journalism Review once referred to Rideau and Sinclair as "the Woodward and Bernstein of prison journalism."[4] Neither Rideau nor Sinclair had gone beyond the ninth grade in their formal educations before their arrests and incarcerations.[5]
In 1979,[6] Rideau and Sinclair won the George Polk Award.[5] The Polk Award originates from the articles "The Other Side of Murder" and "Prison: a Sexual Jungle."[7] In addition, the magazine, under Rideau and Sinclair, won the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and the American Bar Association's Silver Gavel Award.[8]
On March 17, 1981, a television reporter for WAFB-TV of Baton Rouge, named Jodie Bell, interviewed Sinclair. Sinclair and Bell developed a relationship,[1] and the two married by proxy on June 9, 1982.[9] While Sinclair was incarcerated, Jodie Bell Sinclair maintained his website.[1] Jodie Sinclair advocated for her husband's release for a 25-year period. Charles Jones, a former member of the Louisiana Senate and a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, represented Sinclair during meetings of the Louisiana Board of Parole.[1]
Sinclair left Angola after he admitted that he was a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant. Sinclair reported on a pardons-for-sale scheme, resulting in a scandal affecting LSP and the administration of Governor of Louisiana Edwin Edwards. Ray Lamonica, a federal attorney, said that of the two dozen prisoners involved in the investigation, Sinclair was the only one to voluntarily cooperate. In 1986 the Billy Sinclair and Wilbert Rideau journalism team dissolved as a result of Sinclair revealing his role as an informant. In 1987 federal marshals transported Sinclair out of LSP.[1] Federal authorities feared that Sinclair could be murdered in Angola. Jason Berry of The New York Times said that "Sinclair became a pariah in the highly politicized prison system" and that Sinclair had "a bitter falling out with Rideau."[10] The federal investigation did not lead to an indictment of Edwards; a parallel state investigation lead to bribery charges against Howard Marcellus, who was the head of the pardon board under the Edwards administration; Marcellus received a conviction for bribery.[1] After Sinclair's cooperation, the pardons board submitted a petition for clemency to the new Governor of Louisiana, Buddy Roemer; Roemer rejected the clemency petition.[11]
By 1989,[12] Sinclair filed a $100,000 federal lawsuit against Rideau, concerning the textbook "The Wall Is Strong: Corrections in Louisiana," a University of Southwestern Louisiana composition of magazine and newspaper articles and papers from the Center for Criminal Justice Research of the university. Rideau edited the book, and about half of the book's articles originated from The Angolite. Sinclair said that four of the articles quoted in the book should have his name in the bylines, and Sinclair accused Rideau of plagiarism.[11] Sinclair also named as defendants Burk Foster, a LSU criminal justice professor; Hilton Butler, a former warden of LSP; and Roger Thomas, a former assistant warden. Frank Polozola, the U.S. district judge, dismissed Sinclair's suit, because Sinclair had never obtained a copyright for the articles.[13]
Sinclair said that C. Paul Phelps, then the director of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections, and Wilbert Rideau were the most vocal of a group of journalists and officials who were advocating against his release.[14] Sinclair moved to the Louisiana State Police Barracks,[15] and later, the N-5 Special Management Unit cell block in the David Wade Correctional Center because of the stigma against "snitches" in prison. In 1987 Rideau said that he felt "betrayed" by Sinclair's actions and that The Angolite's credibility suffered with its readers. Sinclair said that a journalist agency in a prison could not operate like one in the free world.[1] Allen Johnson, Jr. of the Gambit Weekly said that A Life in the Balance: The Billy Wayne Sinclair Story, a book co-authored by Sinclair and Sinclair's wife, "paints an unflattering picture of Rideau as a self-promoter and master manipulator of the "outside" media."[1]
Due to Sinclair's actions, the Metropolitan Crime Commission (MCC), a pro-law enforcement organization in New Orleans, supported Sinclair's release; as of 2001 Sinclair was the only prisoner who the MCC advocated for release.[1] Between 1992 and 2001 the State of Louisiana Parole Board denied Sinclair parole six times.[1] On April 21, 2006 Sinclair was released on parole to the State of Texas.[2] He was released from the C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center.[16]
Sinclair and his wife live in Houston, Texas, and Sinclair works as a paralegal for an attorney, John T. Floyd.[1]