Isaac Kimaru spent over a decade working inside Kenya’s Kamiti Maximum Security Prison while wearing a pinstripe suit, which lacked the opulence of custom clothing often worn by law school grads in international courts.
The petite paralegal received the distinctive black and white stripes of imprisonment, much like others he counsels.
Kimaru has only known life in jail for over ten years.
Kimaru, a teacher’s kid whose father passed away when he was 10 years old, said his parents were from modest backgrounds in Kenya. He claimed to have started spending time with “bad company” and stealing automobiles to support his “lavish lifestyle” when he was 25 years old and in his second year of law school. In the end, Kimaru was brought to justice by the Kenyan government and the transgressions. The year 2010 saw his arrest.
In December 2020, when 60 Minutes first covered Kimaru, he was already serving a 14-year jail sentence for his crimes.
Kimaru described entering jail to 60 Minutes as “shocked.” “I first fell into a state of sadness… At one time, I thought I was totally destroyed.”
Kimaru then ran into Alexander McLean.
The creator of Justice Defenders, an organisation that teaches convicts and their guards in Kenya and Uganda to become paralegals, is a soft-spoken 37-year-old British barrister. For Sunday’s instalment of 60 Minutes, reporter Anderson Cooper spoke with McLean.
Cooper told 60 Minutes Overtime, “Alexander McLean is sort of an incredible individual.” “At age 16, he began helping out at a neighbourhood hospice in Great Britain. By the age of 18, he was volunteering at an African hospice. He has made it his life’s work to help those who most people don’t really care about. A lot of people probably don’t think about prisoners in Africa very much compared to other groups of people.”
Justice Defenders has assisted prisoners through complex legal procedures in close to 50 jails in East Africa.
According to Miriam Washira, the country director of Justice Defenders in Kenya, “At the moment, we do not have a public defender’s office.” That implies that you should only seek legal counsel or representation if you can afford it.
Washira explained that the overcrowding in Kenyan prisons is caused by the fact that more than half of the inmates are awaiting trial and are unable to post cash bail, which typically amounts to about $10 in American dollars.
Many Kenyan prisoners face other difficulties in addition to poverty. English literacy is an additional. The indicted frequently cannot understand the charges against them because English is not the court system’s official language in Kenya.
Washira said, “There are interpreters who attempt to interpret, but, of course, there is breakdown of communication in most cases. “The majority of people won’t even know what their charge is,”
Prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, a small number of offenders who were accepted to enrol would attend in-person paralegal training classes led by Justice Defenders’ staff attorneys. The three-week crash course covered the fundamentals of criminal law and featured mock trials. The detainees were given access to offline computers and instruction on how to read court documents and submit appeals.
Visitation privileges in prisons were reduced when the coronavirus outbreak struck Kenya. Internet access in prisons, which had previously been prohibited, ended up saving a Kenyan judicial system that couldn’t afford to fall behind.
Justice Defenders moved immediately to assist with computer sourcing and internet setup for the jails it works in. The outcomes are astounding.
During the epidemic, the Kenyan digital justice programme held thousands of online court proceedings.
Washira said on 60 Minutes Overtime in 2020 that “the highest [security] institutions, for instance, Kamiti, claimed they had never seen so many cases settled like what they have seen during this period.”
The digital judicial system was not without its difficulties. In Kenya, internet connection might be erratic. Miriam Washira of Justice Defenders also said that it might be difficult for the prosecution to get witnesses to come in an online court.
Nevertheless, Washira said to 60 Minutes Overtime that more than two years after being forced into existence by COVID-19, Kenya’s digital justice system is still in use. She claims that its cost- and time-effectiveness is the reason it is still in demand.
After serving his time, Kimaru is currently employed by Justice Defenders. He intends to enrol at the Kenyan School of Law in the future in order to get admitted to the bar and work as a high court advocate.
In 2020, Kimaru said, “My major goal is to give back to society in all areas where we can endeavour to create equality and justice. “Where we can protect the rule of law.”