Jailhouse lawyers
empowering those inside to understand the system that took away their freedom
Correction: We linked to an article that I wrote about police and Metallica. Well, I messed up: “Kill ‘Em All” is an ALBUM not a song which changes or, maybe doesn’t your interpretation of the police officer’s explanation for his comment on live protesters blocking a highway. If you missed it: The Des 1.17.
We talked with Jhody Polk last winter about legal empowerment as a pathway to freedom inside and after release.
Quick explainer: in every prison there is a jailhouse lawyer or a law clerk responsible for helping people inside access legal resources. After you are sentenced, there are still a load of legal processes you go through to appeal your conviction or when coming up for parole, BUT you are no longer afforded a public defender - you’re on your own.
When Jhody Polk began reaching out to law clerks inside prisons also known as jailhouse lawyers, she was shocked by the basic resources like dictionaries that they were missing and the basic questions they asked - they were supposed to be the experts.
“When you think about it, these are law clerks and jailhouse lawyers, and the institutions are responsible for their training, and it is a part of their role to provide certain services to incarcerated individuals, and they were really just asking for knowledge: it was very shocking,” Polk said.
These post conviction legal processes directly impact the length of time an individual is held in prison. After sentencing, a person's clock starts counting down to file appeals, mitigation, and habeas corpus. If they do not file on their own for these legal processes, they miss their chance to reduce their sentence.
“No one is educating the individuals on the inside of how these laws are changing,” Polk said.
The inadequate education and resources given to law clerks inside impacts individuals inside, and keeps more people incarcerated for longer. It also negatively impacts the way inmates and clerks are taken in court.
“It creates this narrative inside of the court that jailhouse lawyers and law clerks and pro-se litigants are filing frivolous motions and so they don't take our filings seriously,” Polk said. [cont. below]
News
Vanessa Peoples, who had her shoulder dislocated by Aurora police after they came to her house in 2017 for a welfare check, sits with her husband Tevin Hike, who’s neck was kneeled on by an officer in the same instance, for a portrait at their home in Aurora on Monday, Aug. 17, 2020” Photo by Eli Imadali
Elijah McClain: A year has passed since a Black 23-year-old violin player was killed by Aurora police. He became a national rallying cry this summer. [Denver Post]
ICYMI: An hour south 19-year-old, De’Von Bailey was killed in the same month weeks earlier in 2019. A year of activism has left behind the young Black men most impacted by the violence. [Colorado Springs Independent]
Lawrence Stoker, Bailey’s cousin, shows his bracelet memorializing Bailey.
Another two: This week Jacob Blake was shot by officers in Wisconsin in front of this sons. He’s fighting for his life and paralyzed [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]. And Trayford Pellerin was shot 10 times and killed by officers in Louisiana on the Aug. 21. [Buzzfeed]
Ablaze: Kenosha went up in flames. Live updates here: NPR. Read The Des’s essay from a young Denver protester. [To be shot at]
Opinion: Coroners who investigate police killings should be required to be impartial. Right now, they are vulnerable to corruption. [Crosscut]
Analysis: “[T]he longstanding practice of using undercover police to monitor protests and protest movements should be closely examined — and reconsidered.” [The Brennan Center]
Death Row: Another jurisdiction battle between tribal and federal government - a Navajo Nation tribal member executed on Wednesday despite Diné laws forbid the death penalty. [The Atlantic]
Out of the schools: A growing movement is taking police out of schools. The impact of this on the school to prison pipeline has yet to be seen. In Colorado, the genesis of school mass shootings, there has been criticism. [CityLab]
Not guilty: A Montana man convicted of assaulting a police officer - threw his wallet and a cigarette lighter at the officer - who lost his job and house and spent 7 months in jail - was cleared after a court ruled the prosecution withheld evidence. [The Missoulian]
Private Prisons: The DOJ is suing California for trying to get rid of private prisons, saying that in privately run CA federal facilities, it won’t work to get rid of the companies. (It also sued King County and New Jersey for making it harder to deport people.) [Prison Legal News]
Hidden costs: FCC moves to lower fees for prison phone calls in unanimous vote. [Bloomberg] San Fransisco jail reform goes further and includes free calls. [The Hill]
Long read: When diagnosing child abuse gets it wrong and criminalizes parents. [The Marshall Project]
Within hours of bringing their children to the hospitals, each family’s life would change. Both sets of parents would eventually lose custody of their child. One parent would be jailed. One baby would live. One baby would die. And both children’s cases would turn on the diagnosis of a child-abuse pediatrician, an increasingly powerful medical specialty. These doctors are trained in diagnosing child abuse, in writing reports meant to hold up in court, and in providing testimony on behalf of state prosecutors. Many of their salaries are paid, in part, by the child-welfare departments charged with separating parents and children. The doctors’ opinions can be subjective and powerful, even overruling other specialists’. But none of the parents knew that child-abuse pediatricians existed—not even as they talked with them, unwittingly sharing information that became a part of a case against them.
“Every word we used showed up in court,” Hayes told me.
Child abuse is a pervasive and complex problem: Few children or abusers report harm themselves, so it’s up to other authorities, such as medical personnel and teachers, or bystanders, such as neighbors, to report suspected abuse. Some 3.5 million children in America were reported as being suspected victims of child abuse in 2018, the most recent year for which data are available; about 680,000 were ultimately determined by authorities to have been abused or neglected.
Educate yourself: “What role do administrative policies governing how and when officers can use force play in influencing the degree to which officers use deadly force against civilians?” [Samuel Sinyangwe]
[Cont. from above] “Law clerks play a big role in not just helping people with procedure, but also helping people to interpret the law and understand it and act,” Polk said which becomes even more important considering the high illiteracy rates in prisons.
Through her own journey of incarceration, Polk was able to find closure through learning the law. “I found peace when I was able to, through the law, realize that my eight year sentence in the Florida Department of Corrections was justified based off the crimes that I had committed. And I was guilty.”
“It gave me this freedom and this peace to do my time in a way that allowed me to be Jhody and not be just a convict and to think about what rehabilitation was to me and what I needed in that,” she said.
“Through legal identity I was able to see myself,” Polk said.
As a law clerk she also realized her clients were finding the same legal empowerment she had in the legal process. She would make the women she helped write their own legal paperwork even if she had to rewrite it.
She was able to us her skills that she used for her own legal proceedings to help others understand their own.
“And that was powerful because the same laws that they used to incarcerate those women were the same laws that we were using as jailhouse lawyers for their freedom.”
“I approached legal empowerment as a way for women to heal,” Polk said. She hoped that the women continued to use the skills on the outside whether “they found themselves back in the criminal justice system or even the civil [court system] and social justice spaces.”
She thinks that legal empowerment can “interrupt’ the cycle of incarceration.
“I think that jailhouse lawyers being able to effectively and confidently do legal empowerment in prison could change the lives of those two million people that we see in the criminal justice system,” Polk said.
“Those jailhouse lawyers can change the culture and empower incarcerated people who then return back into our community legally empowered and prepared to resist. But also take ownership and partnership in community justice,” she said.
“Like that, that gives me freaking hope.”
Polk has worked in Florida on Amendment 4 to restore felons’ voting rights, is a member of Namati, was a 2018 Soros Justice Fellow, and is the founder and director of the Legal Empowerment and Advocacy Hub (LEAH) which holds her Jailhouse Lawyer’s Initiative. JLI is over a year old and in over 26 states. Read more about her legal empowerment work.
We are dedicating this newsletter with love to the memory of Janet van der Laak. May we all be as strong, passionate and dedicated to taking care of the most vulnerable of our communities.
A little over a year ago, I met Janet van der Laak while reporting a story on removing police from 911-calls.
This month Janet died. I am lucky that she let me into her life and journey to care for her son. She left me with that story, but she also left me with the undying memory of her dedication to see every person struggling on the streets as a human worthy of love - the infinite love of a mother. She fought for her son in a system that told her and him he didn't matter. She took up arms against the inevitable with faith and love and hope. She is the most honorable among us. Her life, her work and her love will never be forgotten. [P.S - Matt is doing well and in the care of his dad, Onne.]
Janet, Matt and Onne her husband.
COVID-19 resources: State policy changes. News. Bureau of Prisons updates. State court changes. Prison holistic self care and protection.
We want to hear from you about how COVID-19 is impacting you and the people connected to you. What is not being talked about? What story do you have that needs to be heard? Who do you want answers or explanations from? Please reach out to tips@thedes1790.com.
The Des drops into your inbox weekly with a collection of small and digestible snippets concerning the criminal justice system. It promises to be humanizing, spunky, and educational. Our name: The Des is short for Desmoterion or “place of chains”, used to describe prisons in ancient Athens. We like the idea of the chains because incarceration impacts our entire country in every aspect of society. We are here to cover it all.