By Andrew Cohen
With a packed lecture hall clinging to his every word, Calvin Duncan exuded hope, enthusiasm, and optimism — hardly predictable traits given that he spent 28 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.
At a riveting event sponsored by UC Berkeley Law’s Death Penalty Clinic, Duncan answered questions from criminal justice reform advocate Sophie Cull, his co-author of the new book The Jailhouse Lawyer. Duncan described the legal system’s failings that wrongly put him in prison after he was falsely identified for a New Orleans shooting, and chronicled his unrelenting push while incarcerated to learn about the law and use it to pursue justice for himself and hundreds of fellow prisoners.
The audience learned how the key witness was tentative in her identification of the shooter, how her description did not match Duncan’s physical appearance, and how his attorney — lacking some key police reports — was not able to properly question the witness on her inconsistencies.
“The night before trial, my appointed lawyers only came to see me to see if I had a suit to wear, then they left,” he said. “The next morning we went to trial, a capital case, and it lasted just one day.”
Though the jury rejected the death penalty, Duncan was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. While incarcerated, he spent as much time as possible in the prison library to learn about the law, and tried to gather his records and gain his freedom. He even sold his plasma in prison to pay for his court files after an investigator took his money without pursuing the work.
While imprisoned before his trial, at age 21 Duncan filed his first motion, “Motion for a Law Book,” sparking his self-taught legal career. Later working as an inmate counsel substitute, he helped other prisoners navigate their cases, advocating for those the state had long since written off.
“I spent more time in the library than my dormitory,” Duncan said. “In that Motion for a Law Book, I explained that no lawyer was coming to see me, I was facing the death penalty, and I was entitled to information to help my case. I figured I’ve got to become like a lawyer.”
A master class in self-help
Duncan relentlessly developed his legal knowledge despite the prison’s paucity of legal materials to study, burnishing his reputation as the prison’s go-to “jailhouse lawyer.” One of the civil complaints he filed while in the parish jail argued that older prisoners were suffering cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment because they could not fully chew and digest the tough meat they were often served. His efforts eventually led to many prisoners receiving dentures.
“I was a thorn in their side,” Duncan said. “Everything the jail did wrong, I was on them.”
For over two decades he helped prisoners with their appeals and encountered many like him who should not have been in prison. Regarding his own case, Duncan was continually denied access to the records he needed to challenge his wrongful conviction.
After feverishly striving to reopen his own case, Duncan succeeded with the help of the Innocence Project of New Orleans, which filed many public records requests for documents from police and prosecutors. That process unearthed notable inconsistencies across the police investigation, and after many years of litigation, Duncan was released from prison in 2011 and officially exonerated in 2021.
“I got out of prison on a Friday, and I was on campus at Tulane University that next Tuesday trying to get into law school,” he said. “They told me hold on, Calvin, you need to get an undergraduate degree first, so that’s what I did (earning a Bachelor of Arts in paralegal studies).”
Newly-minted lawyer
Duncan graduated from Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland last spring — at age 60 — and is now running for Clerk of Court in the same New Orleans district that once denied him access to his records. He also founded and directs the Light of Justice program, which works to improve court access to those who are incarcerated.
“Over time, I found out that New Orleans had convicted a lot of innocent people,” Duncan said. “There was a prosecutor there who had pictures of everyone he had put on death row, like a trophy case.”
Addressing the audience of mostly law students, Duncan noted how a Tulane 3L named Emily Bolton — who went on to launch the Innocence Project New Orleans — played a key role in helping him develop his case.
“Emily worked extremely hard on my behalf and made a huge difference,” he said. “It shows the power that you all have. If you think you don’t have any as law students, I’m telling you that you have a lot. People are depending on you all to do great work. You can help make sure important stories are being told. When an unjust law is having an adverse effect, you can speak out and work to change it and help remind people that there are people behind all those cases you’re reading.”
Duncan added that his decision to run for Clerk of Court is motivated by wanting to help people overcome procedural hurdles in the legal system — and wanting to sustain fairness.
“I’m a defender of the Bill of Rights. I know they weren’t written for me, but I’m going to hold onto them,” Duncan said. “Martin Luther King used to say when you stop hoping you die. What keeps me going is the joy I see on people’s faces when we champion their cause. I do for people what I wanted someone to do for me.”