Episode Details

Quentin Lewis has been incarcerated since he was 16. He's now 45 and an inmate at Wende Correctional Facility in upstate NY. He earned his G.E.D. and an Associates Degree in prison. He's been fighting a wrongful conviction since 2001. Students at Cardozo School of Law and Yeshiva are assisting with his case. Quentin is certified as law clerk in the prison system.

Read his article in the New York Times here.

Read Quentin's poem below.

Jailhouse Lawyer, by Quentin Lewis
You not a Jailhouse Lawyer

Unless you won a case

Stop sitting on the sideline

Looking out of place

You sitting down at Chowtime

Looking at your plate

Like wait

How I'm gone get out From behind this gate

Go escape in the law library

Lifting weights

Damn straight

This time is scary

As your fate

No date upstate

The cell your sanctuary

Like a braincell

Where your energy is carried

The law legalise

In my memory is buried

Due process

Came way before slavery

Maybe you need to learn

Johnson verse Avery

Supreme Court said

Jailhouse Lawyers amazing

Filing torts

Trying to get back to the pavement

A better person

More than before I was caged in

Trailblazing

Champion of human rights

Hell raising

The right to counsel never dies

After direct appeal

You still alive

Strategize like a chess game
Be a knight

Bounds versus Smith

Is your right to fight life

Late night on the West law legal cite

Hype as a typist type

Defending rights

Wrongfully convicted

Feel like double jeopardy twice.

This podcast is proudly sponsored by the Innocence Project of Florida. Visit www.floridainnocence.org for more information.