From prison a writ of habeas corpus has been filed, and I first learned about this when Jerry sent me the legal papers, with his questions written all over them.  I remember after that I wrote letters, and a friend made phone calls, after which Jerry was given a court appointed Appeal Attorney.  On October 9, 1998, The Third Appellate District made a ruling that, "The petition for writ of habeas corpus has been treated as an application for relief from default for failure to file a timely notice of appeal in Shasta County Nol 97F9169 and as such is granted."  This in itself was one of the first miracles in this case, and more were to follow.

After he received a court appointed attorney, S. Lynne Klein of Davis, California, I didn't worry about the legal part of the case until Jerry mailed me a letter from Ms. Davis with his notes written all over it.  In this letter she told Jerry that she had filed a Wende case, and she stated that she did "not believe there is any reason t think the court will find anything that will help."  People v. Wende, (1979) 25 Cal.3d 436.  In this letter I read that he could file a supplemental brief directly with the court.  Being a former legal secretary, I knew what that meant, and since there were only about two weeks left of the 30 days, I immediately typed up a form for a "Request Time to File Supplemental Brief," and got into mail to Jerry for his signature.  Bottom line, is that this was received by the court in time and a 30 day extension was granted,  this was the second miracle.  I must mention that one of the clerks at the court was very helpful, and I had done only one appeal as this was not the kind of law I was acquainted with.

Both the request for time and the supplemental brief were based on the case Johnson v. Avery, 393 U.S. 483 (1969), which states as follows: 

MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, concurring.

"We think of claims as grist for the mill of the lawyers. But it is becoming abundantly clear that more and more of the effort in ferreting out the basis of claims and the agencies responsible for them and in preparing the almost endless paperwork for their prosecution is work for laymen. There are not enough lawyers to manage or supervise all of these affairs; and much of the basic work done requires no special legal talent. Yet there is a closed-shop philosophy in the legal profession that cuts down drastically active roles for laymen. It was expressed by a New York court in denying an application from the Neighborhood Legal Services for permission to offer a broad legal-aid type of service to indigents:

. . .That traditional, closed-shop attitude is utterly out of place in the modern world where claims pile high and much of the work of tracing and pursuing them requires the patience and wisdom of a layman rather than the legal skills of a member of the bar.

The plight of a man in prison may in these respects be even more acute than the plight of a person on the outside. He may need collateral proceedings to test the legality of his detention or relief against management [393 U.S. 483, 493] of the parole system or against defective detainers lodged against him which create burdens in the nature of his incarcerated status. He may have grievances of a civil nature against those outside the prison. . ."  This is a very important case for laymen to help prisoners, it gave me the legal right to help write this document for Jerry.

The next problem was getting the Supplemental Brief done, in the mail to High Desert for Jerry's signature, and back to Court by April 28, 1999.  Another problem to overcome was the obstruction of justice by the prison, I would send originals for his signature and he would not get them, because I was not an attorney.  They asked Jerry for my bar number, I told him to site Johnson v. Avery, but they don't care about law or justice.  So I sent the original and many copies to Jerry, and a friend sent copies, and Jerry signed them all and a copy with his original signature arrived back in time to be filed with Court before the deadline.  [See website for background letters written about these issues.]

 The Supplemental Brief was filed by April 28, 1999, and the hearing was set for June 18, 2001, and the decision was Certified for Publication on July 16, 2001.  This is a Three Strikes case where the Justices totally overturned the "judgment and sentence" and "defendant's plea is set aside."  This was the third BIG MIRACLE, and we thank the Lord for over-ruling this evil. This is a major Three Strikes case, and must be read carefully as it will be helpful for many other prisoners caught in the Three Strikes web of insanity.  The message—there is hope for the little guy that no one cares about, THERE IS HOPE!

JDC