As a criminal attorney, whenever I represented someone who was held in custody – whether it was a federal crime or a state crime -- they were housed at the county detention center in the county where the trial was to be conducted, aka the jail.  We were allowed contact visits with our clients. I went to the jails often, having a policy of visiting my clients once a week.

Attorneys could visit their clients at the jail via a phone with a glass partition lined up beside many others, in small private rooms – the way you have probably seen on tv or movies — or in the housing unit where they lived. I always requested to meet in the housing unit because talking to a stressed client behind a sheet of glass with a telephone or in a small bare room was not only less private and awkward but it felt disrespectful.

The beginning of the journey at the jail was to go down steps to the basement and then walk unescorted through multiple concrete hallways mostly below ground to get to the units. If I happened upon inmates walking in these hallways – which happened all the time -- they had to stop walking and face the wall. After travelling in the hallways and going through various locked metal doors, where I had to push a buzzer to get through and show my badge, I would arrive at the unit.

An officer would press a buzzer opening the large, metal door and escort me into a room set aside from the open portion of the housing unit. I could talk face to face with the client in that room without disturbance sometimes for hours. The conference room had one wall that faced the main room with glass windows halfway up and blinds that could be pulled down. I mostly left the blinds up unless one of the prisoners or guards became too interested in our conversation. 

Other isolated rooms were also available for use away from the housing unit and I went to these especially if the client were in a segregated housing unit (the SHU) or if I had arranged a meeting that was not one that s/he would want other inmates to know about. For example, if we were meeting with a sensitive individual such as an investigator, a mitigation expert, or a government attorney.  The process in visiting prisons was quite different, a topic I shall cover another day.

Artwork by Glynn B. Cartledge

Don’t Lie to me Boy Jail Cell