had compromised his receiving due process. The majority decision said, "Yet in this case the people of Calcasieu Parish saw and heard, not once but three times, a "trial" of Rideau in a jail, presided over by a sheriff, where there was no lawyer to advise Rideau of his right to stand mute." The court overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial. The District Attorney of Calcasieu Parish, Frank Salter, Jr., reindicted Rideau for the killing of Ferguson. In 1964 another all-male, all-white jury quickly convicted Rideau again of first-degree murder. That conviction was overturned by appeal, and Rideau was tried a third time in 1970. Rideau was convicted a third time of first-degree murder by an all-white jury. He was returned to death row at Angola, where he was held in solitary confinement pending his execution. During this time, he became determined to become educated. He started reading widely, and credits books with helping him survive and become a better person. In 1972, following the Supreme Court ruling in Furman v. Georgia, finding the current state laws unconstitutional as they varied widely in how they administered the death penalty, the court ordered states to void the death sentences of persons on death row. They ordered their sentences to be amended to the next most severe level, generally life imprisonment. Some 587 men and 26 women were moved off death rows across the country. Rideau's sentence was amended by Louisiana to life in prison. Rideau was moved into the general prison population. After another appeal, based on the exclusion of blacks from the grand jury that had indicted him in 1970, despite passage of civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s to end racial discrimination, Rideau's last conviction was vacated. A new trial was ordered and he was tried a fourth time in 2005. The jury was made up of ten women and two men, seven whites and five blacks. They "deliberated for nearly six hours before reaching an unanimous decision", convicting him of the lesser charge of manslaughter. The judge sentenced him to the maximum of 21 years. Since Rideau had already served more than twice that time, nearly 44 years, he was freed immediately. Legal history of the case Rideau's criminal case reached the Supreme Court on appeal. In Rideau v. Louisiana, 373 U.S. 723 (1963), the court made a landmark ruling related to the effects of adverse