Fighting uphill legal battles at Estelle

The Estelle Unit operates a constitutionally deficient “cite only” method of providing prisoners access to courts. The only way a prisoner can present this issue to a federal court is, pursuant to the PLRA, show actual harm. Basically, this means a prisoner must have presented a claim in court that was defeated due to the insufficient cite only method of providing access to courts. I’m lying in wait. Per the cite only method, it can take 72 hours or more to receive the requested research material cited – if it is ever to be obtained at all. Consequently, what would normally take weeks at the most to research, due to the cite only access, takes months.

The 14th day of August, one officer L. Bowers confiscated two affidavits sworn to by prisoners that had witnessed disciplinary incidents that was to accompany a 2254 petition. Bowers claimed the documents weren’t mine though my name was all over them. So after posting this correspondence, I will be drafting a motion to preserve documents to be submitted to the court – for all the good it’s gonna do me, but the motion will become part of the permanent record.