The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and state procedures curb access to the courts in order to proscribe abuse of the writ and encourage finality. Thus, new evidence has a hard time escaping the gravity well of the trial record. Still, wrongful convictions, discredited forensics, and inaccuracy and unfairness in the administration of justice prove, to paraphrase Sir Thomas Gresham, bad information drives out good. And this is made manifest by the Information Divide.
In the Internet Age, information flows back and forth at optic speeds, until it reaches the last leg of the justice system. At that distant point on the horizon where the right to counsel runs out of road, pro se inmates are tasked to fill the role of lawyers, investigators and experts, without any of their information advantages.
