United States Is a Nation of Laws.

¶ … United States is a nation of laws. We use laws to determine what is and is not criminal behavior. We then use the application of judicial principles to try people accused of crimes, and we use laws to determine what the punishment will be for those who are found guilty of a crime.

Our judicial system has multiple layers because individual judges can make mistakes. When a convicted criminal feels a mistake has been made, he or she can appeal their conviction to the appellate courts. Appellate court rulings affect every courtroom under their jurisdiction, and those rulings can be used in other appeals in other jurisdictions, so appellate rulings can have a profound effect on our prison system.

One ruling by an appellate court has had a profound and widespread effect on prisoners, and that is the ruling that required prisons to make law library facilities available to prisoners. This ruling was made under the provision in the Constitution that all prisoners are entitled to due process - that is, full access to proper legal processes. That includes the ability to appeal convictions. To do this, they must have access to the courts, and our judicial system has specific procedures for appeal. Most prisoners knew that convictions could be appealed but were not lawyers and did not know how to navigate that part of the judicial system. Since they had already been convicted, they had to be able to convince a lawyer that they had believable grounds for an appeal.