Our Picks: How a New York State Prisoner Became a Jailhouse Lawyer, and Changed the SystemOur PicksStuff0 min read Derrick Hamilton was wrongfully convicted of murder, and spent more than two decades trying to prove his innocence. View Full Story at The New Yorker: Education of a Jailhouse Lawyer Derrick Hamilton’s legal education began in 1983, when he was seventeen and in the jail for teen-age boys on Rikers Island. He’d been an enthusiastic student as a child-his family called him Suity, because he liked to wear a suit to school. But in high school he’d begun skipping classes and getting into trouble.