A Tribute to Nevada's Corrupt Prison System and Courts as a Factory for Creating Litigious Prisoners

Can you imagine what it would like to suffer a legal wrong in prison, research the law and file a complaint, and then get a court decision in your favor that the prison officials would respect and follow? You would be done, and barring any further violations of your rights, both you and the prison officials would have no occasion to research any more law. You would never become a "litigious prisoner", and the prison officials and courts would be respected for their honesty and adherence to law.

The Nevada Department of Corrections and Nevada's state and federal courts are probably no more corrupt than those in most other states, but that little bit of extra ¡Oomph! that Nevada gets from its mafia roots (both Italian and Jewish) have made its prison system and courts a veritable factory for producing hundreds of 'jailhouse lawyers', 'writ writers', or, generally, 'litigious prisoners'. Legal pronouncements in these dens of vice are never more than current noise, fair or foul, not real law, and new violations can occur within seconds of supposed changes. And, when the fiction of illegality becomes too burdensome, Nevada just legalizes it. Got some funds and exercise equipment that you want to steal from the Inmate Welfare Fund? It's legal now, and the past is past; so, 'let it go, prisoner, let it go!' Got a taste, prisoner, for some of that fruit cocktail and blue-cheese dressing that you see on the menu approved by the legislature? 'Prisoner, please, get back to your gruel and your jerri-curls!' The menu is still being put out to match the funds and food being stolen, but everyone needs a hustle, and, 'Prisoner, you're already convicted for taking your shot, and it's just rude to complain about those who know how to do it right!'

The sea of prisoners who rose to the repetitive challenge of seeking implementation of the dead bones of past legal pronouncements (constitutional, statutory, administrative, international treaties, interstate compacts and case law) created some rock stars who actually learned and practiced law within the fiction that there really is such a thing as law, not just self-righteous official criminals making empty pronouncements and otherwise flipping birds and showing their ass.

The early, almost forgotten history of prisoners litigating started when courts ruled that Muslim prisoners can bring lawsuits against state prison officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of religious rights. In Nevada, however, we can mark the major class-action case of Craig v. Hocker, 405 F. Supp. 656 (D. Nev. 1975), as the beginning of serious litigation by Nevada prisoners.

Inmate Robbie Craig was a named plaintiff in the case, and an attorney was appointed to represent the class of all maximum-security prisoners, et al.

Robbie Craig was later murdered by a prison gang after the gang was informed by two staff-member brothers doing business with the gang that Robbie Craig was the snitch who had recently exposed and disrupted gang business. That later proved untrue, but there was no reset button for Robbie Craig, who was probably the best 'writ writer' that Nevada ever had.

I never knew Robbie Craig, having come into prison after his murder, and I could only track down the story so far, such as the identities of the two staff-member brothers and one gang member who had kept point during the murder, but neither the two brothers nor the gang were the culprits that concerned me. I wanted to know who the officials above them were that fed the two borthers false accusations against Robbie Craig (the two staff-member brothers were most likely known to be doing business with the gang because the prison was a wild-west shit show at the time). I never got that far. But, so begins the Nevada pattern of retaliation against litigious prisoners, one way or another.

The next litigious rock-star Nevada prisoner representing himself ended up with a better record of back-to-back jury aquittals in multi-count major felony cases than any attorney in the State of Nevada (and that record may still be unbroken). He was acquitted by the jury in three separate criminal cases; and, in a fourth case, the jury acquitted him of all the charges except one, but that was enough for Nevada to sentence him to life without parole as a habitual criminal, and he died in prison, virtually unknown. I came into the prison system after his four criminal trials, but he became my personal friend, a collaborative fellow 'writ writer,' and a valuable legal mentor. Click the link to read a news article about David Richard Wayne.

I was robbed of the glory that David Richard Wayne's shared insights had prepared me to implement after a prison criminal case was brought against me. The court took away my right to self-representation because I was allegedly incompetent. Although denial of the right to self-representation is not subject to harmless-error analysis, the Nevada Supreme Kike affirmed my two convictions (battery by a prisoner and prisoner in possession of a weapon). (I have no actual idea if the Justices are Jewish, but only that the Jewish Mob owns a big chunk of Vegas, and, hence, why we have a despicable dumb-ass like Mossad-blackmailed Trump as our President. Thanks, Epstein-Vegas, thanks!) (Somebody has to say it.)

My own glory is that I have done virtually everything that can done in a civil-rights case except go to trial. I have won several appeals in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, one of which is published, and I can litigate all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. My published case on appeal is Pratt vs. Sumner, 807 F.2d 817 (9th Cir., 1987). But, after I won the appeal, the lower court silently refused to order the U.S. Marshall to serve the complaint on the opposing prison officials, even though I was entitled to service by the U.S. Marshall because of my already-approved in forma pauperis status (poor-boy status).

Normally, one cannot appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals until there is a final judgment, but the District Court's silent refusal to order the U.S. Marshal to serve my complaint on the defendants went on for many months. So, I did legal research and found that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals may have "ancillary jurisdiction" over its former decision to give it effect. I filed what was essentially a petition for a mandatory injuction (one that compels action rather than just prevents action) asking the Court to compel the District Court to order the U.S. Marshall to serve the complaint. I argued that once a plaintiff has in forma pauperis status, then ordering the U.S. Marshall to effect service of process is a routine ministerial act, not a discretionary act that requires further judgment and factual consideration.

However, the dead bones of my past win on appeal was not enough to persuade the Court. We can thank the past complaints from western states about the liberality of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for the kinds of 'Good Ol' Boys' that were later appointed to the Court. Litigation in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has become a crapshoot, depending more on the character of the judges that you randomly get than on any reasonable reading of the facts and law. (Nonetheless, the judges in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals are still better on average than the prisoner-hating judges in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and other circuits.)

We live in a country with deep legal fictions, my friends. We live in a seriously corrupt piece of shit.