Jailhouse Lawyering Course Description
The purpose of this seminar is threefold:
- to study the evolution of prisoners' access to courts;
- to provide an opportunity for law students to teach legal
research and writing to prisoners in a Buffalo area correctional
facility; and
- to give students the opportunity to collaborate on
a publishable, written product: a revised, updated Handbook and
Teacher Manual comprised of textbook materials, lesson plans and
homework assignments for teaching prisoners legal research and
writing.
Through cases and supplementary texts we will explore the period of
prison history in which prison officials strongly discouraged or
prevented prisoners from petitioning courts either for redress of
greivances or for the purpose of challenging the legality of their
confinement. We will read critically the response of federal courts
to these practices in cases such as Talley v. Stephens, 247 F.Supp
683 (E.D.Ark 1965) (prisoner subjected the violent reprisals by guards
for judically challenging the use of corporal punishment) and Johnson
v. Avery, 393 U.S. 483, 89 S. Ct. 747 (1969) ("lifer" placed in
solitary confinement for assisting other prisoners with legal
research and writing in violation of a prison rule). We will study
the extraordinary increase in the number of prisoners and the
enormous increase in prisoner litigation in order to understand
contemporary legislative responses, such as the recent Prisoner
Litigation Reform Act, which have discouraged prisoners from
petitioning the courts by imposing filing fees, capping attorneys
fees, empowering courts to dismiss claims sua sponte, requiring
prisoners to exhaust administrative remedies and actually revoking
the power of federal courts to grant certain types of relief.
Course requirements include: developing instructional materials for
instructors and prisoners, and homework exercises for one of seven
legal research and writing classes, teaching those materials to
prisoners at a Buffalo area correctional facility, and finally,
revising and editing the materials to a publishable standard. Each
student will ultimately be responsible for one chapter of the manual,
handbook and homework book (35-40 pages total).
The Jailhouse Lawyering Seminar curriculum will include:
- Historical material which frames and contemporary readings which
describe the legal context in which Jailhouse Lawyering is conducted;
- Cases which describe the legal regulation of Jailhouse Lawyering;
- Guest speakers including a former Jailhouse Lawyer, a legal
research and writing instructor; and a federal pro se judicial law
clerk.
The seminar will meet weekly for 12 weeks. Five of the meetings will
take place at the law school and seven of the meetings will take place
at a Buffalo area correctional facility.
Students who have previously taken "Prisoner Law" or "State As
Custodian" are eligible to take this seminar, as the course content
is substantially different.
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