 For the past 30 years, Bill Habern has been in and out of prison and has a lot to tell first-timers about what to expect behind bars. Habern is not a convict. The 70-year-old Texas defense attorney at Habern, O'Neil & Pawgan wrote the handbook on Prison 101. His survival guide, along with the seminars he created with an ex-con and a former prison guard who now work at his law firm, have helped college grads, professionals, housewives or secretaries who, for one reason or another, find themselves entering the Texas prison system and are in shock. They learn everything from how to negotiate a good bunk to how to talk their way out of joining a gang.
During his career working on both federal and state cases in 18 states, Habern has proven to a jury that an inmate facing capital punishment for the murder of a warden and assistant warden acted in self defense, won damages for two inmates used as "human bait" to train prison attack dogs, and was dubbed by The Austin Chronicle, "the guru for all things related to Texas' parole and clemency system."
Fittingly Hapbern’s office is in Huntsville, a city that is home to six prisons as well as the Texas Prison Museum, where the big draw is “Ol Sparky,” the famously flawed electric chair.
Q. The staff at the law firm includes former inmates and correctional guards. Why?
We make our living representing people who will be incarcerated. It’s better to have employees who’ve worked in prisons because that’s what we deal with all day. My secretary Debbie Bone was a prison guard before she came to work for me and helped write the 2007 guide and is part of our seminars. At times we also include one of several ex-offenders whose sentences have expired and they have done fine and have their heads screwed on right.
Q. What do people headed to prison for the first time fear most?
Getting raped. All the horror stories one hears about prison have a degree of truth to them. But most of these horrible incidents are exceptions to the boring daily life that most experience. There is a common perception that stronger prisoners prey on and rape weaker prisoners. The reality is that a woman living in any city in the United States is far more likely to be raped than a prisoner in Texas. I know inmates who have served over twenty years without serious problems. The keys to success in prison is understanding the culture, staying out of other people’s business and avoiding situations that lead to trouble.
Q. Why did you choose this line of work?
My dad did time. He was a spoiled, middle-class kid. He was a gambling-holic. He got caught in a gambling deal and did 18 months on a three-year sentence. He got out long before I became lawyer. Listening to him recall his experience opened my eyes. In the 1950s there weren’t too many middle-class white boys in Texas prisons.
Later when I was a public defender, Texas initiated a program in 1973 to allow 11 public defenders unlimited access inside of prisons. I was the fifth lawyer they chose. They soon figured out they didn’t want public defenders seeing what was going on. This was just before the Ruiz case when inmates filed a civil rights suit against the Texas prison system, which resulted in a federal court declaring the system unconstitutional. (See In Depth). I hope my presence there contributed to the case and the findings of the court.
Q. Over the course of your career, what are the biggest changes you’ve seen in the penal system, both negative and positive?
The worst is gangs taking over. Prison administration used to run prisons – not just in Texas but in general – now they seldom run the inmates’ life. It’s the gangs. This isn’t true on death row. There they keep the prisoners isolated, not that there’s anything good about it.
With the advent of sentencing guidelines, doing away with parole, giving out 30-year sentences when 10 would have made the point – just the overall meanness attached to the United States justice system – I don’t see much good happening. Maybe the pendulum is starting to swing but it’s got a long way to go. Last session the Texas legislature made some moves in the right direction. But if you look at the 1970s through the 1990s, the policy is like a yo-yo. Governor Anne Richards initiated drug and rehabilitation programs, and the next idiot, our former president, took them all away. Until you have programs in place for a while, they aren’t going to be effective, and given the pittance they pay, no one wants to run them.
I don’t know what prison reform is. In every state and federal system, prison is like a big old water balloon. You try to stick your finger in to plug in the water and the problem just pops up in another form. There is nothing positive about prison. I will say Texas is in much better shape than California, which is the black money pit of hell. The Texas prisons are not about to collapse the state economy, which is what seems to be the case in California.
Q. Has there been any case you worked on that made you want to quit your job?
I’ve never gotten so frustrated that I wanted to walk away completely. But in the capital murder case against Eroy Brown, an inmate who killed a warden and assistant warden after they beat him, turned a gun on him, and he got hold of their gun, the prison and prosecution wanted to win at any cost. They tried to keep evidence secret. They hid witnesses from us.
Since then, I haven't been lead counsel in more than two criminal jury cases, and as I recall, they were misdemeanors. I have, however, engaged in hundreds of parole-related administrative matters, and remain active in certain civil rights federal court actions. (After winning the Brown capital murder case, Habern continued as a member of the law team on the civil rights cases that arose from inmates who testified for Brown and were allegedly abused and punished in prison).
Q. What’s the most rewarding aspect of your work?
Whenever you do something to benefit some poor son of a bitch who just had his civil rights tromped on. The most satisfying case is the one you just won. Right now I’m focusing on changing how seriously the public misunderstands what a sex offender is. The label is applied to many more low-risk people than pedophiles and long-term rapists. You’ve got the 21-year-old guy sitting in a bar, where he knows they card, and a young thing comes in. Now she had to show I.D. but he doesn’t know she’s really 16 years old. She gets home late, daddy finds out what happened and gets furious and the guy is charged with sexual assault on a minor. I take cases like this. I want to let people know the absurdity of prosecuting that guy the same way as a hard-core pedophile.
Q. Dealing with the grim realities of prison, how do you unwind?
Well, I originally went to law school to reform the U.S. drug laws. Over Thanksgiving my wife and I are taking our 33-year-old stepson to the 23rd International Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, an annual marijuana festival. We went a few years ago and were judges, which you become similar to the way one becomes a judge in Texas—you mail in some money. Judges were supposed to test product in 27 coffee houses but we could only make it to three. Hell, that’s all we could handle! But then, how many 70-years-old lawyers do you see at marijuana festivals?
 PRISON 101
Excerpts from Bill Habern’s guide:
"When you get there you will be stripped naked (get used to being seen naked in front of male and female officers) and told to stand while officers strip search you and go through your property. You will be asked to squat and cough. Some officers may yell at or ridicule you. Try to pick a spot on the wall, stare at it and don’t pay attention to any insults. All the guards are trying to do at this point is see if anyone among you is stupid or crazy enough to talk back to them.”
“Sociology Interviews. …At a later time, you will return to the interview area and repeat the same interview, with the same questions, but this time with a different person. This person may be belligerent and difficult. This is sometimes referred to as a Mutt and Jeff routine. The inmate should behave in the same calm, polite, manner as he did with the Sociology I interviewer. This second interview is designed to see how the inmate handles anger and frustration. The interviewer will try to push buttons in order to observe the inmate’s reaction. Do not get angry! The inmate’s reaction helps the interviewer determine which type of prison unit the inmate will be assigned.”
“In real prisons there are rows of cells like you see in the movies. When you walk down the cell row do not look into any cell except your own. What is going on in another cell is not your business. Never go into a cell that isn’t yours, even if invited. It is against the rules to be in any cell you are not assigned to.”
“It is not unusual that a new arrival will be approached by another inmate who will try to get the newcomer indebted to him in some way or to recruit him into a gang. They may offer protection from assault or blackmail. It is important to reject these entreaties. Gangs demand total loyalty and will eventually demand money, sex or participation in some criminal activity.”
“There are three major rules the newly arrived inmate should keep in mind at all times:
1. Learn to be self-reliant. Do not use others, or allow others to use you.
2. There are no secrets in prison. What you do and whom you do it with will be noted by both guards and inmates. Privacy disappears.
3. Life is not fair and nowhere is that more true than in prison. Do not waste your time on issues outside your control.”
Past Close Up Articles
Anya Cordell, activist
Rais Bhuiyan, survivor
Allison Moore, Volunteer
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