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In other contexts, courts identify the party as the problem rather than the order immediately at hand — for example, a “jailhouse lawyer” serving a life sentence in prison who endlessly files frivolous lawsuits.

He’s a talented thespian who also writes plays; a gentle man, a mentor and a self-described jailhouse lawyer who is preparing for his parole hearing.

And there were two things about him: when I found out that he considered himself sort of a jailhouse lawyer and how he was always in the law library, and he was advocating for others for good food, for his own liberation eventually, but also even — when he founded this theater company there — Rehabilitation Through the Arts.

Sentenced to 26 years to life in prison, Martinez spent the next three decades filing writs, appeals and petitions as a self-taught jailhouse lawyer.

“I didn’t know they were supposed to do a declaration until I got with a jailhouse lawyer and he told me what they were supposed to do,” Spikes said.