There is a cognitive performance study underway involving millions of unwilling participants—it’s called prison.1 Incarcerated men, women and adolescents decompensating behind bars are being forced to test the limits of self-lawyering.2 And yet, the right to be heard ought to be a “basic human need” like the essentials of life. It acknowledges the humanity of the confined and the unnaturalness of confinement. So it is that the cognitive stagnation of prison demands a post-conviction right to be heard through counsel.
Gideon exalted the presumption of innocence for the accused into a right to counsel; Douglas balanced the scales of justice for the indigent on first appeal; but for the prisoner serving time, Bounds and Casey left them a pile of books.3 So it is that the just causes of incarcerated people are buried in silence and ignorance.
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