Watch: With little more than a typewriter, an Idaho man overturns the entire state’s policy on hepatitis C treatment in prison
BOISE, Idaho — When he took on the state department of corrections, Phil Turney didn’t have a computer, let alone internet access.
For two weeks, hunched around bankers boxes in the Idaho State Correctional Center’s multipurpose room, he toiled on his Smith Corona Wordsmith 200 typewriter, lifting legalese from a copy of the Prisoner’s Self-Help Litigation Manual and an earlier lawsuit in Minnesota. The former cab driver — serving an unusually harsh life sentence for the limited injuries and damage he caused driving into two parked police cars while intoxicated — enlisted friends on the outside to mail him piles of medical treatment guides and legal filings.
