Speaker 1: Pushkin from Pushkin Industries. This is Deep Background, the show
Speaker 1: where we explore the stories behind the stories in the news.
Speaker 1: I'm Noah Feldman. We've just come through an extraordinary national
Speaker 1: election and some of us are slowly beginning to think
Speaker 1: about trying to catch our breaths. But today on the show,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk to a woman who's just getting started.
Speaker 1: Tali far Haiti and Weinstein is a candidate for District
Speaker 1: Attorney of Manhattan, and that's a race which is just
Speaker 1: starting to heat up. We wanted to speak to Tally
Speaker 1: for two reasons. First, she's a fascinating example of a
Speaker 1: person deciding to run for office for the first time
Speaker 1: in the hopes of making change in the way of
Speaker 1: this historic national election. And she's reflecting on some of
Speaker 1: the hardest policy issues that face public officials today and
Speaker 1: that will face the Biden Harris administration when it eventually
Speaker 1: takes office. Second, Tally is also a colleague. As part
Speaker 1: of her campaign, she's launched a podcast called Hearing Liked Background.
Speaker 1: It's produced by Pushkin Industries, and as you'll hear in
Speaker 1: a minute, Tally is very well suited to hosting a podcast,
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit better than I am tally. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for being here, and especially in this
Speaker 1: kind of exciting but also a little nervous making week
Speaker 1: when Joe Biden has been declared quote unquote president by
Speaker 1: the networks and the current occupant of the White House
Speaker 1: has not yet acknowledged it. I want to begin by
Speaker 1: asking about your own race that you're in, mesh Gen,
Speaker 1: and that's a raise for District Attorney of New York County,
Speaker 1: which is Manhattan. Why are you running for District Attorney
Speaker 1: of Manhattan now, Well, first, let me just say thank
Speaker 1: you so much for having me here and having me during,
Speaker 1: as you say, a celebratory week and also a time
Speaker 1: for some continued nail biting while we are focused on
Speaker 1: the national election and what it means for our country.
Speaker 1: I have been deeply engaged in this campaign for Manhattan
Speaker 1: District Attorney. And it's interesting, you know, I really turned
Speaker 1: to local prosecution after really having grown up in the
Speaker 1: federal criminal justice system after Trump was elected and I
Speaker 1: felt that I had to leave the Justice Department, where
Speaker 1: I had spent pretty much the entire Obama administration, working
Speaker 1: first for Eric Holder in his run office at the
Speaker 1: policy level, as his counsel and then on the ground
Speaker 1: as a federal prosecutor in the Eastern District of New York.
Speaker 1: And alongside the conversation that we've been having, particularly this summer,
Speaker 1: about the flaws inside the criminal justice system, there's been
Speaker 1: this incredibly interesting movement to reform local prosecution from within.
Speaker 1: And that's really at the heart of what I have
Speaker 1: been trying to do in the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: where I was working with local prosecutors in the Brooklyn
Speaker 1: District Attorney's office as a general council and really what
Speaker 1: I want to bring to Manhattan tally, given that we've
Speaker 1: just come through an election, some listeners, especially those who
Speaker 1: don't live in your jurisdiction, might be asking, wait, why
Speaker 1: are you running now? When is your election right? No
Speaker 1: rest for the weary, no time to turn to the
Speaker 1: next cycle in New York. So my election is in
Speaker 1: June of twenty twenty one. It's in the third week
Speaker 1: of June because the determinative election historically for District Attorney
Speaker 1: has been the Democratic Primary, which happens in the summer
Speaker 1: in New York. Reforming the criminal justice system is turning
Speaker 1: out to be hard, whether you do it from the
Speaker 1: top from the Attorney general's office, whether you do it
Speaker 1: as a federal prosecutor, or whether you do it within
Speaker 1: a local state prosecutor's office, as you've been doing in
Speaker 1: the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. What are some of the
Speaker 1: biggest challenges you see, What are some of the things
Speaker 1: that make it so hard, because you know, to an outsider,
Speaker 1: you might sort of think, well, we have all of
Speaker 1: these policies that systematically give a lot of power to prosecutors,
Speaker 1: and so all we really need to do is choose
Speaker 1: by appointment or election leaders who tell those prosecutors, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a new system, a new game. We
Speaker 1: still have the same discretion, but now we want you
Speaker 1: to exercise it for the good, not to maximize sentences,
Speaker 1: but to have an opportunity to send potential offenders into
Speaker 1: alternate treatment programs or just don't seek such high sentences
Speaker 1: for minor drug offenses. And you think it would be
Speaker 1: over I mean, it doesn't seem on the surface like
Speaker 1: the hardest part of the policy ever would be anything
Speaker 1: other than just getting the right people in there. Well,
Speaker 1: so you do make it sound so easy, No, And
Speaker 1: of course, you know, at a high level of general.
Speaker 1: That is the agenda. How can we use this power,
Speaker 1: which is really just an unbelievable power. The district attorney
Speaker 1: does not answer to anybody but the voters. How do
Speaker 1: we use that power to decide what cases to bring
Speaker 1: in what cases not to bring. I mean, that is
Speaker 1: at the heart of what it means to be a
Speaker 1: good prosecutor, and reform is about resetting that agenda. What
Speaker 1: has been challenging is that it's not just about correcting
Speaker 1: the excesses of the criminal justice tem pulling back from
Speaker 1: the cases that have harmed rather than helped communities that
Speaker 1: have perpetuated injustices, that have perpetuated racial disparities, exacerbated them,
Speaker 1: that have criminalized poverty. There's all of that work, but
Speaker 1: also then deciding and this is where I think gets
Speaker 1: less attention, and it is just as important, and it
Speaker 1: certainly as important to me, what are the cases that
Speaker 1: we have not been bringing that really are necessary or
Speaker 1: at the core of our mission to deliver on public safety,
Speaker 1: particularly for the most vulnerable people. And I think that
Speaker 1: this is really the next chapter of criminal justice reform
Speaker 1: is balancing out the places where we are shrinking and
Speaker 1: pulling back with the places where we need to be
Speaker 1: more aggressive and think about the folks that we have
Speaker 1: left behind. And so, you know, when I think about
Speaker 1: what are the things that have just not happened, you know,
Speaker 1: across the country and in particular offices, with the level
Speaker 1: of commitment that I think we need to make, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about gun violence and thinking about crimes against women
Speaker 1: across the board haven't been taken seriously enough, and we
Speaker 1: really just haven't moved the needle on the occurrence of
Speaker 1: those crimes, accountability for those crimes. And then of course
Speaker 1: some crimes around financial fraud, tax fraud, what collar prosecutions,
Speaker 1: the cases that are really have the effect of taking
Speaker 1: money out of the pockets of New Yorkers. Tolly, let
Speaker 1: me ask a little more about areas where you actually
Speaker 1: think we need more prosecution, because one of the story
Speaker 1: that's been a recurrent theme in thinking about criminal justice reforms,
Speaker 1: certainly since I've been reading about it, is the theme
Speaker 1: of unintended consequences. You know, we have a very good
Speaker 1: aspiration to try to, let's say, make streets safer in
Speaker 1: poor neighborhoods, so we turned to broken windows policing, and
Speaker 1: then we end up even unintentionally sweeping up lots of
Speaker 1: young people, especially young black men, who have not actually
Speaker 1: committed any substantial crimes and then are labeled as criminals. Et.
Speaker 1: Domestic violence protection is another area where, with the best
Speaker 1: of intentions, they are all kinds of mandatory arrest provisions
Speaker 1: and mandatory prosecution provisions even in states and localities across
Speaker 1: the country, and sometimes those work well, other times they
Speaker 1: seem to backfire. How does one avoid the phenomenon that
Speaker 1: we also see at the national scale. You know, remember
Speaker 1: it was progressives who put the crime bill into place
Speaker 1: that Joe Biden had to back away from in the
Speaker 1: last election, and lots and lots of progressives, including African
Speaker 1: American progressives, according to A James Former Junior's terrific book
Speaker 1: on this, actually supported that crime bill at the time.
Speaker 1: Again unintended consequences. It's an important question, Noah, because I
Speaker 1: think first it reminds us to come at this with
Speaker 1: a kind of humility that not everything that we try.
Speaker 1: The work of reform is hard because some of the
Speaker 1: changes that we make may in fact not have the
Speaker 1: effects that we want them to have. But I think
Speaker 1: it also demands data and a stepping back and a
Speaker 1: constant measuring of what we are doing. So I'll give
Speaker 1: you an interesting example. You know, one of the first
Speaker 1: studies inside a DA's office to measure racial disparities was
Speaker 1: done in I believe it was in Milwaukee, in John
Speaker 1: Chisholm's office, and he wanted to measure whether there was
Speaker 1: racial disparity and charging right if the race of the
Speaker 1: defendant was having an effect, and he was charging people
Speaker 1: of color differently when it came to certain crimes and
Speaker 1: overcharging them. And he learned something in response to that question.
Speaker 1: But he also learned that when the victims of crime
Speaker 1: were African American, and particularly for property crimes, so someone
Speaker 1: broke into your house and stole your TV, he was undercharging.
Speaker 1: The office was undercharging those cases. It was not taking
Speaker 1: that harm against that community as seriously. And you know,
Speaker 1: so talk about unintended consequences and why it's so important
Speaker 1: to put a spotlight on what you are doing, to
Speaker 1: constantly check yourself, not just check your intentions, but check
Speaker 1: your output. I think you have to have the courage
Speaker 1: to do that and to course correct. I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you about your own path to coming to this run.
Speaker 1: You clerked for Merrick Garland on the DC Circuit and
Speaker 1: incredible judge. You then went on to be nominated to
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, even though the Senate unfortunately did not
Speaker 1: give him an opportunity to be confirmed. Then you clerked
Speaker 1: for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, not for one but for
Speaker 1: two terms. You worked in the Obama administration, as you said,
Speaker 1: directly with Eric Holder at the Attorney General. Then you
Speaker 1: were aligned prosecutor, which I guess was a bit away
Speaker 1: from the absolute centers of power because you were putting
Speaker 1: people directly in prison. But what you're describing is really
Speaker 1: a career that at least began with a focus on
Speaker 1: the legal issues, the really hard legal issues, and then
Speaker 1: some of the biggest picture policy issues. And now you're
Speaker 1: going for a job that's really very much as in
Speaker 1: the weeze as a legal job can be, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's technically speaking, it's not even the entirety of New
Speaker 1: York City. This in jurisdiction, it's just one burrow. Now,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty darn big burrow, and it's an enormously
Speaker 1: important job, but it's a job about details and nitty gritty.
Speaker 1: What was the path that led you into that. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, you understand the importance of criminal justice reform,
Speaker 1: but at a more personal level, why move to that
Speaker 1: nitty griddy level, you know, noelt just first say that
Speaker 1: when I hear you describe my career trajectory, I just
Speaker 1: think my offices got just less and less nice and
Speaker 1: shabbier over the course of my career. Maybe that's not
Speaker 1: the way that you're supposed to do it, but I
Speaker 1: will tell you that the work for me became more
Speaker 1: and more meaningful as I got closer and closer I
Speaker 1: felt to making decisions that it had an immediate and
Speaker 1: discernible impact on the well being of my neighbors, right
Speaker 1: of people in communities right here in New York, for
Speaker 1: whom these decisions were just incredibly consequential, And for me,
Speaker 1: I can say that I have never done more important
Speaker 1: work than that. I also, I've learned some things from
Speaker 1: being able to contrast it to the years that I
Speaker 1: spent in different parts of the American legal system and
Speaker 1: in federal courts, in federal prosecution and all the way
Speaker 1: up to the Supreme Court. You know, part of it
Speaker 1: is I think that we can never isolate these systems
Speaker 1: from one another, and we need to understand where the
Speaker 1: jurisdiction of one begins, where the jurisdiction of another end,
Speaker 1: where there's overlap, where we have to work together, for example,
Speaker 1: to take on something like gun trafficking, where sometimes local
Speaker 1: prosecution has to step up in the face of inadequacy
Speaker 1: or really dereliction of duty from the federal government or injustice. Right. So,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that I did as
Speaker 1: a local prosecutor in Brooklyn as we sued Ice because
Speaker 1: we thought that during the Trump administration isis policy of
Speaker 1: arresting non citizens in and around courthouses was unjust and
Speaker 1: interfering with our ability to deliver on safety for vulnerable people,
Speaker 1: because we found, particularly that women who were not citizens,
Speaker 1: who are victims of domestic violence had basically stopped reporting
Speaker 1: what was happening to them because they were worried that
Speaker 1: by entering into even the local criminal justice system, they
Speaker 1: would trigger the deportation of themselves, of someone that mattered
Speaker 1: to them, maybe even of the defendant who was the
Speaker 1: father of their children. And I think to be able
Speaker 1: to see what you're supposed to do in the grand
Speaker 1: scheme of things, it's important, right, So I lean on
Speaker 1: my federal years for that. The other thing is the
Speaker 1: responsibility that federal prosecutors have is very different from the
Speaker 1: responsibility that local prosecutors have. And I was humbled when
Speaker 1: I got to the Brooklyn DA's office to see what
Speaker 1: it's like to be on the front line, to really
Speaker 1: be the guaranteur of people's safety. That was not true
Speaker 1: in any of the other things that I did. Tally.
Speaker 1: You were a big supporter of Joe Biden Kamala Harris
Speaker 1: during the campaign, and I often saw your Instagram posts
Speaker 1: of you doing various pro Biden Harris things. What should
Speaker 1: be their criminal justice reform picture, what needs to happen
Speaker 1: at the Department of Justice, which has really been at
Speaker 1: least in my view, in a very lousy, parlous state
Speaker 1: over the last four years. Yes, and a place that
Speaker 1: I really love and been very saddened to see the
Speaker 1: burdens on the department and what has happened to it
Speaker 1: over time. So No, as you know, in the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system, only a small part of the people who
Speaker 1: pass through the criminal justice system are in the federal
Speaker 1: criminal justice system, something like ten percent of the two
Speaker 1: point two million people who are in prison or jail
Speaker 1: on any given day are federal prisoners. But I think
Speaker 1: that there is a lot that Biden and Harris can
Speaker 1: and will do to forward a criminal justice reform agenda,
Speaker 1: one that pushes forward on fairness and on safety at
Speaker 1: the federal and at the local level. So I think
Speaker 1: the obvious starting point is policing. You know. Some of that,
Speaker 1: I guess will depend on what happens in the Senate
Speaker 1: and what the prospects of getting certain kinds of legislation
Speaker 1: through are. But certainly the chances have improved for important
Speaker 1: and transformational legislation to be passed around policing, legislation that
Speaker 1: would address some things like police misconduct through a national registry.
Speaker 1: I've been an advocate for a long time of having
Speaker 1: more transparency around information that goes to the credibility of
Speaker 1: police officers, whether that's a collective local registry or a
Speaker 1: regional registry, or I think what's on the table is
Speaker 1: a national registry. At the federal level. I think that
Speaker 1: there are some particular practices that have been quite controversial.
Speaker 1: They could be addressed, like whether no knock warrants should
Speaker 1: be severely limited in their use or eliminated, the kind
Speaker 1: of warrant that was at issue in the Brianna Taylor case,
Speaker 1: for example. Then, aside from legislation on policing, you asked
Speaker 1: about the Justice Department. The resurrection of the rebuilding of
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department is I
Speaker 1: assume going to be on the day one agenda and
Speaker 1: should be and an incredibly important power that that part
Speaker 1: of the Justice Department has. As you know, Noah has
Speaker 1: been just lying dormant. The Trump administration has objected ideologically
Speaker 1: to bringing pattern and practice investigations, and those are really
Speaker 1: important as a way for the FEDS to go into
Speaker 1: local police departments and ultimately work cooperatively with them with
Speaker 1: communities to make systemic change right beyond what you can
Speaker 1: make in a particular case where you're searching for accountability.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm excited to see an infusion of energy
Speaker 1: and talent you back into that work. And of course,
Speaker 1: you know, I could go on, but I think policing
Speaker 1: is a pretty good place to start. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: You came to the United States as a really little
Speaker 1: kid in nineteen seventy nine with your parents in the
Speaker 1: midst of the Iranian Revolution, and you were immigrants, and
Speaker 1: I suppose you were also refuge. How did that experience
Speaker 1: or set of experiences lead you to working in law particularly?
Speaker 1: I think for me that was the start of everything. So, Noah,
Speaker 1: as you said, I came here as a little kid.
Speaker 1: It was actually on Christmas Eve of nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1: And you know, now I can say something that I
Speaker 1: think I was quite nervous about saying over the course
Speaker 1: of many years, which is that my mother and brother
Speaker 1: and I arrived here with fake tourist visas likely in
Speaker 1: our hands, wanting to make a claim for asylum, and
Speaker 1: not even really knowing how to do that, and we
Speaker 1: were admitted into the country and given the opportunity, with
Speaker 1: the help of pro bono council, to make that claim,
Speaker 1: and thus began ten years of immigration proceedings. You know,
Speaker 1: my parents were schlepping me to the i S Office
Speaker 1: in Newark from time to time to have some kind
Speaker 1: of incomprehensible examination or hearing, where I basically understood that
Speaker 1: what was at stake was whether we would be allowed
Speaker 1: to continue our lives in this country, even though I
Speaker 1: also fundamentally had no idea what was going on. And
Speaker 1: all of that uncertainty only ended in the late eighties
Speaker 1: when President Reagan did a wide scale amnesty for millions
Speaker 1: of people, you know, to just end all of their
Speaker 1: legal claims and allow us to get onto a path
Speaker 1: for citizenship, which is what we did. And so I
Speaker 1: tell you that story in some detail, Noah, because for
Speaker 1: me that's my starting point. I experienced the law as
Speaker 1: somewhat terrifying, mysterious, and I was on the other side
Speaker 1: of it. And maybe for all of us, we make
Speaker 1: choices that help us go from a feeling of being
Speaker 1: an outsider to a feeling of being an insider. And
Speaker 1: I think for me, although I could not have articulated
Speaker 1: it this way all along, I wanted to be in
Speaker 1: the role of the decision maker, having been the one
Speaker 1: being DiscId it upon in all of those years. I
Speaker 1: think that it also gives me a connection to the
Speaker 1: vulnerability of people who pass through the criminal justice system.
Speaker 1: That has always motivated me. And when I say that,
Speaker 1: I don't just mean the defendant, but I also mean,
Speaker 1: of course the victim, the witness. Really, all of these roles.
Speaker 1: You are meeting people at the most vulnerable moment of
Speaker 1: their lives often, and I think it's a great privilege
Speaker 1: to be there. With them and to try to do
Speaker 1: justice and a kind of restoration for them in that moment.
Speaker 1: It's an extraordinary story, Telly, And I've heard you speak
Speaker 1: about it a little bit before in terms of the
Speaker 1: emotional impact of it, But I actually there's a detail
Speaker 1: there that I actually don't think I've ever heard you
Speaker 1: mentioned before, which was the part about the visas. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously you were tiny, but have you been able to
Speaker 1: reconstruct some of that story where the visas in order
Speaker 1: to get you on the plane in Iran you needed
Speaker 1: to have something that looked like a US or visa
Speaker 1: but would not withstand scrutiny when you landed in the
Speaker 1: United States, so that you had to land and then
Speaker 1: immediately put that away and say we are seeking asylum
Speaker 1: or were they visas that you were also trying to present,
Speaker 1: and if so, did that get you into the country?
Speaker 1: And then were you technically undocumented? I mean, these are
Speaker 1: fascinating questions at the Sorry sorry for having such a lawyer,
Speaker 1: but no, it's kind of astonishing. Yeah, and you know,
Speaker 1: no one's ever asked me those questions, which are technical
Speaker 1: questions but also really deep questions. And I'm still getting
Speaker 1: uncomfortable telling that story and an answer in questions like that.
Speaker 1: So no, I did get a copy of my file
Speaker 1: after I had already become a lawyer and was able
Speaker 1: to make sense of it. And I don't have a
Speaker 1: copy of the visas, but I do know that my
Speaker 1: mother paid an exorbitant amount of money for them where
Speaker 1: we bought them in Israel from a broker who was
Speaker 1: selling them with one way tickets. So that's already a
Speaker 1: red flag, right, a two week tot visa with a
Speaker 1: one way ticket sold by a third party to you, Right,
Speaker 1: I mean that's a pretty important fact, prosecutor. Right. I mean,
Speaker 1: these are hard things to talk about and our things
Speaker 1: to say. And what was most startling in that file,
Speaker 1: I will tell you, is a letter written to me
Speaker 1: when I was either four and a half or five
Speaker 1: years old, because I don't remember how soon I got it,
Speaker 1: you know, in the five it's addressed to me Farima
Speaker 1: far Haitian, and it says you are in possession of
Speaker 1: a fraudulent document that you have attempted to use to
Speaker 1: enter the United States unlawfully. Please report to the following
Speaker 1: address at the following time, you know, with all of
Speaker 1: your paperwork and so you're saying the first piece of
Speaker 1: communication you ever received from the US government was a
Speaker 1: target letter. Yes, yes, and it's very scary, it is,
Speaker 1: and I have it and I sort of look at
Speaker 1: it sometimes and it still makes me, you know, uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: And my parents got their own letters, but that one
Speaker 1: was just for me, right for a kid. And you
Speaker 1: know from your understanding of international law that of course
Speaker 1: refugees throughout time and around the world have used all
Speaker 1: sorts of means in order to be able to get
Speaker 1: to a safe place to make their claim for asylum.
Speaker 1: And a wrinkle in our case is that my very
Speaker 1: young mother with two very young kids didn't know the
Speaker 1: magic words to say at the airport, even though I
Speaker 1: think she was trying to articulate. And it claimed that
Speaker 1: she had a credible fear of persecution in her homeland.
Speaker 1: And we were lucky to be inspected that night at
Speaker 1: the airport by a law enforcement officer who used his discretion. Well,
Speaker 1: now I'm just going to use technical words with you,
Speaker 1: because you invited me to to parole us into the country,
Speaker 1: so that means we had permission to enter, though no
Speaker 1: authorization to enter, a kind of reprieve right a safety
Speaker 1: valve that said, come in, collect yourselves. My father I
Speaker 1: was waiting for us on the other side of border control.
Speaker 1: He had come a few months ahead of us. This
Speaker 1: officer knew this, And you know, it's really a very
Speaker 1: moving detail to me, is that he would the other
Speaker 1: end just trying to figure out where's my family. Everybody
Speaker 1: else has gotten off of this flight and not them,
Speaker 1: And an I and S officer said to him. A
Speaker 1: second law enforcement officer said to him, don't worry, you'll
Speaker 1: see them. It's Christmas. And we came in and that
Speaker 1: small act was everything because it allowed us to figure
Speaker 1: out how to walk into a lawyer's office the day
Speaker 1: after Christmas, how to make this claim, and eventually, because
Speaker 1: the system is often it's not perfect, right, my father
Speaker 1: was granted asylum get the same claims we did. And
Speaker 1: our case just lingered and stretched out for a very
Speaker 1: long time, and maybe it wasn't even going so well
Speaker 1: until we got amnesty. My mother, my brother, and I
Speaker 1: I'm taking away from this, I mean I'm almost speech
Speaker 1: So what I'm taking away from it is that you
Speaker 1: were able to make a life in the United States
Speaker 1: because of the act of discretion of law enforcement officials right,
Speaker 1: And here you are running for an office where the
Speaker 1: key to it is for the law enforcement officials of
Speaker 1: whom you would be the chief one on the prosecution side,
Speaker 1: exercise their discretion every day. Yes, And you asked me
Speaker 1: at the beginning, well, is why is that so hard?
Speaker 1: Can't you use your discretion for the good right, and
Speaker 1: not for the bad? And it's in these moments where
Speaker 1: you see how hard it is. It's hard to know
Speaker 1: what kind of humanity to bring to that situation, how
Speaker 1: to think about an individual case in the context of
Speaker 1: the many similarly situated people who may be experiencing the
Speaker 1: same thing. I mean, you know from your own experience
Speaker 1: as a lawyer, knowah that that is a fundamental tension
Speaker 1: in how American prosecutors have to use their discretion. This
Speaker 1: is something that we thought about a lot when I
Speaker 1: was working for Attorney role holder. Two principles that have
Speaker 1: to live side by side. On the one hand, you
Speaker 1: want to treat similarly situated people the same. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, you want to come to every case really
Speaker 1: appreciating and understanding its individuality and the effect that your
Speaker 1: decisions are going to have on the individual people who
Speaker 1: are standing in front of you, and it can be
Speaker 1: hard to put those two things together. And I think
Speaker 1: that you can only do it well after lots of experience, sure,
Speaker 1: but also drawing on your own humanity and vulnerability in
Speaker 1: making those decisions. You're really describing, I think a profound
Speaker 1: truth at the heart of prosecution in our system. You know,
Speaker 1: we might like to have a system where we know
Speaker 1: how to do it. We have rules, and then by
Speaker 1: applying those rules, we have to use the old words
Speaker 1: of the Master's Constitution, a government of laws and not
Speaker 1: of men. But if we just do it that way,
Speaker 1: we're going to make a lot of mistakes. We're going
Speaker 1: to fail to show compassion in the way that you
Speaker 1: know the customs officers showed compassion to you and to
Speaker 1: your mother and siblings on Christmas nineteen seventy nine. Yes,
Speaker 1: we don't want robots right running these offices. But to
Speaker 1: go back to our earlier conversation also about data and
Speaker 1: unintentional consequences, even of prosecutors with really good intentions, I
Speaker 1: think managing that discretion, leading people in the use of
Speaker 1: their discretion while not completely taking away their discretion is
Speaker 1: a complex question that, as I said, I started to
Speaker 1: think about many years ago and is very much alive
Speaker 1: inside the project of criminal justice reform at the local level.
Speaker 1: Now to go from the sublime to the let's call
Speaker 1: it the slightly less sublime, I want to talk about podcasts, dear.
Speaker 1: So you've started a podcast, and your podcast is being
Speaker 1: produced by Pushkin Industries, which is the same production company
Speaker 1: that produces Deep Background. So we're cousins in the Pushkin world.
Speaker 1: I knew you were interested in podcasts because right around
Speaker 1: the time when we were starting up Deep Background, you
Speaker 1: and I talked about maybe co hosting this show. So
Speaker 1: in a way, today's episode is a kind of a
Speaker 1: culmination of what was a dream for me and what
Speaker 1: I'm sure listeners listening to you will think, like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: why didn't you do that, or why didn't you just
Speaker 1: tally do it? Talk to me about why you decided
Speaker 1: to start a podcast about running for office. As far
Speaker 1: as I know, you're the first person ever to have
Speaker 1: done that. I think that I am. I haven't done
Speaker 1: a scientific survey, and so as you said, no, I've
Speaker 1: been interested in the genre of podcasts for a long time,
Speaker 1: and I've just been delighted to see you soar in
Speaker 1: this role, and I've been interested in it because I
Speaker 1: think that the friendliness and the long form of the
Speaker 1: podcast really allows you, as you say, to go deep
Speaker 1: into issues in a way that you would not be
Speaker 1: able to otherwise. And as I started to put together
Speaker 1: this campaign, I thought, well, what if we did that
Speaker 1: on the issues of this campaign. I mean, we've just
Speaker 1: discussed how hard it is to do this work, and
Speaker 1: I've used the word vulnerability. I go back to that
Speaker 1: because the other sort of advice I had gotten as
Speaker 1: I was getting ready to run for office is voters
Speaker 1: rightfully want to see your vulnerability. They want to see
Speaker 1: who you are. And someone gave me the example of, well,
Speaker 1: like you could cook on periscope to sort of show
Speaker 1: them who you really are, and I thought, that's one way.
Speaker 1: Or I could show them in this long form my heart,
Speaker 1: my mind, how I think about things, what moves me,
Speaker 1: who are the people that I keep counsel with. And then,
Speaker 1: of course it turned out that I was running for
Speaker 1: office in the midst of a global pandemic, and then
Speaker 1: this question of can a podcast be a meaningful part
Speaker 1: of a campaign became much more interesting because obviously our
Speaker 1: ability to show the voter who we are and just
Speaker 1: to connect with people is so severely limited. And we'll see,
Speaker 1: you know, it's an experiment. We'll see if these two
Speaker 1: things marry up and it becomes, I hope you know,
Speaker 1: over time, part of the menu of what campaigns do
Speaker 1: when they think about how they want to engage voters.
Speaker 1: But we'll see. Dolly, Thank you, this is totally fascinating
Speaker 1: and wishing you excellent luck with the podcast and better
Speaker 1: luck even than that with the election. Thanks for giving
Speaker 1: us a window into why you're running and to what
Speaker 1: some of the really challenging issues are that you'll face
Speaker 1: if elected. Thank you so much for having me. Noah.
Speaker 1: Speaking to Tally about her campaign really brought home several
Speaker 1: different lessons to me. The first lesson was really intensely personal,
Speaker 1: because despite having known Tolly for a long time and
Speaker 1: heard the story of her immigration experience before, I had
Speaker 1: never realized just how narrow a thing it was for
Speaker 1: her and her mother even to be allowed into the
Speaker 1: country at all. The idea that the customs officials discretion
Speaker 1: is what led her into the country on parole really
Speaker 1: brings home how poetic it is that she's now running
Speaker 1: for an office. The key component of which is exercising
Speaker 1: prosecutorial discretion correctly and morally. Another takeaway for me was
Speaker 1: just how hard it is to do that. So many
Speaker 1: times prosecutors with the best of intentions have tried to
Speaker 1: reform and change criminal justice in the United States and
Speaker 1: have managed not to make it better, but unintendedly to
Speaker 1: make things worse. The challenge is genuinely deep, and the
Speaker 1: problems are genuinely hard. Last, but not least, from a
Speaker 1: podcasting standpoint, it's kind of amazing that in the middle
Speaker 1: of COVID, Tally has decided to use a podcast as
Speaker 1: a component of her campaign to try to get into
Speaker 1: the living rooms of her potential constituents in ways that
Speaker 1: she can't do by going door to door. In the
Speaker 1: nearly two years that I've been doing Deep Background, I've
Speaker 1: been trying to learn every day how to do a
Speaker 1: podcast better. The idea that podcasting can develop and change
Speaker 1: in this way is I think, kind of inspiring for
Speaker 1: a genre that's very much in development. Until the next
Speaker 1: time I speak to you, all, be careful, be safe,
Speaker 1: and be well. Deep Background is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. Our producer is Lydia Gencott. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Martin Gonzalez, and our showrunner is Sophie Crane mckibbon. Theme
Speaker 1: music by Luis Gera at Pushkin. Thanks to Mia Loo, Belle,
Speaker 1: Julia Barton, Heather Faine, Carlie mcgliori, Mackie Taylor, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg. You can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Noah R. Feldman. I also write a column for Bloomberg Opinion,
Speaker 1: which you can find at Bloomberg dot com slash feld
Speaker 1: To discover Bloomberg's original slate of podcasts, go to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com slash podcasts, and if you liked what you've
Speaker 1: heard today, please write a review or tell a frat.
Speaker 1: This is deep background