Dustin RacioppiTrenton Bureau

The inmate is 84 and was hospitalized with COVID-19 last year. He’s showing signs of early-onset dementia. He’s kept a clean disciplinary record for more than half of the nearly 50 years he’s been in prison.

He saw the prospect of freedom several years ago when a state panel of judges granted him parole, but a technicality kept him locked behind bars.

A team of advocates and lawyers have tried for months to convince Gov. Phil Murphy through a back channel to use his executive power to let him spend what may be his final days at home with one of his daughters, but they said the front office has stopped responding to their entreaties.

This is no ordinary inmate. He is Sundiata Acoli, a former Black Panther serving a life sentence in the 1973 killing of New Jersey State Trooper Werner Foerster.

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