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| Inmates sue for access to law library |
| By Miami Herald |
| Published: 07/19/2004 |
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A pair of Broward, Fla. inmates asked an appeals court last Thursday to stop Sheriff Ken Jenne from closing down the law library in one of the county's jails next week. Jenne began converting jail law libraries at his five jails earlier this year into online systems that require inmates to make their requests for legal research in writing. The move saves about $150,000 a year, but the inmates fear it will take away their constitutional right to an adequate defense by slowing down research. Jailhouse legal research is an American legal tradition, credited with the release of many wrongly convicted inmates. Timothy Brown, whose conviction for killing a Broward deputy was reversed last year, had the help of fellow inmate Donald Craig before gaining the attention of civil rights lawyers and the media. Craig, who has a 10th-grade education and is serving life for murder, has filed dozens of inmate appeals and seen the release of several convicted men he has helped. Civil rights and defense lawyers say the new system can work, but they are skeptical. A court-appointed overseer will inspect the new library system next month as part of a 1977 lawsuit that still regulates inmate conditions, according to American Civil Liberties Union Prison Project lawyer Eric Balaban. BSO spokesman Hugh Graf would not comment directly on the inmates' newest challenge, citing a policy against discussing pending legal matters. But Graf acknowledged the library in the North County Bureau jail in Pompano Beach will close soon, following the closings of two other libraries in February and March. The main jail has not yet been converted. In place of libraries, BSO has staffed each of the jails with three BSO employees given 18 hours of training in legal research. The employees take written requests from inmates to look up specific cases or general issues. Each inmate may make no more than one request per week. Graf said the shift from a physical library to an online service will reduce the library budget. The inmates who filed Thursday's court motion, Dennis McNeal and Frederick Oswalt, filed 16 pages of documents using the old library at the jail. |
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