Ruling boosts inmates' rights to self-defense

[LostInTime]

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According to a court ruling issued yesterday, the 39-year-old DeCamp "identifies himself as a transsexual who has undergone breast implants, but has not completed the surgical process to change his physical gender."
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It was a rare court victory for an inmate acting as his own lawyer. DeCamp, who is 5-foot-4 and 130 pounds, is currently at Mid-State Correctional Facility in Burlington County serving a four-year prison term for aggravated assault. He will be eligible for parole in October 2007.

According to the ruling, DeCamp claimed another South Woods inmate, Walter Keresty, "had been sexually harassing him" for months. On Sept. 1, 2005, at about 8 p.m., DeCamp told a senior corrections officer that Keresty "slammed his head into the concrete wall, and then tried to jam his tongue down his throat."