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Writ Writer

Last night the PBS program Independent Lens featured the premiere of Writ Writer, a documentary about the prisoner whose writ-writing efforts earned him a lot of grief at the hands of prison officials and guards, but which eventually led to reform of the Texas prison system:

In 1960, a young man from San Antonio, Texas was arrested for robbery, convicted and sent to a state prison farm to pick cotton. He denied committing the robberies, but couldn't afford a lawyer to appeal his cases. With only an 8th grade education, he read every law book he could find access to and filed his appeal pro se. WRIT WRITER tells the story of jailhouse lawyer Fred Cruz and the legal battle he waged to secure what he believed to be the constitutional rights of Texas prisoners.

It's an interesting, and horrifying, watch. You can find out when Writ Writer airs on your local PBS station at this link.

Full post as published by Fifth Circuit Blog on June 04, 2008 (boomark / email).