Speaker 1: If you will place your left hand on the Bible
Speaker 1: and raise your right hand, and please repeat after me
Speaker 1: and I do solemnly swear, then titled action find the
Speaker 1: defendant guilty of the time. It makes no sense, it
Speaker 1: doesn't fit. If it doesn't fit, you must equit. We
Speaker 1: all took the same of the office. We are all
Speaker 1: bound by that common commitment to support and defend the Constitution,
Speaker 1: to bear true faith and allegiance to the same that
Speaker 1: you faithfully discharge the duties of our office. Do you
Speaker 1: solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you are about
Speaker 1: to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and
Speaker 1: nothing but the truth. From Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: this is Sworn. I'm your host Philip Holloway. I viewed
Speaker 1: justice as being a collection of people assesses any laws
Speaker 1: that has to be executed by human beings. Until we
Speaker 1: can remove the human being aspect out of it. We're
Speaker 1: not going to have perfection, But it is my hope,
Speaker 1: my desire, my dream, if you will that we continue
Speaker 1: to evolve. Technology evolves, our way of thinking evolves, crime
Speaker 1: fighting tools evolved. A lot of people in society believe
Speaker 1: they may not have anything to contribute to our legal
Speaker 1: system because they're not attorneys, they're not police, they're not
Speaker 1: district attorneys. But we as citizens all play a role.
Speaker 1: So what I would like to tell the general public
Speaker 1: is that when you sit on a jury, please take
Speaker 1: it seriously. A lot of the compics will tell you
Speaker 1: never trust your life. The twelve People wants smart enough
Speaker 1: to get off of Jerry. They're wrong. Jerry duty serious business.
Speaker 1: Jerry duty can save an innocent person from being incarcerated.
Speaker 1: Jerry duty can punish derightfully guilty. Please take Jerry Duty seriously.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the season finale of Sworn. We have been
Speaker 1: extremely fortunate to talk to some amazing people this season,
Speaker 1: and everything has centered around one central question. What is justice.
Speaker 1: This may sound like a simple question, but it's not
Speaker 1: a question that can easily be answered in absolute terms.
Speaker 1: In this episode, we're going to look back to the
Speaker 1: people who have shared their stories and their expertise with us,
Speaker 1: and from each of their unique person actives, we will
Speaker 1: do our best to tell you what justice really is.
Speaker 1: We'll start with the exonorees we spoke to early in
Speaker 1: the season. They know personally what it feels like to
Speaker 1: be denied justice. At the beginning of the episode, you
Speaker 1: heard from Joe Diaz, the man from the Eyewitness Testimony episode.
Speaker 1: Joe was wrongfully convicted and served eight years for a
Speaker 1: sexual assault he did not commit. The next voice is
Speaker 1: William Dylon. William is from our episode on Polygraphs and
Speaker 1: sent Dogs, who was wrongfully incarcerated for twenty seven years
Speaker 1: for a murder he did not commit. Justice means truth,
Speaker 1: that's all it means. It doesn't mean getting something for something.
Speaker 1: Justice only means truth to me. This is Bill Richards
Speaker 1: from the Bite Marks episode. Bill sir twenty three years
Speaker 1: in a California prison after he found his wife murdered.
Speaker 1: Police still have not found the real killer. Justice to
Speaker 1: me would be punishing the people who did to me,
Speaker 1: because it would stop him from doing it to other people.
Speaker 1: It's not that I'm bengeful, It's just that the only
Speaker 1: way to stoft people is to see justice, and then
Speaker 1: justice would be if they actually went after I found
Speaker 1: who did this to my wife. But justice would be
Speaker 1: punishing the right person and stopping people doing this like
Speaker 1: what happened to me. I don't believe any person went
Speaker 1: to prison who was innocent without some kind of misconduct
Speaker 1: and that needs to be stopped. And the way to
Speaker 1: stop that is you need to punish the people doing
Speaker 1: it so the next guy doesn't do it. Lastly, we
Speaker 1: have Calvin Johnson from the episode on racial bias. Calvin,
Speaker 1: who is an African American was convicted by an all
Speaker 1: whiet jury and wrongfully served sixteen year of a life sentence.
Speaker 1: But what was this justice being to me? Probably the
Speaker 1: same thing everybody else said, just uf If the word
Speaker 1: justice will actually taken into exact content as the way
Speaker 1: it should be, it means fair, equal quality for all
Speaker 1: human beings. The problem is is just the justice system itself.
Speaker 1: It's not justice because of the flaws. Therefore, it's not
Speaker 1: equal equality for all citizens. Its inequality for its citizens
Speaker 1: based on who they may be. Lower income people that
Speaker 1: don't have the money to have to be able to
Speaker 1: fight against the justice system that has all the odds
Speaker 1: and all the policies and procedures stacked up against you.
Speaker 1: It's against uh, the minorities. So it's just when you
Speaker 1: look at it like that, the word justice does not
Speaker 1: being honored and portrayed or fulfilled to be the truth.
Speaker 1: Just as the United States right now really doesn't exist
Speaker 1: except for rare cases. During our episode on Calvin's case,
Speaker 1: we spoke with Molly Palmer. Molly is an attorney and
Speaker 1: board member of the Georgia Innocence Project. In our interview
Speaker 1: with Molly, we told her how Calvin has answered this
Speaker 1: question about justice, that justice is just us. She said
Speaker 1: that kind of insight is common among the Axonorees she
Speaker 1: works with. You know, one of the things in working
Speaker 1: with Axonorees, you know, they're never better. They spend so
Speaker 1: many years behind bars, and they emerge grateful and happy
Speaker 1: to have whatever life they have left. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know, I think that there there are
Speaker 1: certain things that they say that really gets to the
Speaker 1: heart of their experience. Calvin is so gracious and such
Speaker 1: a lovely man, but that kind of statement is so
Speaker 1: heavy because as what it's saying is, so long as
Speaker 1: you have a wrongfully imprisoned man, a single one man
Speaker 1: or woman, so long as there is one person that
Speaker 1: the system has failed, it's not justice. It just can't be.
Speaker 1: I believe that justice does not look for the guilty,
Speaker 1: it looks for the innocent. This is Dr Joel Zibet
Speaker 1: from our episode on lethal injection. Justice is something that
Speaker 1: you need to test on the people you despise. Justice
Speaker 1: is the thing that works for people that we hate
Speaker 1: and that we can't stand. And justice is about the
Speaker 1: fair distribution of the way that people are brought forth
Speaker 1: to trial, of what their punishment should look like, of
Speaker 1: how society should look. There is this problem in America
Speaker 1: with too many people incarcerated. There's two point two million
Speaker 1: people in this country are in prisons. We stand out
Speaker 1: in civil societies to have this many people incarcerated, and
Speaker 1: so there's a talk about trying to reduce incarceration rate
Speaker 1: and trying to find alternatives. You know, it's interesting too
Speaker 1: because it's complicated. I'll give you an example. Jesse Smollett
Speaker 1: in Chicago. It's unclear what happened there. Something strange happened.
Speaker 1: He seemed to be involved in it. Now the question
Speaker 1: is to how to punish him. And so it turned
Speaker 1: out that his punishment was to do community service of
Speaker 1: some sort, which, if I think of it, seems perfectly
Speaker 1: reasonable to me, Like what does it matter? Why should
Speaker 1: a person like that go to prison? And yet people
Speaker 1: are very outraged that he didn't go to prison, that
Speaker 1: the district attorney, I think dropped the charges because some
Speaker 1: other deal was made. And so I think that our
Speaker 1: desire for what we think is justice, or the need
Speaker 1: to incarcerate people, I think runs pretty deep in America
Speaker 1: these days. And until we get over this need to
Speaker 1: incarceraate everybody, I think that what really we would consider
Speaker 1: to be a just society is still often the distance.
Speaker 1: So to me, justice doesn't look like putting everybody in prison.
Speaker 1: And I think also the justice requires telling the story
Speaker 1: of the defense as well as the prosecution. The media
Speaker 1: and television is fascinated by the stories of the prosecution,
Speaker 1: and there's very little stories about the defense. I believe
Speaker 1: that people should be innocent until proven guilty. I believe
Speaker 1: that they should not be prejudged, and I think that
Speaker 1: these are necessary parts of a just system. A just
Speaker 1: system is open and honest and accountable and available. So
Speaker 1: that's my view of justice. Here's Amelia Maxfield, a forensic
Speaker 1: specialist for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. From my specific stand point,
Speaker 1: what justice means now is finality. Our system preferences the
Speaker 1: resolution of cases over getting it right. That is written
Speaker 1: in our case law, in our precedent. It's more important
Speaker 1: for a case to be over then for the right
Speaker 1: person to be in prison or even on death row,
Speaker 1: or even executed for that crime. And I think that
Speaker 1: plays out across the system in the pressure to plead
Speaker 1: guilty to small misdemeanors in order to not inconvenience the
Speaker 1: court by having a trial. Our system is just designed
Speaker 1: to grind people through, from misdemeanor convictions to homicide cases.
Speaker 1: We just want resolution, We just wanted to be over.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that should be a principle of any
Speaker 1: justice system. That may have made sense when we didn't
Speaker 1: have DNA testing, when we didn't have evolving science, but
Speaker 1: science inherently evolved, and if you're going to be using
Speaker 1: evidence that changes and developed to secure conviction, you have
Speaker 1: to be open into revisiting that conviction as the science
Speaker 1: or the evidence changes and evolved. The justice system should
Speaker 1: preference getting it right over having it resolved. I think
Speaker 1: it should be much more important to be sure that
Speaker 1: the evidence that's being used is reliable and valid and accurate,
Speaker 1: rather than just securing a conviction and resolving a case
Speaker 1: just to have it resolved. Here's Justin Brooks, the director
Speaker 1: and co founder of the California Innocence Project, pointing out
Speaker 1: how different economic factors can affect justice. Well, that's where
Speaker 1: we start seeing the separation of rich from poor in
Speaker 1: terms of getting the amount of justice you can afford.
Speaker 1: The defense attorney can obviously ask the judge for those resources,
Speaker 1: can petition to get those experts, but every county in
Speaker 1: America has limits on that, and it will depend on
Speaker 1: what the county budget is and how much they allocate
Speaker 1: to experts, and whether the judge thinks you need it
Speaker 1: or not. But those decisions is won't be left up
Speaker 1: to you, the defendant if you're indigent, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times your lawyer won't be able to get the
Speaker 1: resources they need. What I've seen in California, which is interesting,
Speaker 1: which I think is counterintuitive for most people, is that
Speaker 1: almost all our exonerations came from cases where private lawyers
Speaker 1: were handling the case that we're either appointed by the
Speaker 1: court or retained, and very few cases where there were
Speaker 1: public defenders. And I think it's because in public defender cases,
Speaker 1: the public defenders have training, experience, supervisors, and probably most
Speaker 1: importantly in my cases, access to investigators, where sometimes you
Speaker 1: have private attorneys that are very small offices don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of resources. The families come forward with all
Speaker 1: the money they have, and it's still not enough to
Speaker 1: put together a good defense, and so they might go
Speaker 1: a little short on the investigation or retaining experts or
Speaker 1: doing things like that, whereas public defenders offices often do
Speaker 1: a better job on that. And I think the general
Speaker 1: public thinks the opposite is true, that you're always better
Speaker 1: with a private lawyer than you are a public defender.
Speaker 1: And again I'm not saying there's not amazing private lawyers
Speaker 1: out there with amazing law firms, and when they have
Speaker 1: the right resources and people can compensate them, that they
Speaker 1: aren't the best. But I think the problem is in
Speaker 1: the middle. Where are you better off having a lawyer
Speaker 1: without that much experience who as a private lawyer who
Speaker 1: has no supervision and no investigators. Are you better off
Speaker 1: getting a public offender to represent you? And I think
Speaker 1: often when you don't have any resources, you're better off
Speaker 1: with the public defender. The systems are so different county
Speaker 1: to county. I worked as a quarter pointed lawyer in Michigan,
Speaker 1: and I give you an example of a thing that
Speaker 1: just denies people due process is when I did it
Speaker 1: in Lansing, Michigan, I would get paid per case and
Speaker 1: it was a flat fee. When I did it in
Speaker 1: in Arbor, Michigan, I got paid by the hour. And
Speaker 1: so if I took a case to trial in Lansing,
Speaker 1: I would still get the same amount of money as
Speaker 1: if I played it out, And if I took a
Speaker 1: case to trial in ann Arbor, I would get paid
Speaker 1: for all those trial hours. So what's going to happen
Speaker 1: when people are running businesses and have to pay their
Speaker 1: mortgage and pay for their kids schooling and all that.
Speaker 1: We actually set a system up where it makes it
Speaker 1: very difficult for lawyers to provide the same services. And
Speaker 1: in California we have some of these crazy contracts out
Speaker 1: in some of the smaller counties where one lawyer will
Speaker 1: contract for the entire indigent defense work for the year
Speaker 1: for the county. And now they're running a business that
Speaker 1: gets a contract, and the more money they spend, the
Speaker 1: less money they make on that contract. And this is
Speaker 1: not good and it's it's crazy that within the same country,
Speaker 1: with the same sixth Amendment the Federal Constitution, there's such
Speaker 1: varying quality and resources on the defense side of the work.
Speaker 1: And that's true not only just state to state, but
Speaker 1: county by county within the same state. Because if what's
Speaker 1: all about is getting the truth, and those resources will
Speaker 1: assist the fact finder and getting to the truth, and
Speaker 1: there should be no question about it. It shouldn't be
Speaker 1: about well, he shouldn't get it. It should be about, well,
Speaker 1: this best assist us in finding out the truth. It's
Speaker 1: in all our best interests that innocent people aren't convicted
Speaker 1: and that guilty people are and if providing additional resources
Speaker 1: gets us there, it should happen. Here's retired judge and
Speaker 1: lawyer Ray Gary Jr. Every county has their own, their
Speaker 1: own idea of justice. For example, during my middle years
Speaker 1: as a lawyer, Fulton County and cob Can Honey are
Speaker 1: separated by a river. Fulton County was run by Democrats,
Speaker 1: Cobb County was run by Republicans. I had a client
Speaker 1: charged with a sex crime. Most of my cases were
Speaker 1: in Cobb County, and I knew from experience he'd be
Speaker 1: looking at ten years in prison, are going to trial
Speaker 1: and taking his chance. But this case wasn't in Cobb County,
Speaker 1: it was next door in Fulton County. The judge sent
Speaker 1: a letter out and said we're bringing everybody in and
Speaker 1: this will be your only chance to do a plea bargain.
Speaker 1: If you don't do a polea burgain on this court date,
Speaker 1: you're going to trial. So I got down there and
Speaker 1: the prosecutor offered me to reduce it to a misdemeanor
Speaker 1: and give him twelve months probation and not be a
Speaker 1: sex offender. And I was thinking, this is too good
Speaker 1: to be true. You know, from our perspective that if
Speaker 1: this was in my Republican county and I live in,
Speaker 1: you know, the best offer would have been twenty to
Speaker 1: do ten be a lifestun sex offender. Because it happened
Speaker 1: across the other side of the river, then it was
Speaker 1: twelve months probation, no sex offender. We naturally jumped on
Speaker 1: it and played guilty that very day. One funny thing
Speaker 1: happened was I had charged my client ten thousand dollars
Speaker 1: because I thought it was going to be a lot
Speaker 1: more to it than that, and so he had paid
Speaker 1: it in cash. The next day, after he played guilt,
Speaker 1: didn't get out of jail, he called up and he said,
Speaker 1: he said, listen, I gave you a lot of money
Speaker 1: didn't you. I said, you sure did. I said that
Speaker 1: was a lot of money. He said, you really didn't
Speaker 1: have to do all that much. I said, that's true,
Speaker 1: as it didn't. As it worked out, I really didn't
Speaker 1: have to do a whole lot. He said, well, I
Speaker 1: don't think I got my money's worth. I said, well,
Speaker 1: you're in luck, I said, because the prosecutor is having
Speaker 1: set at thoughts. She's wishing that she had never gave
Speaker 1: you that deal. So I can go down there and
Speaker 1: withdraw your plea and put you on the trial calendar
Speaker 1: for Monday morning, first trial out, and we can we
Speaker 1: can take this plea bargain off the table and have
Speaker 1: your trial. And I said, a matter of fact, let
Speaker 1: me put your on hole and I'll get my secretary
Speaker 1: to get started on the motion and I can drive
Speaker 1: down there, you know, this afternoon and foul it. He's
Speaker 1: a hold up on that. Let me think about it.
Speaker 1: And so I never heard back from him. But for everyone,
Speaker 1: I came out smelling like a rose. There was ten
Speaker 1: were I ended up being paid way too little. This
Speaker 1: is defense attorney Michelle Tiegel on the idea of what
Speaker 1: it means to win your case. I struggled with that.
Speaker 1: When I first started doing criminal defense, I was an
Speaker 1: athlete and I really wanted to win for all of
Speaker 1: my clients. I had to redefine what winning means, and
Speaker 1: I learned a lot about that from my former law
Speaker 1: partner and kind of make me a little teary, because
Speaker 1: as a criminal defense lawyer and also as a prosecutor,
Speaker 1: we have to redefine what winning means. There were cases
Speaker 1: where winning meant I had to be an advocate to
Speaker 1: my client about taking what really was the best deal
Speaker 1: and the best thing for their life. In some cases,
Speaker 1: winning meant we fought to the very bitter end until
Speaker 1: we got an acquittal, and we got it. In some
Speaker 1: cases capital murder cases where the evidence was strong on
Speaker 1: the state side and difficult to deal with, just preventing
Speaker 1: a death sentence and getting life without parole was a win,
Speaker 1: and that was a win that I struggled to wrap
Speaker 1: my head around. But I had situations where just making
Speaker 1: sure the state couldn't kill my client was a win.
Speaker 1: And I would have never thought, starting as a baby
Speaker 1: criminal defense lawyer, that a life without parole could go
Speaker 1: in the win category. Glory, but winning is relative and
Speaker 1: criminal practice and criminal law on both sides, and I
Speaker 1: hope that from the prosecutor's side, and I know there
Speaker 1: are prosecutors like this, that they will also start redefining
Speaker 1: winning and that it will truly be based not just
Speaker 1: on I'm going to get this conviction or I'm going
Speaker 1: to advocate for this victim that is sometimes their role,
Speaker 1: but that they're really going to just try to make
Speaker 1: the right decision that serves the community and that does justice,
Speaker 1: because that's what they're there to do. I think when
Speaker 1: they lose sight of that, it creates a really dangerous system.
Speaker 1: Here's Georgia prosecutor Jesse Evans. Justice means getting it right,
Speaker 1: and we're all striving to get it right. It requires
Speaker 1: that we act honorably. We try to act impartially trying
Speaker 1: to get to the right fair results. So justice really
Speaker 1: is about getting it right and about being fair. I
Speaker 1: think that's the best way to find it. And as
Speaker 1: long as we're acting honorably and we have the best
Speaker 1: intentions within the criminal justice system, my experiences that we
Speaker 1: usually get there, and they're rare instances where fairness is
Speaker 1: not reached, where you have an outcome that seems unjust.
Speaker 1: But I think those are more to the exception and
Speaker 1: not the norm, and I think that's a product of
Speaker 1: experience in time. A criminal justice system is not without
Speaker 1: its flaws. I think we're always moving towards making it
Speaker 1: better and open to the idea that we need to
Speaker 1: be reflective. We need to be introspective from a criminal
Speaker 1: justice perspective and say, are the ways of doing things
Speaker 1: better to make sure that we get to that fairness,
Speaker 1: to get to that right, results driven goal. This is
Speaker 1: Ashley Wilcot, a lawyer who specializes in child welfare cases.
Speaker 1: She's also a judge into cab County, Georgia. We last
Speaker 1: heard from her in our episode on racial bias. Oh,
Speaker 1: people are gonna hear this response and think, oh, she
Speaker 1: lives in our own little world. But again, justice is blind.
Speaker 1: There's a reason there's a blindfold on, lady. Justice. Justice
Speaker 1: is blind. We have lost for a reason. We have crimes.
Speaker 1: What what constitute a crime and how it's defined for
Speaker 1: a reason in a perfect world, that's applicable to everyone equally.
Speaker 1: In a perfect world, if you commit a crime, if
Speaker 1: you violate a law, you're arrested, but you then face
Speaker 1: a fair trial. You are presumed innocent. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if there's a video of you doing it. You are
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until it has proven in a court of law,
Speaker 1: because I would keep in mind that a video that
Speaker 1: you look at does not give you a three hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty degree view. So you have to be convicted
Speaker 1: by a jury of your peers or by a judge
Speaker 1: if you choose to waive that. In a perfect world,
Speaker 1: that process works the same for every individual, regardless of
Speaker 1: their age, regardless of their color, regardless their gender or
Speaker 1: gender identification. That's what justice is for me. This is
Speaker 1: Federal judge jed Rakoff from New York. I have a
Speaker 1: deep believer that just sense requires the judge to get
Speaker 1: deeply into the facts, effects of the crime, the effects
Speaker 1: of the criminal, effects of the victims, and to do
Speaker 1: the very difficult and of an agonizing but careful job
Speaker 1: of figuring out what sense makes sense when you factor
Speaker 1: in those various opponents. The mandatory minimums, of course, prevent
Speaker 1: you from doing that whatsoever. But even the sentencing guidelines
Speaker 1: within the federal system are no longer mandatory, but they
Speaker 1: might view are mistake because they emphasize certain factors, usually
Speaker 1: in excess of other factors. So, for example, the sensing
Speaker 1: guide lie as federal sentencing guidelines for drugs are vastly
Speaker 1: dependent on the weight of the drugs that are sold,
Speaker 1: and that means that if you have a large scale
Speaker 1: narcotics conspiracy, even the lowest level person faces to huge
Speaker 1: sense because the conspiracy as a whole distributed a lot
Speaker 1: of drugs. This does not make sense to base. So
Speaker 1: I would go back to the system that it persisted
Speaker 1: in this nation for nearly two hundred years, which was
Speaker 1: we leave it to the good sense of the judge,
Speaker 1: and we encourage our judges to do a lot of
Speaker 1: my work before they impose sense. Here's Kevin Ring, the
Speaker 1: president of fam formally known as Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
Speaker 1: So what we want to see is judges be allowed
Speaker 1: to sentence again. We think judges need to have to
Speaker 1: discretion to fashion punishments that fit the unique facts and
Speaker 1: circumstances of each crime. Not every crime is the same,
Speaker 1: not every defendant's the same. We don't want to see
Speaker 1: people treated differently for reasons that aren't relevant, like grace
Speaker 1: or gender or things like that. But we want people
Speaker 1: who are more serious offenders to get longer punishments and
Speaker 1: less serious offenders to get shorter punishments. And that sounds
Speaker 1: so obvious and basic, but that's not the way the
Speaker 1: system works. It's too much of a game now who
Speaker 1: can plead first, who has more information to give up,
Speaker 1: And so we have too many cases where low level
Speaker 1: offenders are getting longer punishments because they don't have any information.
Speaker 1: They can't give anybody up. We think the only way
Speaker 1: to fix that is to get rid of mandatory sentences.
Speaker 1: Let prosecutors bring what charges they want. They can make
Speaker 1: their recommendations to the judge for what the sentence should
Speaker 1: be based on the defendant's characteristics in the nature of
Speaker 1: the crime. But we want judges to have control over
Speaker 1: punishment again, so that it can be tailored to, you know,
Speaker 1: what really happened, and not just some arbitrary standard that
Speaker 1: was set by politicians who know nothing about this defendant
Speaker 1: or this crime, but who wrote the mandatory minimum maybe
Speaker 1: ten twenty years ago and couldn't have foreseen this particular instance.
Speaker 1: This is my much better half, my wife, Natalie Holloway.
Speaker 1: I might be a little biased here, but I like
Speaker 1: her answer quite a bit. I think justice loves like fairness,
Speaker 1: I think that's the best way off the cuff that
Speaker 1: I can say that, And I think unfortunately that word
Speaker 1: is not a simple definition, and so I think people
Speaker 1: get caught up in what's right and what's wrong for
Speaker 1: certain people. I believe in the bottom of my heart
Speaker 1: that we also had the best for everybody, and everybody
Speaker 1: is trying their best every day, and so fairness, fairness
Speaker 1: is that what I best, what I think justice should be.
Speaker 1: Here's defense attorney, actually merchant. I actually think the federal
Speaker 1: government has a much better system than the state governments.
Speaker 1: To the federal government, if you're arrested, you know, they've
Speaker 1: got some evidence against you. It's a completely different system.
Speaker 1: And in the state system, we arrest and then we
Speaker 1: try and get the evidence, you know, like the confession
Speaker 1: and things like that. I think that jurors need to
Speaker 1: require more evidence to convict people. I think that they
Speaker 1: need to actually require guilt beyond approved you know, beyond
Speaker 1: a reasonable doubt to convict people. I think that's really
Speaker 1: really important for us to have justice. I think that
Speaker 1: obviously crime shouldn't happen, and guilty people should go to jail.
Speaker 1: But I also think that there's oftentimes a reason and
Speaker 1: like I said, truth always lies somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe the person did something, but they didn't
Speaker 1: do everything that they're accused of. I think that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of power in the hands of prosecutors who
Speaker 1: are oftentimes right out of law school, absolutely no perspective,
Speaker 1: don't have kids, don't have a family, has never known
Speaker 1: anybody accused of a criminal case. I think judges need
Speaker 1: to have done both sides, I really do. I think
Speaker 1: that that helps us get justice because if you've not
Speaker 1: walked in my shoes and the prosecutors shoes, it's really
Speaker 1: hard for you to judge us. And a lot of
Speaker 1: times we see prosecutors on the bench, and defense lawyers
Speaker 1: don't usually want to go on the bench, so that's
Speaker 1: the problem. But it's hard because they have not walked
Speaker 1: in our shats, and they haven't defended a person. They
Speaker 1: haven't sat next to a person as a sob when
Speaker 1: they're convicted, you know, and crying and saying I didn't
Speaker 1: do this, and I'm going to spend the rest of
Speaker 1: my life in jail hugging the mom who calls you
Speaker 1: every day and says my son is innocent, and you
Speaker 1: know he's in jail and feeling that. So I think
Speaker 1: that if we can work towards a better system, that's justice.
Speaker 1: But you know, I've a I don't want guilty people
Speaker 1: to run around and be able to commit crimes. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's awful, you know, But I also don't
Speaker 1: want innocent people to be incarcerated. And I've always advocated
Speaker 1: that we need to be smart on crime. I think
Speaker 1: that programs work like these. We have accountability courts where
Speaker 1: you know, drug court and dou I court and all
Speaker 1: these different types of courts. I think that those are
Speaker 1: really important because they're focusing on treatment. But the problem
Speaker 1: I see with those is that it's just like anything,
Speaker 1: we are kind of segregating classes of crime. We're saying,
Speaker 1: if you are mentally ill and you commit a theft
Speaker 1: type case, you can go to mental health court. But
Speaker 1: if you smack your mom it's violent, you can't go.
Speaker 1: You're mentally ill, you know you need the treatment. But
Speaker 1: we're kind of segregating the types of classes and the
Speaker 1: types of crimes, and I don't know that that necessarily
Speaker 1: makes sense. I have made a career out of the
Speaker 1: criminal justice system. I have worked my entire our adult
Speaker 1: life in some capacity or another in the business of justice.
Speaker 1: And even after all these years, I don't know that
Speaker 1: I have a great answer to our question. You see,
Speaker 1: the concept of justice, at its very core is subjective.
Speaker 1: It will look differently depending on just where you're standing.
Speaker 1: To some people, justice means punishing someone who has wronged them.
Speaker 1: To others, it may mean mercy or forgiveness. On a
Speaker 1: day to day basis. The justice that I work towards
Speaker 1: means negotiating in good faith. It means both sides striving
Speaker 1: for a fair outcome. Fairness is another esoteric word with
Speaker 1: a meaning that escapes easy definition. But what fairness looks
Speaker 1: like also changes from case to case. I have three
Speaker 1: or four case files sitting right here on my desk
Speaker 1: right now, and justice means something different in each and
Speaker 1: every one of those case is It's fair to say
Speaker 1: that I'm passionate about justice, after all, it is my
Speaker 1: life's work. But I don't know that I am, or
Speaker 1: that I should be more passionate about justice than anyone else.
Speaker 1: It is in all of our interests to have a
Speaker 1: system that works smoothly and is administered well. But I
Speaker 1: think a lot of times we forget about empathy, about humility,
Speaker 1: and about human decency. It is so easy to get
Speaker 1: wrapped up in the idea of punishment or I foreign
Speaker 1: eye justice, And that's why we wanted to tell these
Speaker 1: stories this season. Until you go through an injustice, until
Speaker 1: you inexperience an abuse of the system, it is easy
Speaker 1: to focus on retribution. We idealize it. We see what
Speaker 1: the media shows us. We hear about horrific crimes, and
Speaker 1: we call for maximum retaliation. But our system is not perfect.
Speaker 1: People are overcharged, people are taken from their families, People
Speaker 1: are removed from society every day under the guise of
Speaker 1: public safety. But is there not a greater threat with
Speaker 1: the system that forgets individual humanity? What is safe, after all,
Speaker 1: about a system that views people solely by their charges
Speaker 1: and not by their individual unique circumstances. Our justice system
Speaker 1: in America is light years ahead of many others around
Speaker 1: the world. Most of the time, we get it right.
Speaker 1: Most of the time the police arrest the right person.
Speaker 1: But we so often overlooked that there are victims of
Speaker 1: the system itself. Victims of crimes can be victims of
Speaker 1: the system. Wrongfully accused persons are victims of the system.
Speaker 1: Families of these people are also victims of the system,
Speaker 1: and so is the community in so many instances. Every day,
Speaker 1: in every case I work, I strive to do better
Speaker 1: to find a better justice for my clients. Fortunately, I
Speaker 1: also see so many people across the country advocating for
Speaker 1: a better way, for a better criminal justice system, for
Speaker 1: more fairness and sentencing, for better rehabilitation measures, for quicker
Speaker 1: closure for victims. I hope that we've inspired you, perhaps
Speaker 1: just a little bit, to think about the broader criminal
Speaker 1: justice system. I hope that when you hear about cases,
Speaker 1: perhaps like the ones we've talked about this season, that
Speaker 1: you take a little bit of time and maybe think
Speaker 1: just a little bit longer, and, as judges tell jurors,
Speaker 1: take your responsibilities as a citizen seriously and keep an
Speaker 1: open mind because things may just not be what they appear. Well,
Speaker 1: that's enough from me for now. Let us know what
Speaker 1: you thought about this new season of Sworn and our
Speaker 1: new format. Give us a call with any criminal justice
Speaker 1: questions you may have. Leave us a voice at four
Speaker 1: zero four four one zero zero four for one, and
Speaker 1: of course, feel free to reach out on social media
Speaker 1: like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. If you reach out I'll
Speaker 1: do my best to try to answer. We'll talk to
Speaker 1: you soon here on Sworn. Sworn is a production of
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV and I Heart Radio. Our lead producer is
Speaker 1: Christina Dana. Executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright
Speaker 1: for Tenderfoot TV, Matt Frederick and Alex Williams for I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, and myself Philip Holloway. Additional production by Trevor Young,
Speaker 1: Mason Lindsay, Mike Rooney, Jamie Albright, and Halle Beadall original
Speaker 1: music and sound designed by Makeup and Vanity Set. Our
Speaker 1: theme song is Blood in the Water by Layup. Show
Speaker 1: art and design is by Trevor Eisler, editing by Christina Dana,
Speaker 1: Mixing and mastering by Mike Rooney and Cooper Skinner. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to the team at I Heart Radio from U
Speaker 1: t a or In Rosenbound and Grace Royer, Bryan Nord
Speaker 1: and Matthew Papa from the Nord Group, BA Media and
Speaker 1: Marketing and Station sixteen. I'd also like to extend a
Speaker 1: very personal and special thanks to all of our contributors
Speaker 1: and guests who have helped to make all of these
Speaker 1: episodes possible. You can find sworn on Facebook, Twitter, and
Speaker 1: Instagram at sworn podcast and follow me your host, Philip
Speaker 1: Halloway on Twitter at phil Holloway e s Q. Our
Speaker 1: website is sworn podcast dot com and you can check
Speaker 1: out other Tenderfoot TV podcasts at www dot tenderfoot dot tv.
Speaker 1: If you have questions or comments, you can email us
Speaker 1: at Sworn at tenderfoot dot tv or leave us a
Speaker 1: voicemail at four zero four for one zero zero four
Speaker 1: four one. As always, thanks for listening. From your perspective,
Speaker 1: How can our listeners be better jurors when they get summoned?
Speaker 1: Besides finding people guilty, right, I think that the important
Speaker 1: thing to understand is that we all want to find
Speaker 1: jurors that are going to be fair, that are going
Speaker 1: to be impartial to both sides. And those are sort
Speaker 1: of the touchstone words that we use when we do
Speaker 1: jury selection is are you gonna be fair? Are you
Speaker 1: gonna be impartial? So the only thing that I would
Speaker 1: encourage people to do is to keep an open mind
Speaker 1: when you come into jury selection. I understand that we're
Speaker 1: all different, we all have feelings that we're gonna bring
Speaker 1: with us because of our own personal background when it
Speaker 1: comes to the awesome responsibility of being a juror in
Speaker 1: the case, just understanding that you're gonna have to check
Speaker 1: some of that background baggage at the door and make
Speaker 1: a decision based on the facts and evidence that is
Speaker 1: presented in the courtroom. And even more important than that,
Speaker 1: be open to the law that the judge is going
Speaker 1: to give that juror as well. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people won't make the mistake of thinking, well, they're
Speaker 1: only going to be looking at a given set of
Speaker 1: facts and that's how the decision is going to be made,
Speaker 1: and nothing could be further than In truth, one of
Speaker 1: the most important parts of the jury trial system is
Speaker 1: that the judge is going to give those jury instructions
Speaker 1: as to how each fact patterns to be judged. So
Speaker 1: you need to keep an open mind not only as
Speaker 1: to the facts, but as to the law as well.