Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the USA

314 Pages·2009·0.82 MB·English

by  Mumia Abu-Jamal

PRAISE FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
“Jailhouse Lawyers is a must-read for everyone connected
in any fashion to the criminal justice system. It illuminates a
dark area seen by few and outlines the legal battles still
waged from the ‘hole’ by the semantic warriors who inhabit
it.
The book plumbs the depth of man’s inhumanity to man by
exploring the ongoing legal attack by underground lawyers
on an unfair legal system. Death-row prisoner Mumia Abu-
Jamal, an award-winning journalist, once again
demonstrates his courage in opposing the oppression of
prison existence.”
—Tony Serra
“Like the most powerful critics in our society—Herman
Melville . . . to Eugene O’Neil—Mumia Abu-Jamal forces us
to grapple with the most fundamental question facing this
country: what does it profit a nation to conquer the whole
world and lose its soul?”
—Cornel West
“His voice is vital and strong. . . . The power of his voice is
rooted in his defiance of those determined to silence him.
Magically, Mumia’s words are clarified, purified by the toxic
strata of resistance through which they must penetrate to
reach us. Like blues. Like jazz.”
—John Edgar Wideman
“Brilliant
in
its
specificity
and
imperative,
Mumia
Abu-Jamal’s work is about why multitudes of people don’t
overcome. It rings so true because he has not overcome.”
—LA Weekly
“Abu-Jamal offers expert and well-reasoned commentary on
the justice system. . . . His writings are dangerous.”
—Village Voice
“Mumia refuses to allow his spirit to be broken by the forces
of injustice; his language glows with an affirming flame.”
—Jonathan Kozol
“Mumia is a dramatic example of how the criminal justice
system can be brought to bear on someone who is African
American, articulate, and involved in change in society. The
system is threatened by someone like Mumia. A voice as
strong and as truthful as his—the repression against him is
intensified.”
—Sister Helen Prejean,
author of Dead Man Walking
OTHER BOOKS BY MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Live from Death Row
Death Blossoms
All Things Censored
Faith of Our Fathers
We Want Freedom
PRISONERS DEFENDING
PRISONERS V. THE U.S.A.
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis
City Lights Books
San Francisco
Copyright © 2009 by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Foreword © 2009 by Angela Y. Davis
All Rights Reserved.
Cover design: Pollen
Cover photo of Mumia Abu-Jamal © April Saul/ Philadephia
Inquirer
The cover photograph depicts a holding cell and is not an
accurate reflection of the small cell the author has been
forced to occupy on death row for the past twenty-seven
years.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Abu-Jamal, Mumia.
Jailhouse lawyers : prisoners defending prisoners v. the
U.S.A. / by Mumia Abu-Jamal ; introduction by Angela
Davis.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-0-87286-469-6
ISBN-10: 0-87286-469-3
1. Legal assistance to prisoners—United States. 2.
Prisoners—Legal status, laws, etc—United States. 3. Law
—Study and teaching—United States.
I. Title.
KF337.5.P7A78 2008
344.7303'566—dc22
2008020491
City Lights Books are published at the City Lights
Bookstore,
261 Columbus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94133.
www.citylights.com
CON TE N TS
Acknowledgments 9
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis 1
3
Preface by Selma James
Introduction by Mumia Abu-Jamal
1. Learning the Law 35
2. What “the Law” Is 51
3. When Jailhouse Lawyers “Represent” 73
4. What about Street Lawyers? 117
5. The Jailhouse Lawyering of Mayberry 151
6. A Woman’s Work in State Hell 167
7. The Ruiz Effect: How One Jailhouse Lawyer Made
Change in Texas 185
8. From “Social Prisoner” to Jailhouse Lawyer to
Revolutionary: Ed Mead’s Journey 191
9. Jailhouse Lawyers on Jailhouse Lawyers 205
10. The Best of the Best 217
11. The Worst of the Worst 233
12. The Social Role of Jailhouse Lawyers 243
Afterword 249
Appendix A 255
Appendix B 260
Endnotes 265
Index 279
About the Authors 288
A C K N O W LED G M EN T S
This book, like any other, is not a solitary project, although it
may seem so, given the domain of the writer.
Books have many mothers and fathers, and are often born
of the slightest of suggestions offered on the wind.
First and foremost, however, one must give credit to those
men and women who toil in the dungeons of Babylon as
jailhouse lawyers, and who are often tossed into the hole for
telling another prisoner how to file a writ or helping someone
prepare a complaint.
Their work made this work possible.
I thank Delbert Africa (who first told me about jailhouse
lawyers), Steve Evans, one of the first I ever met, and also
express thanks to:
Frank Atwood
Amber Bray
George Rahsaan Brooks-Bey
Dejah Browne
Roger Buehl
Shaka Cinque aka Albert Woodfox
Matthew Clarke
Margaret Midge DeLuca
Jane Dorotik
Barry “Running Bear” Gibbs
Antoine Graham #203246
Richard Mayberry
David M. Reutter
Samuel C. Rutherford III
Iron Thunderhorse
Teresa Torricellas
Charles “The Dutchman” Van Dorsten
Herman Joshua Wallace
Robert Williams
Ronald “Chief Justice Fatburger” Williams
Ed Mead
These are some of the many jailhouse lawyers (even though
some have rejected the name) who answered my questions
and wrote with passion and purpose out into a silent world. I
thank them for their correspondence.
There are many jailhouse lawyers who wish to remain
anonymous, under the radar, because of their very well-
founded
fear
of
repression,
the
hole,
or
other
means
of
restraint.
I thank them all for being excellent teachers and commend
this work to their critique and comment.
The contributors/writers/editors of Prison Legal News and
its continuing editor (although no longer a prisoner), Paul
Wright, also have my thanks. These men and women
perform unsung jobs in places where street lawyers fear to
tread.
Thanks too to Global Women’s Strike and one of its
staunchest members, Selma James, who suggested that I
do this book and then offered to edit and publish it, sight
unseen, even before I had agreed to write it.
I am also quite thankful to my American publisher, City
Lights Books, and its indefatigable Brooklynite editor, Greg
Ruggiero (of Open Media fame), who took collect calls in
the late hours of the night and early morn to help craft this
work. His and City Lights’ meticulous attention to detail have
joined to make this a far better work.
The writer is also thankful for the invaluable support of
Noelle Hanrahan and several staffers of the Prison Radio
(P.O. Box 411074, San Francisco, CA, 94141), for helping
make this process a success.
Thanks to Frances Goldin, agent extraordinaire, who helped
bring this baby home to you, dear reader.
My wish is only to tell a story that has never been told before,
enriching our understanding of the world’s Prisonhouse of