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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,

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Speaker 2: my name is Noela.

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Speaker 3: They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our

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Speaker 3: super producer Paul Mission Control decad. Most importantly, you are you.

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Speaker 3: You are here and that makes this the stuff they

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Speaker 3: don't want you to know. Oh, it feels like this

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Speaker 3: has been a long time coming. This is a recording

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Speaker 3: of a live panel we did with some brilliant podcasters

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Speaker 3: from Lava for Good and UH do a lot of

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Speaker 3: research for this. One man dove into some incredibly important stuff.

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Speaker 3: Who do we have who do we have in the

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Speaker 3: crowd there today?

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Speaker 4: That's right, have some incredible podcast creators responsible for shows

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Speaker 4: like Bone Valley, The War on Drugs, and Wrongful Conviction.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: So this is like a huge panel of you guys

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Speaker 6: up there talking. I am the only one who is

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Speaker 6: not on the panel of this group guys, And that

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Speaker 6: was literally just so we could lessen the number of

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Speaker 6: human beings that are all talking. You guys just did

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Speaker 6: an awesome job with this. I couldn't be happier with

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Speaker 6: the conversation. It's so in depth. Again, it speaks to

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Speaker 6: the research that you guys did. I don't know, what

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Speaker 6: do you say, we just jump into it.

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Speaker 3: Before we get to it, incredibly special shout out. I mean,

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Speaker 3: Matt credit words. Do you did as much research like

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Speaker 3: dove into this whole thing? And then you also give

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Speaker 3: this beautiful introduction at the beginning and run the Q

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Speaker 3: and a at the end.

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Speaker 7: I was there.

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Speaker 5: Don't doubt that.

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Speaker 6: I'm just saying, you guys did a great job. But no,

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Speaker 6: for real, let's let's jump into this cause we're gonna

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Speaker 6: there's so many topics that are covered in this that

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Speaker 6: are highly important. And what I say in the beginning

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Speaker 6: here I really do mean. So let's get to it.

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Speaker 6: Hello everyone, thank you so much for joining us tonight

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Speaker 6: for this very very important conversation. It's presented by Lava

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Speaker 6: for Good and iHeart Podcasts. We are here in the

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Speaker 6: brand new iHeart Podcast Studios in Atlanta, Georgia to have

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Speaker 6: this conversation. This is a multi podcast live event. We're

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Speaker 6: gonna be speaking with some very important people and I

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Speaker 6: just can't wait for you to hear. It's a conversation

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Speaker 6: we're gonna have tonight about a decade's long war against

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Speaker 6: a concept, drugs, and it's about how that war, how

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Speaker 6: the attempts to win that war corrupted and completely broke

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Speaker 6: illegal system, and how that broken system affects the lives,

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Speaker 6: the livelihoods, and the futures of everyone who's made to

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Speaker 6: go through that system. So, without further ado, I'm just

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Speaker 6: gonna have our panelists come on out, join us on

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Speaker 6: stage and begin the conversation.

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Speaker 3: Hey, everyone, where are the guys from earlier? Thanks so

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Speaker 3: much for coming. We're very excited. This is a truly

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Speaker 3: unique collaboration with Lava for Good and iHeartMedia, and as

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Speaker 3: our pal Matt mentioned, Noel Brown and me Ben Bollen,

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Speaker 3: we host the show called Stuff They Don't Want You

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Speaker 3: To Know, and today we're bringing together like an endgame

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Speaker 3: Assembler's Avengers level assembly of some of the greatest minds

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Speaker 3: in the world of criminal justice reform and in the

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Speaker 3: world of the war on drugs, which affects every single

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Speaker 3: one of us, regardless of sir circumstance. So we've got

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Speaker 3: some great minds on stage here. Let's go ahead and

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Speaker 3: start by introducing our guest. First directly, here we have

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Speaker 3: Jason Flum. Jason, you are the creator and host of

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Speaker 3: Wrongful Convictions. Additionally, you are a prominent criminal justice reform advocate.

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Speaker 3: You are a founding board member of the Innocence Project,

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Speaker 3: and wrong Bulk Convictions dives deep into some harrowing accounts

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Speaker 3: of what happens when the justice system goes awry or

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Speaker 3: some would say works by design, right, And we just

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Speaker 3: want to thank you for joining us today.

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Speaker 5: Well, thank you for having me. It's an honor to

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Speaker 5: be here. I love being at iHeart such a great company,

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Speaker 5: great place, and really excited to share some of these

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Speaker 5: stories with your audience and get people better informed and

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Speaker 5: more I get them anger. Honestly, I want people to

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Speaker 5: get angry and get involved, and that's what we're here for.

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Speaker 5: And so, like I said, and being out on your

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Speaker 5: platform with your audience, it's it's really uh, it's really exciting.

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Speaker 7: Well.

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Speaker 4: Also here to help us a little bit with that

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Speaker 4: informed anger that I think we're all going to participate

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Speaker 4: in is Pulitzer Prize winning author Gilbert King.

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Speaker 2: In addition, if that weren't.

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Speaker 4: Enough, being a Pulitzer Prize winning author, He is also

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Speaker 4: the creator and the host of the Ambi Award, which

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Speaker 4: is the thing they give out for podcasts now the

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Speaker 4: Ambiy Award winning podcast Bone Valley. In addition to being

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Speaker 4: a prolific author and incredibly tenacious researcher, King's work on

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Speaker 4: his book Devil in the Grove actually led to the

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Speaker 4: exonerations of the wrongly accused men known as the Groveland Four.

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Speaker 4: The podcast Bone Valley brings that same level of investigative

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Speaker 4: rigor to the story of Leon Schofield.

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Speaker 2: So, Gilbert, thank you so much for my.

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Speaker 8: Pleasure to be here. I'm really looking forward to joining

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Speaker 8: us very promising and talented group.

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Speaker 3: Up here and rounding out our experts. Today we have

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Speaker 3: Clayton English and Greg glad Now you guys are the

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Speaker 3: co host and creators of the podcast called The War

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Speaker 3: on Drugs. War on Drugs. No, Clayton, A lot of

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Speaker 3: people in the audience doubtlessly recognize you today. You are

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Speaker 3: a prolific stand up comic, an actor, a writer, and

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Speaker 3: you in your material you deal pretty often with concepts

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Speaker 3: of the War on drugs and I think connect with

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Speaker 3: people in a way that is entertaining but also powerful

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Speaker 3: and educational. And so when you and Greg joined up.

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Speaker 3: But Greg, you're a huge criminal justice reform advocate. You

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Speaker 3: are in the trenches working to refocus the legal system

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Speaker 3: right to repurpose it as to We're going to talk

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Speaker 3: a lot about what that means. But we just want

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Speaker 3: to thank you guys for coming on the show today

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Speaker 3: as well.

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Speaker 7: Oh thanks, Manav. Yeah, appreciate it. That intro was too good.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, they pay.

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Speaker 2: Interesting, no stress, just be perfect.

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Speaker 9: Like how they didn't sit us next to each other too.

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Speaker 9: I think it's like when the two kids in the.

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Speaker 5: Class separate, you know. Yeah, no, it's better that way.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we just didn't have in the budget. But okay,

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Speaker 3: so let's let's get into it right because we have

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Speaker 3: a lot of stuff in our minds. It seems that

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Speaker 3: no matter where you come from, no matter who you are,

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Speaker 3: no matter what your personal feelings are, like, virtually everyone

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Speaker 3: can agree that the US justice system has some serious issues.

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Speaker 3: Like right now, as of January twenty twenty three, the

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Speaker 3: US incarceration rate is one of the highest in the world.

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Speaker 3: Right We're talking five hundred and five people incarcerated per

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Speaker 3: one hundred thousand, and one of the big questions a

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Speaker 3: lot of people have from the outside looking at without

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Speaker 3: your expertise, is how who did the US find itself

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Speaker 3: in this situation? And Jason is somebody you talked about

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Speaker 3: quite a bit on wrongful conviction. Let's start with you.

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Speaker 3: What's your take here.

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Speaker 5: Well, we are the most incarcerated nation in the history

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Speaker 5: of the world, and we lock our own citizens up

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Speaker 5: at five times the rate of Western Europe, fourteen times

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Speaker 5: the rate of Japan. We lock our black residents of America,

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Speaker 5: black citizens of America up at a rate that is

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Speaker 5: higher per capita in South Africa during apartheid. So just

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Speaker 5: sit on that for a second. Right, We have not

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Speaker 5: too many statistics, I promise because this is not a

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Speaker 5: college course, but we have twenty five percent of the

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Speaker 5: world's prison population while we only have four point four

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Speaker 5: percent of the overall population of the world. So that's crazy.

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Speaker 5: But we also have thirty three percent of the world's

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Speaker 5: female prisoners are in cells right now while we're sitting here.

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Speaker 5: They're sitting in steel and concrete cages in the United States.

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Speaker 5: So one out of every three women in the world

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Speaker 5: in prison right now is in America. And America is

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Speaker 5: not that big of a country. When you think about it, right,

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Speaker 5: It's like I said, we're only like between four and

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Speaker 5: five percent of the world's population, so it's it has

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Speaker 5: a lot to do with the War on drugs, mandatory sentencing.

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Speaker 5: I mean, we're going to get into it, but it's

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Speaker 5: it's got to change. It doesn't make us safer, it

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Speaker 5: actually makes us less safe. It's a failure across the board.

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Speaker 5: It's a human rights disaster, and for some reason, we

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Speaker 5: feel inured to this idea that we're just going to

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Speaker 5: treat our own people in such a barbaric way. But

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Speaker 5: it's happening right now and it's we got to bring

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Speaker 5: it out into the light. So that's what we're here for.

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Speaker 3: Do you feel just a follow up here for the group,

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Speaker 3: do you guys feel that this has been normalized in

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Speaker 3: US society? I mean those statistics are pretty shocking when you.

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Speaker 10: Hear them, just like, yeah, it's definitely like everybody. Most

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Speaker 10: people think that if you in jail, you're supposed to

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Speaker 10: be there. Like we even talking about how people look

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Speaker 10: at court shows now, like uh, the CSI's and the

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Speaker 10: law and orders. They think anybody that's in that box

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Speaker 10: getting questioned is guilty. So I think a lot of

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Speaker 10: things are just people don't care to realize if it's

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Speaker 10: not affecting you, if you don't have anybody close to you,

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Speaker 10: that it's going through these things, and you think, okay, well,

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Speaker 10: and then we vilify people on the news and the

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Speaker 10: media makes things seem like, Okay, this is what's going on,

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Speaker 10: this is why it is this way. People just accept it.

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Speaker 10: But when you really look at it and then we

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Speaker 10: see it now things are starting to hit home for people,

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Speaker 10: and you know, the suburb things that you would just

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Speaker 10: look at, oh, well that only happens in the inner city,

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Speaker 10: that only happens in urban areas.

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Speaker 7: Now it's reaching you.

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Speaker 10: And now you're like, oh, okay, well maybe people need rehab,

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Speaker 10: you know what I'm saying. Maybe it's not you know,

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Speaker 10: beat it out of 'em or put 'em in jail

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Speaker 10: or you know.

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Speaker 7: So yeah, that's just kind.

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Speaker 4: Of I think you got on something really interesting talking

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Speaker 4: about the cop shows and like the normalization.

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Speaker 2: You know who loves those cop shows?

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Speaker 4: The cops because it's sort of this like fantasy world

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Speaker 4: of like how the system operates, like in its best

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Speaker 4: light that could possibly.

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Speaker 2: Be and I've heard it called compaganda.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, if there was a piece on it that I

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Speaker 4: think we talked about on the podcast not too long ago.

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Speaker 4: But to that point about perception, you know on Soto

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Speaker 4: that I want you to know, we hear from a

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Speaker 4: lot of listeners who have various opinions on, you know,

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Speaker 4: the brokenness of the legal justice system, but they're all

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Speaker 4: coming from kind of anecdotal places, places of like, you know,

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Speaker 4: observations based on someone they know or a story they've heard,

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Speaker 4: and you don't always get it right when you're just

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Speaker 4: looking at it from one side, and you know, you

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Speaker 4: might have a piece of the puzzle, but you're not

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Speaker 4: going to see the kind of holistic view of it. Greg,

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Speaker 4: can you talk a little bit about, you know, what

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Speaker 4: the average person needs to understand about the large some

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Speaker 4: of the large and that's a very big question, but

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Speaker 4: some of the large races at play here that maybe

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Speaker 4: you're not going to get from just having a kind

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Speaker 4: of anecdotal or experiential you know, opinion on the brokenness

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Speaker 4: of the legal system.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 9: I think one of the things that we need to

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Speaker 9: know is that the criminal justice system is one of

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Speaker 9: the is where the more they fail, the bigger they

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Speaker 9: get to be. And they're actually used their failures to

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Speaker 9: justify expanding So you know, I see like what happened,

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Speaker 9: you know, after COVID, We saw, you know, significant rise

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Speaker 9: of violent crime. We saw you know, overdosees skyrocket into

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Speaker 9: you know, the hundreds of thousands in the United States,

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Speaker 9: and now lawmakers are utilizing those numbers and their failures

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Speaker 9: to actually solve these problems over generations to justify passing

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Speaker 9: even tougher laws.

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Speaker 5: They were going to exacerbate this.

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Speaker 9: So overdoses increase, Let's make penalties stronger, Let's do mandatory

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Speaker 9: minimums for that violent crime is going up, Let's increase

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Speaker 9: the penalties. It's like the penalties are already high. Guys like,

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Speaker 9: this is not working. And so you actually see a

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Speaker 9: system that the more it fails, the more they're able

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Speaker 9: to justify those failings with getting bigger. And I think

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Speaker 9: that's something that we need to kind of like step

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Speaker 9: back and look at and go, guys, we've been doing

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Speaker 9: this for how long on this drug war and drugs

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Speaker 9: are getting stronger, they're getting cheaper, they're more prevalent, more

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Speaker 9: people are dying. What metric are you describing that says

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Speaker 9: success right now? But it's up to us. We need

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Speaker 9: to vote, we need to talk, we need to get

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Speaker 9: our voices out there as much as possible. And so, yeah,

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Speaker 9: I think that's kind of an area that we need

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Speaker 9: to start talking about, like what are you succeeding at?

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Speaker 5: And it really is nothing.

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Speaker 4: Gilbert, and your investigations are anything that you'd like to

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Speaker 4: add to just sort of the holistic view of what

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Speaker 4: might be wrong and why people can understand that better.

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Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I think we're all sitting up here

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Speaker 8: because of false narratives. False narratives have carried the day,

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Speaker 8: whether it's war on drugs or whether it's these criminal

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Speaker 8: justice cases, wrongful convictions. You know, I'll give you an example.

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Speaker 8: I don't get into statistics, but in Florida, since the

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Speaker 8: Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty, I think one hundred

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Speaker 8: people have been executed in the state of Florida. In

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Speaker 8: that same time period, thirty one people sentenced to death

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Speaker 8: row convicted sentence to death row have been fully exonerated

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Speaker 8: by DNA. That means the wrong person was sentenced to death. Now,

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Speaker 8: these are death penalty cases where you have a lot

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Speaker 8: of eyes on these cases. These aren't just run of

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Speaker 8: the mill felonies. Somewhere. This is one where the appellate

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Speaker 8: process and the lawyering that happens around these cases is

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Speaker 8: pretty extensive, and yet we're still getting it wrong that often.

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Speaker 8: That tells you there's a serious problem.

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Speaker 3: Let's Gil, let's stay with you here for a second,

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Speaker 3: because as we said earlier, your work has done something powerful.

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Speaker 3: It's led to exonerations, and it's due to the efforts

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Speaker 3: and time you put in as a civilian, you know,

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Speaker 3: not working in law enforcement yourself. What are some of

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Speaker 3: your first hand observations. And this is very timely right

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Speaker 3: now because the subject of Bone Valley is up for

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Speaker 3: parole in just a few days, correct.

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Speaker 8: Right, big parole hearing. This will be his fourth parole hearing.

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Speaker 8: You know, this is the thing. He's served thirty five

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Speaker 8: years in prison already on a twenty five to life

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Speaker 8: sentence model inmate. But the reason that he's still being

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Speaker 8: denied parole is because he refuses to admit and express

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Speaker 8: remorse for a crime.

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Speaker 5: That he didn't commit.

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Speaker 8: So that's being held against him. And he's been standing

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Speaker 8: on a claim of innocence ever since he was arrested,

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Speaker 8: and that's being used against him every step of the way.

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Speaker 8: He was. This is I'm talking about a man named

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Speaker 8: Leo Schofield who, after he was arrested, didn't look like

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Speaker 8: there was much of a case. The prosecutor came and

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Speaker 8: offered him second degree murder, which in Florida at the time,

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Speaker 8: it would have been a twelve to seventeen year sentence.

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Speaker 8: He would have probably served of those of that time

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Speaker 8: three and a half years if he would admit.

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Speaker 7: It to it.

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Speaker 8: Instead, he just chose to face the death penalty because

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Speaker 8: he was innocent and he was not going to take

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Speaker 8: this plea because he felt it would dishonor his wife

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Speaker 8: he was accused of killing, and so he did not

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Speaker 8: take that plea and he's been in prison for thirty

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Speaker 8: five years, and so this claim of innocence has been

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Speaker 8: hurting his case. That shouldn't be the case.

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Speaker 4: No under present Clayton, in your work, you know, you

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Speaker 4: kind of a universality or sort of a shared experience

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Speaker 4: in your audience, and when you explore the war on

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Speaker 4: drugs in particular, what kind of prompted you to explore

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Speaker 4: that topic and explore that universality and the idea of

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Speaker 4: the war on drugs quote unquote sort of affecting more

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Speaker 4: than just the people who are being targeted or the

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Speaker 4: people who are getting convicted. It's really a cultural kind

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Speaker 4: of phenomenon, and it's changed sort of attitudes, you know, in.

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Speaker 10: This country, because I was getting harassed and I go

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Speaker 10: to jail, and then I did comedy, and the only

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Speaker 10: way to kind of deal with it was to talk

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Speaker 10: about it. And I would just look at the hypocrisy

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Speaker 10: of what happens sometimes, and I would bring up situations

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Speaker 10: and just really realize, it's not about these drugs that

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Speaker 10: are available. It's about It's not a war on drugs

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Speaker 10: as war on people. The people are the ones getting

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Speaker 10: crushed by the families getting messed up. If you go

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Speaker 10: to jail like i'm and now that I'm able to

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Speaker 10: talk to police and hear what they actually say, they

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Speaker 10: they have a saying you you might beat the rat,

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Speaker 10: but you're not gonna beat the ride, which is okay, cool.

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Speaker 10: It might not go on your jail, but this night

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Speaker 10: is over for you, right, probably gonna mess up you

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Speaker 10: trying to go to work tomorrow, probably gonna lead to

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Speaker 10: you getting fired. Now you can't pay b So it's

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Speaker 10: a a effect of you're saying you're trying to get

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Speaker 10: drugs off the street, But if you didn't get 'em

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Speaker 10: in a shipment that was in the tons, what is

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Speaker 10: it doing when you got twenty dollars worth of weed

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Speaker 10: from this person on the street or just things like that.

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Speaker 10: And I've s and like, you know, I mean, I'm

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Speaker 10: I joke about stuff, but it was things I was

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Speaker 10: actually doing. Like I'll be like, I'm not going to

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Speaker 10: jail for weed. I don't keep more than I can

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Speaker 10: eat on me. Yeah, I see the police like I'm

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Speaker 10: eating a whole bloot sometimes and it's not even the police,

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Speaker 10: it's a taxi. So you know what I'm saying, Like now,

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Speaker 10: I don't know when i'm'na be high, but that was

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Speaker 10: like that, that was like situations that actually happened. And

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Speaker 10: then like I just take it to the stage because

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Speaker 10: it it. I know that it's gonna connect with people,

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Speaker 10: because if you smoke with you've been in that situation

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Speaker 10: where you were high and you get pulled over and

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Speaker 10: you're not high anymore.

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Speaker 4: It's like such a low barrier of entry to getting

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Speaker 4: you into the system, you know, and like then you're

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Speaker 4: in the system, whether you did something egregious or something laughably,

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Speaker 4: you know, Minor, you're in it, and then you have

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Speaker 4: to pay your way out of it, and maybe you

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Speaker 4: can't afford to pay your way out of it, and

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Speaker 4: maybe then it's sort of bankrupting you and causing.

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Speaker 2: Problems with your family and leading to you additional problems.

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Speaker 3: But yeah, that's like, that's a question that I think

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Speaker 3: needs to occur more often for a lot of people.

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Speaker 3: It's there is a victimization of people who are already

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Speaker 3: disadvantaged and then demands placed upon them that would typically

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Speaker 3: depend on privilege, right, Like who gets arrested for twenty

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Speaker 3: dollars worth of weed and then instantly has a lawyer?

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Speaker 7: Right?

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Speaker 3: Not a lot of people. And this leads to something interesting.

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Speaker 3: This one is for Greg. We'll start with you and

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Speaker 3: we'll go to the group. You mentioned something that I

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Speaker 3: know you guys talk about a lot of more on drugs,

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Speaker 3: which is the perception of the uptick.

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Speaker 8: And violent crime.

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Speaker 3: Right, And we hear this cyclically, like throughout the years

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Speaker 3: that there's an uptick and violent crime. Something must be done.

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Speaker 3: We all agree there's a problem, no one agrees how

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Speaker 3: to fix it. And you guys, Clayton, Greg, you guys

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Speaker 3: have talked a lot about what solutions are and Jason,

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Speaker 3: you've done this as well, like ineffective versus effective solutions.

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Speaker 3: What does that mean to someone on the outside. How

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Speaker 3: do you How does that play out in the real world.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, our response always is that sledgehammer on

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Speaker 9: the back end that we want to increase penalties and

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Speaker 9: we want to you know, really show you know, get

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Speaker 9: that pound of flesh. And that's what gets your electorate happy.

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Speaker 9: That's why people want to move that.

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Speaker 3: It's like the stance of typical legislators.

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Speaker 9: Yeah, okay, yeah, and so yeah, so you want to

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Speaker 9: pass all these different laws and exacerbate these and you

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Speaker 9: want to put police in these situations where they have

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Speaker 9: to you know, arrest people and really get the arrest

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Speaker 9: numbers up on drug crimes.

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Speaker 5: I know, like I grew.

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Speaker 9: I lived in Baltimore for a while and it was

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Speaker 9: during kind of the o'maley times.

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Speaker 5: That was a big thing.

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Speaker 9: Let's increase the arrests. That's going to show that we're

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Speaker 9: really tough on it. Then you start thinking about it,

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Speaker 9: and so you know, you're saying, wow, we don't have

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Speaker 9: enough police.

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Speaker 5: Okay, so now you're.

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Speaker 9: Wasting a bunch of time utilizing your police department to

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Speaker 9: you know, essentially harass a bunch of people, like in

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Speaker 9: the inner city, to just get arrests on there. So

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Speaker 9: that's taking a cop off the street. Now, that's putting

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Speaker 9: that person in a worst position. And then they start

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Speaker 9: becoming these habitual offenders because they have a bunch of

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Speaker 9: drug arrests and things like that.

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Speaker 5: And so that's the issue.

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Speaker 9: So we always go on this back end or pound

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Speaker 9: of flesh aspects instead of actually looking at what the

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Speaker 9: root causes are. And when you have something like COVID happen,

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Speaker 9: or in two thousand and eight when the housing crisis happened,

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Speaker 9: we saw both those situations where crime went up and

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Speaker 9: also drug use rose significantly. It kind of really shows

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Speaker 9: the rot of the foundation of our criminal justice system.

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Speaker 9: How little we've invested in these other things like the

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Speaker 9: front end community service seeing programs or addiction treatment especially.

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Speaker 9: We have such a lack of knowledge societally and from

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Speaker 9: a government standpoint about what addiction is and how to

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Speaker 9: actually solve it. We addiction is so much about your

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Speaker 9: social situation that things going around you and losing those

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Speaker 9: connections and trying to find that kind of fill something

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Speaker 9: with that whole and so then we throw people into

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Speaker 9: a steel cage and tell them to get better. What

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Speaker 9: do you think is going to happen to these people?

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Speaker 9: And so this is what we continually do. And so this.

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Speaker 5: Lack of front ends I think treatment.

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Speaker 9: Removing this from the criminal justice system, putting it as

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Speaker 9: a healthcare issue, those are things that actually solve it.

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Speaker 9: You know, it's kind of it's maddening when you know,

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Speaker 9: we would talk to someone Johann Hari. We talked on

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Speaker 9: the podcast as great authors talk about what they've done

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Speaker 9: in Switzerland and these amazing things and how crime and

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Speaker 9: violent crime went down, because you know, a lot of

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Speaker 9: crime is really drug related, from like the fundraising mechanisms

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Speaker 9: to try to get a two hundred dollars heroin ADTT.

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Speaker 9: We don't have a job. All the things that come

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Speaker 9: from that and all like kind of the turf wars

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Speaker 9: and things like that that happen. And we talk about

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Speaker 9: crime and crime and violent crime and there's ways of

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Speaker 9: solve it, and it's just not politically popular, so we don't care.

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Speaker 5: And so it's a little little nervy. Yeah, I'll pause

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Speaker 5: there and yeah, sure something like that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and we're going to pause right here for a

437
00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:15,320
Speaker 3: word from our sponsors before we return with more from

438
00:22:15,359 --> 00:22:26,520
Speaker 3: this just cavalcade of subject matter experts, and we've returned.

439
00:22:27,640 --> 00:22:31,360
Speaker 3: We know that nothing occurs in a vacuum. And one

440
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:33,639
Speaker 3: of the things that Noel and Matt and I have

441
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:39,560
Speaker 3: explored in our years on our show is the systemic issues,

442
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:42,520
Speaker 3: the problem of the connective tissue and identifying that. And

443
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:45,480
Speaker 3: that's one of the things that we wanted to ask

444
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:52,720
Speaker 3: you guys about. What is the connective tissue between war

445
00:22:52,760 --> 00:22:56,440
Speaker 3: on drugs and wrongful conviction? How does the situation in

446
00:22:56,520 --> 00:23:01,480
Speaker 3: one exacerbate, feed or create a feedback loop into the other,

447
00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:05,800
Speaker 3: because it sure seems like a change in one reflects

448
00:23:05,840 --> 00:23:06,879
Speaker 3: a change in the second.

449
00:23:07,920 --> 00:23:11,080
Speaker 10: I'll give it to Grid after this, cause he he

450
00:23:11,160 --> 00:23:13,439
Speaker 10: knows all the details and stuff. But for me just

451
00:23:13,480 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 10: to see, like our Edwin Ruber's episode, we saw somebody

452
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:20,880
Speaker 10: that was in jail for drugs that did not get

453
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:24,680
Speaker 10: caught with drugs. And I think most people don't think that,

454
00:23:24,760 --> 00:23:28,760
Speaker 10: they don't realize that there's people in jail for kilos

455
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:31,159
Speaker 10: of cocaine that they never had, never got caught in

456
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:34,399
Speaker 10: their possession, never had video footage of, never been seen

457
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 10: with it because somebody in whatever organization they in entered

458
00:23:39,640 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 10: into a deal with the with the Feds, and they

459
00:23:42,880 --> 00:23:44,680
Speaker 10: take this person's word.

460
00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:45,640
Speaker 7: For whatever they say.

461
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:48,720
Speaker 10: So it's essentially somebody higher up that knows how the

462
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:52,400
Speaker 10: system works using somebody as a pawn. And this guy

463
00:23:52,400 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 10: didn't have a gun, he got a gun charge right

464
00:23:54,920 --> 00:23:58,159
Speaker 10: because they said that he did, didn't have any drugs

465
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 10: in his house. He got charged with trafficking when it was.

466
00:24:02,800 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 2: There's no checks and balances on stuff like that. How

467
00:24:05,560 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 2: does that happen?

468
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:07,480
Speaker 7: Well, they take go ahead.

469
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 9: Yeah, So, I mean all these laws that we passed

470
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:15,080
Speaker 9: that are for the guys of public safety, mandatory minimums,

471
00:24:15,080 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 9: conspiracy charges, truth and sentencing, all these things, they're all

472
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 9: to make the system move faster and quicker and more efficient.

473
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:26,280
Speaker 9: And it all gets back to terrible incentives that we

474
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:29,560
Speaker 9: have because the more convictions that prosecutors.

475
00:24:28,840 --> 00:24:30,639
Speaker 5: Get, that's the way that they rise up.

476
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 9: The more arrests that cops are able to get and

477
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:35,000
Speaker 9: get those convictions on there, that's how you rise up

478
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:35,159
Speaker 9: on this.

479
00:24:35,200 --> 00:24:36,400
Speaker 5: Everyone wants to be a good soldier.

480
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:38,679
Speaker 9: Grants from the federal government, a lot of them are

481
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 9: based upon the amount of arrests that you're getting, the

482
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:42,480
Speaker 9: amount of drugs that you're coming in through there, and

483
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:44,880
Speaker 9: so it's all these horrible ascents are under the guys

484
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:47,440
Speaker 9: of public safety. So conspiracy charges are absolutely terrible. We

485
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:51,520
Speaker 9: call it ghost ope. So Edwin Rubis was literally charged

486
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:54,960
Speaker 9: with thirty nine hundred kilos that were never discovered. A

487
00:24:55,040 --> 00:24:57,120
Speaker 9: guy higher than him and that more money was able

488
00:24:57,160 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 9: to say that guy had it on him, and then

489
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:01,320
Speaker 9: he's able to get it because there needs to be

490
00:25:01,440 --> 00:25:01,919
Speaker 9: a body.

491
00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 5: Because you charge this much, you.

492
00:25:03,800 --> 00:25:06,439
Speaker 9: Arrested someone doesn't really matter who goes down for this

493
00:25:06,640 --> 00:25:08,840
Speaker 9: like someone needs to because I need a conviction that

494
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:09,760
Speaker 9: we just move forward.

495
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:10,800
Speaker 5: That's what happens all the time.

496
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:12,560
Speaker 9: That's where I see kind of that connection between what

497
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 9: you do and you know you talked about it earlier.

498
00:25:14,800 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 9: We're talking about death penany cases where there are multiple procedures,

499
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:21,400
Speaker 9: tons of attorneys, all these evidence, all these definitely rules

500
00:25:21,400 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 9: of procedure, and they screwed up how often with these

501
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:26,919
Speaker 9: let alone, you're run of the mill drug case or this,

502
00:25:27,080 --> 00:25:31,080
Speaker 9: and so it's this massive every court system and every

503
00:25:31,160 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 9: you ever sit in the court, it's all trioge.

504
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:34,440
Speaker 5: They're just triosgh and there's.

505
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:36,440
Speaker 9: A public defender that just met you three minutes ago,

506
00:25:36,760 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 9: looking through your case file and wants you just to

507
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:40,200
Speaker 9: plee out because he wants to get through this case

508
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 9: because he has four hundred a year. There's a prosecutor

509
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:44,280
Speaker 9: that's being overworked and has like two hundred and fifty

510
00:25:44,320 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 9: cases a year and he wants us to move through.

511
00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:47,600
Speaker 5: There's a judge that wants.

512
00:25:47,440 --> 00:25:49,439
Speaker 9: To get back and have cocktails at the you know,

513
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 9: the whatever club with his buddies or on going to

514
00:25:51,840 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 9: his golf git. They need to move these through. No

515
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,160
Speaker 9: one wants you to actually go to trial. And when

516
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:57,919
Speaker 9: you do, man, are they going to come at you.

517
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,640
Speaker 9: Edwin went to trial. Edwin said, I didn't do anything

518
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,040
Speaker 9: that they're telling me. There's no physical evidence. But when

519
00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 9: everyone's out of prison and you're going to be in

520
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 9: there until at least twenty thirty three, this is how

521
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 9: it goes. They punish you for exercising your right so

522
00:26:09,840 --> 00:26:12,480
Speaker 9: everything actually works as planned. And this is where you

523
00:26:12,480 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 9: get those claudoral consequences of wrongful convictions where people are

524
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 9: actually innocent or you just get hammered with it, even

525
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:20,080
Speaker 9: if you've done something wrong by the letter of the

526
00:26:20,119 --> 00:26:22,080
Speaker 9: law and so it works exactly how it's supposed to.

527
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 9: And the war on drugs is really exacerbate all this

528
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:27,480
Speaker 9: because of the massive amount of people that are just

529
00:26:27,520 --> 00:26:29,080
Speaker 9: filing through our criminal justice system.

530
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:32,000
Speaker 5: And I think one more point on the police and

531
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:34,040
Speaker 5: the war on drugs and how that all plays out.

532
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:36,639
Speaker 5: It's important for people to recognize that in the past

533
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 5: forty years, Ish police have arrested they've made more pot

534
00:26:41,160 --> 00:26:44,320
Speaker 5: arrest They've arrested more people for pot than all violent

535
00:26:44,400 --> 00:26:47,479
Speaker 5: crimes combined. So when we think about it, and this

536
00:26:47,560 --> 00:26:51,400
Speaker 5: goes back to your question and how these two worlds collide, right,

537
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 5: Wrongful convictions happen as frequently as they do, and they

538
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 5: happen a lot. If you don't think it can happen

539
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:00,439
Speaker 5: to you, it can definitely happen to you. The fact

540
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 5: is that because the system has created this churn, right

541
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:06,560
Speaker 5: eleven million people going in and out of jail in

542
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:08,760
Speaker 5: America every year, and because it's some of the things

543
00:27:08,800 --> 00:27:12,399
Speaker 5: that Greg just highlighted, you have a system that doesn't

544
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:14,960
Speaker 5: have time to worry about whether you actually did the

545
00:27:15,000 --> 00:27:18,360
Speaker 5: crime or not. They have a saying in police and prosecutors' offices,

546
00:27:18,640 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 5: a body for a body. Right, this is just on

547
00:27:20,640 --> 00:27:23,160
Speaker 5: murder cases. Right, But there's a body, there's a dead body.

548
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:24,919
Speaker 5: They got to get it cleaned up. Especially if it's

549
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:29,120
Speaker 5: a smaller town, high profile case. You know, they got

550
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:30,760
Speaker 5: to clean it up. There's a lot of pressure. They

551
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:32,959
Speaker 5: got somebody, it doesn't matter. And then they get this

552
00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:36,960
Speaker 5: tunnel vision. They start ignoring obvious signs that it wasn't

553
00:27:37,040 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 5: the person that they're targeting, and they, for reasons conscious

554
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:44,479
Speaker 5: and subconscious, they shut all that out and they just

555
00:27:44,600 --> 00:27:47,439
Speaker 5: laser focus on the person who they've got in their sights,

556
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,560
Speaker 5: and that person goes down for the crime. They're probably poor,

557
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:54,639
Speaker 5: they're probably underrepresented, they're probably, as you said, represented by it.

558
00:27:54,880 --> 00:27:57,360
Speaker 5: You know, in New Orleans public defenders are representing four

559
00:27:57,440 --> 00:27:59,440
Speaker 5: hundred people for in cases a year.

560
00:27:59,680 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 7: Right.

561
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:01,560
Speaker 5: The courts are closed on the weekends. I mean I'm

562
00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 5: not a mathematician. That sounds like at least one and

563
00:28:03,480 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 5: a half a day, right. So you know a guy

564
00:28:06,040 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 5: comes in and goes, oh, yeah, what are you charged

565
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:10,000
Speaker 5: with the game? What was your name? Oh no, that's

566
00:28:10,040 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 5: the other guy. Damn. Oh oh my phone's ringing. You know,

567
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,359
Speaker 5: it's like and you're going uh, and they go I

568
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:18,120
Speaker 5: think you should plead guilty. You don't have been willing

569
00:28:18,119 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 5: to offer you two years, but if you go to trial,

570
00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 5: he might hit you with We got a case my

571
00:28:22,119 --> 00:28:24,720
Speaker 5: guy you actually call me, named Siah Johnson in Virginia.

572
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:26,760
Speaker 5: He was innocent and he was offered a plea of

573
00:28:26,800 --> 00:28:29,919
Speaker 5: three years, turned it down, got one hundred and thirty

574
00:28:29,960 --> 00:28:32,919
Speaker 5: seven years in prison. How can we say you're so

575
00:28:33,160 --> 00:28:35,680
Speaker 5: dangerous that you have to be in prison for two lifetimes,

576
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,680
Speaker 5: but also you're not that dangerous because three years is cool,

577
00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:41,520
Speaker 5: just like they did with Leo. Right, you're so dangerous,

578
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 5: we're gonna send you to death. When I said, well,

579
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 5: I actually got life right. But the fact is we're

580
00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 5: gonna threaten you with death. The life which was just

581
00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 5: a stroke of luck. Ex Yeah, living death right, which

582
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:57,120
Speaker 5: sends you to living death, and it doesn't doesn't serve

583
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 5: us as a society in any way. Not to mention

584
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 5: the expense, you know, David Kim, who's right here, pointed

585
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 5: out to me that the New York City controller we

586
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:08,040
Speaker 5: got I'm going back to your city because where I'm from,

587
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 5: But in New York City it costs five hundred and

588
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,280
Speaker 5: sixty five thousand dollars a year to keep somebody in

589
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 5: Riker's Island. At the same time, you can put them

590
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 5: in the Ritz Carlton in a suite. You can send

591
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:22,320
Speaker 5: them with room service. Yeah yeah, Harvard to throw that

592
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:26,040
Speaker 5: in too, right into my house. That's what I'm saying, dude,

593
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:30,560
Speaker 5: what did you do? I've stayed there tonight. And at

594
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 5: the same time, you have you have organizations like Avenues

595
00:29:33,480 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 5: for Justice that can take a kid who's experiencing their

596
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:39,280
Speaker 5: first serious interaction with the criminal legal system and take

597
00:29:39,280 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 5: that kid and provide a holistic solution, and they are

598
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 5: able to sometimes talk with prosecutors and judges and get

599
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 5: them to turn the kid back over to them. They

600
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 5: spent I've spent two or three years working with that kid,

601
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,120
Speaker 5: and the kids, ninety one percent of them, never have

602
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:54,760
Speaker 5: another interaction with the criminal justice system. They end up

603
00:29:54,800 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 5: going to college instead of prison. So you know, we

604
00:29:58,480 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 5: know what works, but I don't you know why we

605
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,400
Speaker 5: resist it so mightily. And if we were able to

606
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 5: reduce the mass incarceration problem, then there would be time

607
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 5: for people to actually have some of their rights and

608
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:12,800
Speaker 5: to actually we got to go back to those standards.

609
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:14,440
Speaker 5: And I talk about this on the show on ron

610
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 5: fulk bigshe all the time We've got to go back

611
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:19,600
Speaker 5: to because they're just words now, innocent until proven guilty.

612
00:30:19,680 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 5: Everybody knows that right, everybody knows beyond a reasonable doubt.

613
00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 5: But it's out the window when you're just something to

614
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 5: be processed. You're not a human being after you arrested.

615
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:33,600
Speaker 5: You're just somebody who needs to be processed into prison

616
00:30:33,960 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 5: as quickly as possible so they can get to the

617
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 5: next one. And it's not I mean, that sounds it

618
00:30:40,480 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 5: sounds pretty dead wrong to me, and it is.

619
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 9: And if I can just and that's where the kind

620
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 9: of the drug war gets on it.

621
00:30:46,960 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 5: It really is a war.

622
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 9: We looked so much into kind of the propaganda, and

623
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:51,959
Speaker 9: I know we all grew up in the times of

624
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 9: like Dare and all these CBS news reports, and they

625
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 9: made it look like they were like, you know, the

626
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:00,200
Speaker 9: villain from a war that you are fighting. And then

627
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:03,640
Speaker 9: you villainize people and you make them subhuman. You're able

628
00:31:03,680 --> 00:31:06,800
Speaker 9: to do things to them like deprive them on constitutional right,

629
00:31:06,880 --> 00:31:08,880
Speaker 9: send them to prison for a long time because they

630
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 9: deserve it, because they are an enemy. And so you're

631
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 9: able to do all these things because of this propaganda,

632
00:31:15,600 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 9: like you said, to make them just less of a

633
00:31:17,160 --> 00:31:18,080
Speaker 9: person real much.

634
00:31:18,160 --> 00:31:19,000
Speaker 7: And you say it too.

635
00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 10: You always say, if it's a war, then you gotta

636
00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 10: have casualty. Yes, So what do you think the casualty

637
00:31:24,720 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 10: is gonna be? Yeah, and you mentioned it too. It

638
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:29,440
Speaker 10: mostly affects like poor people. And I have a thing

639
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 10: I say, it's it's expensive being broke, like super expensive.

640
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 10: Just like even when I was getting pulled over, it's

641
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:37,920
Speaker 10: because a lot of times it was because I had

642
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 10: a run down car, tag lights out. Oh you taped

643
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 10: up the tag light and it would just be a

644
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 10: re and I would see weed be the reason for

645
00:31:47,400 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 10: why they pulled me over. Oh we smelled marijuana? How

646
00:31:49,880 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 10: you smelled marijuana? I was going in the opposite direction

647
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,280
Speaker 10: you were going with both windows up. And I don't

648
00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 10: have any weed on me cause I ate it already.

649
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 10: How did you like?

650
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 4: So, you know, Jason, you're talking about some you know,

651
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 4: positive things that can possibly change this system.

652
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 2: But it sounds to me that these are generational things.

653
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 2: These aren't.

654
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 4: These are you know, things that have to be changed

655
00:32:11,280 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 4: through education, like of a whole other generation who will

656
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:16,960
Speaker 4: then maybe be in power and actually enact those changes,

657
00:32:17,280 --> 00:32:19,800
Speaker 4: Like can we look at a positive spin on this,

658
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:21,960
Speaker 4: Like we talk about criminal justice reform?

659
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 2: What does that look like to all of you?

660
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 4: And how is it as simple as just like legislation

661
00:32:26,880 --> 00:32:28,720
Speaker 4: or is it a longer game than that.

662
00:32:29,320 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 5: Well, we have to change people's hearts and minds first, right,

663
00:32:32,600 --> 00:32:37,160
Speaker 5: we have to change attitudes and perceptions. And you know, drugs,

664
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:40,040
Speaker 5: as we've talked about, are not the problem, right, Drugs

665
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:43,080
Speaker 5: you know, at the Drug Policy Aligns on whose board

666
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 5: I serve for over twenty years, we have a philosophy

667
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 5: called harm reduction, right, which basically says, first you have

668
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 5: to accept that drugs have always been and will always

669
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 5: be a part of society. Right, cavemen did peyote Little

670
00:32:54,040 --> 00:32:55,960
Speaker 5: kids spin around in a circle until they get dizzy

671
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:58,000
Speaker 5: because they like that feeling of being out of there,

672
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:00,840
Speaker 5: you know, like being a little goofy. Right, and you

673
00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:05,480
Speaker 5: do it too, right. I say, I was a little worried,

674
00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,560
Speaker 5: but I figured it'll be okay. But the you know,

675
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 5: but the fact is we need to to accept that

676
00:33:11,480 --> 00:33:14,200
Speaker 5: and then start to say, okay, what can we do

677
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 5: to reduce the amount of harms that drugs do to society?

678
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:19,120
Speaker 5: These guys made the great point of the War on

679
00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,000
Speaker 5: Drugs podcasts about how you can say one thing for

680
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:23,480
Speaker 5: the war, right, I think it was you, Clayton. We

681
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 5: gave it a good try, right, one hundred years, a

682
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:28,880
Speaker 5: trillion dollars, and it's worse that it's ever been. I'd say,

683
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:30,680
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm not a genius, but I'd say that's

684
00:33:30,680 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 5: a pretty great failure. And the fact is, so I

685
00:33:34,080 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 5: think we do have to elect better, you know people

686
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:42,240
Speaker 5: into office, right, who will you know, see these changes through?

687
00:33:42,440 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 5: And the good news is, you know, when I started this,

688
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:46,520
Speaker 5: we were talking about earlier, when I started this work thirty

689
00:33:46,560 --> 00:33:49,120
Speaker 5: years ago, and people are like, you're doing what like decriminalization,

690
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:52,080
Speaker 5: that's crazy mandatory sensing. What's that? I don't understand, blah

691
00:33:52,080 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 5: blah blah. But now but somebody put their arm around me,

692
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:56,840
Speaker 5: somebody who I thought was old and wise at the time,

693
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 5: turns out he was and said, hey, kid, takes thirty

694
00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 5: years to change anything. And I was like, well, here

695
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,200
Speaker 5: it is. I was ninety three. It's thirty years later,

696
00:34:05,280 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 5: and we you know, it used to be get cracked

697
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 5: in the head by a cop for smoking a joint

698
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 5: washing Square Park, and now you can buy it in

699
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 5: the park, like from people who have a little booth

700
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 5: set up right and they got like a little rainbow

701
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:20,200
Speaker 5: flag or whatever. You Yeah, things are good, you know

702
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 5: what I mean. And so and I also have to

703
00:34:22,160 --> 00:34:25,400
Speaker 5: say because Clayton made that point before, and growing up,

704
00:34:25,440 --> 00:34:29,160
Speaker 5: I mean, I smoked. I kind of thought of myself

705
00:34:29,160 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 5: as like the Jewish Bob Marley. I wanted to smoke

706
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:32,319
Speaker 5: as much weed as him, you know.

707
00:34:32,320 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 7: What I mean.

708
00:34:33,120 --> 00:34:36,160
Speaker 5: And I had hair down like down here and all

709
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 5: the way around. I couldn't even see unless I look

710
00:34:38,160 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 5: this way to see through the little slit in between

711
00:34:40,360 --> 00:34:41,240
Speaker 5: my hair right there.

712
00:34:41,120 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 7: That style.

713
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:45,319
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I always smelled of weed. And I because

714
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:47,000
Speaker 5: I started the morning, I mean half the time I

715
00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:49,279
Speaker 5: was on fire, you know what I mean. And yet

716
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 5: I never got arrested because I was white and I

717
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 5: lived in a zip code where they didn't arrest kids

718
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 5: like me for things like that. So that's one of

719
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 5: the things that informs my work is that I don't

720
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:04,239
Speaker 5: like on fairness and it's totally unfair. I don't think

721
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:06,960
Speaker 5: anybody likes on fairness when they see it, but when

722
00:35:07,000 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 5: it happens behind closed doors in police stations and prison

723
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:13,319
Speaker 5: cells and places like that we don't see it, and

724
00:35:13,360 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 5: we need to see it, and we need to see

725
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,760
Speaker 5: these people as just people. We're not perfect, You're not perfect.

726
00:35:19,480 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 5: But I also didn't need to go to jail. I

727
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:23,680
Speaker 5: went to rehab and I ended up starting a business

728
00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:26,240
Speaker 5: employing dozens of people, paying lots of taxes.

729
00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:32,400
Speaker 3: This we're talking right about huge changes, shifts and paradigms.

730
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:38,840
Speaker 3: Right see changes, and we hear statistics constantly, and we know.

731
00:35:39,239 --> 00:35:42,720
Speaker 3: I think the average person again will agree there's a problem,

732
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 3: will not agree on the solutions often, and then they'll

733
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,440
Speaker 3: have the kind of party line they'll say, like, oh, well,

734
00:35:49,800 --> 00:35:52,680
Speaker 3: what I should do is just I should vote right,

735
00:35:52,760 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 3: I should vote once every four years, I think, is

736
00:35:55,960 --> 00:35:59,839
Speaker 3: how most people do it in the States. But when

737
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 3: we talk about this, you know, Matt said something really

738
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:07,520
Speaker 3: beautiful earlier, when he beautiful and horrified when he said,

739
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 3: you know this, the war on drugs affects you. And

740
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 3: it's something I've heard all of us echo.

741
00:36:15,560 --> 00:36:15,759
Speaker 5: Right.

742
00:36:16,120 --> 00:36:19,440
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter if you do or don't smoke weed

743
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:22,879
Speaker 3: or whatever, it somehow will affect you.

744
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 7: Is the.

745
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:28,920
Speaker 3: Reverse of that true? Does that mean individuals can somehow

746
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 3: affect the situation for the better? Can you affect the

747
00:36:33,719 --> 00:36:37,880
Speaker 3: war on drugs? Can you affect wrongful conviction as a civilian,

748
00:36:38,000 --> 00:36:40,919
Speaker 3: as just a regular person like all of us?

749
00:36:41,160 --> 00:36:41,359
Speaker 7: Right?

750
00:36:41,640 --> 00:36:44,560
Speaker 10: I didn't think you could before I did this podcast,

751
00:36:44,760 --> 00:36:46,880
Speaker 10: really like, I just thought it was you know, it

752
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:48,960
Speaker 10: is what it is. You could say stuff and you

753
00:36:49,000 --> 00:36:52,360
Speaker 10: could post online all you want. But it took somebody

754
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 10: like Greg to be like, no, Like, if enough people

755
00:36:55,200 --> 00:36:58,799
Speaker 10: make enough noise on this issue, then you can get

756
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 10: the ball rolling on things. You said, what call your

757
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:02,960
Speaker 10: legislator three times?

758
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:03,520
Speaker 5: It does?

759
00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 7: People started getting it moving.

760
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 5: It really does.

761
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 9: Like if anyone's ever worked on the lallmaker's office, only

762
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 9: that you get a couple of calls on a bill,

763
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:13,080
Speaker 9: I mean things, it goes nuts in the in the viility.

764
00:37:13,080 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 9: They think people really care about it.

765
00:37:14,680 --> 00:37:18,279
Speaker 4: You'd be surprised to know how few people actually do that.

766
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:20,160
Speaker 2: So when it happens, it's kind of alarming.

767
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 7: It's probably my design to you know what I'm saying.

768
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:28,200
Speaker 2: What's the same with convoluted laws?

769
00:37:28,200 --> 00:37:29,759
Speaker 4: I mean, like you're just not being able to drill

770
00:37:29,800 --> 00:37:31,840
Speaker 4: down and fully understand. They make it that way, you know,

771
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 4: to disempower people. But can you talk about the Eric

772
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:35,560
Speaker 4: Andre situation?

773
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 2: A little bit that you're involved in.

774
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:39,359
Speaker 4: Like I mean, that's I think a good example of

775
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 4: like giving a megaphone to these types of injustices.

776
00:37:43,280 --> 00:37:48,319
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, So if you all don't know, I was,

777
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:51,759
Speaker 10: I have a lawsuit against Clayton County because I was

778
00:37:51,800 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 10: harassed at the airport. Just try to give it to you.

779
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:59,680
Speaker 10: Long story short. I was going, this is past security

780
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:01,680
Speaker 10: at the airport. I'm getting on the flight to go

781
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:04,880
Speaker 10: to California. I'm getting on the jet bridge. This is

782
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 10: the jet bridge kind of curves around. Two officers stop me.

783
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,239
Speaker 10: They don't stop anybody else. They asked me, can we

784
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:13,719
Speaker 10: search We're looking for people who have drugs and blah

785
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 10: blah blah blah. And I'm like just trying to get

786
00:38:16,120 --> 00:38:18,800
Speaker 10: on this flight. And in my head, I'm also thinking

787
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 10: who takes drugs to Los Angeles? Like I think you

788
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,080
Speaker 10: need to be on the other flight when they come,

789
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:28,680
Speaker 10: because like it wouldn't make it sense to me. But

790
00:38:28,760 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 10: that later made sense. But they just you know, doing

791
00:38:31,040 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 10: a lot of small talk and searching. And when I

792
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:35,439
Speaker 10: got on the plane, I was thinking, Okay, they're gonna

793
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:36,919
Speaker 10: come back on here and pull me off this plane.

794
00:38:36,960 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 10: They're just waiting for everybody else to get on the flight,

795
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:40,600
Speaker 10: and then they're gonna take me to jail. I don't

796
00:38:40,600 --> 00:38:42,400
Speaker 10: know what they're taking me to jail for. I didn't

797
00:38:42,400 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 10: have anything, but I just remember thinking that, and I

798
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:46,920
Speaker 10: wanted to say something to the steward this. I didn't

799
00:38:47,200 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 10: and I just kind of took it, took it on

800
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:52,239
Speaker 10: the gin. That's how most things happened with injustice or

801
00:38:52,239 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 10: getting harassed. You just kind of ride with it. And

802
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:57,279
Speaker 10: then the same thing happened to Eric Andre. He talked

803
00:38:57,280 --> 00:38:59,880
Speaker 10: about it on the Jimmy Kimmel Show. And I knew him,

804
00:38:59,880 --> 00:39:01,600
Speaker 10: I've worked with him a few times, so I just

805
00:39:01,640 --> 00:39:03,960
Speaker 10: reached out to him and I was like, hey, the

806
00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 10: same thing happened to me.

807
00:39:05,480 --> 00:39:07,000
Speaker 7: W and he was like, oh, okay.

808
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 10: And then he reached out a few weeks later and

809
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:11,880
Speaker 10: said that he was gonna try to pursue, like l

810
00:39:12,160 --> 00:39:14,600
Speaker 10: a lawsuit and if I wanted to be a part

811
00:39:14,680 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 10: of it. And we've had other people that have joined in.

812
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:19,840
Speaker 10: And one of the things that we found was I

813
00:39:19,880 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 10: think sixty seven percent of the people they stopped were

814
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 10: people were like black people, and I think eighty percent

815
00:39:26,680 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 10: were people of color. And they called it a drug

816
00:39:29,640 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 10: interdiction program, and they took they stopped. They got three

817
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 10: stops for drugs, ten grams a weed, a dude with

818
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:42,240
Speaker 10: some gummies, and somebody who had no uh prescription pills

819
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:43,120
Speaker 10: with no prescription.

820
00:39:44,000 --> 00:39:45,240
Speaker 7: And that was in eight months.

821
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:48,160
Speaker 10: But in that same eight months they confiscated a million

822
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 10: dollars from people getting on the plane. Of course, yeah, yeah,

823
00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:57,400
Speaker 10: uh civil ascid forfeiture, which I yeah and yeah. So

824
00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:00,879
Speaker 10: basically they were taking money from people who didn't really

825
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:02,920
Speaker 10: And it's a shape now because if I would have

826
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 10: had money on me, they would have said, where'd you

827
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:05,080
Speaker 10: get this money from?

828
00:40:05,160 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 7: We think it's drugs. We're charging the money.

829
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:08,879
Speaker 10: Do you want to get on this flight, you want

830
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:10,640
Speaker 10: to argue with us, maybe go to jail, or you

831
00:40:10,640 --> 00:40:11,960
Speaker 10: want to get on this flight, then you can fly

832
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 10: back here, get an attorney and try to figure out

833
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 10: how to get this money back, which you won't, which

834
00:40:15,520 --> 00:40:20,120
Speaker 10: you won't exactly. So yeah, what's happening now is basically

835
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 10: they're they're accusing, they're saying that they're you know, there's

836
00:40:26,239 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 10: no wrongdoing on their part, they're allowed to do it,

837
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:32,359
Speaker 10: and they're trying to get the case dismissed. But we've

838
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:34,920
Speaker 10: had more people that have joined the case, and no

839
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:37,600
Speaker 10: money was taken from eric Andre. But now some of

840
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:39,839
Speaker 10: the people in the case are people who actually had

841
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 10: their money seeds.

842
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:44,280
Speaker 4: You're talking about a more brazen version of what happens.

843
00:40:44,280 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 4: And you already get put in the system in the

844
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:48,400
Speaker 4: first place, where you got to pay for those buy

845
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:51,000
Speaker 4: classes or whatever they might be. That's all third party

846
00:40:51,160 --> 00:40:55,279
Speaker 4: you organizations that aren't governmental. They're just a company that's

847
00:40:55,280 --> 00:40:56,720
Speaker 4: set up to take your money.

848
00:40:57,680 --> 00:41:00,279
Speaker 10: Yeah, and I think the way Atlanta Airport is up

849
00:41:00,400 --> 00:41:03,920
Speaker 10: is it's patrolled by Atlanta Police Department, but it's in

850
00:41:04,000 --> 00:41:07,080
Speaker 10: Clayton County's jurisdiction. So what it looked like to me

851
00:41:07,200 --> 00:41:08,879
Speaker 10: is they were just kind of using the airport as

852
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:12,360
Speaker 10: their own little piggyback and Okay, this person looks like

853
00:41:12,400 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 10: they might have something. They were definitely profiling because they're like, okay,

854
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:18,120
Speaker 10: who looks like they have something, And okay, let's see

855
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:20,160
Speaker 10: if they have cash. And it was a lot of

856
00:41:20,200 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 10: people that'd be like, well, why would someone have that

857
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 10: much cash? And first of all, it's US currency. Second

858
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:28,280
Speaker 10: of all, this is Atlanta, this is a city, it's

859
00:41:28,320 --> 00:41:31,920
Speaker 10: everything operates off cash. We got a big strip club industry,

860
00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 10: big nightlife industry. We've got I mean I get paid

861
00:41:35,200 --> 00:41:39,440
Speaker 10: in cash. Yeah, so yeah, I just think that somebody

862
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 10: shouldn't have cash and that it should just be taken

863
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:41,680
Speaker 10: from them.

864
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 7: That's ridiculous to me.

865
00:41:42,680 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 9: Well, here comes back to like bad incentives within the

866
00:41:45,000 --> 00:41:47,640
Speaker 9: drug wars that a significant amount of that revenue goes

867
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 9: directly back to prociatory law enforcement offices, and that's actually

868
00:41:50,760 --> 00:41:52,799
Speaker 9: how they raise a lot of their resume for their

869
00:41:52,840 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 9: operating budget. So the videoj did a big you know

870
00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:59,080
Speaker 9: investigation first Missouri after you know, they had up people

871
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:01,880
Speaker 9: there and what they found was like this one incidant happened,

872
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:03,920
Speaker 9: and then you know, things happen after that. But it

873
00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 9: was a lot of other foundational stuff where there's emails

874
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:08,760
Speaker 9: from the city council to the police chief saying, we need.

875
00:42:08,600 --> 00:42:10,279
Speaker 5: A ten percent increase in revenue. What are you going

876
00:42:10,360 --> 00:42:10,560
Speaker 5: to do?

877
00:42:10,960 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 9: And now they're harassing the community members and they're actually

878
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:15,919
Speaker 9: putting cops in like these spots where like they're having

879
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 9: to harass to and finally when something happened, they're like

880
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:20,160
Speaker 9: we've had enough, and like this is the things that

881
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 9: start to happen, and so these horrible incentives and drug

882
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:24,840
Speaker 9: cases are the ones that bring in the quickest, easiest

883
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 9: revenue when you're able to suspec drugs on it.

884
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:27,520
Speaker 5: So that's what happens.

885
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:29,799
Speaker 3: What'd you call it a ghost dope?

886
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:29,919
Speaker 7: Yeah?

887
00:42:30,160 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's another part of like what you're saying,

888
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,719
Speaker 3: Clayton is describing a situation where someone is able to

889
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:41,839
Speaker 3: fight back, to seek redress for what's happening. And we

890
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:45,439
Speaker 3: see so many people I think again targeted because it's

891
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:50,680
Speaker 3: known they it's assumed they will not have the means

892
00:42:50,719 --> 00:42:53,799
Speaker 3: to survive the length of time it takes to fight

893
00:42:53,840 --> 00:42:58,080
Speaker 3: the system. Right, So with this in mind, you know,

894
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:01,280
Speaker 3: we see again this is something that can affect everyone,

895
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:03,600
Speaker 3: Like Jason, like you were saying, he said, and if

896
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 3: you don't think it can happen to you, it can

897
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:09,840
Speaker 3: happen to you. And with this, like we've we've laid

898
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:12,920
Speaker 3: a lot of groundwork here and you guys, shows are

899
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:17,280
Speaker 3: such deep dives form firsthand knowledge like Bone Valley, wrongful conviction,

900
00:43:17,480 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 3: War on Drugs. I think no, I think we open

901
00:43:20,360 --> 00:43:23,160
Speaker 3: it up to the audience. Yeah, let's get some let's

902
00:43:23,200 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 3: because we can't answer the questions. But these guys in

903
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 3: the middle probably can't so good.

904
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:33,160
Speaker 5: Yeah, I want to just make one statement before we

905
00:43:33,200 --> 00:43:35,959
Speaker 5: do that on subtle asset for for sure, because since

906
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 5: twenty fourteen, this was first report in the Washington Post,

907
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:42,959
Speaker 5: police have stolen more money and property from civilians every

908
00:43:43,040 --> 00:43:46,319
Speaker 5: year than all the robberies combined. And you can look

909
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 5: that up. It's five billion to three and a half billion.

910
00:43:48,680 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 5: And that was twenty fourteen and since then nothing's changed.

911
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:53,600
Speaker 5: And it's because of that, because they don't have to

912
00:43:53,680 --> 00:43:55,440
Speaker 5: prove a crime. They just take your money. They go,

913
00:43:55,520 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 5: we think you might have been involved in charge you

914
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 5: with the crime. You don't even arrested. No, there's no

915
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:03,960
Speaker 5: conviction requirement.

916
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:06,840
Speaker 7: That you're pretty charging money the state.

917
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 9: Of Georgia versus one hundred, one hundred and seven thousand

918
00:44:10,080 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 9: dollars or in nineteen eighty five Corolla, it's.

919
00:44:13,480 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 5: There's no recourse.

920
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 9: Well, you can challenge it. A lot of yeah, but

921
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 9: a lot yeah. A lot of the forfeitures are such little.

922
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:22,399
Speaker 2: Money and you'd be like a voucher or something six.

923
00:44:22,360 --> 00:44:23,520
Speaker 5: Hundred dollars from you.

924
00:44:23,520 --> 00:44:25,360
Speaker 9: You're going to hire defense attorney for five grand to

925
00:44:25,360 --> 00:44:27,359
Speaker 9: get your money. All these good to default judgments, most

926
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:29,160
Speaker 9: of the time anyway, don't. People don't challenge it, and

927
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:31,080
Speaker 9: it's a very low barrier. It's from honors of the

928
00:44:31,120 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 9: evidence normally, which is.

929
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 5: Like, how are you more likely than not?

930
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:35,279
Speaker 3: How are you getting to court when they take your car?

931
00:44:35,600 --> 00:44:35,839
Speaker 7: Right?

932
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:38,440
Speaker 4: Okay, let's pause here for a quick word from our

933
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,560
Speaker 4: sponsor and then jump right back in with lava for good.

934
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:49,800
Speaker 2: And we're back. Let's get right back into the panel.

935
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:53,680
Speaker 6: So I just wanted to start opening everybody here being

936
00:44:53,719 --> 00:44:56,440
Speaker 6: able to ask questions. Here with a question to you guys,

937
00:44:56,680 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 6: I've never had to hire an attorney for a criminal thing.

938
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 6: I have no idea what that looks like. I have

939
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 6: no idea how to do that. I probably don't have

940
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,000
Speaker 6: the money to hire the right attorney to get me

941
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 6: out of something intense like this. Are there any resources

942
00:45:10,680 --> 00:45:14,120
Speaker 6: out there for someone who you know has been arrested

943
00:45:14,320 --> 00:45:16,359
Speaker 6: they can look for like a pro bono attorney who

944
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:19,320
Speaker 6: would work on their behalf. Or is it we really

945
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 6: just have to rely on the attorney that's assigned to

946
00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:24,400
Speaker 6: us when we go to prison.

947
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I'm sure you have. Yeah. I mean it's

948
00:45:29,560 --> 00:45:30,440
Speaker 5: few and far between.

949
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:32,759
Speaker 9: There is some and even a public defender if you

950
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 9: have financial means if you're not a below a certain threshold.

951
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:37,840
Speaker 9: A lot of the times, you know, they kind of

952
00:45:37,920 --> 00:45:39,839
Speaker 9: really can't provide one to you either, and.

953
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:41,120
Speaker 5: So it's tough.

954
00:45:41,120 --> 00:45:43,360
Speaker 9: There's some law firms that do some pro boner work,

955
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:46,439
Speaker 9: you know, on that with criminal defense, but a lot

956
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 9: of the times it's either the public defender or you

957
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:50,960
Speaker 9: kind of trying to figure out our scrape around.

958
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 5: I mean, it's it's tough.

959
00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:54,960
Speaker 9: I mean, public defense is one of the most underfunded

960
00:45:55,440 --> 00:45:57,440
Speaker 9: systems that we have, and so you already had a

961
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:00,880
Speaker 9: disadvantage going against the government and then underfund our public

962
00:46:00,920 --> 00:46:04,400
Speaker 9: defense system pretty egregiously. There's federal lawsuites all across the

963
00:46:04,400 --> 00:46:06,520
Speaker 9: country on that type of disparity.

964
00:46:06,600 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 5: So yeah, you're yeah, good luck. That's why a lot

965
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:12,120
Speaker 5: of people play. I mean, yeah, that's what happens.

966
00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 8: Yeah, I'll just jump. One of the things that you know,

967
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:18,240
Speaker 8: I hear a lot is that the post conviction process

968
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:21,000
Speaker 8: is so daunting that storytelling is actually one of the

969
00:46:21,040 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 8: most effective ways to change the narrative. I mean, we're

970
00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:25,960
Speaker 8: all up here because of false narratives. I mean, if

971
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:28,440
Speaker 8: you look at you know, Jason's how many how many

972
00:46:28,480 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 8: people have you had on.

973
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:32,200
Speaker 5: The program three. I think we're three hundred and sixty

974
00:46:32,280 --> 00:46:35,239
Speaker 5: something episodes so far, and we will never stop making the.

975
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 8: Who's been exonerated, So a false narrative has brought them

976
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:42,640
Speaker 8: into prison for years until something happens and they're cleared.

977
00:46:43,640 --> 00:46:45,200
Speaker 8: The War on drugs, you can look at that as

978
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 8: still this.

979
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,840
Speaker 11: I remember this just like the demonization and the dehumanization

980
00:46:49,960 --> 00:46:53,200
Speaker 11: of people and just scaring people into thinking that, you know,

981
00:46:53,400 --> 00:46:56,040
Speaker 11: black people are going to have this crack mania and

982
00:46:56,080 --> 00:46:58,360
Speaker 11: they're going to have superhuman strength.

983
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 8: We need to protect it. We need to write longer laws.

984
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 8: I mean that was part of it too, And so

985
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 8: these narratives that get built. I mean, I'll just tell

986
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:08,560
Speaker 8: you in the case with Leo Schofield, you know, at

987
00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:11,360
Speaker 8: one point I've been working with him for several years

988
00:47:11,400 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 8: and you know, we're kind of done with the investigation,

989
00:47:14,280 --> 00:47:16,120
Speaker 8: and he said, you know, what do you think is

990
00:47:16,160 --> 00:47:18,560
Speaker 8: going to happen to me? And I said, Leo, I

991
00:47:18,600 --> 00:47:22,880
Speaker 8: don't know. The post conviction process. I mean, it's so daunting.

992
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,720
Speaker 8: The only thing I can promise you, I can't promise

993
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 8: that you're going to get out of prison because of

994
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 8: this information, but I can promise you that we are

995
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 8: changing the narrative of your story. And that's why these

996
00:47:33,680 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 8: podcasts are so important, because we can do the deep

997
00:47:37,160 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 8: dive into a topic and actually show the truth. And

998
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 8: I think that's why you see so many exonerations because

999
00:47:44,000 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 8: if you have the storytelling aspect, whether it's lawyers or

1000
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:50,000
Speaker 8: writers or journalists who can come in and sort of

1001
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,600
Speaker 8: expose this, it's really important and it is a positive

1002
00:47:53,600 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 8: step because I have to be honest with the state

1003
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:57,840
Speaker 8: of journalism right now is not that great. And so

1004
00:47:57,880 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 8: when you look at a lot of these communities that

1005
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:02,280
Speaker 8: are having these crimes, a lot of times the local

1006
00:48:02,320 --> 00:48:05,120
Speaker 8: reporters they're biggest sources of the prosecutor and the police.

1007
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:07,319
Speaker 8: They don't get the other side of the story, so

1008
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:10,040
Speaker 8: they just kind of repeat the state narrative and that's

1009
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:13,600
Speaker 8: how it just perpetuates and grows until some people like

1010
00:48:13,680 --> 00:48:14,920
Speaker 8: us can come in and look at it from a

1011
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:16,400
Speaker 8: different angle and hopefully change it.

1012
00:48:17,719 --> 00:48:19,440
Speaker 6: You guys are really fun at parties, aren't you? On

1013
00:48:22,440 --> 00:48:24,480
Speaker 6: those Ben's line By the way, anyone.

1014
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 5: I hope somebody asked a question about bail reform, by

1015
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 5: the way, just saying.

1016
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:32,800
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, hey, does anyone have a question about bail reform. Okay, okay,

1017
00:48:32,800 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 6: but really, would anyone like to ask a question of

1018
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:35,480
Speaker 6: the panel?

1019
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:39,440
Speaker 12: Hi, I just want to say, I'm thankful for what

1020
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 12: you guys do, but what's a way that US citizens

1021
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:47,680
Speaker 12: can really make a difference outside of the narrative, because

1022
00:48:47,800 --> 00:48:53,400
Speaker 12: there is a larger crime that's more than the citizens.

1023
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 12: It's like the government. Like how do you come against

1024
00:48:55,640 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 12: that when you can sell weed now but you're not

1025
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:04,920
Speaker 12: getting the people out that you got on petty crimes?

1026
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:07,319
Speaker 12: Or like how do you come against a government that

1027
00:49:07,600 --> 00:49:11,000
Speaker 12: is backed by the NRA? You know, Like so it's

1028
00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 12: big companies that pay for the media, that pay for

1029
00:49:13,560 --> 00:49:16,720
Speaker 12: like how things get ran, and they're also behind the government.

1030
00:49:17,680 --> 00:49:21,239
Speaker 5: I think the first thing is to learn what's really

1031
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:27,280
Speaker 5: going on. There's a fantastic newsletter called alex Copaganda newsletter.

1032
00:49:27,360 --> 00:49:32,520
Speaker 5: You mentioned copaganda, it's Alec alec Apostrophs Copaganda Newsletter, and

1033
00:49:32,560 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 5: that will give you a perspective on I think a

1034
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,680
Speaker 5: lot of the questions that you're so properly raising. And

1035
00:49:38,719 --> 00:49:42,359
Speaker 5: thanks for that question, by the way, And yeah, and

1036
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:44,839
Speaker 5: since nobody asked about bail reform, I'm just gonna say,

1037
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:48,600
Speaker 5: you know, back to the question that was posed a

1038
00:49:48,640 --> 00:49:51,280
Speaker 5: minute ago. You know, you better hope with your public

1039
00:49:51,280 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 5: defender that you're not in jail awaiting trial, because if

1040
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:58,240
Speaker 5: you are, that creates a whole another cascade of problems,

1041
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:00,600
Speaker 5: right if you think about it, If you too poor

1042
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:04,800
Speaker 5: to post bail, then you can't not only can't assist

1043
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 5: in your own defense, you can't meet with your attorney.

1044
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:08,399
Speaker 5: They're not going to come to the jail to meet

1045
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:12,000
Speaker 5: with you. They're busy, and you can't take care of

1046
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:14,919
Speaker 5: your family. You can't go to your job, you can't

1047
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:17,440
Speaker 5: do any of the things that you would be doing otherwise.

1048
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:20,280
Speaker 5: Jails are generally more violent and dangerous than prisons. People

1049
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:24,040
Speaker 5: think that's counterintuitive, but it's true. So you're subjected to

1050
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 5: the most horrible conditions and deprivation, and then on top

1051
00:50:28,120 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 5: of that. You don't see this on the TV shows,

1052
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 5: but if you're in on because you can't post bail

1053
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 5: and then you're being brought to trial, first of all,

1054
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:38,160
Speaker 5: prosecutor can offer you, Listen, you're going to stay here

1055
00:50:38,200 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 5: for two three years before we get around to you

1056
00:50:39,800 --> 00:50:41,960
Speaker 5: unless you want to plead guilty and go home. So

1057
00:50:42,000 --> 00:50:44,319
Speaker 5: you got that pressure. But if you decide to go

1058
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:47,279
Speaker 5: to trial. Now they wake you up around two in

1059
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:49,400
Speaker 5: the morning. They don't feed you, They put you in

1060
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:50,799
Speaker 5: a bead, they put you a waiting room, then they

1061
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:51,920
Speaker 5: put you in a van. Then they take you to

1062
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 5: another jail and the courthouse and you're held there. You're

1063
00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:57,480
Speaker 5: also not fed. Then by the time you get into

1064
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 5: the courtroom you look half crazy because because you're sleep deprived,

1065
00:51:01,200 --> 00:51:03,680
Speaker 5: you're starving, and also you've been subjected to the most

1066
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:08,479
Speaker 5: brutal conditions imaginable for weeks, months, or years. Think about

1067
00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:11,720
Speaker 5: Khalifh Browder and that whole horrible story. Right, rest in peace.

1068
00:51:12,120 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 5: But so the bail reform, I just wanted to mention

1069
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:19,120
Speaker 5: this because bail reform is so misunderstood and it's so

1070
00:51:19,160 --> 00:51:22,320
Speaker 5: important for people to understand it. It makes us much safer.

1071
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:26,359
Speaker 5: And every study that's been done has shown that bail

1072
00:51:26,480 --> 00:51:29,840
Speaker 5: reform decreases the probability of the person who didn't go

1073
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,200
Speaker 5: to jail pre trial committing a new crime dramatically. And

1074
00:51:33,239 --> 00:51:35,359
Speaker 5: it makes sense because I think you were talking about

1075
00:51:35,400 --> 00:51:38,240
Speaker 5: it before. If you do go to jail, your problem's

1076
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:40,440
Speaker 5: just got a lot worse, even if you're there for

1077
00:51:40,520 --> 00:51:43,239
Speaker 5: three days a week. You're losing all the things that

1078
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 5: Clayton talked about, and now you may not have a

1079
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:48,520
Speaker 5: choice but to commit a crime if you want to eat,

1080
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:50,200
Speaker 5: or if you want to feed your kids, or whatever

1081
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:53,160
Speaker 5: it might be. So bail reform is one of the

1082
00:51:53,160 --> 00:51:57,879
Speaker 5: most successful policies that I've seen in my thirty years

1083
00:51:57,880 --> 00:52:01,640
Speaker 5: of doing this work. But titians are trying. They'll take

1084
00:52:01,719 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 5: one case of somebody who got out on bail and

1085
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:06,480
Speaker 5: when it hit you know, some old lady over the

1086
00:52:06,480 --> 00:52:09,560
Speaker 5: head at an ATM, and you know, they'll make that

1087
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 5: into a big thing. And of course the news will

1088
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 5: report that because it's better for clickbait. Right, nobody wants

1089
00:52:14,280 --> 00:52:16,280
Speaker 5: to report good news stories. No one wants to report

1090
00:52:16,280 --> 00:52:19,239
Speaker 5: the things that we're talking about now. But bail reform

1091
00:52:19,840 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 5: makes us safer and saves us huge amounts of money.

1092
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 5: Remember the five hundred and sixty five thousand dollars ye

1093
00:52:24,719 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 5: to keep somebody in Riker's Island who hasn't been convicted

1094
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:27,520
Speaker 5: of the crime.

1095
00:52:27,719 --> 00:52:30,000
Speaker 3: So that is so, then to that question, that's one

1096
00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:33,680
Speaker 3: of the things average person could do is maybe engage

1097
00:52:33,719 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 3: with their legislators about bail reform.

1098
00:52:36,239 --> 00:52:40,719
Speaker 9: Absolutely yeah, and give a damn about your local elections.

1099
00:52:40,840 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 9: Like we can talk about president and they're all important,

1100
00:52:43,520 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 9: but your sheriff's elected, your district attorney's elected, a lot

1101
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:48,719
Speaker 9: of judges are elected where you're at, Like, those are

1102
00:52:48,719 --> 00:52:51,560
Speaker 9: the people making the decisions. So you talk about bail reform, Yeah,

1103
00:52:51,600 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 9: you can be able to pass the law, but if

1104
00:52:52,960 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 9: you get a district attorney that says, this is how

1105
00:52:54,640 --> 00:52:56,080
Speaker 9: we're going to handle our jails, or you get a

1106
00:52:56,080 --> 00:52:57,800
Speaker 9: sheriff that says that this is how we're going to

1107
00:52:57,840 --> 00:52:59,320
Speaker 9: handle our jails, or this is where we're going to

1108
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:01,719
Speaker 9: prioritize red sources, like those are the elections that don't

1109
00:53:01,719 --> 00:53:03,440
Speaker 9: get as much attention, particularly when they're not on a

1110
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 9: presidential cycle, Like those are the ones you.

1111
00:53:05,560 --> 00:53:06,439
Speaker 5: Really need to care about.

1112
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:08,879
Speaker 9: That's where you see that kind of systemic change happen

1113
00:53:09,000 --> 00:53:11,080
Speaker 9: in these areas. And so I know, and you know

1114
00:53:11,120 --> 00:53:12,319
Speaker 9: in Houston when they went through a lot of their

1115
00:53:12,400 --> 00:53:14,480
Speaker 9: their bail reform, stuff like that probably doesn't happen if

1116
00:53:14,480 --> 00:53:16,839
Speaker 9: there isn't certain actors and you know, within that that

1117
00:53:16,960 --> 00:53:19,520
Speaker 9: realm and things like that, and that's what really really

1118
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:23,040
Speaker 9: matters to a lot of this stuff. You can have

1119
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:25,840
Speaker 9: I know, how many bills get passed. A good example

1120
00:53:25,920 --> 00:53:28,840
Speaker 9: is on forfeiture in New Mexico banned criminal civil forfeiture.

1121
00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:31,640
Speaker 9: It was only criminal city if Albuquerque just had some

1122
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:33,520
Speaker 9: folks there that were like, well, I guess it doesn't

1123
00:53:33,560 --> 00:53:34,279
Speaker 9: it doesn't apply to us.

1124
00:53:34,280 --> 00:53:36,480
Speaker 5: We're going to continue to do this, like all right,

1125
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:37,080
Speaker 5: well there you go.

1126
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:38,560
Speaker 9: I mean, yeah, they can have the best law in

1127
00:53:38,600 --> 00:53:39,960
Speaker 9: the books, but they'll be able to figure out a

1128
00:53:40,000 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 9: way to navigate around that.

1129
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 5: You can pass earn.

1130
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:44,320
Speaker 9: Credits where you allow people to get ear in credits

1131
00:53:44,360 --> 00:53:46,719
Speaker 9: in prison, but if you're a prison warrior, shaff doesn't

1132
00:53:46,719 --> 00:53:49,360
Speaker 9: want to give those out, ain't gonna happen. So it

1133
00:53:49,440 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 9: really is that local, hyper local elections that really matter

1134
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:53,440
Speaker 9: on the criminal justice level.

1135
00:53:54,680 --> 00:53:58,320
Speaker 13: So I wanted to talk about prosecutors in this process.

1136
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:01,400
Speaker 13: You guys talked to little bit earlier about kind of

1137
00:54:01,440 --> 00:54:04,080
Speaker 13: the way things are perceived in the media, with you know,

1138
00:54:04,200 --> 00:54:07,560
Speaker 13: police and everything being kind of pro police. I think

1139
00:54:07,560 --> 00:54:10,200
Speaker 13: a lot of times there's also a perception that prosecutors

1140
00:54:10,239 --> 00:54:12,680
Speaker 13: everything they're doing is noble and good, and I think

1141
00:54:12,719 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 13: that's oftentimes the case. But I'm curious your perception about

1142
00:54:16,640 --> 00:54:20,920
Speaker 13: the concept of like prose prosecutorial misconduct, kind of the

1143
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:24,359
Speaker 13: politics of play, the pressure there under to secure convictions.

1144
00:54:25,160 --> 00:54:26,560
Speaker 13: Just kind of in broad terms of your thoughts on

1145
00:54:26,600 --> 00:54:29,440
Speaker 13: that you've had on this.

1146
00:54:29,640 --> 00:54:32,799
Speaker 8: Take it to like a micro level. I think one

1147
00:54:32,840 --> 00:54:35,239
Speaker 8: of the things that happens with prosecutors is, you know,

1148
00:54:35,400 --> 00:54:38,200
Speaker 8: their job is defined to their Their job is not

1149
00:54:38,320 --> 00:54:39,920
Speaker 8: to win convictions.

1150
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:41,000
Speaker 5: It's to pursue justice.

1151
00:54:41,560 --> 00:54:44,160
Speaker 8: And so but you know there's ego and career that

1152
00:54:44,239 --> 00:54:46,520
Speaker 8: gets involved in that, and so you know, you want

1153
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:48,279
Speaker 8: to work your way up to be chief prosecutor or

1154
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:51,120
Speaker 8: maybe a judge someday. You don't want, you know, a

1155
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:54,360
Speaker 8: bunch of open cases or lost cases. And so I

1156
00:54:54,400 --> 00:54:57,320
Speaker 8: think what happens is it's like every other business in

1157
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 8: terms of capitalism. You know, you have prospers, skeeters that

1158
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:03,360
Speaker 8: are winning at all costs, and they're willing to cut corners.

1159
00:55:03,600 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 8: And a lot of that is that what Jason just mentioned,

1160
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:08,439
Speaker 8: that tunnel vision, that part of your story doesn't fit

1161
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:11,600
Speaker 8: my narrative. So I'm not going there. I'm doing my narrative,

1162
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:14,239
Speaker 8: and my narrative is this, and that's how they get

1163
00:55:14,280 --> 00:55:15,759
Speaker 8: caught up in this thing. And I've talked to a

1164
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:19,360
Speaker 8: lot of prosecutors who have had wrongful convictions, and you know,

1165
00:55:19,400 --> 00:55:23,319
Speaker 8: they attributed to tunnel vision and wanting to win the case,

1166
00:55:23,760 --> 00:55:26,560
Speaker 8: and so they end up making a lot of decisions

1167
00:55:26,640 --> 00:55:29,839
Speaker 8: that you know, cost people their lives basically, and they

1168
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:32,080
Speaker 8: like to see themselves as very noble and they don't

1169
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:35,800
Speaker 8: want to see themselves as somebody who's doing something. You know, frankly,

1170
00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:38,719
Speaker 8: there's no accountability for prosecutors. One of the things that

1171
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,600
Speaker 8: you know, sometimes I sometimes ask prosecutors to talk to

1172
00:55:41,640 --> 00:55:44,640
Speaker 8: me about the cases, and they don't want to talk

1173
00:55:44,640 --> 00:55:47,200
Speaker 8: to me because they know I'm not doing the you know,

1174
00:55:47,280 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 8: the CSI type stuff.

1175
00:55:49,080 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 5: We're going to make them look.

1176
00:55:49,920 --> 00:55:51,239
Speaker 8: Like, how did you catch the bad guy?

1177
00:55:51,280 --> 00:55:51,799
Speaker 5: How'd you do it?

1178
00:55:51,800 --> 00:55:54,239
Speaker 8: What genius did you bring to the table for that.

1179
00:55:54,360 --> 00:55:57,920
Speaker 8: I'm asking questions about cases that went wrong, and you know,

1180
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:00,160
Speaker 8: they don't always want to talk to me. One of

1181
00:56:00,200 --> 00:56:02,640
Speaker 8: the things that is really disturbing about that is like

1182
00:56:02,719 --> 00:56:05,239
Speaker 8: they'll say, well, we don't do our cases in the media.

1183
00:56:05,320 --> 00:56:07,719
Speaker 8: We do them in the court of law, where like

1184
00:56:07,800 --> 00:56:11,319
Speaker 8: all the integrity is apparently, you know, if a prosecutor

1185
00:56:11,600 --> 00:56:14,799
Speaker 8: screws up a case so badly and it gets overturned

1186
00:56:14,800 --> 00:56:17,600
Speaker 8: at a higher court and Appellet court. The worst thing

1187
00:56:17,600 --> 00:56:20,520
Speaker 8: that ever happens to a prosecutors. Maybe he gets called

1188
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:23,680
Speaker 8: out in the opinion of that court saying the prosecutor

1189
00:56:23,719 --> 00:56:27,319
Speaker 8: aired in withholding evidence that would have been exculpatory, and

1190
00:56:27,360 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 8: then he goes on and does to his next next case,

1191
00:56:29,680 --> 00:56:33,680
Speaker 8: next conviction. If I was withholding evidence, let's just say,

1192
00:56:33,719 --> 00:56:36,960
Speaker 8: like I had Leo confess to me, Leo Schofield confessed

1193
00:56:37,000 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 8: to me, and I said, Gee, that doesn't fit my narrative.

1194
00:56:39,200 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 8: I'm going to put that to the side and not

1195
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:43,480
Speaker 8: tell people about that. And then later on it's discovered

1196
00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:46,560
Speaker 8: that I was withholding evidence, my books would be pulled

1197
00:56:46,600 --> 00:56:48,560
Speaker 8: from the shelves. I probably wouldn't get a chance to

1198
00:56:48,600 --> 00:56:51,399
Speaker 8: do another story because that would be seen as such

1199
00:56:51,400 --> 00:56:55,640
Speaker 8: a horrific violation of integrity. And yet why is it

1200
00:56:55,680 --> 00:56:58,080
Speaker 8: that prosecutors can do that all the time and go

1201
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:01,400
Speaker 8: on to the next cases, because there's year accountability, And

1202
00:57:01,440 --> 00:57:03,160
Speaker 8: that's the thing I think that really needs to change.

1203
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 4: Couldn't you even be prosecuted yourself for withholding that kind

1204
00:57:05,920 --> 00:57:06,480
Speaker 4: of information?

1205
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:09,400
Speaker 5: Yeah, as a citizen like forty obstruction or as a

1206
00:57:09,400 --> 00:57:13,080
Speaker 5: defense lawyer, but as a prosecutor, you have absolute immunity.

1207
00:57:13,400 --> 00:57:17,760
Speaker 5: Think about those words absolute immunity. So nothing you do

1208
00:57:17,880 --> 00:57:20,720
Speaker 5: can bounce back on you. And so then and you

1209
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:24,960
Speaker 5: also have almost total power. And we know what power

1210
00:57:25,000 --> 00:57:26,720
Speaker 5: does to people, right, And I think there are people,

1211
00:57:26,800 --> 00:57:28,520
Speaker 5: I think there are cops that go into the job

1212
00:57:28,840 --> 00:57:32,760
Speaker 5: very idealistic and then they change. The power does something

1213
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 5: to them, right, And the culture does something to them,

1214
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 5: and the training, And then with prosecutors, they're human as well,

1215
00:57:39,280 --> 00:57:41,400
Speaker 5: and they some of them I think, go in, you know,

1216
00:57:41,800 --> 00:57:45,160
Speaker 5: very noble aspirations, but then they they become ambitious and

1217
00:57:45,160 --> 00:57:46,919
Speaker 5: when they go back and I have the criminal defense

1218
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:50,240
Speaker 5: lawyer I know in California as you're stein, he told

1219
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:52,560
Speaker 5: me that he sometimes in is closing argument, he'll say

1220
00:57:53,160 --> 00:57:56,720
Speaker 5: to the jury when the prosecutor goes back to their office,

1221
00:57:57,280 --> 00:58:01,320
Speaker 5: for you know, tonight this afternoon, after I've finished the case,

1222
00:58:02,080 --> 00:58:05,080
Speaker 5: no one's gonna ask them, did you do justice today?

1223
00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:08,320
Speaker 5: They're gonna say did you win? And that's what they

1224
00:58:08,320 --> 00:58:10,760
Speaker 5: wanna do. They want to win, and it becomes a game.

1225
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:14,280
Speaker 5: And the problem is they have the ability to to

1226
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:18,640
Speaker 5: to mess with to mess with people's lives to an

1227
00:58:18,680 --> 00:58:22,160
Speaker 5: absolute extreme. And when they do that in prosecutormis conduct

1228
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:23,800
Speaker 5: is one of the leading causes. You're hear it again

1229
00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 5: and again on the Wronful Convictions podcast. It's one of

1230
00:58:26,000 --> 00:58:29,600
Speaker 5: the leading causes of wrongful convictions. Believes the prosecutormist contact

1231
00:58:29,600 --> 00:58:32,560
Speaker 5: also lying forensic people, et cetera. But the fact is

1232
00:58:32,600 --> 00:58:37,560
Speaker 5: that they're incentivized to do that, and they're given the

1233
00:58:37,640 --> 00:58:40,320
Speaker 5: power even with Brady violations like Brady is a Brady

1234
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:42,560
Speaker 5: versus Maryland, very famous Supreme Court case which says that

1235
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:46,160
Speaker 5: prosecutors must turn over exculpatory evidence to the defense, but

1236
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:49,120
Speaker 5: they get to decide what they think is exculpatory. So

1237
00:58:49,160 --> 00:58:52,360
Speaker 5: the wolf is literally guarding the henhouse. And when they

1238
00:58:52,640 --> 00:58:55,280
Speaker 5: when they get like I said, they get set, they're

1239
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:57,720
Speaker 5: just gonna go and they're going to a And the

1240
00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:01,080
Speaker 5: last thing I'll say on the subject is we should

1241
00:59:01,120 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 5: all care about this because when prosecutors frame an innocent

1242
00:59:05,160 --> 00:59:08,680
Speaker 5: person for a crime, sometimes they knew, let's face it,

1243
00:59:08,720 --> 00:59:10,320
Speaker 5: they knew they didn't commit it. We don't like to

1244
00:59:10,360 --> 00:59:12,720
Speaker 5: think about that, but it's true, it happens. Listen to

1245
00:59:12,760 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 5: the podcast if you haven't already, you'll hear it again

1246
00:59:15,160 --> 00:59:19,880
Speaker 5: and again. They are actually acting in service of the

1247
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:25,880
Speaker 5: actual perpetrator right that those forces of police and prosecutoral

1248
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:29,520
Speaker 5: power are focused on protecting the person who committed this

1249
00:59:29,640 --> 00:59:34,320
Speaker 5: heinous crime, because almost by definition, when you lock up

1250
00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:39,120
Speaker 5: the innocent guy, you're letting the guilty person remain frame.

1251
00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:42,360
Speaker 3: You're becoming an accomplice well or worse.

1252
00:59:42,680 --> 00:59:45,000
Speaker 6: Guys, I just want to say thank you so much

1253
00:59:45,160 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 6: for this conversation. It has been it's been like heavy, right,

1254
00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:53,560
Speaker 6: really heavy. This is serious stuff. But you guys know

1255
00:59:53,880 --> 00:59:55,800
Speaker 6: you know what you're doing or you're exploring this every

1256
00:59:55,880 --> 00:59:58,560
Speaker 6: day on your podcasts. So as you said, Jason, I

1257
00:59:58,560 --> 01:00:01,120
Speaker 6: think the best thing everybody can do here is subscribe

1258
01:00:01,280 --> 01:00:04,200
Speaker 6: to these podcasts to wrongful convictions, to the war on

1259
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:07,240
Speaker 6: drugs and to Bone Valley and even stuff they don't

1260
01:00:07,240 --> 01:00:09,000
Speaker 6: want you to know. Yeah, you can subscribe to us too,

1261
01:00:09,120 --> 01:00:09,640
Speaker 6: That's fine.

1262
01:00:09,760 --> 01:00:10,600
Speaker 3: We're not above it.

1263
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:14,280
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, yeah, sure it's a good show. Check it out.

1264
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:17,560
Speaker 6: But really, thank you, guys.

1265
01:00:18,920 --> 01:00:21,280
Speaker 2: I think we're gonna end the show now. Second, this

1266
01:00:21,560 --> 01:00:22,640
Speaker 2: this incredible conversation.

1267
01:00:22,760 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 3: Thank you to Kilful Clate today and thank you.

1268
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:28,919
Speaker 8: Thank you so much.

1269
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:34,480
Speaker 3: And there you have it. One of our first live

1270
01:00:34,560 --> 01:00:38,440
Speaker 3: shows in quite some time. Grateful again to all the

1271
01:00:38,560 --> 01:00:42,680
Speaker 3: fantastic guests we had, and we're up blowing smokers folks.

1272
01:00:42,840 --> 01:00:46,360
Speaker 3: We enjoy these conversations and think there is so important

1273
01:00:46,720 --> 01:00:51,400
Speaker 3: that we ask each person on that panel who wasn't

1274
01:00:51,440 --> 01:00:54,680
Speaker 3: already us to come up here on our show. And

1275
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:57,600
Speaker 3: I believe we'll have we have a conversation with Jason

1276
01:00:57,600 --> 01:01:01,400
Speaker 3: Flaub that already came out the host and creator wrongful Conviction,

1277
01:01:01,640 --> 01:01:03,960
Speaker 3: We'll have Gilbert, and then we'll allow of our friends

1278
01:01:03,960 --> 01:01:06,720
Speaker 3: from the War on Drugs in later conversations.

1279
01:01:06,760 --> 01:01:07,080
Speaker 7: Correct.

1280
01:01:07,200 --> 01:01:08,880
Speaker 4: Yeah, we had a lot to cover in this panel,

1281
01:01:08,920 --> 01:01:11,640
Speaker 4: and these individual episodes really allow us to dig a

1282
01:01:11,640 --> 01:01:15,800
Speaker 4: little deeper into these individual pursuits that these folks.

1283
01:01:15,640 --> 01:01:17,520
Speaker 2: Have, you know, basically made their life's work.

1284
01:01:17,360 --> 01:01:21,160
Speaker 6: Out of, and guys personally kind of selfishly, I just

1285
01:01:21,240 --> 01:01:23,440
Speaker 6: want to hang out with each individual person on that

1286
01:01:23,480 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 6: panel more so, I can't wait for those other conversations.

1287
01:01:27,360 --> 01:01:30,040
Speaker 6: So look forward to our conversations with the rest of

1288
01:01:30,080 --> 01:01:33,480
Speaker 6: the gang here. Well, hey, we talked at the end

1289
01:01:33,480 --> 01:01:36,160
Speaker 6: there about action you can take if you know you

1290
01:01:36,240 --> 01:01:38,840
Speaker 6: are as incensed as we are about the things we

1291
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:41,600
Speaker 6: discussed in the episode, So we highly recommend you take

1292
01:01:41,640 --> 01:01:44,400
Speaker 6: those actions. But if not and you want to just

1293
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:45,880
Speaker 6: reach out to us, you can do that too.

1294
01:01:46,120 --> 01:01:46,480
Speaker 2: It's right.

1295
01:01:46,520 --> 01:01:48,600
Speaker 4: You can find us at the handle conspiracy Stuff, where

1296
01:01:48,600 --> 01:01:52,680
Speaker 4: we exist on Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, Conspiracy Stuff show

1297
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Speaker 4: on Instagram and TikTok.

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Speaker 3: And if you don't sip the social meds and you're

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Speaker 3: more of a conversational person, we've got your back there too.

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Speaker 3: You can call us on the phone one eight three

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Speaker 3: three st d WYTK. You'll get hopefully familiar voice, a

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Speaker 3: beep like so beep, and then you'll have three minutes.

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Speaker 3: Those are your three minutes. Go nuts, tell us what's

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Speaker 3: on your mind. All we ask is that you give

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Speaker 3: yourself a cool nickname. Let us know whether or not

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Speaker 3: we can use your voice and or cool nickname on

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Speaker 3: the air. And most importantly, don't censor yourself. If you

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Speaker 3: have a message that has you know you want to

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Speaker 3: throw in some image links, you want to throw in

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Speaker 3: some additional research you've done, or you just need more

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Speaker 3: than three minutes to get the thoughts across, we also

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Speaker 3: have your back. All you have to do is send

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Speaker 3: send a line to our good old fashion email address.

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Speaker 3: We read every letter we get.

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Speaker 6: Where we are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they

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Speaker 6: don't want you to know. Is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 6: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 6: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.