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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast where

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Speaker 1: with Judge Jim Gray will take calls with the judge

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Speaker 1: next hour. Judge, I know, as a lawyer, you know

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Speaker 1: you're required your creed is to defend the guilty the innocent,

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Speaker 1: to represent them. Is that difficult for lawyers? If you're

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Speaker 1: in a case and you know this guy is guilty

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Speaker 1: his sin and that he probably committed this horrendous crime,

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Speaker 1: and you still have to defend them as a lawyer,

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Speaker 1: is that tough? No? You know, the defense attorneys and

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Speaker 1: criminal cases phil phil an enormously important function kind of

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Speaker 1: there but the grace of God go I. They simply

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Speaker 1: are required to make the prosecutor do its job, make

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Speaker 1: the system work, is the way I describe it. So

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Speaker 1: if the defense attorney requires the prosecutor to submit enough evidence,

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Speaker 1: lawful evidence in court to show the guilt beyond a

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Speaker 1: doubt based upon reason to twelve neutral jourors of the

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Speaker 1: guilt of the client, then you know the guilty finding

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Speaker 1: comes in. But the defense attorney did his or her job,

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Speaker 1: and it's an enormously important function. We all as citizens,

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Speaker 1: in my view, we have numbers of benefits of course

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Speaker 1: for being a citizen of this country, we also have obligations,

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Speaker 1: and one of them is to make the system work

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Speaker 1: within our lives. And I say that, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: our government, George, and if it isn't working, it's no

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Speaker 1: one's fault but our own. And it's the same thing

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Speaker 1: with regard to any system. In the criminal defense, attorneys

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Speaker 1: perform an enormously important job, even though they happen to

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Speaker 1: know that their client probably is good for that offense.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot better to have nine people who are

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Speaker 1: guilty go free than one innocent person be funished. So

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Speaker 1: important is part of the system, and I'm proud of it,

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Speaker 1: and basically it works well. And there's no question our

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Speaker 1: system is based on the person is innocent until proven guilty,

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Speaker 1: and that's just the way it's got to be. Even

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Speaker 1: if you witness somebody shooting somebody, technically he's innocent until

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Speaker 1: he's convicted, and precisely right, and it is a part

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Speaker 1: of our system also, George, that we do not punish

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Speaker 1: somebody before they're convicted. And that also means that the

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Speaker 1: no one should be arrested before they're they're convicted unless

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Speaker 1: they are either a flight risk they're not going to

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Speaker 1: show up for trial, or they are a security threat

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Speaker 1: to witnesses or the public. And we overdo the pre

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Speaker 1: trial arrest of numbers of people, and that's wrong as well.

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Speaker 1: That's an abuse of power. So it's up to us

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Speaker 1: to blow the whistle on this sort of thing and

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Speaker 1: to safeguard our liberties for everyone. Back to drugs for

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Speaker 1: a second, judge, what would happen if we legalized everything

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Speaker 1: and created some kind of tiered system of you know,

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Speaker 1: forgetting into the hands of people setting up clinics and

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Speaker 1: things like that, but we stopped convicting people using it,

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Speaker 1: putting them in jail, and just made it legal for him.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with Robert Downey Junior is a very successful

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Speaker 1: artist and an actor, thinking good movies. He's had pretty

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Speaker 1: much a lifelong heroine problem. And I understand that. But

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Speaker 1: it makes as much sense to me to put Robert

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Speaker 1: Downey Junior in jail for his heroin problem as it

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Speaker 1: would have Betty Ford in jail for her alcohol problem.

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Speaker 1: It's the same thing. It's a medical issue. But if

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Speaker 1: Robert Downey Junior Betty Ford, you or I drive a

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Speaker 1: motor vehicle impaired by you name it, metamphetamines, alcohol, marijuana, whatever,

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Speaker 1: that's a crime. And the difference is now they are

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Speaker 1: putting our safety at risk. But otherwise, it makes as

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Speaker 1: much sense to me as a libertarian to put Robert

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Speaker 1: Downey Junior in jail for what he puts into his

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Speaker 1: body as it does he put into his mind. It's

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Speaker 1: none of the government's business. And the criminal justice system

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Speaker 1: is really designed and quite good at protecting us from

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Speaker 1: each other. It's not designed for and really poor at

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Speaker 1: trying to protect us from ourselves. So that's what the

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Speaker 1: War on drugs has tried to do. Hold people accountable

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Speaker 1: as adults for their actions, not what they put into

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Speaker 1: their bodies. So I think you're absolutely right, and I

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Speaker 1: wish more people would understand that. Yeah, me too. And

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Speaker 1: we should do with drugs exactly what we do with alcohol.

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Speaker 1: You know, if it's a certain alcohol limit and somebody's

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Speaker 1: involved in a moving violation, or god forbid, they hit somebody,

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Speaker 1: you know they're going to pay the price, and that

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Speaker 1: should be the same thing. Which and you know, when

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Speaker 1: we finally came to our senses and repealed alcohol prohibitions.

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Speaker 1: Homicides went down by forty percent in the next year

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Speaker 1: in our country countrywide, and I'm convinced the same thing

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Speaker 1: will happen when we finally repeal drug prohibition. It's the

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Speaker 1: same thing. Well, you also get to start taxing the

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Speaker 1: drug money because those suppliers are going to do it

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Speaker 1: legally because it's no longer illegal. You know, Hey, let's

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Speaker 1: take away a lot of money from Mexican drug cartels

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Speaker 1: and juvenile street gangs and other thugs and use it

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Speaker 1: to pay our fighter fighters, and pay our teachers and

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Speaker 1: fix our roads. I mean, how hard you can speak.

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Speaker 1: People are going to use it anyway. I'm from California, George.

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Speaker 1: For the last decade or more, marijuana has been the

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Speaker 1: largest cash crop in the state of California. Number two

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Speaker 1: is grapes, by the way, but that tells me somebody's

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Speaker 1: using it. So if they are, let's regulate it, control it,

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Speaker 1: tax it, and bring it back under the law. And

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Speaker 1: don't take my word for it. Ask our listeners to

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Speaker 1: ask the next ten teenagers they find, Hey, if you

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Speaker 1: wanted to, what is easier for you to get marijuana

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Speaker 1: or alcohol? And every last one of those teenagers if

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Speaker 1: they cared, would say it's easier to get marijuana. Why

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Speaker 1: because the illegal dealers don't ask for ID. It's really straightforward, absolutely,

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Speaker 1: and I think eventually it's going to come to legalization

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Speaker 1: of all this. What do you think, Well, I don't

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Speaker 1: mean to get too technical, but if you're going to

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Speaker 1: talk legal drugs, think aspirin. You know, anybody, your twelve

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Speaker 1: year old daughter could go to your local pharmacy and

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Speaker 1: buy a case of of of of aspirin. There's no

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Speaker 1: there's no age restriction. They can do that now, no advertising.

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Speaker 1: But we need to regulate it and control it like alcohol,

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Speaker 1: and that's what we should do. And as to the

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Speaker 1: other drugs, you know, the heroines, methamphetamines, bring it under

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Speaker 1: the control of medical doctors. It's a it's a medical issue,

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Speaker 1: and then hold doctors responsible for acting within their their

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Speaker 1: their their profession. But otherwise, leaving al Capone and Mexican

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Speaker 1: drug cartels in charge of this flat out doesn't work.

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Speaker 1: Except for the prison guards union. They're thriving well. And

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Speaker 1: one could say the CIA is involved in that too,

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Speaker 1: for black ops money. You never know, you know, you

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Speaker 1: said I was in the US Attorney's office and I was.

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Speaker 1: There was a guy named Rob Bonner who was my

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Speaker 1: chief of criminal at the time. He later was the

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Speaker 1: head of the DA under the Reagan administration, and he

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Speaker 1: was quote it is saying that the CIA was bringing

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Speaker 1: cocaine into our country. If the head of the d

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Speaker 1: EA was saying that, no, it's true, and it's just disgusting. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know, here's a true story. When we went into

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Speaker 1: Afghanistan and throughout the Taliban, the poppy seed production for

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Speaker 1: heroin in Afghanistan was negligible that you know, the Taliban

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Speaker 1: had basically stopped it. And when we went in, the

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Speaker 1: production went through the roof. And I am told that

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Speaker 1: our incredible military some of the guys were assigned to

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Speaker 1: protect the fields. George, I just finished reading a book

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Speaker 1: by the guy by the name of Scott Horton who

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Speaker 1: said is a Fool's Errand, and he was writing about Afghanistan,

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Speaker 1: and I was shocked. But I know it's true that

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Speaker 1: there's so much of the opium poppy in Afghanistan. The

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Speaker 1: d EA went in there to try to eradicate it,

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Speaker 1: and they were finally told not to because it would

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Speaker 1: destabilize the country's economy completely and a lot of the

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Speaker 1: people in government in Afghanistan are the drug lords there.

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Speaker 1: So actually, he said, and my goodness, maybe it's true

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Speaker 1: that we had United States marines that were protecting this

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Speaker 1: guy's opium crop in Afghanistan. Talk about an irony. But

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Speaker 1: it's money, George, it's money, and it isn't working. And

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Speaker 1: we've been there since two thousand and one, and we

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Speaker 1: still have a longest war and we have to get

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Speaker 1: out of Afghanistan. We shouldn't have been there. And you

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Speaker 1: can come back to the Constitution because only Congress can

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Speaker 1: declare war. They have abrogated their responsibility in Vietnam and

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Speaker 1: Korea and certainly Afghanistan and Libyan. The rest to the president,

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Speaker 1: and we've got to make the Congress bring it back

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Speaker 1: because if we're going to go to war, we have

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Speaker 1: an absolute obligation to our armed forces to make sure

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Speaker 1: that it's in protection of our national interests and our

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Speaker 1: national security, and that has not been happening in the

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Speaker 1: last twenty years. Judge two incredible cases where juries have

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Speaker 1: awarded apparent cancer victims billions of dollars claiming that Monsanto's

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Speaker 1: round up caused cancer. These were juries they made the decision,

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Speaker 1: and so be it in Monsanto. You know, other than

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Speaker 1: settlements have to pay out a lot a lot of money.

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Speaker 1: Are those systems fair? You know, there are lots of

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Speaker 1: protections in the system. I only I was on the

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Speaker 1: bench for twenty five years as a trial court judge,

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Speaker 1: and I think I only changed about four jury verdicts

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Speaker 1: in that twenty five years. And you can't change them.

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Speaker 1: You just simply say, settle it in this way, or

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Speaker 1: I'll give you a new trial. So I have to

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Speaker 1: say that if the jury heard it under our system,

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Speaker 1: I didn't hear the evidence, so I've got it. I

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Speaker 1: believe in the jury system, and by and large, I

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Speaker 1: think they get it right. So if that's what they said,

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Speaker 1: with all the protections, you can appeal, you can have

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Speaker 1: the judge maybe order a new trial. So I'm pretty comfortable,

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Speaker 1: without knowing the facts of any case, that if the

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Speaker 1: jury said it and it's within the system, I think

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Speaker 1: that pretty much it's probably correct. We've got to Judge

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Speaker 1: Jim Gray with us. We're going to take calls next

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Speaker 1: hour with the judge. If you will have a question,

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Speaker 1: jump aboard. If you have a story, maybe you've been

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Speaker 1: involved in the judicial system, and you want to share

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Speaker 1: what to be your stories with us, please do so

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Speaker 1: and do that next hour. Judge, where's it headed? I mean,

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Speaker 1: what do you think is going to happen in the

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Speaker 1: next ten years with the way our court system is

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Speaker 1: based today? I think that our court system, George regretfully,

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Speaker 1: is becoming more and more political. I fault numbers of

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Speaker 1: things with the United States Supreme Court. You go back

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Speaker 1: to the case of Michigan versus White fifteen years ago,

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Speaker 1: where they said people can run for office, and they

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Speaker 1: can run under a political party's banner. We should keep

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Speaker 1: it non political in the judiciary, and now, of course

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Speaker 1: we have so much money involved in the rest. I

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Speaker 1: fear that we're becoming more political in our judicial system.

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Speaker 1: It's critically important that judges are not only independent, but

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Speaker 1: they're seen as being independent because judges have two requirements,

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Speaker 1: two mandates. One is to do justice as well as

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Speaker 1: we can under the facts in law and the ethics

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Speaker 1: of our profession. Extremely important. But the second is for

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Speaker 1: anyone concerned to believe they're receiving justice. And I think

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Speaker 1: we're falling down as to that. I think people are

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Speaker 1: feeling that our institutions are failing us, which is a

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Speaker 1: cancer upon our society. We've got to keep the independence

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Speaker 1: of the judiciary not only present and actual, but seen

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Speaker 1: as being present and actual, and we're falling away from it.

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Speaker 1: I'm concerned. Are you saying it's getting worse than better? Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's getting worse. Everything in our country seems to be

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Speaker 1: more polarized. You see the United States Supreme Court where

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Speaker 1: there's a certain number of so called conservative justices so

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Speaker 1: called liberal justices, and they're voting that in that direction.

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Speaker 1: And I'm fearful that our institutional judicial system is seen

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Speaker 1: as becoming more political, which is not a good thing.

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Speaker 1: Our special judge at Judge Jim Gray with us his

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Speaker 1: website linked up at Coast to coastdam dot com. He's

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Speaker 1: also got a couple of books out there, War on

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Speaker 1: Drugs and Wearing the Robe, The War on Drugs. Gosh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I think you're you're you're right. I

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Speaker 1: think I'm right. I don't know why they don't do it.

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Speaker 1: It's a simple solution, George. This situation is now being

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Speaker 1: overcome by the taxpayers, so the people. It's just amazing.

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Speaker 1: You get back to Bill Clinton, who said, oh, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'd smoked marijuana but didn't inhale a national joke. You

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Speaker 1: have George W. Bush, who basically acknowledged using cocaine when

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Speaker 1: he was a playboy, etc. Obama, I read his book

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Speaker 1: before he ran for president. He acknowledged that he used

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Speaker 1: used marijuana pretty much regularly. Once they then get into Washington,

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Speaker 1: for some reason, they just lose their whole sense of

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Speaker 1: reality and things keep getting worse with all of those judges.

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Speaker 1: Even President Trump when he was running said, oh, the

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Speaker 1: war on drugs isn't working. He's been there for two years. Now,

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Speaker 1: have you seen any change at all? No? Attorney General

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Speaker 1: Sessions was doubling down on what's been proven not to work.

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Speaker 1: We need to stand and demand that the drug prohibition

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Speaker 1: be repealed. It is the biggest failed policy in the

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Speaker 1: history of our country, second only to slavery. Pretty solid condemnation.

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Speaker 1: And I'll stand by a George and wouldn't petty crime

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Speaker 1: drop because you know, some of these thugs don't have

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Speaker 1: to rob somebody for drug money. Absolutely. In fact, you know,

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Speaker 1: Switzerland came out with a program where if you were

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Speaker 1: addicted to heroin, you could go into a maintenance system

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Speaker 1: where you could actually be prescribed heroin by a medical doctor,

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Speaker 1: shoplifting when down eightfold, or in the neighborhoods rounding the clinics,

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Speaker 1: the check offenses, all the rest of this stuff. The

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Speaker 1: answer is yes, if you want to reduce crime, repeal

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Speaker 1: drug prohibition, and hold people accountable for their actions, but

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Speaker 1: bring them closer to medical professionals that can help them

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Speaker 1: instead of labeling them criminals and pushing them farther away.

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Speaker 1: It's just self evident, and I've seen it as a

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Speaker 1: federal prosecutor and as a judge. It's just time to

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Speaker 1: get this out there and tell the people in Washington, Sacramento,

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Speaker 1: or wherever it isn't working, have the courage to stand

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Speaker 1: up because now the votes are there. It's just a

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Speaker 1: short question of time. Would you go into law again

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Speaker 1: if you had to do all over again? Oh? Yes,

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Speaker 1: it really. I felt that it was so gratifying as

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Speaker 1: a judge to be able to try to do the

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Speaker 1: right thing for the right reason, and you're able to

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Speaker 1: set up programs. I was within six months of nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty three when I was appointed to the municipal court

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Speaker 1: in Orange County, put in the first drug court in

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Speaker 1: the country, and I have a stack of letters that

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Speaker 1: I'm really proud of. You take people off alcohol, and

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Speaker 1: I had letter, for example, Dear Judge Gray, I was

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Speaker 1: going to divorce my husband. He'd get drunk, he'd beat

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Speaker 1: me up, he'd be irresponsible with the children. But now

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Speaker 1: that he's off alcohol, you've given me my husband back.

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Speaker 1: You know how many letters like that do you need

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Speaker 1: to know that you're on the right track, because we can.

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Speaker 1: The purpose of the criminal justice system is not to punish,

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Speaker 1: it's to reduce crimes. To reduce crime do is address

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Speaker 1: the basic reasons why people go into crime, like drug addiction,

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Speaker 1: mental illness, that sort of thing. And we can do that,

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Speaker 1: and my and large we are doing that a great

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Speaker 1: deal more, quite successfully. Listen to more Coast to Coast

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Speaker 1: AM every weeknight at one am Eastern and go to

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Speaker 1: Coast to Coast am dot com for more