Abstract Jailhouse lawyers face unreasonable barriers to have their constitutional claims heard post-conviction. Courts, without adequate regard for the physical limitations inherent behind bars, place procedures over justice. *** They say that a lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. When you are poor and incarcerated, you often have no choice. Your right to appointment of...
Bound by Law, Freed by Solidarity: Navigating California Prisons and Universities as a Jailhouse Lawyer
Abstract For jailhouse lawyers, winning a lawsuit seems like a victory, but there are multiple barriers to practicing law post-incarceration. Building on personal experiences, this Essay focuses on the deterrents to legal education in prison and post-incarceration for jailhouse lawyers. Through an examination of structural obstacles that keep formerly incarcerated people out of the legal...
Challenging Gladiator Fights in the CDCR
Abstract The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has a long history of placing people in long-term isolation in response to suspected or confirmed gang membership or affiliation. Despite being forced to stop the practice of indefinite solitary confinement, CDCR continued other arguably unconstitutional practices in response to gang activity. At Pleasant Valley State...
Jailhouse Lawyering From the Beginning
Abstract Jailhouse lawyering is a form of resistance against the prison industrial complex that seeks to silence and disappear prisoners. This Essay describes the author’s acts of resistance, or growth as a jailhouse lawyer, from arrest to imprisonment using critical race theory and abolition theory. While it tells one person’s stories, it is both shaped by those who taught him and the...
Making Bricks Without Straw: Legal Training for Female Jailhouse Lawyers in the Louisiana Penal System
Abstract Overt gender discrimination, and the combined failure of Louisiana’s Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPSC) and Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW) prison officials to provide offender counsel substitutes in prisons for women (OCS-W) the same quality legal education and training as provided for those incarcerated in prisons for men, are violations of the...
An Old Lawyer Learns New Tricks: A Memoir
Abstract In this reflection, James Bottomley shares his experience as a formerly barred attorney who is now incarcerated in a California state prison. Bottomley has practiced as a jailhouse lawyer for himself and other incarcerated people in recent years but is now retired from the practice of law. Introduction When I was in jail, depressed that my next destination was the California state...