Before the Bench Behind Bars

An Indiana convict has become a top jailhouse lawyer

As a youngster, Richard Lee Owen II loved to curl up with the discarded lawbooks he obtained when his grandfather took him along on a visit to the county courthouse. By the time he was 13, however, Owen was on the wrong side of the law, serving time at an Indiana reform school for stealing from purses during a church choir rehearsal. That was the start of a life of crime, including a bank robbery and an attempted murder, that...