Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you are listening to Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, My chance to talk with artists, policy makers,
Speaker 1: and performers, to hear their stories. What inspires their creations,
Speaker 1: what decisions change their careers, what relationships influenced their work.
Speaker 1: Last year, Netflix released the massively popular ten part documentary
Speaker 1: series Making a Murderer. The show is set in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: and follows the case against Stephen Avery and his nephew,
Speaker 1: Brendan Dassey, who were arrested and subsequently convicted for the
Speaker 1: murder of a local woman, a photographer named Tersa Holbach.
Speaker 1: If you saw the series, you are well acquainted and
Speaker 1: perhaps a bit smitten with my guest to day, Dean Strang,
Speaker 1: the unlikely breakout star. Strang and Jerry Being Avery's original
Speaker 1: defense attorneys, are now on a nationwide tour called a
Speaker 1: Conversation on Justice to discuss the larger implications of the case.
Speaker 1: When he entered college in the late seventies, Dean Strength
Speaker 1: wasn't hatching his plan to start a national dialogue about
Speaker 1: the flaws in our judicial system. He was singularly focused
Speaker 1: on being a political cartoonist. I was interested in politics
Speaker 1: before I had a particular political point of view, if
Speaker 1: that makes sense. As a kid, and I graduated with
Speaker 1: a degree in government, and when you got out you
Speaker 1: were cured of your editorial cartoony. Yeah, you know, my
Speaker 1: my junior year, I ended up making one of the
Speaker 1: most mature decisions I've ever made my life to date,
Speaker 1: still ways to go, which is deciding. As much as
Speaker 1: I loved cartooning, it wasn't going to be a good
Speaker 1: career as much as I love and still you know,
Speaker 1: if I sat down and started drawing regularly now it
Speaker 1: had been like an alcoholic with a bottle. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, in the end, it's not collegial. It's very solitary.
Speaker 1: It's not constructive in the sense of all you're ever
Speaker 1: doing is pointing out a problem, you know, scaring people
Speaker 1: and and and and I don't find a problem is
Speaker 1: an important first step, but you're never part of a
Speaker 1: solution for it. As a cartoonist. If you don't mind asking,
Speaker 1: what was your family's politics? Your dad, your mom was
Speaker 1: a My dad was a Republican is what you would
Speaker 1: think of as a business Republican now, and you know,
Speaker 1: and my mother, uh, what her politics where she really
Speaker 1: did keep to herself. She did. I was so hoping
Speaker 1: you'd say she was a communist. No, she wasn't. Grew
Speaker 1: up in this weekly fractured house. I doubt it, but
Speaker 1: I doubt it. But she was, by nature in the
Speaker 1: very best way of bleeding heart she was. So you're
Speaker 1: more your mother than your father in many ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you made a comment in an interview. I'm going to
Speaker 1: quote a couple of things from an interview that you did.
Speaker 1: You made a comment to Slate that you were the
Speaker 1: world's worst federal prosecut cuter. Yes, I think so. We'll
Speaker 1: describe how only eleven months on the job for one,
Speaker 1: thankfully for one society for society. Yeah, I lasted only
Speaker 1: eleven months. I didn't have the spine for it. I
Speaker 1: just did not have the spine for it. Um sentence
Speaker 1: seems tore me up. What do you think it takes
Speaker 1: to do that job? I think it takes, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of a greater a need, a greater need or
Speaker 1: a greater centrality of h orders as a as a
Speaker 1: first value just order. First of all, you're you know,
Speaker 1: you're working for a huge organization, the US Department of Justice,
Speaker 1: So you can't just be freelancing you know, there's eleven
Speaker 1: volumes of the United States Attorney's Manually you've got to follow.
Speaker 1: And second, you know, um, when you're prosecuting, what you're
Speaker 1: trying to do, it invariably is maintained the status quo.
Speaker 1: Keep the evidence the cops have found or the agents
Speaker 1: have found, keep it from being suppressed. You know, assert
Speaker 1: the rectitude of existing social order. You know, carry out
Speaker 1: an idea of applying part of a you're part of
Speaker 1: a huge you know what I mean, part of the sovereign.
Speaker 1: What makes a good prosecutor to you when if you
Speaker 1: sat in the courtroom and said, man, this guy or
Speaker 1: this woman, they're good. Real connection with victims of crime,
Speaker 1: a real understanding of the human situation, an ability to
Speaker 1: empathize with a defendant. Know you what you're What you're
Speaker 1: saying then, is that, if I'm right, is it beyond
Speaker 1: them genuinely having an empathy for the victims at least
Speaker 1: conveying that effectively to a jury to pass on to
Speaker 1: the jury, look what happened to these people? And put
Speaker 1: yourself in there, and a passion about it, a sense
Speaker 1: of passion about an articulated passion from your side. As
Speaker 1: a defense attorney whether people to come in and they
Speaker 1: sit down with you when they want your firm to
Speaker 1: defend them and you tell them no, how do you
Speaker 1: what's what's the process by which you choose the firm
Speaker 1: and you individually you choose who you will and won't
Speaker 1: defend if it's a good fit, and they're sure. There
Speaker 1: are plenty of people we tell no, or in the end,
Speaker 1: you know, walking thinking they want us and walk out saying,
Speaker 1: you know, you may be the right lawyer for the
Speaker 1: next guy, but not for me. So it looked for me.
Speaker 1: You know, an initial client meeting is to three hours long,
Speaker 1: sometimes longer than that, and it's just feeling out and
Speaker 1: are we gonna be able to work well together? And
Speaker 1: some component of that is the facts of the case
Speaker 1: or was that even kind of down the list of
Speaker 1: what's down the list? Why it's interesting, Well, because you
Speaker 1: know the facts. I have no way of knowing the facts.
Speaker 1: When the client's walking in, I haven't seen the first
Speaker 1: police report, I haven't you know, seeing anything. The other
Speaker 1: side is saying, I have only a client's version, and
Speaker 1: he may have a very fragmentary, very fragmentary understanding even
Speaker 1: you know the facts as he even he doesn't know
Speaker 1: what happened, right, or what other people are saying or
Speaker 1: you know. And the less involved he was, the less
Speaker 1: he can possibly know about what the accusation is. Right, Um,
Speaker 1: if he's truly innocent, it wasn't that doesn't know anything,
Speaker 1: doesn't know anything. Um, or if he was you know,
Speaker 1: if he was drunk or you know whatever. And that's
Speaker 1: often you know a lot of arrests, look some drugs
Speaker 1: or alcohol and one or two or three or ten sides. Um.
Speaker 1: So more of it is, is this gonna be a
Speaker 1: good working relationship without giving any details obviously or names obviously?
Speaker 1: Do they welcome Sometimes when you have that first meeting
Speaker 1: and it goes fairly well, but as time goes on,
Speaker 1: you sit there and say, this guy did it, this
Speaker 1: person did it. Well. Sure, but if you've the yeah,
Speaker 1: if you've gotten off on a really good start when
Speaker 1: that comes, I mean, they've had situations where somebody's trying
Speaker 1: to sell me on I didn't do it, and then
Speaker 1: you know, as time goes on, it becomes pretty clear
Speaker 1: they did and ad it to you. If you've if
Speaker 1: you've if you've picked the right client and they've picked
Speaker 1: the right lawyer, and you've worked on the relationship, they
Speaker 1: absolutely do so at the moment in that relationship when
Speaker 1: that person reveals that they did do it, what's that
Speaker 1: like for you? What do you do? You just I'm
Speaker 1: already there, generally, you know, generally, this is a conversation
Speaker 1: that I've started. I'm waiting for you to say with them,
Speaker 1: and then and then and then we we simply revisit objectives,
Speaker 1: because if they've done it and the relationship is good,
Speaker 1: no longer is the objective. Why you know, I want
Speaker 1: to be acquitted at trial. I've never had a client
Speaker 1: say I did it, but I want to be acquitted
Speaker 1: at trial. That's never happened to me yet. So it
Speaker 1: may tomorrow, but it hasn't happened yet. So for those
Speaker 1: who don't understand the ethics of these relationships, they're paying
Speaker 1: you and requesting that you helped them get away with it.
Speaker 1: Well that ethically they they could do that, and ethically
Speaker 1: I can do that. I can't put them on the
Speaker 1: stand to give false testimony. I can't put anybody else
Speaker 1: on the stand. I know it's going to give false testimony.
Speaker 1: I you just sit back and wait to see the
Speaker 1: state makes their case. Yeah, you can rely on reasonable
Speaker 1: doubt in the end. Now that's a that's a lousy
Speaker 1: defense strategy most of the time, simply to rely on
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. That's not a compelling story to tell a jury, right, Um,
Speaker 1: But it could be done. I've never had to do
Speaker 1: that um to date, you know, because once there's a
Speaker 1: breakthrough and they say, you know, I did it, it's
Speaker 1: it's almost seamless to re state the objectives of the representation.
Speaker 1: At that point, then it becomes you know, but I
Speaker 1: understand them, and I missed my kids high school graduation.
Speaker 1: Is there any way I cannot miss his college graduation?
Speaker 1: You know? Can you can you mitigate the consequences here
Speaker 1: and guide me through this? Um And if the relationship
Speaker 1: is good and trusting in both directions, it hasn't ever
Speaker 1: yet come down to you know, I want you to
Speaker 1: go in and try to buffalo jury. There's a guy
Speaker 1: that I know worked at some mortgage lending company got
Speaker 1: mixed up in the mortgage scandal prosecutable offense. His boss
Speaker 1: is he was like a fourth tier junior executive at
Speaker 1: this company. And then that's a generous title. It was
Speaker 1: really just a bunch of guys working in some office
Speaker 1: in New York, and long story short, as they wound
Speaker 1: up going after him and squeezing him to give up
Speaker 1: everybody up above him, and then they would continue to
Speaker 1: squeeze up the chain. And uh, I mean obviously what
Speaker 1: I'm getting towards here was prosecutorial overreach, if you will,
Speaker 1: or whatever term you want to use. I don't want
Speaker 1: to say, is there were a kind of guy like
Speaker 1: the prosecutor in the Dascy case. It was Ken Kratz.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that Kratz is symbolic of
Speaker 1: the kind of people the go into that line of work.
Speaker 1: But at the very least there's a lot of temptation
Speaker 1: for those people, isn't there to abuse their power. That's
Speaker 1: part of why I flopped as a prosecutor. I mean,
Speaker 1: you you have to have that overriding belief in social
Speaker 1: order that warrants using people instrumentally, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: squeezing somebody to get the next bigger guy and then
Speaker 1: squeezing that one to get the one above him. And
Speaker 1: I couldn't do that. This happens that client comes in,
Speaker 1: potential client comes in, You meet with him, he lays
Speaker 1: it all out and you know my reactions. Look, you're cooked.
Speaker 1: They've got you, and they're gonna want you to cooperate
Speaker 1: against others, and you probably should. That's probably your best
Speaker 1: option at this point. And I don't do that. I'm
Speaker 1: not the right lawyer for that. I suck at working
Speaker 1: with agents and you know, negotiating those kinds of deals,
Speaker 1: it's not interesting. I mean, there's no real legal work involved.
Speaker 1: There are lawyers who are very good at that, and
Speaker 1: it has to be done, but is it understood in
Speaker 1: your field when you go into the courtroom. Those guys
Speaker 1: have the edge when you win the case, you really
Speaker 1: want the kids. They've got every advantge. That's absolutely right.
Speaker 1: They really do. Um. And that's not to say that
Speaker 1: a lot of them don't work hard. And you know,
Speaker 1: terrific lawyers and most prosecutors are on the up and up,
Speaker 1: absolutely and committed to what they're doing and ethical and
Speaker 1: you know all that good stuff. I want to win
Speaker 1: the case on the merits, yes, yeah, and want to
Speaker 1: do you know, want to do what's fair most of them,
Speaker 1: and so you know that's good. But um, but you're right,
Speaker 1: they're always the state. You know, they've got the state's resources.
Speaker 1: They've got the base limited legal fees. I always say,
Speaker 1: these people, they're never going to run out of money. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and in this country, they've got the basic presumption
Speaker 1: of legitimacy, you know, even opposed to other countries. Yeah, yes, um,
Speaker 1: I mean even with the anti government sent him that
Speaker 1: you'll see rising in you know, sort of conservative populism.
Speaker 1: Even with that, most Americans at the you know, at
Speaker 1: the ground level, you know, if they're serving on a
Speaker 1: jury in a criminal thing, he did it. I think,
Speaker 1: if he's charged he did it. They trust the basic
Speaker 1: ground level competence of our government institutions. Mostly so as
Speaker 1: a lawyer practicing privately in the state of Wisconsin, so
Speaker 1: your first awareness of the every Dassy situation was in
Speaker 1: the media. You followed the case of the and his
Speaker 1: exoneration back in two thousand three. Um, when he was
Speaker 1: freed for the rape he didn't commit. It was all
Speaker 1: over the paper and in and in the chambers of
Speaker 1: courtrooms in in in Milwaukee and beyond the Wisconsin How
Speaker 1: did that reverber rate there? I mean, were the guys
Speaker 1: who were humiliated did they take that hard when they
Speaker 1: were humiliated that way? I think a lot of them
Speaker 1: did um. I think some of them engaged in outright
Speaker 1: counterfactual thinking. Um that well, you know, maybe the DNA
Speaker 1: test is wrong, or maybe there were two assailants and
Speaker 1: for some reason, you know, this poor victim only only
Speaker 1: told us about one, you know, preposterous stuff. But you know,
Speaker 1: more broadly, the when DNA exonerations started happening, it wasn't
Speaker 1: quite an existential crisis for the prosecution apparatus in this country,
Speaker 1: but I think it was a moment where they had
Speaker 1: to look in the mirror. You know, we we sort
Speaker 1: of the hubrist that we don't get things wrong, or
Speaker 1: that we you know, juries always come to the right outcome,
Speaker 1: and judges weed out the cases that ought to be
Speaker 1: weeded out, and prosecutors dropped the things that ought to
Speaker 1: be prosecuted. That hubris just couldn't be maintained in the
Speaker 1: same way anymore. You had to acknowledge a known error rate,
Speaker 1: and then acknowledge the possibility that there was an unknown
Speaker 1: error rate, that it was even you know, larger. In
Speaker 1: the show, you are sented. I'm not gonna say you
Speaker 1: present yourself, but you appear, you know, very trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean,
Speaker 1: and reference if every quick I touched all those offerences there,
Speaker 1: I still remember that all these years later. But you
Speaker 1: do seem like a pretty solid citizen there. So I
Speaker 1: was assuming that you wouldn't maybe want to comment on this.
Speaker 1: But Patrick Willis was the judge in the Avery case.
Speaker 1: Is he still on the bench? He retired, he'd be tired?
Speaker 1: How long ago? Three or four years? I'm guessing something
Speaker 1: like that. Do you care to render any kind of
Speaker 1: observations about him or evaluations of him? Do you find
Speaker 1: it's better in your work if you don't do that? Well,
Speaker 1: I actually like judge Willis. I did, and I do.
Speaker 1: Um And look, we we elect our judges in Wisconsin
Speaker 1: with open elections, you know, a trial judge every six years,
Speaker 1: any lawyer can run against him or her. Like that system. No,
Speaker 1: I don't like that and um and it and it
Speaker 1: affects how judges behave, especially in cases they're getting a
Speaker 1: lot of public attention. And um. You know, so what
Speaker 1: you're seeing there is is a judge who's well above
Speaker 1: the fiftieth percentile in a state that elects judges. I
Speaker 1: think he tried to get things right. Um, and do
Speaker 1: you know, do I think that he felt sort of
Speaker 1: the pressure of public attention. Yeah, I do think you
Speaker 1: felt the pressure of public attention to people who do
Speaker 1: what you do. Have an instinct or you can tell
Speaker 1: that the judge already thinks the person is guilty when
Speaker 1: the case proceeding. Oh, sure you can tell. Sure. So
Speaker 1: you found that this guy, he wanted to affirm what
Speaker 1: the cops the prosecutors were saying. He's part of that system.
Speaker 1: That is to say that almost every judge, in almost
Speaker 1: every case, believes more guilty they you know, they lose,
Speaker 1: they lose, really, they get habituated to guilt. They get
Speaker 1: habituated to a Have you seen judges that are not
Speaker 1: like that? Yes, on occasion in the case you see
Speaker 1: a judges I'm not quite sure at the very least, right,
Speaker 1: But boy, they have to hang onto that hardy. You know,
Speaker 1: when of the people are pleading guilty in the end,
Speaker 1: you know, and when you're seeing the same cops and
Speaker 1: prosecutors every day, and you know you're going to retirement
Speaker 1: parties together, it becomes a courthouse click and you gotta
Speaker 1: hang on real hard to you know. The possibility of innocence.
Speaker 1: When you watch Making a Murderer, what you get sucked
Speaker 1: into it becomes a clue and it's almost like Demos
Speaker 1: and mccayarty got people to start playing this game of
Speaker 1: how many of these facts do you remember and how
Speaker 1: do you piece them together? And you have a chance
Speaker 1: to play lawyer for a little while. But as an
Speaker 1: actual lawyer, what were some of the first things you
Speaker 1: saw in the case when you said to yourself, this
Speaker 1: is wrong. The key, the key, just something something doesn't
Speaker 1: square with the police explanation for this. I can't you know,
Speaker 1: you try to look at it from the other side.
Speaker 1: You know, what's the prosecution You gonna say, what's their argument?
Speaker 1: Can I parry that? You know, how do we handle that?
Speaker 1: And so you try to flip around your point of view.
Speaker 1: If I were them, if I were them, and I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'd say about that key. More on
Speaker 1: that key when we return explore the Here's the Thing archives.
Speaker 1: I talked with Laura Richiardi and Morbid Demos, the filmmakers
Speaker 1: of Making a Murderer who spent ten years capturing Stephen
Speaker 1: every story. You know, we were there simply to document
Speaker 1: events as they were unfolding. You know, we were not
Speaker 1: there to judge. We were there to listen and to witness.
Speaker 1: Take a listen at Here's the thing. Dot Org. This
Speaker 1: is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Dean Strang is the former co council for Stephen Avery,
Speaker 1: a man convicted of a brutal murder, as documented by
Speaker 1: the ten part series Making a Murderer. The show sheds
Speaker 1: light on major flaws and the prosecution's case. Dean Strang
Speaker 1: says there was one piece of evidence in particular that
Speaker 1: didn't add up. A key found in Avery's home during
Speaker 1: the investigation. Well, this was the seventh search. Um the
Speaker 1: bedroom of a single wide trailer. The size of this
Speaker 1: booth were in about the size of this booth, were
Speaker 1: in seriously about the size of the maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit bigger. You've got a standard sized mattress in there.
Speaker 1: Um And so that the key, you know, just didn't
Speaker 1: add up on the explanation the police were given for me,
Speaker 1: to my eye, in terms of a tipping point in
Speaker 1: the trial, I think it's when the judge allowed the
Speaker 1: FBI analyst to testify to the e d T, a
Speaker 1: testing which was when you say E d T A.
Speaker 1: D T A was this preservative that is in vials
Speaker 1: that are used, you know, to store blood, to keep
Speaker 1: the blood liquid. And E d T A is a
Speaker 1: chemical that's used in all kinds of refresh our listeners memory,
Speaker 1: what what what happened there? Well, so you start, So
Speaker 1: the blood was taken from Avery purpose for early DNA
Speaker 1: testing that was inconclusive at that time. And so there
Speaker 1: it sits in a vial after in a courthouse, in
Speaker 1: the clerk's office in the courthouse, the custodians of which
Speaker 1: are the Sheriff's department ultimately. And now you fast forward
Speaker 1: November two, five trees the Hallbucks cars found there looks
Speaker 1: like blood around the ignition, you know area on the
Speaker 1: dashboard that blood gets collected. It's identified as being Stephen
Speaker 1: Avery's blood. How did it get there unless he was
Speaker 1: bleeding and was in the car and you know, presumably
Speaker 1: turning the key in the ignition. Well, this is you know,
Speaker 1: and this is the you know, the game on moment
Speaker 1: in the trial, you know, with Jerry beating um. Where Wow,
Speaker 1: there is a vial of Stephen Avery's blood in the courthouse.
Speaker 1: The seal on the box has been slit and when
Speaker 1: you open the box up, now that the seals slit
Speaker 1: without explanation, the blood still liquid. So could the blood
Speaker 1: from that vial have ended up smeared on Teresa hallbox dash?
Speaker 1: When the blood is still liquid? How in the way
Speaker 1: it wasn't refrigerated or frozen. It's in the continent, it
Speaker 1: remains good. There's a substance they put in there. Correct,
Speaker 1: The vial, as all are, is treated with this chemical
Speaker 1: E d T, a chemical compound, just say as a
Speaker 1: common It's in a lot of household goods. It's edible,
Speaker 1: it's even you know, it's even in So when you
Speaker 1: put that in there, it doesn't affect the DNA testing
Speaker 1: of the blood people itself was It just keeps it
Speaker 1: liquid and we will always know that is that person's
Speaker 1: budded matches. Well, yeah, it just makes it easier to test.
Speaker 1: So what was the ruling about? So the state now
Speaker 1: it's got a problem, right, Oh my god. The police
Speaker 1: in theory did have access to his blood, and one
Speaker 1: of the officers involved in this investigation heavily was the
Speaker 1: one who transported this violent blood back in nine I
Speaker 1: knew where it was. Now it existed, and so what
Speaker 1: do we do, you know, the States saying, what do
Speaker 1: we do about that? Well, let's see if we can
Speaker 1: test the blood from the dashboard to see if it
Speaker 1: contains E t A, because if it doesn't, then the
Speaker 1: hypothesis is it couldn't have come vile, couldn't have come
Speaker 1: from a vial because it would have E d t
Speaker 1: A and if it had been in the vial, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so initially they said, Judge, you know, exclude the
Speaker 1: blood vial and all this argument about planting the blood
Speaker 1: because there's nobody who can do a test for E
Speaker 1: d t A and they were certainly can't do it
Speaker 1: in time. Judge said no, I'm gonna let it in.
Speaker 1: And so then they got the They talked the FBI
Speaker 1: into going into into double time to try to you know,
Speaker 1: redo the E d t A testing. And I think
Speaker 1: the last time the FBI had done that was in
Speaker 1: the O. J. Simpson prosecution, where that was an issue
Speaker 1: as well, and the E d t A was an
Speaker 1: issue there. So the FBI had gotten out of that business,
Speaker 1: and the State of Wisconsin talked them into getting back
Speaker 1: into it. And then mid trial, you know, on a Friday, afternoon.
Speaker 1: As I recall, we get seven fifty pages of reports
Speaker 1: and we're told the FBI analyst is going to come
Speaker 1: in and say he couldn't detect E D T A
Speaker 1: in the blood from the dashboard of the car. And
Speaker 1: when the judge ultimately let that in, and of course
Speaker 1: we couldn't do independent testing or defense testing at that point.
Speaker 1: We're five because we're four or five weeks in the trial,
Speaker 1: and nobody but the FBI does this, and you know
Speaker 1: it just you couldn't do it. We're we're just resource,
Speaker 1: no resources and no time. Uh but why no time?
Speaker 1: What you mean you couldn't because we were in trial,
Speaker 1: We were five weeks into trial, and the judge wouldn't
Speaker 1: have allowed you if you could have found an independent
Speaker 1: source to determine something as significant as that, to have
Speaker 1: a month off or something to go do that. I
Speaker 1: don't think there was any way in the world the
Speaker 1: judge would allow that. But is it safe to say
Speaker 1: that the case potentially hinged on that? I thought that
Speaker 1: was the tipping point in the trial. Um, did anybody
Speaker 1: subsequently find out? Did anybody go after the trial and
Speaker 1: go and get the testing done so that they could
Speaker 1: then publicize we had an independent test done that said
Speaker 1: that there were traces of D. Did that happen? Not yet?
Speaker 1: Not yet? You know. I find that the most difficult
Speaker 1: thing for me to face this was in family law court.
Speaker 1: This is in criminal proceedings that friends of mine have
Speaker 1: been involved in, civil proceedings that my ex wife was
Speaker 1: involved with. And that is that the job that is
Speaker 1: the toughest job, the job that requires the greatest attention
Speaker 1: and acuity and intellect and bravery, is to be a judge.
Speaker 1: What people don't understand about the jurisprudence system in this country,
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, is is that you're sitting
Speaker 1: there and the judges like according to case law. For me,
Speaker 1: as a judge to rule, I can rule either way.
Speaker 1: I've got case law to rule in the way. Which
Speaker 1: one of you do I like more? Which one of
Speaker 1: you do I want to reward more? Whatever resembles truth
Speaker 1: rarely walks into or out of a U. S. Court Right.
Speaker 1: One of one of my favorite moments and favorite judges.
Speaker 1: I'll remember this guy until I can't remember anyone anymore.
Speaker 1: Um about five ft two quiet guy where hush puppies
Speaker 1: only judge in a in a rural county in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: And and and you know, and I had a number of
Speaker 1: experiences with him and they were all good. He just
Speaker 1: was judicial. He was careful, fair. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't see that many like this, right, But but
Speaker 1: the crystal heising moment for me. I had brought a
Speaker 1: motion to suppress some evidence in a case and it
Speaker 1: required testimony of a police officer and testimony of my client.
Speaker 1: And the police officer was it was a good guy.
Speaker 1: I liked. I liked that detective. I liked him. I
Speaker 1: thought he was a truth teller. Um. And so he
Speaker 1: testified at the suppression hearing. My client testified at the
Speaker 1: suppression hearing. Um. She was a saleswoman, a little bit,
Speaker 1: a little bit brassy, a little bit hard edged. She
Speaker 1: was likable though in the end. And this guy said,
Speaker 1: you know, I heard the testimony and off, you know,
Speaker 1: Detective so and so he was he was very credible,
Speaker 1: very believable, you know. But the defendant she was, she
Speaker 1: was credible too. I you know, I have no reason
Speaker 1: to disbelieve what she said. And and you know you
Speaker 1: don't get this from judges usually, well they are you know,
Speaker 1: balancing the credibility. The officer was very credible, and you
Speaker 1: know defendant was not. And he said they both were
Speaker 1: very very credible, believable people. Um, I have no real
Speaker 1: reason to disbelieve either one of them. And that makes
Speaker 1: this a very close case. And in our system of government,
Speaker 1: close cases go to the defense emotions. Granted, I could
Speaker 1: have kissed him, I could have run up and kissed him.
Speaker 1: He was it was, you know, and you just don't.
Speaker 1: You don't have many experiences with judges like that. So
Speaker 1: when the Avery case ends and he's found guilty again,
Speaker 1: described to me how you felt sick to my stomach.
Speaker 1: I mean I think I literally felt sick to my stomach.
Speaker 1: And I'm somebody who always tells himself, no matter how
Speaker 1: well a case has gone, they're gonna come back guilty.
Speaker 1: They're gonna come back guilty. They're gonna come back guilty.
Speaker 1: I have to tell myself that because I can, I
Speaker 1: can deal. Yeah, I can deal with the the wonderful,
Speaker 1: you know, wonderful pleasant surprise. Different here, occasional acquittal, but
Speaker 1: different here. Well, I had told myself, they're coming back guilty,
Speaker 1: They're coming back guilty. But when you hear it, you
Speaker 1: know when you actually hear it, and then you know
Speaker 1: the first verdict, first count guilty for screw intentional homicide
Speaker 1: and then in the next breath not guilty of burning
Speaker 1: the body. You know, you you realize that a compromise
Speaker 1: was struck, um, and that you know you you were
Speaker 1: in the game. You were you know it's not a game,
Speaker 1: but you were, you were, You were there, doubt somewhere.
Speaker 1: You were there, and a compromise got struck and it
Speaker 1: got away from you. And how did Avery strike you
Speaker 1: in the time that you spent with him. Did you
Speaker 1: look at him in his background, out in his profile
Speaker 1: and say, this can be tough. Sure, he's not a
Speaker 1: very articulate guy. No, no, And and he's been kicked
Speaker 1: around by the world. And so family was. And the
Speaker 1: Stephen Avery I came to know projects exactly on the screen.
Speaker 1: It that Stephen Avery you're seeing in in this ten
Speaker 1: hour film and his parents, his family members is exactly
Speaker 1: the guy I came to know and the people I
Speaker 1: came to know. Um. It was remarkable how directly they
Speaker 1: projected in an unfiltered way. Where is he now? He's
Speaker 1: at upon correctional institution in Wisconsin. Our oldest our first
Speaker 1: and therefore oldest prison still in use, and what is
Speaker 1: the update if antying on his legal status. He's got
Speaker 1: an aggressive, good new lawyer from the suburbs of Chicago,
Speaker 1: assisted by an innocence project in Kansas City. They're working
Speaker 1: really hard on this. Someone shaking a blood vial tree.
Speaker 1: I hope I don't know, you know, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know. Ask what she's doing. UM, I don't talk
Speaker 1: to her. I'm there to help win and if she
Speaker 1: wants it, um, you know, and I passed along information
Speaker 1: that comes to me and really should be going to her. Um.
Speaker 1: But they're working really hard on the case. Were you
Speaker 1: surprised at what kind of a firestorm that show created? Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised. Hardly begins to say it, you know, it
Speaker 1: hardly begins to say it. I got my first email
Speaker 1: at six thirty Central time the night that that came out.
Speaker 1: A guy in Charleston, South Carolina had been home sick
Speaker 1: from work and he'd watched all ten hours of it
Speaker 1: and and then you know, it was moved for whatever
Speaker 1: reason to google me and find my Well. But but
Speaker 1: you know, funny you I think you it came out
Speaker 1: on a Friday, December eighteenth, and I think you called
Speaker 1: me on Monday, if I remember right. And I had
Speaker 1: been off to court somewhere and I came back to
Speaker 1: my office and there's a voicemail and it's some guy
Speaker 1: saying he's Alec Baldwin and it's sure as how it
Speaker 1: sounds like Alec bald One to me, and uh, and
Speaker 1: there's you know, there's a telephone number. And I thought
Speaker 1: this is going to get weird. Things that are going
Speaker 1: to change. But then I have changed and they have.
Speaker 1: Now I can't say that Avery is capable of doing
Speaker 1: the things that are described in the indictment, the sexual assault,
Speaker 1: the you know, the abduction and tying them down and
Speaker 1: killing them and burning them all this. I mean, it
Speaker 1: just goes to this level from on a scale of
Speaker 1: one attendants a twenty and I can't say that they
Speaker 1: would do that, and I can't say that they wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying I don't think that it's proven in
Speaker 1: the case that they did. But the next thing obviously
Speaker 1: becomes to me like O J who said, I'm going
Speaker 1: to spend the rest of my life finding out who
Speaker 1: really did this. Um, I'm hard pressed to think who
Speaker 1: would do that? Was any thought about alternative suspects? Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: We we identified a number of people who have the
Speaker 1: opportunity to do this, who are approximate, you know, nearby,
Speaker 1: and who's past suggusted some legitimate tendency to worry about it.
Speaker 1: The judge excluded all that. But on your point, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're you're an actor. Um, if you were playing Brendan
Speaker 1: Dascy and somebody handed you a script that says, okay,
Speaker 1: a sixteen year old boy who's who's got some learning
Speaker 1: disabilities and who's had zero sexual experience. The script calls
Speaker 1: for this sixteen year old boy, you Alec Baldwin playing him,
Speaker 1: to come over to his uncle's trailer and to be
Speaker 1: told to come in, take off all his clothes, and
Speaker 1: have sex in front of his uncle with a woman
Speaker 1: who's manacled to kid and screaming for her life. You know,
Speaker 1: after he's walked home from school. Action right, you're gonna
Speaker 1: throw the script back. He's gonna believe it's preposterous. It
Speaker 1: you know, I can't make this work. I may be
Speaker 1: a great actor, but we're making the same point. You know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that Moira and Laura we we
Speaker 1: were you know, kind of underlined when they were here
Speaker 1: was Mike callback and how the judge said, don't try
Speaker 1: the case in the press. So the prosecutors basically did
Speaker 1: Hall back the script. Did that irky when he was
Speaker 1: doing that it, Yeah, I'd bothered me, um, you know,
Speaker 1: And I'm not inclined to be too critical of a
Speaker 1: bantam Stam's family. You know, they all process in their
Speaker 1: own way. And he was very saying when the whole
Speaker 1: time we do it was it was amazing how little
Speaker 1: emotion there wasn't my callback? Well, I think he was
Speaker 1: trying hard, you know, to do that. Mike's a nice guy, actually,
Speaker 1: I'm just telling you. You know, he and his brother Tim,
Speaker 1: and the parents for that matter. Um, So I think
Speaker 1: didn't they have any curiosity to find out potentially that
Speaker 1: there was someone else that killed their sister. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I can't. I'm just I'm just saying there for me
Speaker 1: that the two go hand in hand. I mean, maybe
Speaker 1: a nice guy, but I thought, well, he has a
Speaker 1: level of certainty. I would really want to know who
Speaker 1: did it. You know. Well, you know we were circle
Speaker 1: back too. We trust the police in most country in
Speaker 1: the main most of us trust the police. Now things
Speaker 1: have changed for you. I I was stunned to see
Speaker 1: in Slate and I have to I have to cool
Speaker 1: her out on this. That Heather Schweddle. I believe her
Speaker 1: name is spelled in her peace and Slate was interviewing
Speaker 1: you and she talked about how you become a heartthrob?
Speaker 1: Is your legal practice just exploded? Now? Is everything just
Speaker 1: going your way? Are you dressing differently? You're wearing your
Speaker 1: hair differently? My wife several years ago, I started trying
Speaker 1: to dress me better, um, you know, and I indulged
Speaker 1: that what'd your wife think about all this? Oh? She
Speaker 1: she can hardly stop laughing. I mean that's um, heart throb.
Speaker 1: I'm not. But what's changed for you? Well? Here I
Speaker 1: am in New York City talking to Alec Baldwin across
Speaker 1: the doing a bunch of other things, and doing a
Speaker 1: bunch of talking at universities and colleges and bar groups
Speaker 1: and charities and the you know, the theater stuff with
Speaker 1: Jerry um so so sort of everything has changed, um
Speaker 1: in the last few months, and it will change back again. Um,
Speaker 1: But you know there's a moment where you know, the
Speaker 1: things I've wanted to say for a long time, and
Speaker 1: nobody wanted to hear. And now some people are are
Speaker 1: willing to give me an opportunity to say. When you
Speaker 1: speak before legal groups ESPEC especially or universities, give us
Speaker 1: one of those things might be talk about the role
Speaker 1: of class in our criminal justice system, and not just
Speaker 1: how poorly we fund indigence defense, but why there are
Speaker 1: so many indigence to defend in the system. Linkage between
Speaker 1: class and race and ethnicity, UM, the role of electing judges, UH,
Speaker 1: police interview techniques with people who are vulnerable or unsophisticated,
Speaker 1: often learning disabled. There's any number of things that that
Speaker 1: you know that I'm glad America's getting a glimpse of
Speaker 1: how this really works. No offense intended. But not in
Speaker 1: a movie, you know, not not in a fictional account.
Speaker 1: So UM, for the time I think I've got a
Speaker 1: duty to speak up, we'll be able to hear Dean
Speaker 1: Strang speak up even more. Dean Strang Road to Justice,
Speaker 1: an eight episode television series, is now in development. Strang
Speaker 1: will study big time cases that expose the weaknesses in
Speaker 1: our criminal justice system. Sign me up. This is Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing