The Attica Brothers Legal Defense (ABLD) was a group of lawyers and activists created in 1973 to help defend the inmates indicted by Simonetti’s original investigation into the Attica uprising.

An African-American-oriented socialist and anti-racist party founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in 1966. Black Panthers were active within the Attica prison population in the 1970s.

Hearings held by an independent committee, once a candidate has been nominated by the president for a federal office, to confirm someone’s suitability for the role. With confirmation hearings of Rockefeller for US vice president to Gerald Ford on the horizon, Rockefeller and his supporters likely did not want trooper indictments to affect his chances.