Prominent Legal Advocate To Be Freed After 37 Years In Prison

The Oregon Board of Parole granted a release date of Jan. 9to prominent incarcerated legal expert Mark Wilson, whose litigation efforts inside prison have helped thousands of other prisoners. Wilson was previously the subject of a HuffPost investigation, which detailed the state Department of Corrections’ pattern of retaliation against him.

Wilson’s upcoming release date is only possible because of his recent lawsuit against the corrections department, which ended in a settlement earlier this year. That lawsuit was the second time the department agreed to settle with Wilson over retaliation claims.

In 1987, when Wilson was 18 and addicted to methamphetamine, he participated in a double homicide during a home burglary. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two life sentences with the possibility of parole in exchange for testifying in his codefendants’ trials. The family members of the victims, Rod and Lois Houser, opposed Wilson’s release.

Wilson started working as an incarcerated legal assistant shortly after he entered prison as a teenager, because he saw it as a way he could make a positive contribution even if he spent the rest of his life behind bars. The Supreme Court held in 1977 that people in prison have a constitutional right of access to the courts, requiring prisons to provide law libraries or assistance from people with legal training.

Wilson quickly developed a reputation among prisoners and lawyers on the outside as a talented and fearless legal assistant, taking on complex cases that came with significant risk of retaliation. In 2001, Wilson spearheaded a class-action lawsuit against the DOC on behalf of a group of prisoners who were being denied treatment for hepatitis C, an infection that affected