“Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners V. the U.S.A.”
By Mumia Abu-Jamal, Foreword by Angela Davis
Published by City Lights Books, 2009
ISBN-13: 978-0-87286-469-6 ISBN-10: 0-87286-469-3
Paperback – 286 pages – $16.95
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s latest book, “Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners V. the U.S.A.” with a foreword by Angela Y. Davis, will be released on Mumia’s birthday, April 24. The web has provided several reviews. For a different viewpoint, following is a review of this book written by Damon Lee Petrie, a prisoner at Oregon State Prison who does some work as a jailhouse lawyer. All proceeds for the book will go to Mumia’s defense fund. — Ruth Kovacs
Review by Damon Lee Petrie
I read “Jailhouse Lawyers” by Mumia Abu-Jamal in a single day. Beginning with the Preface, I knew that here was someone who understood why so many (most) prisoners in America are disillusioned by the so-called justice system.
When Mumia quoted Delbert Africa, “Them dudes get in there, read all them law books and before you know it they be crazy as hell!” I chuckled because I knew it was true.
Also I knew it was true that men and women generally begin their time in prison believing in the system that has put them behind bars. It is sad that the justice system is broken to the point that it reinvents what the law is, on a day to day, case by case, basis.
One thing I felt could be added is that as prisoners come to realize that, in the eyes of the courts, Rex non potest peccare (the King (State) can do no wrong), they become not just “crazy as a bedbug” but also as angry as lions poked with sticks.
Briefly, about the anger, these people develop for a system that doesn’t follow their own laws. I can tell the public at large that this anger is the most overlooked contributor to recidivism. Being on death row, segregated from the general population, I would wager that Mumia has nonetheless heard several men launch into vindictive tirades about “getting back” at society after losing cases they knew were sure wins–if the judge followed the law. Unfortunately, the “getting back” is typically in the form of victimizing people who have nothing whatsoever to do with the unjust judicial system, but angry people aren’t known for sane judgment.
I particularly liked it that Mumia educated the readers to some reality about the Prisoner Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) and the fact that District Attorneys often misrepresented a lawsuit when lobbying for its passage. Contributing to the aforementioned disillusionment and anger is that D.A.s and representatives of State Attorney Generals not only lie, but will and do misquote cases (laws) in their win at all costs mentality.
The greatest injustice of the PLRA is, in this writer/prisoner’s view, is that it set time limits on the length of time a convicted person has to raise meritorious issues. As Mumia pointed out several times, jailhouse lawyers typically come about by necessity–a need to learn the law because street lawyers, working for the state, have let them down–and are frequently uneducated.
Addressing the issue of the PLRA, I think Mumia did a great job emphasizing the number of years it takes a street lawyer to get the requisite education to take the Bar Exam. To a degree, I wish Mumia would have tied that in more directly to the unfairness of the PLRA. That is to say, if it takes men and women eight years of higher and specialized schooling to become a lawyer, why should uneducated prisoners be expected to learn the (overly) complex issues of law within a year or two?
As to the ineffective assistance of counsel, i.e., the Strickland V. Washington standard, this writer/prisoner has observed and experienced the same type of lawyer behaviors. In fact, as Mumia noted, most lawyers today might as well be secondary prosecutors for all the harm they do for their financially poor and typically uneducated clients.
One message Mumia repeated more than once was the possible advantages of representing one’s self. I certainly agree. Unfortunately, by the time this realization dawns, most prisoners have exhausted their standard remedies and/or expired the time constraints of the PLRA.
As for the various historical views and background information of MOVE, I can say that I was persuaded to strengthen a long held viewpoint–that though overt slavery and the black codes were abolished in America years hence, they live on in the prison industrial complex of our nation and in the invisible, but very real, “poor codes”–where the poor of any creed or color are treated as second class citizens by the elite governing class of the U.S.A.