Birth of the Jailhouse Lawyer: How Inmate Counsel Saves Prisoners’ Lives

It wasn’t until 1969, nearly two decades before Calvin Duncan, convicted of a murder he hadn’t committed, discovered inmate counsel substitutes at Angola, that the U.S. Supreme Court first recognized the crucial role of “jailhouse lawyers” in safeguarding the constitutional rights of the poor. Before 1969, those men and women in American prisons who took it upon themselves to assist their peers with legal filings were often labeled rule‑breakers and punished. Without the persistence of jailhouse lawyers like William “Joe Writs” Johnson, things might never have changed.

In 1965, while serving time at the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville, Johnson started filing writs of habeas corpus for his fellow prisoners, challenging the validity of their convictions in federal court. At the time, a Tennessee prison regulation stated that no “inmate will advise, assist or otherwise contract to aid another, either with or without a fee, to prepare Writs or other legal matters.”

Johnson paid the regulation little heed, convinced as he was that all people, wealthy or not, had a constitutional right to appeal their convictions—a right he felt superseded any prison rule.

Despite repeated warnings and sanctions from the penitentiary, including retaliatory stints in solitary confinement, Johnson continued filing writs. He charged his clients nothing in return. During a period in isolation, Johnson filed a lawsuit arguing that he was being deprived of the basic materials he needed to do his legal work, including law books and a typewriter. After litigating his claims in the lower court and losing, Johnson appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a rare move, the court, led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, agreed to hear the pro se petitioner’s case, and Johnson, who was appointed counsel, prevailed in his lawsuit seven votes to two.

Throughout the 1970s, the Supreme Court further fortified the right to access the courts through several pivotal decisions. It struck down regulations limiting the number of law books prisons could maintain and broadened the right beyond criminal appeals to include prisoners’ civil rights complaints.

Then, in 1977, the court issued a landmark ruling in Bounds v. Smith holding that states have an affirmative obligation to ensure that incarcerated individuals receive meaningful access to the courts. This included providing them with pens, paper, notary services, stamps, and law libraries or other forms of legal assistance.

The decision was a crucial victory for prisoners’ rights, affirming that access to justice is a fundamental safeguard, even for those unable to afford counsel. In many states, law libraries became the primary means by which corrections departments fulfilled this obligation. Louisiana distinguished itself as one of only six states to implement a dedicated legal assistance program operated by incarcerated law clerks, known as inmate counsel substitutes.

*

Four days past his twenty‑fifth birthday, calvin was moved from Camp D back to the Main Prison.

Angola’s vast farmland, edged by forest and swamp, was dotted with outer camps—self‑contained units with their own cellblocks, dormitories, and recreation areas. The Main Prison offered more programming and educational opportunities than the outer camps, and after three months away, Calvin was eager to return.

Gazing out from the back seat of the passenger van, he realized how little he had seen of the farm since his arrival. The fields, green from spring rains, were lined with newly sprouting crops.

Calvin wasn’t fooled by the picturesque view; he knew he’d be harvesting those crops beneath a scorching sun in the months to come. At Camp D, he had worked as a field hand, cutting grass with a handheld blade under the watch of rifle‑armed guards, returning each evening to his two‑man cell, exhausted and relieved to have survived the day. When he reached the Main Prison, he would try to enroll in a GED program and find a way out of the fields—hopefully before the summer heat set in.

When the van slowed at an intersection, he noticed a tin shed off to one side. A few men in their forties were gathered out front, one sitting atop a tractor. If he hadn’t known better, Calvin would’ve thought they were free. It was ironic that these men, cast off by society, were so thoroughly trusted by the prison.

As he made his way down the walk at the Main Prison for the first time, tens of pairs of eyes following him, he remembered his first days in the House of D at Orleans Parish Prison and the lesson he’d learned: the cost of freedom was doing without. He’d never give anyone a reason to think he owed them anything.

The old‑timers in the parish jail warned Calvin that he needed to keep his guard up at Angola, especially when he used the toilet and the shower, and to avoid being alone in any quarters. While the prison he found in 1986 was not so thoroughly dangerous as the one they had first encountered in the 1970s, strength and “respect” remained vital currencies for survival.

Violence and sexual manipulation were daily concerns, especially for the young and newcomers like Calvin. The adage was “You either be a man, or you get a man,” meaning you either fought for your own protection or relied on it from a stronger man in exchange for sex and subservience. Once you crossed that line, there was no coming back. Calvin would sooner die fighting.

He was assigned to Pine 2, a dormitory in the East Yard. Standing on the threshold of the dorm, he balked at its size. The Main Prison was the biggest camp in the penitentiary, with the capacity to house more than a thousand people, and now he could understand how they all fit. Four rows of fifteen beds ran the length of the room. Two gigantic industrial fans whirred loudly at each end.

In his five years of incarceration, he’d never navigated a sleeping space so large. How would he keep track of everybody? He’d heard of men with a score to settle thrusting padlocks in socks into the eyes of unsuspecting sleepers. He wasn’t sure how he would fall asleep in a room this big.

The dormitory smelled of bleach and lye soap. Beneath his shoes, the gray concrete floor shined from years of being waxed by hand. The bathroom next to the dormitory contained four showerheads above an open, tiled floor. Four urinals and six toilets lined one wall, forcing men to wash and shit in front of one another, completely exposed.

The dayroom, a smaller room also attached to the dorm, contained a handful of desks and one television to serve its sixty residents.

Calvin found his cot and took a seat, his weight flattening the mattress pancake thin. The mattresses were made right there on the farm by incarcerated people, like nearly all necessities that sustained life at Angola.

Heart racing, he pulled open two metal lockerboxes at the foot of the bed, pretending not to notice the stares of the men on adjacent bunks. One by one, he placed his belongings inside: deodorant, a razor, soap, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. Two pairs of blue jeans, two white shirts, a denim jacket, four pairs of underwear. A handful of letters from Earline, Aunt Gail, and Mamie.

And a few photographs of his little girl, Ayana, who was now five years old. The hardest thing about leaving the parish jail was the distance it put between him and his daughter.

He tucked his trial transcripts, his case files, and several of his lawsuits beside the letters and photos. On top, he piled his legal writing books, his most prized possessions. Then he locked the box.

He was told to sit on his bunk for the count, an interminable process that involved tallying every prisoner on the farm, from the men locked down in solitary cells to those wrangling cattle in far‑flung fields. Mistakes or delays could cause it to be repeated two or three times before it was finally completed.

Once the count was over, it was time for chow. On his way out of the dorm, Calvin forged a callout pass, unable to wait even a day to see the law library. Following his friend Broom’s instructions, he made his way down the walk to the Education Building after the evening meal and handed it to the sergeant waiting out front. Seeing nothing amiss, the sergeant took the forged pass and motioned for Calvin to go inside.

Calvin followed the hand‑painted signs to a door with a wired glass window. He pulled it open and saw a concrete floor extending sixty feet back lined with rows of wooden bookshelves. His breath caught in his throat. He’d never seen so many books.

At the sound of his entry, a familiar face jutted out from among the shelves.

“If that isn’t Calvin Duncan,” said Joe Pecker, walking over. He was still Cool Joe, a swagger in his step and a pencil behind his ear. “So, you finally made it up here, uh?”

Calvin grinned. “I appreciate your help with the disciplinary board.”

“Sure. This your first time to the law library?”

“Uh‑huh.”

Joe Pecker led the way, and Calvin followed.

“You got the reporters over this side. The legal writing stuff is over this side. Legal theory is up there. The rare books are behind the counter—you gotta ask Norris for permission for those. And you can study at the desks up front.”

Calvin thanked him and wandered off to browse the shelves. The spine of a legal reporter, a book of published court decisions, caught his eye, and he pulled it down to examine it. He felt the grain of the cover between his thumb and fingers and breathed in the musty scent.

At the end of the row, he noticed a small grouping of desks fronted by another hand‑painted sign: reserved for inmate counsel substitute only.

He pictured himself getting comfortable in one of the chairs, a legal dictionary and notepad in hand.

I’m gonna be the meanest lawyer on the walk, he thought, sliding the reporter back onto the shelf.

*

Calvin returned to the law library the next night, and the night after that.

He already knew a couple of the inmate counsels, like Norris Henderson, an acquaintance from the parish jail. Norris introduced him to Floyd Webb, Checo Yancy, John Siri, Stan Smith, and the head of the program, Henry Hill. Mostly a generation older than Calvin, many of the inmate counsels held leadership positions in the prison clubs as well.

The thirty or more clubs and religious groups, which centered around community service and self‑betterment, met in the evenings and formed the backbone of Angola’s social life.

Norris, known for his generosity, helped Calvin find his footing in the Main Prison. He taught him how to identify and avoid sources of trouble, encouraging him to become a role model for others.

If the laws ever changed, or if he wanted to apply for clemency one day, Norris said, he needed to think about his conduct and reputation as well as his legal case. Big Dugger’s advice for getting out of prison was to become a lawyer; Norris’s was to become a leader.

Calvin appreciated Norris’s guidance and recognized the wisdom of his counsel, but what he was thinking—and never said—was that such long‑term considerations were irrelevant to him. Other guys might need to rely on clemency or changes in the law to find a way out, but he was going home through the courts, and soon.

Any day now, the state appellate court would grant his direct appeal, and Angola would become little more than a brief stop on his journey home.

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Excerpt courtesy Penguin Press, a division of Penguin Random House, copyright (c) 2025 by Calvin Duncan and Sophie Cull. The Jailhouse Lawyer is available via Penguin Press.