Tonight, we are going to introduce you to Shon Hopwood, who is arguably the most successful jailhouse lawyer ever—having had one of his cases argued before the U.S. Supreme Court while serving a 12-year sentence for armed bank robbery. Since his release he's built a resume as a legal scholar, and been published in top law journals.
As a result of the Los Angeles jailhouse snitch scandal, hundreds of convictions were overturned. Large-scale studies confirm that wrongful convictions are a common result of informant use.
First, the court noted “the growing recognition by the legal community that jailhouse informant testimony is inherently unreliable and is a major contributor to wrongful convictions throughout this country.”
Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of married couples to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the decision, finding that the prison officials had substantial interests in maintaining prison discipline and ensuring that law is practiced by licensed attorneys, not “jail-house lawyers.”
In Cooper, the Supreme Court ruled that state prison inmates could sue state officials in federal courts under the Civil Rights Act of 1871. Inmates have the legal right to challenge the legality of their confinement but not the conditions of their confinement.
Wolff v. McDonnell :: 418 U.S. 539 (1974) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center.
Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), was a U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the constitutionality of two Missouri prison regulations. One of the prisoners' claims related to the fundamental right to marry, and the other related to freedom of speech (in sending/receiving letters).
In Gittlemacker v. Prasse, 428 F. 2d 1, 4-5 (3rd Cir. 1970), the court held that there was an absence of evidence on record to establish that plaintiff's free exercise of religion was burdened.
Monroe v. PapeHowever, Section 1983 allows you to sue that official under federal law regardless of whether a state remedy is available. Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 173–74, 81 S.
In Monroe v. Pape (1961), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that citizens could bring Section 1983 suits against state officials in federal courts without first exhausting all state judicial remedies.
6–3 decision for Wolff The Supreme Court held that while prisoners are not entitled to full due process protections, disciplinary proceedings must include written notice to the defendant of the charges, a written statement of evidence, and the opportunity for an inmate to call witnesses and present evidence.
The hands-off doctrine formally ended with two decisions from the Supreme Court in the early 1970s. In the first decision, the court held that "[T]here is no Iron Curtain between the Constitution and the prisons of this country" [Wolf v. McDonnell, 418, U.S. 539, 555-56 (1974)].
In Holt v. Hobbs, 135 S. Ct. 133 (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that Arkansas prison officials violated the religious liberty rights of a Muslim inmate under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) by refusing to allow him to grow a short beard.
Which statement best summarizes the ruling by the Supreme Court in the case of Estelle v. Gamble (1976)? Inmate health care must reflect what is available to the citizens in the general community.
Courts lack general supervisory powers over prisons, and in the absence of a showing of a violation of a legal right or of an abuse of discretion by prison officials a court should not interfere.
In the 1990 case of Illinois v. Perkins, (3) the U.S. Supreme Court, while not resolving the debate, answered an important question regarding the constitutionality of using cellmate informants. Specifically, the Court held that the use of cellmate informants does not violate the Miranda rule. (4) This decision appeared to clear ...
Even though the suspect's right to counsel has attached, a cellmate informant may gather information about an unrelated crime because the sixth amendment is crime-specific. (40) Under the sixth amendment, a suspect only has the right to the assistance of counsel with respect to the crimes formally charged against him.
Prior to trial, Perkins moved to suppress the statements made to the undercover officer. Because no Miranda warnings had been given to Perkins prior to his conversation with the undercover officer, the trial court granted Perkins' motion to suppress.
Claiming a prior invocation of his right to counsel when first arrested on the assault charge, Perkins argued that the undercover officer's question "have you ever 'done' anyone" amounted to reinterrogation in violation of the rule established in Minnick.
When discussing the possibility of a prison break, the undercover officer responded to Perkins' claim that he could smuggle in a gun by asking Perkins whether he had ever "done" anyone. In reply, Perkins described at length a murder for hire he had committed. The following day, Perkins was charged with murder.
In Illinois v. Perkins, (10) the Supreme Court recognized that there are limitations to the rule announced in Miranda. The defendant in Perkins was imprisoned in a State correctional facility on an assault charge, when a former fellow inmate and an undercover officer were placed in his cellblock in an attempt to gather information about a murder Perkins was believed to have committed. When discussing the possibility of a prison break, the undercover officer responded to Perkins' claim that he could smuggle in a gun by asking Perkins whether he had ever "done" anyone. In reply, Perkins described at length a murder for hire he had committed. The following day, Perkins was charged with murder.
It is the fifth amendment's prohibition against compelled self-incrimination which provides the constitutional underpinning for the prophylactic Miranda rules, including notice of the right to counsel. Absent a police dominated interrogation, the fifth amendment right to counsel does not attach. (29)
United States, the Supreme Court ruled that the government could use Edward Partin as a witness against union leader Jimmy Hoffa. Partin was in a Louisiana jail facing numerous charges, including embezzlement, manslaughter, and perjury, when he cut a deal with the federal government.
The Colomb case is just one example of how the use of criminal informants, and jailhouse informants in particular, distorts large swaths of our criminal justice process. Unlike many other countries, the U.S. criminal system permits the government to trade leniency for information, giving law enforcement wide discretion.
Specifically, informants often come forward entrepreneurially when the government has a murder or other high-profile case. When the evidence in those cases is already strong, the government may not need or use informants.
Thomas Goldstein served over 20 years for a murder he did not commit, based on the fabricated testimony of an experienced jailhouse informant named Edward Fink. As a result of the Los Angeles jailhouse snitch scandal, hundreds of convictions were overturned.
After the jury convicted them, Colomb and her sons sat in prison facing sentences that ranged from 10 years to life. But none of it was true. The 30 witnesses were jailhouse informants who fabricated evidence against the Colombs in the hope of reducing their own sentences.
In 2006, Ann Colomb and her three sons were convicted of running one of the largest crack cocaine distribution rings in Louisiana. Federal prosecutors said that, over the course of a decade, the family bought $15 million worth of drugs with a street value of more than $70 million.
This rule means that jailhouse informants can interrogate suspects on behalf of the government in ways that police are forbidden from doing without Miranda warnings. Even if informants can extract information in entrepreneurial ways, they are not supposed to threaten their cellmates. In Arizona v.
Jailhouse lawyers are prisoners who manage to learn enough about the law while incarcerated to help themselves and other inmates with legal problems. We get letters from them every week. Tonight, we are going to introduce you to Shon Hopwood, who is arguably the most successful jailhouse lawyer ever—having had one of his cases argued before ...
Yes. In the context of who Shon Hopwood is and where, what he was setting out to do, not that surprising. A year later it led to a highly competitive teaching fellowship at Georgetown Law's Appellate Litigation Clinic, where he did so well, the faculty awarded him a position as a professor of law.
Meet a convicted felon who became a Georgetown law professor. Shon Hopwood was serving time for armed bank robbery when he discovered he had a brilliant mind for the law. Steve Kroft reports on an improbable tale of redemption. 2017 Oct 15.
Steve Kroft: So this woulda been good for a Washington lawyer? Seth Waxman: Even for a licensed, appointed lawyer representing a federal prisoner, you would say, "Wow.". Waxman won the Fellers case before the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision, and became Shon's mentor during his final six years in prison.
Three years into his prison term he got an opportunity to show just how much he'd learned when John Fellers, a friend and fellow inmate asked Shon to appeal his drug conviction to the highest court in the land.
Yes. The irony isn't lost on him or his students who know that he's a convicted felon and that less than a decade ago was an inmate at the federal correctional institution in Pekin, Illinois. Steve Kroft: You're a professor at one of the finest law schools in the country.
Professor Steven Goldblatt is the faculty director for the Supreme Court Institute at Georgetown Law. Steven Goldblatt: To have somebody who's a credible voice who actually lived the experience, who understands what it's like to spend a day in prison, much less 11 years, is highly unusual.
Justices Hugo Black and Potter Stewart dissented from the Court's decision. Both justices' dissents argued that because the U.S. Constitution does not expressly mention privacy in any of its provisions, the Court had no basis to strike down Connecticut's Comstock Law. Black's dissent concluded: "I get nowhere in this case by talk about a constitutional 'right of privacy' as an emanation from one or more constitutional provisions. I like my privacy as well as the next one, but I am nevertheless compelled to admit that government has a right to invade it unless prohibited by some specific constitutional provision."
Supreme Court held that it was unconstitutional to prohibit anyone other than a licensed pharmacist to distribute nonprescription contraceptives to persons 16 years of age or over, to prohibit the distribution of nonprescription contraceptives by any adult to minors under 16 years of age, and to prohibit anyone, including licensed pharmacists, to advertise or display contraceptives. The Court also held that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution does not allow a state to intrude on an individual's decisions on matters of procreation which is protected as privacy rights.
479 (1965), was a landmark decision of the US Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects the liberty of married couples to buy and use contraceptives without government restriction. The case involved a Connecticut " Comstock law " that prohibited any person ...
The argument in Eisenstadt was that it was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to deny unmarried couples the right to use contraception when married couples did have that right (under Griswold ). Writing for the majority, Justice Brennan wrote that Massachusetts could not enforce the law against married couples because of Griswold v. Connecticut, so the law worked "irrational discrimination" if not extended to unmarried couples as well.
Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973). The decision in Roe struck down a Texas law that criminalized aiding a woman in getting an abortion. The Court ruled that this law was a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Abortion became legalized for any woman for any reason, up through the first trimester, with possible restrictions for maternal health in the second trimester (the midpoint of which is the approximate time of fetal viability). In the third trimester of pregnancy, abortion is potentially illegal with exception for the mother's health, which the court defined broadly in Doe v. Bolton .
On the basis of this interpretation, Harlan concluded that the Connecticut statute violated the Constitution. After Poe was handed down on June 1961, the Planned Parenthood League of Connecticut (PPLC) decided to challenge the law again. Estelle T. Griswold served on the PPLC as Executive Director from 1954 to 1965.
On June 7, 1965, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in favor of Griswold that struck down Connecticut's state law against contraceptives.
Mr. Duncan, left, at a news conference in 2014. He had worked on about two dozen attempts to persuade the Supreme Court to address the issue of non-unanimous jury verdicts before the justices agreed in March to decide the question.
He had a 10th-grade education, and he was serving a life sentence for murder. The prison paid him 20 cents an hour to help his fellow prisoners with their cases. He got good at it, and he used his increasingly formidable legal skills to help free several inmates.
The new State Constitution replaced a unanimity requirement with one that said the votes of nine jurors out of 12 were enough to convict defendants of noncapital felonies. In 1973, the Constitution was amended to require 10 jurors to agree.
Mr. Rideau was released in 2005 after Mr. Duncan helped him get a new trial. “He did the legal research,” Mr. Rideau said. “He put together the case. I would not be here but for Calvin. But I’m not the only guy. He got other guys out of prison, too.”.
Over time, many people came to question the Louisiana law, which allowed convictions by a 10-to-2 vote. Oregon is the only other state that allows non-unanimous verdicts in criminal cases. Last year, Louisiana’s voters amended the State Constitution to require unanimity, though only for crimes committed after 2018.
In April, The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge won a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles on the subject. Mr. Duncan himself has nothing to gain from his efforts, having been convicted by a unanimous jury.
In prison, Mr. Duncan enjoyed the respect and affection of his fellow prisoners. One of them, the acclaimed journalist Wilbert Rideau, wrote in his memoir that Mr. Duncan had “the most brilliant legal mind in Angola,” the nation’s largest maximum-security prison.