The thread on personal writings of the defendant put me in the mind of inmate mail I have read. They all consist of three main themes: food, sex and what I'm going to do when I get out. It also seems that every defendant fancies himself a poet. How about sharing some of your favorite inmate mail? Sometimes, they even write to me directly to let me know their trial strategy and how I had better watch out! I just finished one in which the inmate gave me a witness list, a set of extraneous offenses I knew nothing about and his theory of the case.

[This message was edited by BLeonard on 11-10-04 at .]

Got a female murder defendant trying to keep her husband married to her (spousal privilege) by writing him love letters. She's also writing love letters to just about every male inmate she's ever come across. Me thinks hubby might be interested in those.

Thanks for sharing, Tim. I laughed out loud when I read your post.

My inmates are almost always accomplished envelope artists. Many times the artwork is quite bizarre and scary.

Some of my favorites are the earnest pleas from grievously abused (according to their three-page factual narrative) prisoners who send an urgent request that I represent them in their airtight section 1983 lawsuit against the county. Of course, they are addressed to me as an assistant county attorney. These budding legal scholars, however, have read the Code of Criminal Procedure and know that we are duty-bound to see that justice is done. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is grass-roots justice at work.

We recently got one from a Latin King convicted of capital murder (of another Latin King) who was dissatisfied with his appellate lawyer, who was apparently ignoring all the great points of error the defendant was feeding him from prison. His request to us was that we do everything we could to see that he was released from prison since his own lawyer wasn't treating him fairly.

After working so hard in the first place to put him where he belongs, why wouldn't I help him get out now? his trial was so much fun the first time around I'd love to do it again!

The inmate's now-estranged girlfriend often provides the least-readable letters which range from laughable to disgusting to downright sick. These invariably contain the inmate's sexual fantasies. What they lack in imagination they make up for with sheer volume; page after page of "...and then I do_____to you." Yuck! However, I would rather plow through one hundred of those to be spared ten lines of heroic couplet or five pages of Bible butchering. Then there is the letter to the person the inmate blames for his predicament; the girlfriend/wife who is the mother of the child victim or the significant other he has injured. Line upon line of threats, recrimination and begging followed by a proposal of marriage, assurance of forgiveness and OF COURSE......"Please put some money on my books."