After being wrongfully convicted of murder, Calvin Duncan became a “jailhouse lawyer” and an expert in prisoners’ rights and habeas litigation. Mr. Duncan secured his own release in 2011 and went on to earn his J.D. from Lewis & Clark. In 2025, Mr. Duncan was elected criminal court clerk in New Orleans. His award-winning book, “The Jailhouse Lawyer,” describes how laws passed in the 1990s restricted access to justice for incarcerated people and how Mr. Duncan and others at Angola managed to educate themselves on the law and build friendships that sustained them in the face of impossible odds. |
