A Voice Within These Walls

The Education of a Jailhouse Lawyer

By: Calvin Duncan, Sophie Cull

A searing and ultimately hopeful account of Calvin Duncan, “the most extraordinary jailhouse lawyer of our time” (Sister Helen Prejean), and his thirty-year path through Angola after a wrongful murder conviction, his coming-of-age as a legal mind while imprisoned, and his continued advocacy for those on the inside

Calvin Duncan was nineteen when he was incarcerated for a 1981 New Orleans murder he didn’t commit. The victim of a wildly incompetent public defense system and a badly compromised witness, Duncan was left to rot in the waking nightmare of confinement. Armed with little education, he took matters into his own hands.

At twenty-one, he filed his first motion from prison: “Motion for a Law Book,” which launched his highly successful, self-taught, legal career. Trapped within this wholly corrupted system, Calvin became a legal advocate for himself and his fellow prisoners as an Inmate Counsel at the infamous Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola. Literature sustained his hope, as he learned the law in its shadow.

During his decades of incarceration, Calvin helped hundreds of other prisoners navigate their cases, advocating for those the state had long since written off. He taught a class in the midst of Angola to empower other incarcerated men to fight for their own justice under the law. But his own case remained stalled. A defense lawyer once responded to Calvin’s request for documents: “You are not a person.”

Prison reform advocate Sophie Cull met Duncan after he was finally released from prison; Calvin began to tell her his story. Together, they've written a bracing condemnation of the criminal justice system, and an intimate portrait of a heroic and brilliant man’s resilience in the face of injustice.

©2025 Calvin Duncan (P)2025 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“A superbly written, compelling memoir chronicling Calvin Duncan’s remarkable life and achievements as an innocent man at the infamous Angola State Prison who went on to become a self-taught, brilliant jailhouse lawyer. Although the word ‘hero’ is greatly overused in today's society, in my mind, Calvin Duncan is a hero in the truest sense of that word. I urge all who are in need of inspiration to please read this riveting account of an indomitable spirit in the face of ongoing stiff resistance.” —Jim McCloskey, co-author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Framed

“Calvin Duncan is surely the most extraordinary jailhouse lawyer of our time. A Voice Within These Walls offers an intimate portrayal of Calvin's decades-long journey for justice, fighting for thousands of indigent prisoners against a merciless legal system. This remarkable debut is both a powerful account of Calvin’s struggle and a clarion call to end the brutal legacy of mass incarceration. Calvin’s relentless determination to champion those forgotten by justice will ignite a fire within you that burns long after you’ve finished the book.”—Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking