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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: Be very cautious about your reputation because everybody gets one,

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Speaker 2: and your reputation, by and large, which precedes you, is,

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Speaker 2: in my experience, generally accurate.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the

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Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,

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Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken

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Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down

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Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,

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Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true

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Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers mate, both

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Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the

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Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. Randy Barnett is a law

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Speaker 1: professor at Georgetown University, but decades ago, he was a

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Speaker 1: young prosecutor in Cook County's State's Attorney's Office in Chicago.

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Speaker 1: Randy dealt with gritty crime, of course, but some of

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Speaker 1: his biggest challenges were battling police corruption, crooked coworkers and

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Speaker 1: judges on the take. Randy tells me about his book

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Speaker 1: Felony Review Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago.

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Speaker 1: Was criminal law your first you know, when you came

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Speaker 1: out of law school? Was that your first discipline within law?

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Speaker 2: Well, criminal law was the reason I went to law school.

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Speaker 2: It's the reason why I became a lawyer. When I

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Speaker 2: was ten years old, a television show came on TV

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Speaker 2: on CBS called The Defenders and it was quite different

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Speaker 2: for its time. It was about a father's son criminal

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Speaker 2: defense team. They had an office on Park Avenue, New York.

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Speaker 2: It was filmed on location. It was very realistic and gritty.

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Speaker 2: And that show came on when I was ten years old,

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Speaker 2: and I said, that's what I want to do. I

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Speaker 2: want to be a criminal lawyer. And prior to that

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Speaker 2: show being on, Perry Mason was on every Sunday night.

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Speaker 2: That never made me want to be a lawyer because

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Speaker 2: Perry Mason was about solving murders and The Defenders was

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Speaker 2: about being a lawyer, all the problems and ethical challenges

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Speaker 2: involved in representing both innocent and guilty clients. Because Perry

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Speaker 2: Mason is the clients were always innocent, but the Defenders

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Speaker 2: had a mix of guilty and innocent clients, and it

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Speaker 2: just seemed real. And it turns out, in hindsight, the

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Speaker 2: unifying theme of my entire career, which also explains how

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Speaker 2: I went from being a criminal lawyer to being a

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Speaker 2: law professor, is my interest in justice. And being a

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Speaker 2: criminal lawyer, you're dispensing justice case by case on a

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Speaker 2: retail basis, but you don't have any effect on the

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Speaker 2: system overall. You work within the system to try to

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Speaker 2: make the system work as best it can. As a

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Speaker 2: law professor, writing about the theory of justice and what

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Speaker 2: the legal system should be thene fully, my writings can

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Speaker 2: have some salutary or favorable impact on the system as

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Speaker 2: a whole. But justice is the unifying theme. And it

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Speaker 2: began with this television show which I did start rewatching

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Speaker 2: about a year or two ago, and I was really

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Speaker 2: hesitant to do it because I thought I'd be disappointed,

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Speaker 2: but it really was good. It's even good today. It

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Speaker 2: holds up well.

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Speaker 1: My father was a law professor and it was criminal defense.

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Speaker 1: And I used to say, how do you feel about

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Speaker 1: people when they criticize you for being a criminal defense attorney?

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Speaker 1: And he said, and they can criticize me all they

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Speaker 1: want until they call me right, because somebody they love

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Speaker 1: is in trouble, particularly if they're innocent and in trouble.

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Speaker 1: And one of his colleagues once told me the worst

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Speaker 1: clients for him are the innocent ones because they don't

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Speaker 1: have any information. They can't be that helpful, you know.

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Speaker 1: And so it's the most trying cases are the innocent ones.

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Speaker 1: Did you struggle with that. I know you talked about

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Speaker 1: ethics here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. The system is I talk about this in the

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Speaker 2: book Felony Review. The system is actually set up to

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Speaker 2: process the guilty. It isn't really set up for the innocent.

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Speaker 2: There's a reason for that. Part of it is programs

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Speaker 2: like Felon Review, which screen out the innocent, you know,

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Speaker 2: in a very very high percentage of the time. But

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Speaker 2: let's imagine that the system is ninety nine percent accurate,

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Speaker 2: which is really would be an extraordinarily positive thing for

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Speaker 2: a government system to be. That one percent represents hundreds,

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Speaker 2: if not thousands of people every year who are innocent.

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Speaker 2: But every participant in the system, from the judges to

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Speaker 2: the defense lawyers themselves, are constantly dealing with guilty people.

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Speaker 2: Everybody is guilty as a matter of common sense, you're

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Speaker 2: almost an idiot or a fool or naive to think

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Speaker 2: any particular person is innocent, because everybody's lying and everybody's

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Speaker 2: self serving, so you just don't know. And as a result,

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Speaker 2: even though there's a legal presumption of innocence in the system,

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Speaker 2: which is extremely important, there's a practical presumption of guilt,

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Speaker 2: and for that reason, innocent which are few and far between,

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Speaker 2: but they're there, they ultimately end up having to prove

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Speaker 2: their innocence. They can't be it's the guilty that relies

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Speaker 2: on the burden proof on the prosecutors. It's the innocent

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Speaker 2: that have to prove their innocence. And for that reason,

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Speaker 2: as I say in the book, I would hire a

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Speaker 2: different lawyer if I were guilty than if I were innocent.

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Speaker 2: If I'm guilty, I want a lawyer who understands how

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Speaker 2: to deconstruct the prosecution's case as best they can, and

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Speaker 2: there are lawyers that are great at that. If I'm innocent,

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Speaker 2: I need a lawyer who knows how to prove things,

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Speaker 2: how to build a case, and that's usually a former prosecutor.

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Speaker 2: Because prosecutors are in the business of building cases. Defense

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Speaker 2: attorneys are in the business of tearing down the cases.

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Speaker 2: But if you're an innocent defendant, you need somebody to

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Speaker 2: prove your innocence. And that's the kind of lawyer I

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Speaker 2: would get if I were innocent.

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Speaker 1: Now tell me how you transition then to Cook County

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Speaker 1: and what your job was there before we get into

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Speaker 1: some specific cases that you worked on.

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Speaker 2: Sure well, I grew up in Calumet City, which is

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Speaker 2: a south suburb of Chicago on the border of Illinois

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Speaker 2: and Indiana. It's a very blue collar community. It's really

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Speaker 2: culturally more part of northwest Indiana, where the people from

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Speaker 2: the mills and the refineries live. And my parents were

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Speaker 2: from Chicago. My dad was a small businessman in Chicago

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Speaker 2: who was a very cynical, realistic guy. I learned early

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Speaker 2: on about how corrupt Chicago as politically. But when I

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Speaker 2: wanted to be a criminal lawyer, I wanted to be

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Speaker 2: a real and a prosecutor. By the time, I decided

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Speaker 2: in law school to go prosecution, not defense. And I

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Speaker 2: should say the reason I did that is because even

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Speaker 2: though I think defense attorneys are absolutely essential to the system,

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Speaker 2: their mere existence provides an incentive for prosecutors to do

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Speaker 2: their job right without them having to do anything. They

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Speaker 2: just by the fact that a defense attorney will one

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Speaker 2: day look at the file is enough to get prosecutors

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Speaker 2: to help to try to do their job better. Nevertheless,

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Speaker 2: their job is deconstructioning, and I'm personally sort of more

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Speaker 2: disposed to building things, and so proving things are more

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Speaker 2: comfortable with. As well as the fact that the defense

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Speaker 2: attorney's ethical obligation is to zealously defend their client. The

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Speaker 2: prosecutor's ethical obligation is to do justice, whether that means

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Speaker 2: getting a conviction or saying the person go free. And

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Speaker 2: I was much more comfortable with that job than I

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Speaker 2: was with the other one, the ethical role. So by

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Speaker 2: the time I graduated law school at Audrey, worked as

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Speaker 2: a student prosecutor in Middlesex County as part of my

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Speaker 2: training in law school. So I was already outset to

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Speaker 2: be a prosecutor, but my goal was to be a

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Speaker 2: real prosecutor. And by real prosecutor, I met a state

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Speaker 2: court prosecutor prosecuting murders, rapes on robberies, not a federal

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Speaker 2: prosecutor prosecuting bank fraud or securities regulation violations or some

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Speaker 2: things like that. And to work with the Chicago police Department,

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Speaker 2: not the FBI, to work with real cops, just like

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Speaker 2: on TV. And one of the sub themes of the

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Speaker 2: book is the real world is better than TV. TV

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Speaker 2: can't really show you the nitty gritty the way that

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Speaker 2: it is when you're in the system. And far from

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Speaker 2: being disappointed as a criminal lawyer that somehow it didn't

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Speaker 2: live up to my expectations, it exceeded my expectations. It

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Speaker 2: was more interesting, more gritty, you know, more dirty in

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Speaker 2: a way, which itself was interesting. But the one favorable

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Speaker 2: surprise I need to stress, and that is as corrupt

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Speaker 2: as I found Cook County to be as it was,

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Speaker 2: you know, famously, my office was not corrupt, and it

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Speaker 2: actually so. Actually the overall experience was better than I expected,

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Speaker 2: because I would have expected my office to be corrupt too,

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Speaker 2: but it wasn't. I mean not to say, of our

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Speaker 2: five hundred and fifty attorneys there might not be one

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Speaker 2: or two that ended up having they had to get

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Speaker 2: a grid of. But you know, that was very discreetly

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Speaker 2: done and you generally didn't know about it, and it

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Speaker 2: was not common at all. The people that I worked

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Speaker 2: with were straight and regardless of what political background they had.

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Speaker 1: Now I know, as we've already said, Chicago had a

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Speaker 1: terrible reputation for corruption and law enforcement and law Can

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Speaker 1: you give me sort of like a very brief overview

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Speaker 1: of when that started and you worked in the nineteen

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Speaker 1: late late seventies, early eighties, Are we at the height

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Speaker 1: of corruption in every place except for your office or

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Speaker 1: you know, where are we versus now?

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Speaker 2: Things were peak? It was peak corruption when I was there.

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Speaker 2: Chicago was notoriously you know, corrupt generally. My dad, you know,

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Speaker 2: told me that as a small businessman, I was perfectly

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Speaker 2: familiar with that. The question is, you know, what do

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Speaker 2: you do about it? And also one of the most interesting,

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Speaker 2: one of the more interesting aspects of the job was

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Speaker 2: learning about the different kinds of corruption there are, just

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Speaker 2: like there's different kinds of criminals. Not all criminals are alike.

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Speaker 2: There are different kinds of corruption. There's the monetary corruption,

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Speaker 2: you know, you pay for results, and we had that

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Speaker 2: and that was that was significant when I was there,

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Speaker 2: and we could talk more about examples of that, having

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Speaker 2: a case is fixed out from under me, let's say.

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Speaker 2: But the more pervasive form of corruption is really who

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Speaker 2: you know, you know, connections corruption, So you're sitting up

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Speaker 2: and you know you're arguing a case in front of

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Speaker 2: a judge, and you don't know what the judge and

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Speaker 2: the defense attorney's background is, you know what their relationship

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Speaker 2: have bit. You don't know whether you know the defense

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Speaker 2: attorney went to school with the judge's son or daughter.

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Speaker 2: You just don't have anything about that. And there's a

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Speaker 2: saying in Cook County. There's lots of sayings, but one

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Speaker 2: of the sayings in Cook County when I was there,

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Speaker 2: is you never know who you're talking to. So that

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Speaker 2: means that I might be talking with you, but I

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Speaker 2: don't know about your father who did this or that

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Speaker 2: or the other thing, and who who he may know,

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Speaker 2: So I'm actually talking to these other people when I'm

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Speaker 2: talking to you. That actually came out at a time

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Speaker 2: when I was getting a haircut at the place I

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Speaker 2: normally got haircut. And this lawyer, this very prominent Chicago

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Speaker 2: defense lawyer who was very famously corrupt. His his name

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Speaker 2: was Dean Wolfson and and his nickname was Dean the

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Speaker 2: Dream because he could fix all these cases. Very dapper guy,

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Speaker 2: very well dressed, you know, silver hair, looked the part

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Speaker 2: of a lawyer, but we all knew he was kink

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Speaker 2: is a shorthand for a corrupt lawyer. And he came

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Speaker 2: over to me at this salon that we were both

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Speaker 2: having our haircut on Oak Street, and he said, you know,

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Speaker 2: I need you to stop bad mouthing me. And I thought,

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Speaker 2: I mean, I was. I was flummox because A I

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Speaker 2: didn't actually remember every bad mouthing him. I mean, be

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Speaker 2: everybody knows he's crooked. Why single me out? I mean,

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Speaker 2: it's like, I don't remember telling anybody about it, but

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Speaker 2: it wouldn't surprise me if I did, since everybody knows it.

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Speaker 2: But then the other thing was is somebody told him,

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Speaker 2: apparently that I, Randy Barnett, was bad mouthing him. So again,

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Speaker 2: this is you never know who you're talking to. Whoever

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Speaker 2: I said that to now, I don't have any re

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Speaker 2: recollection of saying it. Told Dean that I was saying

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Speaker 2: these things. So that's kind of how the system, that

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Speaker 2: part of the way the system work.

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Speaker 1: So this might sound like an odd question, but I

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Speaker 1: was just thinking about the psychology behind this. Isn't that

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Speaker 1: corruption is so or was so pervasive within the system

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Speaker 1: in Cook County that if you are a young bright

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Speaker 1: law student who's graduated in coming in and you know,

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Speaker 1: wanting to work as of like Ada or whatever. Would

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Speaker 1: these have been likely people who had they been in

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Speaker 1: another state or another county that is not quite where

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Speaker 1: it's not as pervasive, would they be on the straight

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Speaker 1: and narrow or do you think it's just like it's

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Speaker 1: so normalized, desensitized all of this corruption that it just

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Speaker 1: it seems very easy to fall into that.

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Speaker 2: It was then. I don't think it is now for

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Speaker 2: reasons that is kind of for the surprise ending of

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Speaker 2: the book, but it definitely was then. There's one guy

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Speaker 2: in particular who I talk about in the book. He's

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Speaker 2: one of the only characters who I changed the name

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Speaker 2: of I usually I use everybody's name the people i'm

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Speaker 2: talking about, good or bad. A couple people I changed

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Speaker 2: their name this he's one of them. And he was

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Speaker 2: a guy I worked with. He was a former he

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Speaker 2: was a fellow prosecutor, and he and I were going

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Speaker 2: up through the system at the same time. Neither one

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Speaker 2: of us had made the felony trial courts yet. And

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Speaker 2: he left the office to go in private practice. And

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Speaker 2: I said to him, you know, I was about to

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Speaker 2: say his real name. But in the book I changed

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Speaker 2: his name. I said, why are you doing that. You know,

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Speaker 2: we haven't even gotten to the trial courts yet, we

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Speaker 2: haven't gotten all the experience we can get. And he said, well,

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Speaker 2: you know, Randy, there's a lot of money out there

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Speaker 2: to be made, and I'm ready to make some now.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know when he told me that what that

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Speaker 2: meant was he was going to become a fixer in

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Speaker 2: Branch forty two, a felony preliminary hearing court on the

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Speaker 2: North side of Chicago, which he subsequently became a lawyer.

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Speaker 2: A fixture there, worked with the judge there to fix cases.

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Speaker 2: I didn't know that at the time. I found that

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Speaker 2: out later. But the reason I changed his name, even

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Speaker 2: though he was you know, these facts were all confirmed

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Speaker 2: later on, is because in researching the book, I wanted

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Speaker 2: to find out what happened to him, and that was

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Speaker 2: one of the things I did in the books. I

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Speaker 2: researched the cases I worked on and found out a

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Speaker 2: lot of interesting things about the people and what happened. Later,

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Speaker 2: I found out that although he had been disbarred, he

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Speaker 2: actually rebuilt his career his life as a real estate agent,

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Speaker 2: and so for all I could see, he'd lived a

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Speaker 2: very good life, and he was a good guy. I

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Speaker 2: liked him, and so I didn't want to besmirch him

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Speaker 2: in case anybody would put the book together with him

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Speaker 2: and remind somebody of his past, which is now forty

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Speaker 2: years in the past. Let that go. But I think

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Speaker 2: he's a really good example of somebody who just got

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Speaker 2: swept up in what was then the norms. And I

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Speaker 2: think he wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been

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Speaker 2: for the North. But there's other people who are just

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Speaker 2: in it, you know, to make a quick book. But

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Speaker 2: these were not people I work with. But most of

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Speaker 2: the corrupt lawyers had formerly been Cook County State's attorneys.

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Speaker 2: So my feeling was, you know, one of these days,

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Speaker 2: some of these guys I'm working with, who are my

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Speaker 2: colleagues now one of them, I don't know which one

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Speaker 2: is going to be, but some of them are going

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Speaker 2: to end up being corrupt lawyers. I didn't expect it

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Speaker 2: to be this one guy that I've just told you about.

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Speaker 2: And then there's this other guy who was my closest friend,

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Speaker 2: who in the office, who was a groomsman at my wedding.

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Speaker 2: He ultimately ended up leaving to you know, hang out

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Speaker 2: with the corrup lawyers. And it turns out he was

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Speaker 2: a closer friend to that other guy than I was.

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Speaker 2: And so anyway, this is what the system did to

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Speaker 2: some people, but not to most people.

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Speaker 1: Who is it that roots this out and removes it

295
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Speaker 1: from a place like Cook County? Is it US attorneys?

296
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Speaker 1: How do we stop this?

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Speaker 2: It's the federal government, I think, you know, we're going

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Speaker 2: to have to get into this, even though it's kind

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Speaker 2: of somewhat of a spoiler, but the federal government had

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Speaker 2: a undercover investigation of the Circuit Court of Cook County

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Speaker 2: going on when I was there, even unbeknownst to me

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Speaker 2: and everybody else because it was undercover, And it emerged

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Speaker 2: after I left the office that this had happened, and

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Speaker 2: pretty much all the people that I thought of was

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Speaker 2: corrupt were ended up being prosecuted. And that's how I know.

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Speaker 2: That's how I could use everybody's real name. I use

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Speaker 2: everybody's real name because all the names I'm using are

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Speaker 2: people that are charged and convicted later on. But at

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Speaker 2: the time it was happening to me, there was a

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Speaker 2: feeling of immunity. I think that's kind of what you're

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Speaker 2: asking me about. Also, everybody in the system who were

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Speaker 2: the bad actors felt immune from anything happening, and those

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Speaker 2: of us who were the good actors thought this was

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Speaker 2: were very fatalistic. It's like, this is the way it is.

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Speaker 2: It's the way it's going to be. Our job is

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Speaker 2: to try to negate it and neutralize it when it

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Speaker 2: comes up, but there's not much we can do about

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Speaker 2: it systematically until the federal government stepped in with this

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Speaker 2: undercover investigation they had set They had multiple separate undercover

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Speaker 2: investigations that I talk about in the book.

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Speaker 1: Well, this is fortuitous timing that I'm interviewing you, because

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Speaker 1: recently I interviewed an FBI agent who was responsible for

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Speaker 1: flipping Anthony Coppo from one of the fine families in

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Speaker 1: New York in the nineties, and he said one of

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Speaker 1: the big issues they had were leaks. And then I

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Speaker 1: said leaks in within the FBI, and he said, no,

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Speaker 1: like a court reporter knew where people were going to be,

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Speaker 1: and so there would be these sorts of leaks too

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Speaker 1: that he just felt like sometimes were unstoppable. But you

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Speaker 1: know that made me think about, did you deal very

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Speaker 1: much with any of the organized crime that was happening,

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Speaker 1: or what was organized crime in Chicago in that time period.

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Speaker 2: You know, Calumet City, where I grew up, was a

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Speaker 2: place where al Capone had a house because Caluma City

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Speaker 2: was a notorious like Tijuana likescept town, because it was

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Speaker 2: on the border of Indiana when after Prohibition, Indiana stayed

337
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Speaker 2: dry and Illinois went wet, and so all the meal

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Speaker 2: workers came and steel workers came over to Calumet City

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Speaker 2: across the state line to drink and to do other things.

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Speaker 1: I love that you've drawn a parallel between an area

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Speaker 1: of Illinois and Tijuana. I don't think I would have

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Speaker 1: ever predicted that well.

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Speaker 2: I mean it would just like the conventioneers down to

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Speaker 2: Tijuana from San Diego in LA. They bust people from

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Speaker 2: downtown Chicago to Calumet City. Back in the forties, Life

346
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Speaker 2: Magazine did a big expose on Calumet City. By the

347
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Speaker 2: time I grew up there, it was all gone, but

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Speaker 2: we heard about it at State Street, which was the

349
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Speaker 2: you know, the place where the b joints were and

350
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Speaker 2: stuff was still there in a diminished capacity. But eventually

351
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Speaker 2: Capone moved his house from Calium at City to Cicero,

352
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Speaker 2: to the West side of Chicago, and that's where he

353
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Speaker 2: was more famously ensconced. But by the time so the

354
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Speaker 2: mob is there, it's still there. I'm sure was there.

355
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Speaker 2: Then the county prosecutors generally have nothing to do with that.

356
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Speaker 2: There is a specially, there was a special Prosecutions unit

357
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Speaker 2: in our office who were supposed to handle that, and

358
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Speaker 2: if anything did come up, that's who would handle it.

359
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Speaker 2: But by and large that's federal. They're the ones that

360
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Speaker 2: have the resources to do the wire tapping and the

361
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Speaker 2: surveillance which it takes to build cases against the movers

362
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Speaker 2: and shakers. I mean, we might handle the state's attorney's

363
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Speaker 2: office might handle a hit where there's a hit man

364
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Speaker 2: that's caught. And actually the case that got fixed out

365
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Speaker 2: from under me was a mob case, which was when

366
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Speaker 2: I was assigned to auto theft preliminary hearing court, and

367
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Speaker 2: so I was doing a preliminary hearing on an auto

368
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Speaker 2: theft case and it was a chop shop case. Let

369
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Speaker 2: me explain what that is because when you steal cars,

370
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Speaker 2: you can't sell the car because it has vehicle identification numbers.

371
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Speaker 2: You can't register it. What criminals do is they take

372
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Speaker 2: it to a particular garage and they break it down

373
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Speaker 2: for parts. Those parts are then sold through auto wrecking yards.

374
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Speaker 2: And the auto wrecking yards are controlled by the mob,

375
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Speaker 2: which means that the chop shops are controlled by the mob.

376
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Speaker 2: And so when I was working auto theft court, we

377
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Speaker 2: dealt with ordinary auto theft, but whenever a chop shop

378
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Speaker 2: happened was busted, that was like murder one for auto

379
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Speaker 2: theft court. And we were a centralized court. All auto

380
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Speaker 2: thefts were going to come through our court, and a

381
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Speaker 2: chop shop prosecution came through our court and it ended

382
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Speaker 2: up getting the judge through the case. It was a

383
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Speaker 2: pretty eye opening thing. I mean, the defense attorney put

384
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Speaker 2: the cop on the well on the stand. We were

385
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Speaker 2: all standing in front of the bench for preliminary hearing.

386
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:06,120
Speaker 2: He started questioning the cop, and the cops starts admitting

387
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Speaker 2: to circumstances that would have made his search illegal. Now

388
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Speaker 2: cops don't normally do that. Cops. If the cops are

389
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Speaker 2: going to lie, they're going to lie to make their

390
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Speaker 2: search good. They're not going to lie to make their

391
00:19:15,880 --> 00:19:18,840
Speaker 2: search bad. But he was actually admitting to all kinds

392
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Speaker 2: of inculpatory circumstances. Now the reason why we obviously so

393
00:19:23,119 --> 00:19:26,240
Speaker 2: the cop is on the take, But why do we

394
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Speaker 2: think the judge is also in on it? Well, because

395
00:19:28,119 --> 00:19:30,359
Speaker 2: the judge had a rule that said that motions to

396
00:19:30,440 --> 00:19:32,840
Speaker 2: suppressed he would not hear in the preliminary hearing court.

397
00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:34,600
Speaker 2: He said, if you have a motion to supress, you

398
00:19:34,640 --> 00:19:36,320
Speaker 2: got to file that in the trial court. I find

399
00:19:36,320 --> 00:19:38,240
Speaker 2: probable cause, it goes to the trial court. File your

400
00:19:38,320 --> 00:19:41,879
Speaker 2: motion there. That was his consistent rule. So if somebody

401
00:19:41,920 --> 00:19:44,879
Speaker 2: was raising a constitutional objection, we would object counts an

402
00:19:44,920 --> 00:19:47,520
Speaker 2: objection beyond the scope of preliminary hearing, and he would

403
00:19:47,560 --> 00:19:51,320
Speaker 2: go sustain. Well, this time the lawyer named Eddie Jensen

404
00:19:52,160 --> 00:19:55,040
Speaker 2: was questioning the guy and we said objection beyond the

405
00:19:55,040 --> 00:19:59,159
Speaker 2: scope of preliminary hearing, and it was overruled, overruled. What

406
00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:01,520
Speaker 2: do you mean overrule? And so all of a sudden,

407
00:20:01,560 --> 00:20:04,360
Speaker 2: all this stuff came out. He was finding no probable cause. Well,

408
00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:06,280
Speaker 2: now we knew the cop was dirty. Sorry, we knew

409
00:20:06,359 --> 00:20:08,359
Speaker 2: Eddie was fixing a case. We knew the cop was dirty,

410
00:20:08,359 --> 00:20:10,800
Speaker 2: and we knew the judge, John Devine, he was in

411
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Speaker 2: on it. So that was mob related because it was

412
00:20:14,359 --> 00:20:18,359
Speaker 2: you know, Eddie represented mob related entities. He was a

413
00:20:18,400 --> 00:20:20,720
Speaker 2: mob lawyer, you know, among other things. He was also

414
00:20:21,080 --> 00:20:24,720
Speaker 2: the lawyer that represented Blagoyevitch when Blagoyevitch was in his

415
00:20:24,760 --> 00:20:26,639
Speaker 2: political trouble. Later I found this out. I was like

416
00:20:26,680 --> 00:20:29,360
Speaker 2: on the faculty at BU at the time, and Blogoyevitch

417
00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:32,080
Speaker 2: comes on TV and then there's his lawyer, Eddie Jensen,

418
00:20:32,119 --> 00:20:33,879
Speaker 2: the guy that fixed the case out from under me.

419
00:20:34,359 --> 00:20:36,879
Speaker 2: Eddie never went down, most everybody else did. The judge

420
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Speaker 2: went down. The judge was convicted and sentenced the penitentiary.

421
00:20:40,520 --> 00:20:43,400
Speaker 2: But for other you know, as part of this investigation.

422
00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,280
Speaker 2: But Eddie survived. He ended up representing all of the

423
00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:49,359
Speaker 2: Gray Lord defendants. There was a magazine profile done about

424
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:51,840
Speaker 2: him about how admirable he was, about how he never

425
00:20:51,880 --> 00:20:55,280
Speaker 2: forgot his old friends and he would represent him no

426
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:57,879
Speaker 2: matter what. And I'm thinking when I read this story,

427
00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:00,639
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, because they could flip on him. Of

428
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:02,840
Speaker 2: course he's going to defend them. They're the ones that

429
00:21:02,920 --> 00:21:04,720
Speaker 2: know he's part of it. But he died, you know,

430
00:21:04,840 --> 00:21:09,560
Speaker 2: respectable lawyer. And so that was mob related. Now what

431
00:21:09,560 --> 00:21:11,280
Speaker 2: are you going to do about it? First of all,

432
00:21:11,320 --> 00:21:13,159
Speaker 2: you have to know the judges crooked before you can

433
00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 2: do something about it. I tell the story, and I

434
00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:18,760
Speaker 2: tell in Fellowy review is about how a few weeks later,

435
00:21:19,359 --> 00:21:22,000
Speaker 2: we have a substitute judge. My judge is on vacation.

436
00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:24,080
Speaker 2: This judge is on vacation. I have a substitute judge.

437
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:27,680
Speaker 2: Another chop shop story breaks, A case breaks. I get

438
00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:30,359
Speaker 2: a phone call. It's Eddie Jensen and he says to me,

439
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:32,159
Speaker 2: are you ready? Are you going to be ready to

440
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:36,359
Speaker 2: go to preliminary hearing tomorrow? And I said yeah. He said, well,

441
00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:38,359
Speaker 2: you don't want to take a date because normally on

442
00:21:38,400 --> 00:21:40,439
Speaker 2: these big cases we would take a continuance to make

443
00:21:40,480 --> 00:21:42,040
Speaker 2: sure our paperwork was in order. I said, well, I

444
00:21:42,080 --> 00:21:43,960
Speaker 2: have a substitute judge there. I'm going to go now.

445
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:46,720
Speaker 2: I said, no, I'm ready to go tomorrow. He said, well,

446
00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 2: I had the judges on vacation now right, I said yeah.

447
00:21:50,240 --> 00:21:52,439
Speaker 2: Says well, how long is this vacation going to be?

448
00:21:52,440 --> 00:21:54,200
Speaker 2: And I said, well two weeks. This is the first

449
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:56,359
Speaker 2: of a two week vacation. He said, well, I won't

450
00:21:56,400 --> 00:21:58,440
Speaker 2: object if you just want to kick it over till

451
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:00,359
Speaker 2: next week. Now the judge will still be He said, oh,

452
00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:03,240
Speaker 2: here's what he said he said, I can understand why

453
00:22:03,240 --> 00:22:05,680
Speaker 2: you wouldn't want to have this case heard by Judge Divine,

454
00:22:06,280 --> 00:22:07,880
Speaker 2: but I don't mind if you just kick it over

455
00:22:07,920 --> 00:22:10,160
Speaker 2: to next week and then Judge will still be gone

456
00:22:10,359 --> 00:22:12,040
Speaker 2: and we'll all be able to get our stuff. I'll

457
00:22:12,040 --> 00:22:14,040
Speaker 2: get all my witnesses in line, all this kind of stuff.

458
00:22:14,560 --> 00:22:16,400
Speaker 2: And I was tempted by this, but then I said,

459
00:22:16,440 --> 00:22:18,919
Speaker 2: you know, no, Eddie, you just you know, be prepared

460
00:22:18,920 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 2: to go to hearing tomorrow. I'll call you if I

461
00:22:21,359 --> 00:22:23,560
Speaker 2: changed my mind. I go up to court to handle

462
00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:25,720
Speaker 2: the afternoon call, and the court clerk is up there

463
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:27,760
Speaker 2: the chester. The court clerk is standing there talking to

464
00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:30,119
Speaker 2: nobody in particular, saying how he just got off the

465
00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:31,840
Speaker 2: phone with the judge and the judge might be cutting

466
00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:32,720
Speaker 2: his vacation short.

467
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:34,520
Speaker 1: Oh gosh.

468
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:36,720
Speaker 2: So the next day we had the preliminary hearing with

469
00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:39,439
Speaker 2: the judge I didn't know who was a straight judge,

470
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 2: and Eddie, who was talking about all the witnesses he

471
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:43,720
Speaker 2: was going to have to bring in, brought in no witnesses.

472
00:22:43,840 --> 00:22:46,800
Speaker 2: He asked no questions. He couldn't fix the case. There

473
00:22:46,800 --> 00:22:48,760
Speaker 2: was no point doing anything about it. So that's the

474
00:22:48,800 --> 00:22:53,360
Speaker 2: way in which fore knowledge allowed me to evade fixing

475
00:22:53,359 --> 00:22:55,320
Speaker 2: a second case. So fool me once, jame on me,

476
00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:57,960
Speaker 2: but me twice. Seaym on you. Now one other story

477
00:22:57,960 --> 00:23:00,159
Speaker 2: about that that I think is kind of interesting. I

478
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:02,520
Speaker 2: was so upset when the case got fixed. I was

479
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 2: beside myself, and I knew this could not be the

480
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:09,119
Speaker 2: proper frame of mind. So I went down to my supervisor,

481
00:23:09,160 --> 00:23:11,760
Speaker 2: who was a former Chicago police officer, very earthy, down

482
00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 2: to earth guide, Dennis Cooley, and I said, Dennis, I'm

483
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:19,000
Speaker 2: just so beside myself in anger because of what happened here,

484
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 2: and I know this isn't good. If you can give

485
00:23:20,640 --> 00:23:22,680
Speaker 2: me a reason to calm down, I think I can

486
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:25,119
Speaker 2: do it. And he says, okay, I'll give you a reason.

487
00:23:25,440 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 2: He says, because if Eddie Jensen ever finds out that

488
00:23:28,720 --> 00:23:30,920
Speaker 2: you feel this way about him, he'll always be able

489
00:23:30,920 --> 00:23:33,119
Speaker 2: to use that against you, because he'll tell the judge

490
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:35,760
Speaker 2: in any case he sees the prosecutor's not doing that

491
00:23:35,840 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 2: because he believes that he's doing it because he doesn't

492
00:23:37,760 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 2: like me.

493
00:23:38,400 --> 00:23:38,720
Speaker 1: Yeah.

494
00:23:38,800 --> 00:23:41,000
Speaker 2: I said, thank you, Dennis. That's all I needed to hear.

495
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:44,520
Speaker 2: I'm cool, And then I was cool. And then when

496
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:48,200
Speaker 2: I got the opportunity I was able to avoid another

497
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:50,760
Speaker 2: bad result.

498
00:23:52,160 --> 00:23:54,200
Speaker 1: What is the kind of money we're talking about here.

499
00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:56,840
Speaker 1: What does it cost in the seventies and eighties to

500
00:23:56,840 --> 00:23:59,560
Speaker 1: pay off a cop to basically throw the case, and

501
00:23:59,560 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 1: then pay off off the judge to just shut it

502
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 1: all down immediately.

503
00:24:03,560 --> 00:24:09,480
Speaker 2: It varies. Most of the corruption was extremely low cost corruption.

504
00:24:09,680 --> 00:24:13,080
Speaker 2: Most of the corruption the cases were fixed for the

505
00:24:13,160 --> 00:24:15,960
Speaker 2: price of the amount of money the defendant had put

506
00:24:16,040 --> 00:24:19,679
Speaker 2: up on bond, so they say, in some kind of

507
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:21,639
Speaker 2: and most of by the way, most of the corruption

508
00:24:21,720 --> 00:24:27,200
Speaker 2: involved misdemeanors, not felonies. So these are high volume, low

509
00:24:27,400 --> 00:24:29,879
Speaker 2: cost corruption we're talking about. We're not talking about fixing

510
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:33,040
Speaker 2: big cases. We're talking about fixing petty cases. Now, it

511
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:35,280
Speaker 2: turns out, as I talk about in the book, there

512
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 2: were judges fixing big cases too, and we found out

513
00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:42,440
Speaker 2: about that later, including one judge who I really liked

514
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:44,840
Speaker 2: a lot and respected and thought he was a good judge.

515
00:24:44,880 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 2: And turns out he was fixing murder cases and he

516
00:24:48,359 --> 00:24:50,639
Speaker 2: had been a mob lawyer, which I didn't realize before

517
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 2: he became a judge. But most of these cases are

518
00:24:53,440 --> 00:24:55,919
Speaker 2: for one hundred bucks or less. You have a thousand

519
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 2: dollars bond on a misdemeanor case, and Cook County you

520
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,840
Speaker 2: put up ten percent, So you put up one hundred dollars.

521
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:03,439
Speaker 2: Now you have you get a receipt. You get a

522
00:25:03,440 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 2: receipt for your one hundred dollars, and once your case

523
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 2: is disposed of, you get and you show up in court,

524
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 2: you get your hundred dollars back. Well, what happens is

525
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,280
Speaker 2: these bond slip lawyers are prowling the hallways. These are

526
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:16,000
Speaker 2: lawyers that work with the judge in these corrupt courts,

527
00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 2: and they solicit you to represent you for free. Well,

528
00:25:20,280 --> 00:25:22,240
Speaker 2: in return for your bond slip. All you have to

529
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:24,479
Speaker 2: do is sign your bond slip over to them and

530
00:25:24,520 --> 00:25:27,280
Speaker 2: then they'll represent you, and they've got an arrangement with

531
00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:29,720
Speaker 2: the judge. They split that money with the judge, and

532
00:25:29,800 --> 00:25:34,199
Speaker 2: then they get up usually a supervision or some expungible affairs,

533
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:38,760
Speaker 2: sometimes not guilty, but oftentimes just a sweetheart's sentence, and

534
00:25:38,800 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 2: then they split the money with the judge. And so

535
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 2: you do a lot of one hundred dollars or fifty

536
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 2: dollars transactions and it ends up being real money.

537
00:25:46,160 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: But doesn't this result in some sort of audit like

538
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 1: if it's a judge who is up for reelection. You know,

539
00:25:52,040 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: a friend of mine is the domestic violence court judge

540
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 1: here in Austin, and when she was up for reelection,

541
00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: I mean, people were scrutinizing her record. Are you too

542
00:26:00,560 --> 00:26:02,560
Speaker 1: hard on this? You're not hard enough on this? And

543
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:05,320
Speaker 1: so you know, does that not come up like boy,

544
00:26:05,359 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: this judge.

545
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,320
Speaker 2: Let's a lot of people go yes. But in a

546
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,479
Speaker 2: very perverse way. Judges like this have to get their

547
00:26:11,520 --> 00:26:13,840
Speaker 2: stats right. So what do they do? They make it

548
00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:17,240
Speaker 2: up on the defendants who don't fix the cases these

549
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 2: judges are usually you know, they end up being pro

550
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,800
Speaker 2: state judges or pro prosecution judges in every case that's

551
00:26:22,840 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 2: not fixed because they need their stats to come out right.

552
00:26:26,480 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 2: And that's another sense in which pep innocent people. Well,

553
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 2: in this case, guilty people are paying a price, or

554
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,119
Speaker 2: at least people who are not paying off the judge

555
00:26:34,119 --> 00:26:36,400
Speaker 2: are paying a price for the ones that are paying

556
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 2: off the judge.

557
00:26:37,440 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: Now, I assume that you would be doing opposition research

558
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,440
Speaker 1: if you were doing this today, because you could get

559
00:26:42,440 --> 00:26:45,720
Speaker 1: on the internet and just instantly find out everybody's background,

560
00:26:45,760 --> 00:26:48,679
Speaker 1: who's connected to whoudg. You know, records of the judges,

561
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:50,399
Speaker 1: and you couldn't do that in the seventies and eighties.

562
00:26:50,680 --> 00:26:52,120
Speaker 2: Well, that's true, and of course I did a lot

563
00:26:52,119 --> 00:26:54,120
Speaker 2: of that in writing my book. I just found out

564
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:56,240
Speaker 2: a lot about people that I didn't know about. I

565
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:59,679
Speaker 2: found out about victims in cases I had dealt with

566
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 2: that never found I never knew what happened to them afterwards,

567
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:04,240
Speaker 2: and then I found out what happened to them afterwards,

568
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 2: and it was all very interesting. I also fact checked

569
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 2: myself when I wrote this book, because my recollection wasn't

570
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:12,679
Speaker 2: always correct, or at least I discovered that I remembered

571
00:27:12,680 --> 00:27:14,520
Speaker 2: a story being this way, and it turns out it

572
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:17,000
Speaker 2: wasn't the way I remembered it. That was also quite interesting.

573
00:27:17,160 --> 00:27:19,119
Speaker 2: But you know, back, you know, lots of things were

574
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 2: different in the pre internet age. I don't know that

575
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:24,080
Speaker 2: you could still, you know, find this stuff out. But

576
00:27:24,200 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 2: again I think, you know, once there were these series

577
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 2: of investigations in Chicago. I think Chicago at least cleaned up, attacked,

578
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,360
Speaker 2: the circuit court cleaned up attacked in Chicago. Now I

579
00:27:33,400 --> 00:27:37,240
Speaker 2: haven't practiced criminal law in you know, since the nineteen eighties,

580
00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 2: and so I can't personally attest to this, but many

581
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,720
Speaker 2: of my former colleagues are circuit court judges now and

582
00:27:42,840 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 2: or they're nearing retirement actually, so I do think that

583
00:27:45,840 --> 00:27:48,879
Speaker 2: the federal government investigation made a big difference, and I

584
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:51,120
Speaker 2: was very grateful for it. To me, it was Christmas

585
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 2: because all the people that I knew about as being

586
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:56,720
Speaker 2: corrupt and who they thought they were immune and I

587
00:27:56,760 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 2: thought they were immune, and then enough justice would never

588
00:27:58,840 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 2: happen to them. It all that, it all came to.

589
00:28:01,880 --> 00:28:03,880
Speaker 2: Every single one of them went down, except good old

590
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:05,119
Speaker 2: Eddie Jensen, who didn't.

591
00:28:05,840 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 1: Well, you know, in this show, normally what we do

592
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,160
Speaker 1: is we've talked them a long story with details about

593
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: whatever case you would think is the most interesting. What

594
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:14,920
Speaker 1: are you most comfortable doing moving forward to just show

595
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: specific cases that would be interesting.

596
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:20,000
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the whole book is about cases, different

597
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 2: kinds of cases, and there are cases I worked on

598
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,680
Speaker 2: as a trial lawyer, but there's cases I worked on

599
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:26,720
Speaker 2: in Felony Review which is the title of the book,

600
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 2: Tales of True Crime and Corruption in Chicago. Let me

601
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:31,760
Speaker 2: just talk about what the Felonry Review unit was because

602
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:33,840
Speaker 2: it's unique, and that's one of the reasons I wrote

603
00:28:33,840 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 2: the book because it doesn't exist everywhere, and it was

604
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:40,320
Speaker 2: a terrific feature of Cook County. Waited before I was

605
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 2: a prosecutor, a deal was made between the State's Attorney's

606
00:28:43,800 --> 00:28:47,600
Speaker 2: Office and the Chicago Police Department, and there's no legal

607
00:28:47,600 --> 00:28:50,520
Speaker 2: connection between the two. Cook County is a separate entity

608
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 2: than the City of Chicago, and they made an arrangement

609
00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 2: in which no felony charges could be filed without the

610
00:28:57,240 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 2: approval of a State's Attorney an assistant state's attorney. So

611
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:03,200
Speaker 2: the Chicago Police Department couldn't accuse you of a felony

612
00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:06,320
Speaker 2: without a State's attorney signing off. And so in order

613
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:10,400
Speaker 2: to meet that demand for approvals, a special unit of

614
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 2: the State's Attorney's Office was created called Felony Review. Felony Review.

615
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 2: When you were on that and this is one of

616
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:17,880
Speaker 2: the assignments you had as you were on your way

617
00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:20,680
Speaker 2: to the felony trial courts. When you were signed there,

618
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 2: you did not go to court. You went to an

619
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 2: office that were in the police area headquarters. You had

620
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 2: a squad car and you were signed there either on

621
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:32,080
Speaker 2: twelve hour shifts, so you did three twelve hour day

622
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 2: shifts from six am to six pm. Then you had

623
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,000
Speaker 2: three days off, and then you did three night shifts

624
00:29:38,040 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 2: from six pm to six am, and then you had

625
00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 2: three days off, And so you were full time in

626
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 2: the police station and your job was to approve search warrants.

627
00:29:47,160 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 2: That was one of our jobs. But the other job

628
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 2: was to approve felony charges, and that meant interviewing the suspects,

629
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:58,320
Speaker 2: interviewing the witnesses, interviewing the cops, assessing what the evidence was,

630
00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:02,400
Speaker 2: and deciding whether the case was provable. And this was

631
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:05,800
Speaker 2: not perfunctory review. We only approved sixty percent of the

632
00:30:05,840 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 2: cases that were brought to us. We disapproved forty percent.

633
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 2: We kept a log book. I still have my logbooks

634
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 2: which enable me to write this book. And our logbook

635
00:30:13,600 --> 00:30:17,080
Speaker 2: was taken by the supervisors weekly and monitored what our

636
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:20,240
Speaker 2: rejection rate and what our approval rate was they and

637
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:22,840
Speaker 2: so they kept our stats and we had to make

638
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:25,840
Speaker 2: sure that we had enough rejections true. So this was

639
00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 2: meaningful review, and our job was to anticipate what a

640
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 2: defense attorney would do with a case while we're in

641
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 2: the police station. And so one of the things I

642
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 2: learned from doing that is to not go by my

643
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 2: subjective belief or gut about whether somebody was guilty or innocence,

644
00:30:41,440 --> 00:30:44,640
Speaker 2: to simply evaluate the evidence as though I was a magistrate,

645
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 2: as though I was a judge, and see was the

646
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 2: evidence there or was the evidence not there? And as

647
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:51,719
Speaker 2: a result of that, we let people go. I'll give

648
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:54,200
Speaker 2: you an example of that of letting somebody go. It

649
00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:56,280
Speaker 2: was the only case in which I actually had to.

650
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 2: I came across a dead body. The murder was committed

651
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:02,080
Speaker 2: in a in a three story walk up across the

652
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 2: street from a district police station. I was called to

653
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:07,440
Speaker 2: the case at the police station from the area headquarters.

654
00:31:07,600 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 2: They said, do you want to go over and look

655
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 2: at the scene where the body still is. I said sure.

656
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 2: I walked across the street and the snow walked up

657
00:31:13,880 --> 00:31:16,480
Speaker 2: the stairs, got into the apartment. The apartment was crawling

658
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:18,560
Speaker 2: with cops. It wasn't a pristine crime scene like you

659
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,400
Speaker 2: would see on TV. Everybody was there in their snowy

660
00:31:21,440 --> 00:31:24,440
Speaker 2: boots and everything. I had boots on and winter clothes,

661
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,080
Speaker 2: and the body of this woman was on the floor

662
00:31:27,120 --> 00:31:29,200
Speaker 2: of her bedroom. And the cop looks up to me

663
00:31:29,280 --> 00:31:31,120
Speaker 2: and I'm this young guy, I mean in my twenties,

664
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 2: I'm you know, the lawyer guy, and so I think

665
00:31:34,080 --> 00:31:36,920
Speaker 2: as part of breaking my ball, so to speak, he said,

666
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 2: is it okay if we turn the body over? Yeah, sure,

667
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 2: it's okay. So he turns the body over. The woman.

668
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 2: The poor woman's hand clunks on my boot. You know,

669
00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 2: it's like that was So what was the story here?

670
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:51,440
Speaker 2: The story that the defendant told. Who was the husband

671
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 2: who was charged. I mean he actually hadn't been charged yet,

672
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 2: but the suspect, the defendant's husband, said he and his

673
00:31:56,920 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 2: wife had gotten into an argument and there was a

674
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,560
Speaker 2: kitchen knife that she grabbed to try to stab him

675
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,320
Speaker 2: with his kitchen knife. They struggled over the knife, he

676
00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 2: got it away from her, put the knife down, and

677
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 2: then he left the apartment. And when he left the apartment,

678
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,760
Speaker 2: she was perfectly fine. Well, okay, So now what do

679
00:32:13,800 --> 00:32:15,360
Speaker 2: I do? I got to beat. My job is to

680
00:32:15,400 --> 00:32:17,959
Speaker 2: be skeptical and to figure out what really happened. So

681
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:20,920
Speaker 2: there's a couple things. Number one, she was stabbed one time.

682
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 2: And number two, I talked to the neighbors. I interviewed

683
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 2: the neighbors, and the neighbors said they heard the argument

684
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 2: very loud. They heard the argument. They heard them both

685
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:32,440
Speaker 2: argument with each other. They heard the door slam the

686
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 2: guy's leaving, and they heard her continuing to yell about

687
00:32:35,720 --> 00:32:38,840
Speaker 2: him after he leaves after the door slam. So what

688
00:32:38,880 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 2: do I have. I've got corroboration of the fact that

689
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:46,400
Speaker 2: she was alive and yelling when he leaves, and she's

690
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 2: stabbed one time, something in a chest and what it

691
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 2: seems to have happened was the corner later confirmed what

692
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:54,840
Speaker 2: seemed to have happened is she was stabbed. She may

693
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:57,560
Speaker 2: not have realized she was stabbed in the heat of

694
00:32:57,600 --> 00:33:01,080
Speaker 2: the thing. She was bleeding internally into her lungs. She

695
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 2: probably laid down in order to because she wasn't feeling right,

696
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 2: and then when she got up to try to get

697
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 2: some help, she collapsed because she had bled internally and

698
00:33:08,840 --> 00:33:11,760
Speaker 2: she'd suffocated by that as a result of that stab wound.

699
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 2: But as a result, I did not approve murder charges.

700
00:33:14,480 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 2: He was let Oh, the husband was let go. Now

701
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:20,440
Speaker 2: here's the thing. If there had been two stab wounds,

702
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:24,160
Speaker 2: I probably would have charged him with murder. Wow, one

703
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 2: stab wound is consistent with he didn't know it was

704
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:30,560
Speaker 2: an accident. She probably stabbed herself in the struggle, and

705
00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:33,880
Speaker 2: nobody neither one of them might have known two stab wounds.

706
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:36,560
Speaker 2: I'm exaggerating her a little bit, but two stab wounds

707
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:38,760
Speaker 2: would have meant he was trying to kill her. Yeah,

708
00:33:38,840 --> 00:33:41,680
Speaker 2: And so that was what Felony Review did. That light.

709
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 2: He didn't have to hire your dad as a defense lawyer.

710
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:46,400
Speaker 2: He didn't have to have a defense layer. No public

711
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:50,520
Speaker 2: defender was necessary. Felony Review and the Chicago Police Department weren't.

712
00:33:50,560 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 2: They were in agreement with me. Between Fellony Review and

713
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 2: the Chicago Police Department, that guy was not charged. And

714
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 2: that's I think a very very good feature of Chicago

715
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:00,680
Speaker 2: criminal courts. A criminal us the system.

716
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:02,160
Speaker 1: Did you look him up? You must have.

717
00:34:02,400 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 2: I didn't have the information to look him up. What

718
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 2: I like about that story is that it talks about

719
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,279
Speaker 2: the role of well, I'll tell you another story that

720
00:34:10,320 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 2: talks about the role of the felony who plays. It's

721
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:16,640
Speaker 2: a story of the Kims, the husband and wife Korean

722
00:34:16,680 --> 00:34:21,480
Speaker 2: liquor store owner, young immigrants. They'd had a knickknack business,

723
00:34:21,480 --> 00:34:23,360
Speaker 2: but they decided to open up a liquor store on

724
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:27,520
Speaker 2: the Near North Side. One night, this fellow named Saesar

725
00:34:27,560 --> 00:34:31,520
Speaker 2: Marin was out drinking. He was from Columbia. He was

726
00:34:31,520 --> 00:34:33,479
Speaker 2: out drinking on the lake front. He had a gun

727
00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 2: with him. He came back. He had previously worked at

728
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:38,239
Speaker 2: this liquor store, so he knew the layout, and he

729
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:40,200
Speaker 2: came in to buy some more beer. He'd been heavily

730
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 2: drinking beer that night, and he saw that the Kims

731
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 2: were about to lock up their store, and he pulled

732
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 2: out his gun and made them go downstairs, because he

733
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 2: knew the layout of the place having worked there, and

734
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:55,520
Speaker 2: wanted their money. The husband gave him the money, and

735
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:58,759
Speaker 2: according to Saesar Marin in the statement, the ultimately gave me.

736
00:34:58,920 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 2: He thought that the husband was making a move towards him,

737
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:04,479
Speaker 2: and he shot him, shot him repeatedly. Then he shot

738
00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 2: the wife and left them both in the base in

739
00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 2: the in the basement to die. Went upstairs, not only

740
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:12,280
Speaker 2: closed the door behind him, but pride the door closed

741
00:35:12,280 --> 00:35:14,239
Speaker 2: with a piece of wood that was there so they

742
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 2: couldn't open it couldn't be opened, and left. The woman

743
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 2: gets up, having been shot, climbs up the stairs. She's

744
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 2: able to claw her way through the wall. She creates

745
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:26,879
Speaker 2: a hole in the wall and punches her way through

746
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 2: the wall to get around this door. She gets out

747
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:31,239
Speaker 2: to the street, begs for people to come and help

748
00:35:31,239 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 2: her husband and her. The husband passes away. She goes

749
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 2: to the hospital. She knows the guy because he's been

750
00:35:37,440 --> 00:35:40,479
Speaker 2: a customer there, he's worked there, gives the police his name.

751
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 2: The police go out and arrest saysar and think they've

752
00:35:44,080 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 2: got the guy, and uh a feller review my you know,

753
00:35:47,160 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 2: my supervisor. Whenever you work a homicide case, the assistant

754
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 2: works with their supervisor. We work it together. Supervisor's on

755
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:55,879
Speaker 2: the phone, you know, telling me what to do, and

756
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:58,719
Speaker 2: you know, working with me. And so the supervisor says, well,

757
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:00,279
Speaker 2: you got to go to the hospital and get an

758
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:04,040
Speaker 2: ID of this guy. And the cops were reluctant. They

759
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:05,919
Speaker 2: had the guy, they had the name, and he fit

760
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 2: the description and so but no, because I said, well no,

761
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 2: and we're not going to prove the charges unless you

762
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:12,759
Speaker 2: do this. We go to the hospital. She says, that's

763
00:36:12,800 --> 00:36:16,239
Speaker 2: not the guy. Oh wow, Okay, They let that guy go.

764
00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:19,480
Speaker 2: They go out and do some more shirts. They find

765
00:36:19,960 --> 00:36:22,399
Speaker 2: the other the seas the real Caesar mare in and

766
00:36:22,440 --> 00:36:24,239
Speaker 2: then I have to go to the hospital and do

767
00:36:24,280 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 2: the lineup. And it was very very dramatic. It was

768
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,239
Speaker 2: like on TV so I go to the hospital. She's

769
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 2: she's actually I find out later because she's somebody I

770
00:36:30,920 --> 00:36:33,040
Speaker 2: did find out about later. She was like out of

771
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 2: it for weeks, but she was, you know, in the

772
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:37,879
Speaker 2: hospital bed. She had a tube coming out of her nose.

773
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,520
Speaker 2: I'll never forget. And as she was looking at the photos,

774
00:36:40,520 --> 00:36:42,279
Speaker 2: it was a photo lineup, and she would go through

775
00:36:42,320 --> 00:36:44,279
Speaker 2: the photos. She looked through one, she looked through that,

776
00:36:44,320 --> 00:36:46,480
Speaker 2: she got to the third photo and all of a sudden,

777
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 2: she starts shaking, and she starts pointing her finger at

778
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 2: the photo and the fluid starts running out of her

779
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:55,040
Speaker 2: nose into the tube, and she goes, you know, that's

780
00:36:55,080 --> 00:36:57,839
Speaker 2: the man. That's the man, and that was Caesar Maren

781
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,839
Speaker 2: and that's the guy who I we ultimately charged with murder.

782
00:37:01,040 --> 00:37:02,799
Speaker 2: And this with him, we had the gun and we

783
00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:05,360
Speaker 2: had the proceeds. We didn't have that with the first Sazar.

784
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:07,799
Speaker 2: But then, of course it was my job to get

785
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:09,879
Speaker 2: the confession, which I did, and I took a court

786
00:37:09,880 --> 00:37:11,920
Speaker 2: reporter confession from him, and that's how I got all

787
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:14,680
Speaker 2: the background facts about him from his confession. I didn't

788
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:17,920
Speaker 2: get the background facts about her until I was reading.

789
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:20,319
Speaker 2: I was researching for my book, And it turns out

790
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 2: there was a Chicago newspaper columnist who took an interest

791
00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 2: in the case, took an interest in her and wrote

792
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 2: two columns about her and her survival and how she

793
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 2: survived and then what happened to her afterwards. That I

794
00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:35,280
Speaker 2: added to the book is to round out that story.

795
00:37:35,760 --> 00:37:38,239
Speaker 1: How many murder cases do you think you handled in

796
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:40,000
Speaker 1: your time there? And how long were you there? By

797
00:37:40,000 --> 00:37:41,359
Speaker 1: the way, I haven't even asked that yet.

798
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:44,319
Speaker 2: Well, I was a prosecutor for four years. It was

799
00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:47,120
Speaker 2: an extremely good time to be a prosecutor because they'd

800
00:37:47,120 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 2: been expanding the criminal courts there as a result of

801
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 2: the crime wave of the sixties, and so you could

802
00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,440
Speaker 2: move up in the office very quickly. Nowadays you'd have

803
00:37:54,480 --> 00:37:56,319
Speaker 2: to spend a lot more time before you could ever

804
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,000
Speaker 2: get to the felony trial courts. I got to the

805
00:37:58,000 --> 00:38:00,719
Speaker 2: felony trial court in two years. Two years as a

806
00:38:00,719 --> 00:38:04,560
Speaker 2: felony trial assistant doing jury trials, murders, rapes, on robberies,

807
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:06,760
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. But as a fellowy review assistant,

808
00:38:06,760 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 2: I was there for nine months, which was very intense,

809
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 2: three days on, three days off, and extremely rewarding. Now

810
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 2: this story, this very same story. It involves a time

811
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:20,799
Speaker 2: when I mean, the other thing I'm very candid about

812
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:23,359
Speaker 2: in the book is where I messed up, both where

813
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:27,200
Speaker 2: I failed in terms of not being adequately prepared in

814
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:30,080
Speaker 2: or where I just made it. I screwed up, because

815
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:31,920
Speaker 2: I do think that when you do a memoir, it

816
00:38:31,920 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 2: should be an honest thing. It should be you should

817
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 2: be telling the truth and the whole truth, not just

818
00:38:37,560 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 2: the part that favors you. And so this case involved

819
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,200
Speaker 2: a massive potential screw up of me by me, which

820
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,840
Speaker 2: is almost impossible to imagine. And that is I'm taking

821
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,799
Speaker 2: the confession from Seesar Marin and I forget to give

822
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,279
Speaker 2: him as Miranda Rice, Oh no, on the record. This

823
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 2: is a court reported confession.

824
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:57,719
Speaker 1: The police normally would do that, right, wouldn't you have

825
00:38:57,760 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: an officer do that.

826
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 2: I'm the court reporter itself, on the court reporter confession. No,

827
00:39:02,120 --> 00:39:05,040
Speaker 2: Miranda Rze, Oh my gosh. So Number one, how did

828
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 2: I make that mistake? Why did I make that mistake?

829
00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:08,719
Speaker 2: Number two is how did I fix it? Because there

830
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 2: was never even a motion to suppress in this case?

831
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:13,239
Speaker 2: So how did I fix it? Well? How I made

832
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 2: the mistake? Was this my job was there was to

833
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 2: anticipate what a future defense attorney would do with this case.

834
00:39:19,680 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 2: And what I thought was, what, you know, what I

835
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,360
Speaker 2: think they would do is they say, well, the confession

836
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:29,760
Speaker 2: was false because he doesn't speak English, so the cops

837
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 2: made up the confession. So in order to negate that claim,

838
00:39:33,840 --> 00:39:36,280
Speaker 2: I made sure that we had a Spanish speaking police

839
00:39:36,280 --> 00:39:38,879
Speaker 2: officer in the room at all times when I was

840
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 2: interrogating the suspect, including during the court reporter its statement,

841
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 2: and I wanted to make sure the record reflected for

842
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:48,000
Speaker 2: the court reporter statement that this officer was there. So

843
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:51,440
Speaker 2: I deviated from my normal admonitions and I said, now

844
00:39:51,480 --> 00:39:53,839
Speaker 2: you understand that there's this whole report, there's officers here,

845
00:39:53,880 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 2: and you know he'll translate it. And if you have any

846
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:58,120
Speaker 2: questions you don't understand, I say, talk to the officer.

847
00:39:58,160 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah.

848
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: You did your own kind of Miranda, but for the

849
00:40:01,040 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: wrong thing.

850
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:04,120
Speaker 2: But I got out of my rhythm and I just

851
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:06,319
Speaker 2: went on without doing the Randa words. So at the

852
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 2: end of my court reporter statement, every time I would

853
00:40:08,400 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 2: end a statement, the nice thing about it being court

854
00:40:11,239 --> 00:40:13,920
Speaker 2: reported and not recorded video recorded, we didn't have that

855
00:40:13,960 --> 00:40:16,240
Speaker 2: then is you could take as long as you wanted

856
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:19,400
Speaker 2: to think and pauses don't get recorded. Yeah, So I

857
00:40:19,440 --> 00:40:21,239
Speaker 2: would always stop at the end, and I would think

858
00:40:21,239 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 2: I would stop and I'd say, did I you know,

859
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:25,520
Speaker 2: did I get everything and anything I forgetting? So I'm

860
00:40:25,560 --> 00:40:28,480
Speaker 2: sitting there and I'm thinking, wait a second, I don't

861
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 2: think I gave him as Miranda rights. So then I

862
00:40:30,840 --> 00:40:34,040
Speaker 2: turned to the guy I was training an Asa that night.

863
00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:37,000
Speaker 2: You know, so I'm training him right now. This guy

864
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:39,040
Speaker 2: ended up being a circuit court judge. He is right now.

865
00:40:39,320 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 2: I was training him that night, and so and here's

866
00:40:42,160 --> 00:40:43,719
Speaker 2: the way, and I screw up in this kind of

867
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 2: big time way, and I say to him, I said,

868
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 2: did did I give this guy his Maranda rights? And

869
00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:50,080
Speaker 2: he says, I think you did. And I said to

870
00:40:49,840 --> 00:40:52,360
Speaker 2: the police sergeant who was there because I had and

871
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 2: I said, did I give him as Mirlanda rights? And goes, oh,

872
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:55,759
Speaker 2: I'm sure you did. So I said to the court

873
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 2: reporter Emmett, did I give him his Miranda rights? He goes,

874
00:40:58,360 --> 00:40:59,640
Speaker 2: I think you did. But I said, well, go back

875
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:01,719
Speaker 2: and check the record. So he goes back and his

876
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 2: tray with shorthand notes you didn't do it. So now

877
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:08,120
Speaker 2: I'm like at a loss. I don't know what do

878
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:10,520
Speaker 2: I do, and soil the kid I'm training again. Now

879
00:41:10,560 --> 00:41:12,960
Speaker 2: he's a circuit court judge. The guy I'm training whispers

880
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 2: in my ear and he says, and he tells me

881
00:41:15,120 --> 00:41:17,840
Speaker 2: what to do. And it's what I did. Because I

882
00:41:17,960 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 2: had given the guy his miranda rights before I spoke

883
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 2: to him and took the oral confession, I just hadn't

884
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:27,239
Speaker 2: repeated them for the written confession. So I said to him,

885
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 2: I said, now, sayser, before you gave this statement with

886
00:41:30,400 --> 00:41:33,799
Speaker 2: the Core reporter, you and I had another conversation, didn't we.

887
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:36,320
Speaker 2: And during that conversation you told me all the things

888
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:38,239
Speaker 2: that you again told me on the court report. Is

889
00:41:38,320 --> 00:41:41,399
Speaker 2: that right? He goes, that's right. And before you gave

890
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:43,400
Speaker 2: me that statement, I told you that you had a

891
00:41:43,480 --> 00:41:45,759
Speaker 2: right to remain silent, did I not? Yes, you did,

892
00:41:46,120 --> 00:41:47,799
Speaker 2: and I told you that should you give up her,

893
00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:50,480
Speaker 2: and so I gave him and I told you so

894
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:54,080
Speaker 2: I retroactively put on the record that I had previously

895
00:41:54,080 --> 00:41:56,320
Speaker 2: given him as miranda rights, which was all you needed

896
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 2: to do to have done. And as a result of

897
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 2: fixing this unbelievable mistake, no suppression motion was even filed

898
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:05,759
Speaker 2: about that. But again it was the guy. I don't

899
00:42:05,800 --> 00:42:07,160
Speaker 2: know that it would have occurred to me to do

900
00:42:07,200 --> 00:42:09,720
Speaker 2: that with Jimmy Lynn, the guy who I was training

901
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:12,239
Speaker 2: that night, hadn't whispered in my ear what to do.

902
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: Well, And I'm sure you've had others screw ups. Is

903
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:18,399
Speaker 1: there another memorable one for you or or is there

904
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: somebody where you just said I can't make this case.

905
00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 1: We're not going to make this case work. It's not

906
00:42:21,640 --> 00:42:23,640
Speaker 1: going to work, it's not ethical or whatever it is,

907
00:42:24,120 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 1: and then something happens later on, maybe in your research

908
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 1: where you go, man, this guy went on to do

909
00:42:28,880 --> 00:42:29,760
Speaker 1: really bad things.

910
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 2: Well, that didn't happen. I had cases where we screwed

911
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,760
Speaker 2: up in the sense that well, it's a longer story,

912
00:42:35,800 --> 00:42:37,840
Speaker 2: but it's a case where the issue is whether the

913
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:39,799
Speaker 2: defense was entire It was a gang bit killing. It

914
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:42,000
Speaker 2: was a gang bang killing where one gang member shot

915
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:46,720
Speaker 2: another gang member, and the defense wanted a voluntary manslaughter instruction,

916
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:49,480
Speaker 2: which would have been a much lower offense, and we

917
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:51,759
Speaker 2: were arguing that the evidence didn't support that it had

918
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:53,360
Speaker 2: to be murdered. One. We didn't want the jury to

919
00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:55,680
Speaker 2: have a compromise verdict, because these were gang members. Let's

920
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 2: just give them the compromise lower thing. And so the

921
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:01,440
Speaker 2: defense attorney said, there's a case that says we're you know,

922
00:43:02,200 --> 00:43:04,799
Speaker 2: he cided a case which he said would entitle him

923
00:43:04,800 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 2: to a voluntary man until Otter instruction. And my experience

924
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 2: up until that time was that when defense attorneys cided

925
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:13,240
Speaker 2: cases that I thought made no sense, the case never

926
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:16,080
Speaker 2: said what the defense attorney claimed it said. It always

927
00:43:16,120 --> 00:43:20,520
Speaker 2: said something different. They always misrepresented it. I became unjustifiably

928
00:43:20,680 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 2: kind of cocky or arrogant about this. And so that

929
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:26,600
Speaker 2: was before lunch. We broke for lunch. Now I didn't

930
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 2: What I didn't do is I didn't go research whether

931
00:43:29,480 --> 00:43:32,480
Speaker 2: that case existed. And what I mean, you know what

932
00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:34,400
Speaker 2: that case said, whether there were any other cases, is

933
00:43:34,400 --> 00:43:35,920
Speaker 2: that I just I did whatever I was going to

934
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:38,359
Speaker 2: do at lunch, prepare witnesses, whatever I was doing, I

935
00:43:38,400 --> 00:43:40,919
Speaker 2: just didn't pay attention to it. I come back to court,

936
00:43:41,040 --> 00:43:43,200
Speaker 2: I was in front of a very cantankerous judge who

937
00:43:43,239 --> 00:43:44,960
Speaker 2: I really hid a high respect for. My book is

938
00:43:44,960 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 2: dedicated to him and one other judge. He used to

939
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,399
Speaker 2: be very hard on lawyers, and you know, beef at them,

940
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 2: and he liked me, but that wouldn't prevent me from

941
00:43:53,480 --> 00:43:55,920
Speaker 2: getting mad at me. And so I go into chambers

942
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 2: and he's got a law book open in front of him,

943
00:43:58,320 --> 00:44:00,319
Speaker 2: and I said what he got there, Judge, And he said, well,

944
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:03,040
Speaker 2: I've got the case the council cited. And I said, well,

945
00:44:03,080 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 2: what does it say? And he takes the law book

946
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:07,799
Speaker 2: and he just faces it in my direction and then

947
00:44:07,840 --> 00:44:10,799
Speaker 2: slams it open on the desk in front of me. Goes, well,

948
00:44:10,840 --> 00:44:13,239
Speaker 2: I know what I think it says. Now you tell

949
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:16,239
Speaker 2: me what you think it says. And I read it,

950
00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 2: and sure enough, the defense attorney had accurately cited this case.

951
00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:23,279
Speaker 2: It said what he said it did. And so my

952
00:44:23,360 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 2: response was because I hadn't done any independent research, my

953
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,040
Speaker 2: response was, well, I guess we're going to have to

954
00:44:28,080 --> 00:44:30,239
Speaker 2: do it his way, aren't we. So the guy I

955
00:44:30,239 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 2: got the voluntary manslaughter instruction, and sure enough the jury

956
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 2: came back not guilty on murder, but guilty on voluntary manslaughter.

957
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 2: The guy was sentenced to the maximum I think was

958
00:44:39,560 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 2: six years. I say it in the book, whatever it was.

959
00:44:41,920 --> 00:44:44,279
Speaker 2: He gets out after serving half the time, which is

960
00:44:44,280 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 2: what you do when you're on good behavior. And then

961
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 2: he ultimately got involved in the murder of an innocent

962
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:54,400
Speaker 2: civilian in a pizza shop, you know, shotgunning guy, you know,

963
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:58,080
Speaker 2: and ended up being sentenced to multi decades in the

964
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:00,719
Speaker 2: penitentiary because he wasn't in the pen entry with the

965
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:04,680
Speaker 2: murder charge. Now, in fairness, I honestly don't know if

966
00:45:04,680 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 2: there was any other case that I could have cited.

967
00:45:07,600 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 2: But I'll never know because I did not do what

968
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:13,040
Speaker 2: I should have done, which is the legal research on

969
00:45:13,120 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 2: that issue, because I was too cocky. And so for

970
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 2: all I know, we could have gotten we could have

971
00:45:18,719 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 2: won that motion, and maybe he would have gotten the

972
00:45:21,200 --> 00:45:23,080
Speaker 2: murder charge instead, and then he wouldn't have gone on

973
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 2: and done these other things, you know.

974
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 1: I mean, I've also told you that in another life,

975
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: I would have gone to law school. My dad and

976
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:30,480
Speaker 1: I talked about it all the time, just sort of

977
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 1: the weight that he felt like he felt when he

978
00:45:34,120 --> 00:45:37,160
Speaker 1: would have, you know, somebody as a client, and the

979
00:45:37,239 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 1: responsibility there. And I know prosecutors and defense attorneys feel

980
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:43,440
Speaker 1: that also. I mean, I hope they do at least

981
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 1: what makes it worth it, because for me right now

982
00:45:46,440 --> 00:45:48,840
Speaker 1: in my life, it wouldn't be worth it beating myself

983
00:45:48,920 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: up for making a decision or you know, making a

984
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: mistake or doing my job really well. And somebody I

985
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:56,359
Speaker 1: know who is not a good person but I represented

986
00:45:56,400 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: well is on the street.

987
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,759
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I think it's a young person's game,

988
00:46:00,960 --> 00:46:03,439
Speaker 2: and I certainly couldn't do it now. I mean, I'm

989
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 2: probably a better lawyer today than I was back then,

990
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:07,239
Speaker 2: but I certain I don't think I could do what

991
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:09,440
Speaker 2: I did back then. And so, you know, part of

992
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:11,680
Speaker 2: it is the youth can do all kinds of things

993
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:13,680
Speaker 2: you don't know enough to know you can't do it.

994
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:15,960
Speaker 2: Part of it, I mean, going back to the role

995
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,879
Speaker 2: of the defense attorney. Defense attorneys do it a psychological

996
00:46:19,000 --> 00:46:21,799
Speaker 2: number on themselves to justify what they do. The most

997
00:46:21,840 --> 00:46:25,759
Speaker 2: important when they do is they basically get buried down

998
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:27,680
Speaker 2: on the cops that the cops are all dirty and

999
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:30,879
Speaker 2: the system is dirty. But I think that's so unnecessary

1000
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 2: because I think the job that defense attorneys do is

1001
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 2: so incredibly important to making the system work. I mean,

1002
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 2: I know they take a lot of crap when they're

1003
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:41,080
Speaker 2: at parties and stuff, and people find out their defense.

1004
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 2: How can you defend these people? Well, it's because they

1005
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:47,880
Speaker 2: defend the guilty, and as I said earlier, almost everybody

1006
00:46:47,960 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 2: they defend is guilty. It's because they defend the guilty

1007
00:46:51,239 --> 00:46:54,799
Speaker 2: that you are not going to be prosecuted. Because that's

1008
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 2: what makes Prosecutors Office in Chicago establish felony review to

1009
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:01,120
Speaker 2: make sure the evidence is there so that most of

1010
00:47:01,160 --> 00:47:04,759
Speaker 2: the people charged are guilty. It's because defense attorneys are

1011
00:47:04,760 --> 00:47:08,640
Speaker 2: there that this burden of proof is real and not imaginary.

1012
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:10,920
Speaker 2: And so that's why you should do it. And you

1013
00:47:10,920 --> 00:47:13,080
Speaker 2: should do it because you owe you owe it to

1014
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:16,440
Speaker 2: the people, all the people, innocent or guilty. You like

1015
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 2: your vital piece of a justice system that protects the innocent.

1016
00:47:21,120 --> 00:47:22,040
Speaker 2: That's why you do it.

1017
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 1: Do you think that the system is too adversarial in

1018
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:28,040
Speaker 1: this country? And I asked that because you know, I

1019
00:47:28,120 --> 00:47:30,920
Speaker 1: have a good friend who's a defense attorney. He retired

1020
00:47:30,920 --> 00:47:33,480
Speaker 1: and shut down his practice. And I said, when you're

1021
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: looking for an expert, I don't know what it is,

1022
00:47:35,160 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 1: blood stain patterns, whatever the expert is. Who are you

1023
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:40,880
Speaker 1: looking for the most qualified? And he said, no, somebody

1024
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 1: who's well qualified. I want somebody who talks well, that's

1025
00:47:44,200 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 1: the person I want. Minimal qualifications are fine, and I

1026
00:47:47,400 --> 00:47:50,160
Speaker 1: just thought, how crappy. I mean, just you don't want

1027
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:52,440
Speaker 1: the best person up there, but the most convincing. And

1028
00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 1: that's why I keep going back to, is this to

1029
00:47:54,560 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 1: set up like a cage fight between prosecutors and defense

1030
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 1: attorneys where what gets lost is the humanity and the

1031
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:04,000
Speaker 1: fairness when technicalities come up.

1032
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:08,439
Speaker 2: I do think in reality, defense attorneys and prosecutors work

1033
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:10,960
Speaker 2: these things out with technicalities. I mean, it doesn't. It

1034
00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:13,239
Speaker 2: doesn't happen all the time, and books are written about

1035
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:15,480
Speaker 2: when it doesn't happen, you know, the books that of

1036
00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:18,640
Speaker 2: the authors that you interview are written about when it

1037
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 2: doesn't happen this way, but oftentimes it does it. In

1038
00:48:21,840 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 2: The Defenders, the TV show that inspired me when I

1039
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:26,239
Speaker 2: went back and watched it, there was a lot of

1040
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:28,840
Speaker 2: incidents in which the judge and the prosecutor and the

1041
00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:32,080
Speaker 2: defense attorney were in the athletic club together trying to

1042
00:48:32,120 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 2: figure out how to handle this case that they had

1043
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 2: to deal with that nobody wanted to try and nobody

1044
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:39,840
Speaker 2: wanted to deal with and what's the right way to

1045
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:42,200
Speaker 2: deal with this? That was on TV And my second

1046
00:48:42,200 --> 00:48:45,680
Speaker 2: favorite lawyer's movie is My cousin Vinny. Yeah, because I

1047
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:48,200
Speaker 2: think it's not only, you know, brilliantly funny, but it

1048
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:50,880
Speaker 2: more captures the spirit of the criminal justice system than

1049
00:48:50,920 --> 00:48:54,280
Speaker 2: most lawyers movies do or TV shows because it shows

1050
00:48:54,320 --> 00:48:57,879
Speaker 2: everybody's doing their job in good faith. The cops are

1051
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:00,400
Speaker 2: I mean, the innocent people are being chick yards and

1052
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 2: possibly having to go to jail, but not because anybody's

1053
00:49:03,040 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 2: being malicious. Everybody's doing their job and good faith. The

1054
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 2: prosecutor is doing his job and good faith. They don't

1055
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,080
Speaker 2: make the prosecutor out to be a bad guy. And

1056
00:49:11,160 --> 00:49:13,360
Speaker 2: at the end of the time, when the prosecutor finally

1057
00:49:13,400 --> 00:49:17,640
Speaker 2: realizes because Vinnie has proven remember it goes back Vinnie

1058
00:49:17,719 --> 00:49:20,880
Speaker 2: proved them innocent. That goes back to my original statement

1059
00:49:20,920 --> 00:49:22,640
Speaker 2: that if you're innocent, you need to prove your innocent.

1060
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:26,040
Speaker 2: Vinnie proves their innocence. The prosecutor is smiling when he

1061
00:49:26,080 --> 00:49:30,239
Speaker 2: says case dismissed because justice has been done and he

1062
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:34,280
Speaker 2: and Vinnie were getting along fine adversarially, but still fine.

1063
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:37,600
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of camaraderie in the system. The

1064
00:49:37,640 --> 00:49:40,560
Speaker 2: people that you know you don't want to be around

1065
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:44,239
Speaker 2: are the people who are dishonest the dishonest defense attorneys

1066
00:49:44,360 --> 00:49:48,720
Speaker 2: or dishonest prosecutors, and in people's reputations in the criminal

1067
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 2: justice system generally are accurate. Here's one thing I tell students.

1068
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:58,000
Speaker 2: Be very cautious about your reputation, because everybody gets one,

1069
00:49:58,719 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 2: and your reputation, by and large, which precedes you, is,

1070
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:05,279
Speaker 2: in my experience, generally accurate. Now this mattered a great

1071
00:50:05,320 --> 00:50:06,880
Speaker 2: deal to me because when I went to get my

1072
00:50:06,920 --> 00:50:09,360
Speaker 2: first law teaching job at the Chicago Kent College of

1073
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:13,120
Speaker 2: Law in Chicago, and I really wanted this job, one

1074
00:50:13,120 --> 00:50:15,720
Speaker 2: of the persons on the faculty was a former public defender,

1075
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 2: Cook County public defender, and he wasn't going to support

1076
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:22,920
Speaker 2: me if he thought I had been a bad prosecutor.

1077
00:50:22,960 --> 00:50:24,920
Speaker 2: So he talked to his people in the public Defender's

1078
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:28,640
Speaker 2: office to ask for what was my reputation. Now, it's

1079
00:50:28,800 --> 00:50:31,880
Speaker 2: frightening for a prosecutor to think that their job is

1080
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:34,239
Speaker 2: going to depend on the opinions that public defenders might

1081
00:50:34,280 --> 00:50:37,480
Speaker 2: have of them. But in my case, I respected public defender.

1082
00:50:37,560 --> 00:50:41,080
Speaker 2: Not every prosecutor does, but I respected public defenders and

1083
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:42,920
Speaker 2: the job they did. The only time I resented them

1084
00:50:42,960 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 2: is if I thought they were being lazy and they

1085
00:50:44,560 --> 00:50:46,800
Speaker 2: weren't doing their job. I could have been a public

1086
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:50,120
Speaker 2: defender myself, so I treated them with respect and as

1087
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 2: co equals, which not every prosecutor does. And thankfully, when

1088
00:50:53,160 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 2: he went out to check my reputation, what he found

1089
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 2: he told me later. What came back was the report

1090
00:50:58,160 --> 00:51:00,799
Speaker 2: that I was tough but fair, which is the most

1091
00:51:00,800 --> 00:51:04,200
Speaker 2: you could ever ask for. And I think generally speaking,

1092
00:51:04,200 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 2: the people in the criminal justice system are well motivated.

1093
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:10,280
Speaker 2: Notwithstanding what we said about corruption. That was the exception.

1094
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:12,560
Speaker 2: It was not the rule, but it was a very

1095
00:51:13,080 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 2: interesting exception, but it was the exception.

1096
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: You know. I told you about this FBI agent I

1097
00:51:17,120 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: interviewed about breaking up two different crime families actually in

1098
00:51:20,239 --> 00:51:25,440
Speaker 1: New York, and he turned this guy, this soldier who

1099
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:27,600
Speaker 1: was the first and one hundred years of one of

1100
00:51:27,600 --> 00:51:30,759
Speaker 1: these guys flipping for the government. And he did it

1101
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: because he did research, and he found out that the

1102
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:35,319
Speaker 1: guy was diabetic. And as the day went on, when

1103
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:38,680
Speaker 1: they arrested him, he brought orange juice and he gave

1104
00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:41,640
Speaker 1: him some chocolate to keep his blood sugar up. And

1105
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:43,560
Speaker 1: he said, I just talked to him like a human,

1106
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:46,600
Speaker 1: you know, and all he wanted was respect. And then

1107
00:51:46,640 --> 00:51:51,440
Speaker 1: he turned over enough evidence to prosecute a lot of families.

1108
00:51:51,840 --> 00:51:53,680
Speaker 1: So it was I mean, and I know it wasn't

1109
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:55,160
Speaker 1: that simple. And I'm not saying that. I'm not going

1110
00:51:55,239 --> 00:51:58,600
Speaker 1: to minimize the skills that this agent used. But sometimes

1111
00:51:58,640 --> 00:52:01,480
Speaker 1: it's just like, I know you human, and you've made mistakes,

1112
00:52:01,480 --> 00:52:03,920
Speaker 1: and I'm listening to you, and it doesn't take much,

1113
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:05,920
Speaker 1: you know, to have a good reputation.

1114
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:08,440
Speaker 2: I have a story that's very much like that in

1115
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:11,320
Speaker 2: the book, and it's how I got a defense psychiatrist

1116
00:52:11,440 --> 00:52:14,920
Speaker 2: to flip and change his testimony on cross He changes

1117
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:18,120
Speaker 2: opinion on cross examination in a murder case. Wow, now

1118
00:52:18,360 --> 00:52:21,400
Speaker 2: in court, it looked like magic that on cross examination,

1119
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:23,360
Speaker 2: he says the guy, I would have to change my

1120
00:52:23,400 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 2: opinion and say that the defendant was responsible. Well, how

1121
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:29,040
Speaker 2: did that happen? Well, first of all, going back to

1122
00:52:29,080 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 2: your earlier point, this was not a forensic psychiatrist. The

1123
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 2: forensic psychiatrists or a psychiatrists for hire. They professional witnesses,

1124
00:52:37,000 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 2: so they kind of opinion for a living, or you

1125
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:41,080
Speaker 2: could say they lie for a living, and both sides

1126
00:52:41,200 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 2: used them. This guy was a practicing psychiatrist and he

1127
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:46,719
Speaker 2: was specializing in alcoholism, and he was the head of

1128
00:52:46,719 --> 00:52:49,560
Speaker 2: an alcoholism center and treatment center in Chicago, so he

1129
00:52:49,640 --> 00:52:52,880
Speaker 2: was actually a real psychiatrist. And the defense with public defenders,

1130
00:52:52,880 --> 00:52:55,279
Speaker 2: they had him come in and pro bono he evaluated

1131
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 2: the guy and on the basis of what they told him,

1132
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 2: you know, had happened, he gave an opinion that the

1133
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:03,000
Speaker 2: guy was not responsible because you know, an incredible amount

1134
00:53:03,000 --> 00:53:03,920
Speaker 2: of alcohol conception.

1135
00:53:04,040 --> 00:53:06,279
Speaker 1: What was it like vehicular manslaughter or something or.

1136
00:53:06,320 --> 00:53:09,160
Speaker 2: No, he shot shot a woman in the head in

1137
00:53:09,200 --> 00:53:11,239
Speaker 2: the course of a robbery. There the questions was he

1138
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 2: did he know what he was doing? Was he responsible

1139
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:15,800
Speaker 2: for that? It's a pretty gruesome She was a campaign

1140
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 2: worker and came to her car and he and another

1141
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,399
Speaker 2: guy was holding her up and you know, hit her,

1142
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:21,719
Speaker 2: you know, shot her in the back of the head.

1143
00:53:21,920 --> 00:53:25,120
Speaker 2: I probably didn't necessarily do it on purpose, but it

1144
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:26,560
Speaker 2: was in the course of a robbery, so it didn't matter.

1145
00:53:26,560 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 2: It was murder anyway. So anyway, they called the psychiatrist

1146
00:53:30,239 --> 00:53:32,399
Speaker 2: as a witness. The day he's going to testify, they

1147
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:35,000
Speaker 2: sit him in the office that's the conference room outside

1148
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:37,480
Speaker 2: the judge's office, and we do our court call. They

1149
00:53:37,520 --> 00:53:39,200
Speaker 2: had him in all day and we weren't going to

1150
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 2: start the case until later on. And this guy is

1151
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:42,759
Speaker 2: sitting there, and he's sitting there, and he's sitting there,

1152
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:44,880
Speaker 2: and I kept I was doing court business, I was

1153
00:53:44,920 --> 00:53:46,880
Speaker 2: working on other cases. Walking past, I see him sitting there,

1154
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:47,960
Speaker 2: see him, so and I said, can I get you

1155
00:53:48,080 --> 00:53:50,399
Speaker 2: some coffee? You know, he's just sitting there by yourself,

1156
00:53:50,400 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 2: the defenser, and he'sren't paying an attention to him, And yeah, sure,

1157
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:54,480
Speaker 2: So I got him some coffee, checked in on him,

1158
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:56,759
Speaker 2: got him some war and then finally I know it

1159
00:53:56,840 --> 00:53:58,799
Speaker 2: was perfectly okay for me to talk to the guy.

1160
00:53:58,880 --> 00:54:00,560
Speaker 2: I had an interviewed him. I was paired to cross

1161
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:02,759
Speaker 2: examined him on the basis of his report. I didn't

1162
00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:04,799
Speaker 2: need to talk to him in person. What good was

1163
00:54:04,800 --> 00:54:06,480
Speaker 2: that going to do? But I see he's sitting there,

1164
00:54:06,600 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 2: So I decided, now, what the heck, I'm going to

1165
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 2: try something. So I sat down next to him. This

1166
00:54:10,680 --> 00:54:12,319
Speaker 2: is after he'd been sitting there for hours, and I

1167
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:14,680
Speaker 2: had gotten coffee, and I said, look, I want to

1168
00:54:14,719 --> 00:54:16,919
Speaker 2: go over how I'm going to question you. And I gave.

1169
00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:20,240
Speaker 2: I gave way to him my entire line of cross

1170
00:54:20,239 --> 00:54:23,480
Speaker 2: examination and the reason I did is because I thought,

1171
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:26,840
Speaker 2: if this guy's an honest witness, he might respond to

1172
00:54:26,880 --> 00:54:28,960
Speaker 2: my question. I got to back up and say one

1173
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:30,759
Speaker 2: more thing for the audience to what do we mean

1174
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:33,799
Speaker 2: by questioning? The way you get an expert testimony is

1175
00:54:33,840 --> 00:54:36,239
Speaker 2: you use what you call a hypothetical question, and in

1176
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 2: the hypothetical question you give the you give the expert

1177
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:42,320
Speaker 2: witness all the facts, and on the basis of the

1178
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,880
Speaker 2: hypothetical facts you give them, they give an opinion, and

1179
00:54:45,920 --> 00:54:47,680
Speaker 2: both sides. This is how both sides do it, how

1180
00:54:47,680 --> 00:54:49,480
Speaker 2: the defense does it, and how the prosecution does it.

1181
00:54:49,520 --> 00:54:52,720
Speaker 2: Whoever is cross examining, and what happens is that if

1182
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:55,560
Speaker 2: the jury finds that you've proven these facts, then they

1183
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:58,720
Speaker 2: will find the person guilty or innocent, depending on this expert.

1184
00:54:58,800 --> 00:55:01,200
Speaker 2: What the expert says, I mean, if they follow the

1185
00:55:01,200 --> 00:55:04,040
Speaker 2: expert's opinion. So you've got to prove the facts, but

1186
00:55:04,160 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 2: the expert only gets the hypothetical So the defense gives

1187
00:55:06,520 --> 00:55:09,200
Speaker 2: one hypothetical set of facts, and then as a prosecutor,

1188
00:55:09,239 --> 00:55:12,359
Speaker 2: I can get up in cross examination and say, oh, okay, well,

1189
00:55:12,360 --> 00:55:15,399
Speaker 2: here's some more hypothetical facts. The defense didn't sell you.

1190
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:17,640
Speaker 2: I don't say it that way, and I say, well,

1191
00:55:17,840 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 2: what any of the defendant did this? And the defendant

1192
00:55:19,640 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 2: did that and defended this other thing. So basically I

1193
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:25,839
Speaker 2: have a new hypothetical. So I run this hypothetical past

1194
00:55:26,239 --> 00:55:30,120
Speaker 2: the expert. Now, what I'm thinking about my strategy is,

1195
00:55:30,200 --> 00:55:32,960
Speaker 2: or my thinking is that if he has integrity, and

1196
00:55:33,080 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 2: he might, because he's not a paid witness in that sense,

1197
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:40,000
Speaker 2: he's not going to change his testimony on the spot,

1198
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:43,160
Speaker 2: you know, in the heat of battle, in front of

1199
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:45,920
Speaker 2: the jury, in front of the audience. I can't get

1200
00:55:46,000 --> 00:55:47,600
Speaker 2: him the change there. But what if I give him

1201
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:50,319
Speaker 2: for warning and give him a chance to think about it.

1202
00:55:50,880 --> 00:55:52,600
Speaker 2: So I led him through the whole thing. I didn't

1203
00:55:52,600 --> 00:55:54,520
Speaker 2: ask him the ultimate question. I didn't say, on the

1204
00:55:54,520 --> 00:55:57,000
Speaker 2: basis of that, what would your opinion be. I just

1205
00:55:57,080 --> 00:55:59,759
Speaker 2: let him through that and just let that sit with him.

1206
00:56:00,120 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 2: Then the case was resumed that afternoon. He takes the

1207
00:56:02,600 --> 00:56:05,520
Speaker 2: witness stand. The defense asked him, is their hypothetical question?

1208
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 2: I ask my hypothetical question. After I'm done, he says, well,

1209
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:11,279
Speaker 2: I'd have to change my opinion and say he was responsible.

1210
00:56:11,800 --> 00:56:14,360
Speaker 2: And that was the case. What started that all off

1211
00:56:15,360 --> 00:56:18,760
Speaker 2: was my just treating him like a fellow professional person

1212
00:56:18,800 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 2: with some courtesy and respect.

1213
00:56:20,239 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 1: That's part of the reputation. Yeah, I wish that all

1214
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:26,200
Speaker 1: law professors would tell students that because I just, you know,

1215
00:56:26,239 --> 00:56:29,600
Speaker 1: I see I read so many transcripts, a lot of them, granted,

1216
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:32,280
Speaker 1: you know, my time period's eighteen hundreds early nineteen hundreds,

1217
00:56:32,480 --> 00:56:36,279
Speaker 1: and I see the way that you know, attorneys present witnesses.

1218
00:56:36,520 --> 00:56:39,600
Speaker 1: And I am particularly sensitive because my father was, you know,

1219
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:42,759
Speaker 1: with criminal defense. About defense attorneys. You know, what I

1220
00:56:42,840 --> 00:56:45,400
Speaker 1: finally have kind of drilled down to is it's not

1221
00:56:45,520 --> 00:56:48,480
Speaker 1: the fact that defense attorneys are representing murderers people who

1222
00:56:48,480 --> 00:56:52,840
Speaker 1: do horrible things. I think it's oftentimes their tactics, you know,

1223
00:56:52,920 --> 00:56:54,680
Speaker 1: which I know a lot of times will come down

1224
00:56:54,680 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: to with sexual assaults and murderers will be blaming the victim.

1225
00:56:58,440 --> 00:57:00,239
Speaker 1: And I know there are a lot more restrictions then

1226
00:57:00,239 --> 00:57:01,799
Speaker 1: there used to be about that. But I feel like

1227
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,440
Speaker 1: that's kind of the issue about defense attorneys is the

1228
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:08,440
Speaker 1: specific things that the way they represent people. But maybe

1229
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:10,200
Speaker 1: you don't find that to be the case. Also, do

1230
00:57:10,200 --> 00:57:11,959
Speaker 1: you think it's just like a blanket I hate defense

1231
00:57:12,000 --> 00:57:13,000
Speaker 1: attorneys reaction.

1232
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:15,640
Speaker 2: I find it to be the case. Sometimes I had

1233
00:57:15,680 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 2: another This is another example of where I did bad

1234
00:57:19,160 --> 00:57:22,440
Speaker 2: in the book, because there were these two defense but

1235
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:24,520
Speaker 2: it was near the very end of my time there.

1236
00:57:24,560 --> 00:57:26,840
Speaker 2: I was now a first chair in a felony trial courtroom.

1237
00:57:26,840 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 2: There's like three lawyers assigned, and there's a hierarchy first chair,

1238
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:31,560
Speaker 2: second chair, third chair. The first chair is the one

1239
00:57:31,560 --> 00:57:33,520
Speaker 2: that runs the courtroom. I'd work my way up to

1240
00:57:33,600 --> 00:57:36,280
Speaker 2: first chair in this court with felony trial courtroom, and

1241
00:57:36,320 --> 00:57:39,920
Speaker 2: I'm trying this murder case, and I give an opening

1242
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 2: statement that cautions the jury to watch out for the

1243
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:47,600
Speaker 2: lawyer's tricks. The reason I did that is because I

1244
00:57:47,600 --> 00:57:49,640
Speaker 2: had been on trial with these lawyers, or I had

1245
00:57:49,680 --> 00:57:52,320
Speaker 2: seen them on trial before, and I'd seen them doing

1246
00:57:52,680 --> 00:57:55,000
Speaker 2: things that were slippery, and I just thought, well, you

1247
00:57:55,040 --> 00:57:57,919
Speaker 2: know this will help. The way I will win this case.

1248
00:57:57,960 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 2: I'll help win this case is I'm going to set

1249
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,600
Speaker 2: this up an opening statement. Then when they do it,

1250
00:58:02,680 --> 00:58:04,520
Speaker 2: because I predict they'll do it because they are these

1251
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 2: kinds of the kind of lawyer you're talking about, I'll

1252
00:58:06,520 --> 00:58:08,680
Speaker 2: then be able to closing argument say see, I told

1253
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:11,040
Speaker 2: you so, this is what they did. So you're nodding

1254
00:58:11,040 --> 00:58:12,880
Speaker 2: your head, so that makes sense. Well, wait till you

1255
00:58:12,880 --> 00:58:17,560
Speaker 2: find out how wrong that was. So sure enough they

1256
00:58:17,600 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 2: do it. The witnesses on the stand. It's a murder case.

1257
00:58:20,040 --> 00:58:22,720
Speaker 2: The witness on the stand, and they start questioning her.

1258
00:58:23,080 --> 00:58:25,440
Speaker 2: She had survived this attack, killed this guy, and they

1259
00:58:25,440 --> 00:58:27,960
Speaker 2: were two homeless people, and she had survived the attack

1260
00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:30,640
Speaker 2: and he was dead, and so they were questioning her,

1261
00:58:30,680 --> 00:58:33,480
Speaker 2: and they showed her pictures and they were misrepresenting what

1262
00:58:33,680 --> 00:58:36,160
Speaker 2: was in the picture to her, or they were saying

1263
00:58:36,200 --> 00:58:38,240
Speaker 2: that she was mistaken about what was in the mistake picture.

1264
00:58:38,240 --> 00:58:40,120
Speaker 2: But the jury, they knew, the jury wasn't going to

1265
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:43,240
Speaker 2: get the pictures until after the trial was done. At

1266
00:58:43,240 --> 00:58:46,240
Speaker 2: the end, you publish all the pictures, and therefore they

1267
00:58:46,240 --> 00:58:48,600
Speaker 2: would all they would have is unsavory opinion of her.

1268
00:58:48,640 --> 00:58:50,960
Speaker 2: But they wouldn't know that she had gotten the pictures

1269
00:58:51,000 --> 00:58:54,280
Speaker 2: correct until later. And this was a way of making

1270
00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:56,960
Speaker 2: her questioning her credibility in front of the jury today,

1271
00:58:57,440 --> 00:58:59,560
Speaker 2: because by the time they see the pictures, it'll be

1272
00:58:59,560 --> 00:59:02,680
Speaker 2: too late. So during closing argument, I again accused him

1273
00:59:02,720 --> 00:59:05,760
Speaker 2: of engaging in these cheap lawyer's tricks. The defense objects,

1274
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:10,120
Speaker 2: the trial judge overrules the objection, and then eventually he

1275
00:59:10,200 --> 00:59:12,240
Speaker 2: sustains an objection, but not after I ask a whole

1276
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:14,720
Speaker 2: bunch of questions that he overrules the objection to. After

1277
00:59:14,760 --> 00:59:17,000
Speaker 2: the trial, the trial judge takes me in the back

1278
00:59:17,040 --> 00:59:19,680
Speaker 2: and he choos me out, and he says, you should

1279
00:59:19,720 --> 00:59:24,080
Speaker 2: never impugne the lawyers the practice of law in the courtroom.

1280
00:59:24,120 --> 00:59:25,800
Speaker 2: You should never do this. So he was really down

1281
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:27,120
Speaker 2: on me, and he was a judge I was on

1282
00:59:27,240 --> 00:59:30,160
Speaker 2: very good terms with, so you know, I felt bad,

1283
00:59:30,240 --> 00:59:33,000
Speaker 2: you know, I said, ok, okay. Well, later on the

1284
00:59:33,040 --> 00:59:35,640
Speaker 2: Court of Appeals had become extremely unhappy with the state's

1285
00:59:35,640 --> 00:59:38,240
Speaker 2: attorney's office and how they were doing closing argument and

1286
00:59:38,360 --> 00:59:40,520
Speaker 2: in order to and they kept warning the state's attorney's

1287
00:59:40,520 --> 00:59:43,560
Speaker 2: office that they were doing bad closing arguments and the

1288
00:59:43,560 --> 00:59:46,439
Speaker 2: state's attorneys were ignoring them. So they decided to send

1289
00:59:46,440 --> 00:59:49,320
Speaker 2: a message and on one day they reversed three homicide cases,

1290
00:59:49,320 --> 00:59:53,000
Speaker 2: three murder cases on the basis of defective closing arguments.

1291
00:59:53,000 --> 00:59:54,840
Speaker 2: Mine was one of them. You made the front page

1292
00:59:54,840 --> 00:59:58,120
Speaker 2: of the newspapers and what they said was that I

1293
00:59:58,160 --> 01:00:02,320
Speaker 2: had engaged in prosecutorial misconduct because of this closing statement. Now,

1294
01:00:02,480 --> 01:00:04,440
Speaker 2: I was now in my first year of teaching. I

1295
01:00:04,480 --> 01:00:07,600
Speaker 2: was in front of a group of relatively hostile students

1296
01:00:07,640 --> 01:00:10,120
Speaker 2: who didn't like me very much. There were some in

1297
01:00:10,120 --> 01:00:11,960
Speaker 2: the class that really didn't like me. And by the

1298
01:00:11,960 --> 01:00:14,440
Speaker 2: time when I went into class the next day after

1299
01:00:14,440 --> 01:00:17,160
Speaker 2: this submit the papers, I was right. That person who

1300
01:00:17,160 --> 01:00:19,560
Speaker 2: didn't like me had circulated a copy of the story

1301
01:00:19,600 --> 01:00:21,480
Speaker 2: to the whole class. So I walk in the class

1302
01:00:21,480 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 2: and everybody's wondering what I'm going to say. And here's

1303
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:25,080
Speaker 2: what I said to them when I walked into class.

1304
01:00:25,080 --> 01:00:27,000
Speaker 2: I said, this is what the court did. And here's

1305
01:00:27,040 --> 01:00:29,800
Speaker 2: why what I did was wrong. What I did was

1306
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:33,040
Speaker 2: wrong is because the job of the jury is to

1307
01:00:33,040 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 2: decide guilt or innocence, and what I was doing was

1308
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:39,120
Speaker 2: getting them off on a side issue about whether the

1309
01:00:39,200 --> 01:00:42,040
Speaker 2: lawyers had engaged in misconduct or not, and that takes

1310
01:00:42,040 --> 01:00:44,400
Speaker 2: them away from the job that they're supposed to be doing.

1311
01:00:44,760 --> 01:00:46,880
Speaker 2: And that's the reason why you're not supposed to do that.

1312
01:00:47,160 --> 01:00:49,680
Speaker 2: As a result, it was a reversal. The case ended

1313
01:00:49,760 --> 01:00:51,920
Speaker 2: up pleading out, but the joke that went around the

1314
01:00:51,920 --> 01:00:54,800
Speaker 2: state's attorney's office. So there's an example of where I

1315
01:00:54,880 --> 01:00:57,439
Speaker 2: was outraged by lawyers techniques. But then I'm the one

1316
01:00:57,440 --> 01:00:59,720
Speaker 2: that ended up doing the wrong thing. But as a

1317
01:00:59,720 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 2: reason alt of these three cases coming down, the state's

1318
01:01:01,800 --> 01:01:05,920
Speaker 2: attorneys engaged in this training program because I'm I'm two

1319
01:01:06,000 --> 01:01:08,320
Speaker 2: years out of the office. Now they're engaged in a

1320
01:01:08,360 --> 01:01:10,640
Speaker 2: training program where they use these as examples of how

1321
01:01:10,640 --> 01:01:13,280
Speaker 2: they're not supposed to argue people, like making fun of

1322
01:01:13,320 --> 01:01:14,840
Speaker 2: the fact that it was me because I'm a Harvard

1323
01:01:14,880 --> 01:01:17,840
Speaker 2: Law graduate and so the fancy pants Harvard Law graduate

1324
01:01:17,920 --> 01:01:19,800
Speaker 2: is the one that screws up. But the joke was

1325
01:01:19,840 --> 01:01:22,000
Speaker 2: about me, is that I'm the first person in the

1326
01:01:22,040 --> 01:01:23,960
Speaker 2: history of the State's Attorney's office to be reversed for

1327
01:01:24,000 --> 01:01:28,080
Speaker 2: opening statement, not closing argument, but opening statement. It was

1328
01:01:28,120 --> 01:01:30,840
Speaker 2: a good job. Wasn't technically true because what this Court

1329
01:01:30,880 --> 01:01:33,920
Speaker 2: of Appeals said is I had bad intent as evidenced

1330
01:01:33,920 --> 01:01:37,480
Speaker 2: by my opening statement. So my closing argument couldn't be

1331
01:01:37,680 --> 01:01:40,680
Speaker 2: justified as invited comment or responding to what happened, because

1332
01:01:40,680 --> 01:01:43,080
Speaker 2: I was talking about it before anything ever happened. So

1333
01:01:43,160 --> 01:01:45,680
Speaker 2: they used opening statement against me, and they're not wrong

1334
01:01:45,720 --> 01:01:48,320
Speaker 2: to do so. But anyway, it was a good joke.

1335
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:50,240
Speaker 2: That was the first prosecution in the history of the

1336
01:01:50,360 --> 01:01:53,320
Speaker 2: county to be reversed for opening statement. But that was

1337
01:01:53,360 --> 01:01:55,280
Speaker 2: one of the mistakes that I made that I'm quite

1338
01:01:55,320 --> 01:01:56,440
Speaker 2: candid about in this book.

1339
01:01:56,960 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 1: Well, to wrap this up, you teach constitutional law, which

1340
01:02:00,680 --> 01:02:03,720
Speaker 1: I know is so very important, particularly in years like now.

1341
01:02:04,120 --> 01:02:07,680
Speaker 1: But do you see kind of the whole review of

1342
01:02:07,720 --> 01:02:10,800
Speaker 1: your career when you are involved in criminal law. You

1343
01:02:10,880 --> 01:02:14,480
Speaker 1: see the impact immediately, right, You've got people in front

1344
01:02:14,480 --> 01:02:18,080
Speaker 1: of you who are asking for help or for family members, survivors,

1345
01:02:18,120 --> 01:02:21,240
Speaker 1: whoever it is. You've got a defendant over who you

1346
01:02:21,360 --> 01:02:24,920
Speaker 1: know is guilty, who could hurt someone. Again, is it

1347
01:02:25,160 --> 01:02:28,680
Speaker 1: a different kind of satisfying job? You know when you

1348
01:02:28,720 --> 01:02:31,160
Speaker 1: are looking at what you deal with with constitutional law

1349
01:02:31,240 --> 01:02:32,160
Speaker 1: versus criminal law.

1350
01:02:33,040 --> 01:02:35,520
Speaker 2: Right, I mean, what made me go from one to

1351
01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:37,600
Speaker 2: the other, from being a criminal lawyer to being a

1352
01:02:37,640 --> 01:02:41,600
Speaker 2: law professor is my single minded interest in justice. Justice

1353
01:02:41,640 --> 01:02:44,320
Speaker 2: is the continuous thread through everything I've done. When you're

1354
01:02:44,360 --> 01:02:47,560
Speaker 2: a lawyer, you're doing justice retail, case by case. You

1355
01:02:47,600 --> 01:02:50,440
Speaker 2: can't change the system. When I was an undergraduate, I

1356
01:02:50,480 --> 01:02:53,120
Speaker 2: discovered philosophy. I didn't know as a high school student.

1357
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:55,000
Speaker 2: I where I went to high school, I didn't ever

1358
01:02:55,040 --> 01:02:57,160
Speaker 2: heard of philosophy. But when I was in college, I

1359
01:02:57,200 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 2: discovered there's something called philosophy in which you study justice.

1360
01:03:00,440 --> 01:03:03,240
Speaker 2: And I even was tempted to become a philosophy professor

1361
01:03:03,560 --> 01:03:05,360
Speaker 2: because I was so interested in justice. But I said,

1362
01:03:05,400 --> 01:03:07,000
Speaker 2: now I'll stick with Plan A, and I'm going to

1363
01:03:07,120 --> 01:03:09,040
Speaker 2: be a lawyer like I thought. But it was by

1364
01:03:09,080 --> 01:03:13,280
Speaker 2: the time I applied to law school, I actually found

1365
01:03:13,280 --> 01:03:15,760
Speaker 2: my applications to law school, and see on the law

1366
01:03:15,880 --> 01:03:17,600
Speaker 2: application I say that one day I want to teach

1367
01:03:17,680 --> 01:03:20,680
Speaker 2: jurisprudence as a law professor because it's about justice. And

1368
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:23,800
Speaker 2: so as a law professor, I can deal more systematically

1369
01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:26,560
Speaker 2: with an unjust system or a system that needs to

1370
01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:31,360
Speaker 2: be improved. And the constitution is a one way of

1371
01:03:31,400 --> 01:03:34,560
Speaker 2: approaching how to make the system better. And in my

1372
01:03:34,680 --> 01:03:37,560
Speaker 2: case it means by actually enforcing the constitution we have

1373
01:03:38,040 --> 01:03:40,520
Speaker 2: as I'm ended, and not getting rid of parts of

1374
01:03:40,560 --> 01:03:43,280
Speaker 2: the Constitution, which the Supreme Court has systematically done for

1375
01:03:43,600 --> 01:03:45,560
Speaker 2: you know, as long as there's been a Supreme Court.

1376
01:03:46,000 --> 01:03:48,680
Speaker 2: So my job is to restore the loss Constitution, which

1377
01:03:48,800 --> 01:03:51,800
Speaker 2: was my first book on the Constitution. It's called restoring

1378
01:03:51,840 --> 01:03:54,600
Speaker 2: the Loss Constitution, of restoring all the pieces of the Constitution,

1379
01:03:54,720 --> 01:03:57,560
Speaker 2: even the ones that the Court has decided that don't

1380
01:03:57,600 --> 01:04:00,320
Speaker 2: really matter, and that will get the make the whole

1381
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:03,160
Speaker 2: system more just as opposed to dealing with it retail,

1382
01:04:03,240 --> 01:04:05,400
Speaker 2: one case at a time. But both are extremely valuable.

1383
01:04:05,400 --> 01:04:07,840
Speaker 2: It's a division of labor. You need both, you need both.

1384
01:04:08,080 --> 01:04:11,120
Speaker 2: I think my strong my highest value use my talent

1385
01:04:11,720 --> 01:04:14,840
Speaker 2: is better applied as a law professor doing this abstract

1386
01:04:14,920 --> 01:04:18,440
Speaker 2: work that line prosecutors can't do. You know, I was

1387
01:04:18,440 --> 01:04:21,200
Speaker 2: a good prosecutor, but there were better prosecutors than me.

1388
01:04:21,360 --> 01:04:24,080
Speaker 2: They were the prosecutors that I looked up to. They

1389
01:04:24,120 --> 01:04:26,520
Speaker 2: can do that job. They can't do my job. Even

1390
01:04:26,560 --> 01:04:28,920
Speaker 2: if I could do their job. I'm better off doing

1391
01:04:28,960 --> 01:04:31,400
Speaker 2: my job, But they can't do than their job, which

1392
01:04:31,400 --> 01:04:33,840
Speaker 2: they're perfectly good at doing better than I was. I

1393
01:04:33,880 --> 01:04:36,920
Speaker 2: have enormous respect. In fact, my book is dedicated to

1394
01:04:36,960 --> 01:04:39,840
Speaker 2: two judges who influenced me and my colleagues in the

1395
01:04:39,880 --> 01:04:42,360
Speaker 2: Cook County States Attorney's Office, from whom I learned so much.

1396
01:04:53,880 --> 01:04:56,760
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

1397
01:04:56,800 --> 01:04:59,800
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books, The Sinner's All About the

1398
01:05:00,000 --> 01:05:03,040
Speaker 1: Ghost Club, All That Is Wicked, and American Sherlock, and

1399
01:05:03,120 --> 01:05:06,400
Speaker 1: Don't Forget There are twelve seasons of my historical true

1400
01:05:06,400 --> 01:05:10,920
Speaker 1: crime podcast tenfold More Wicked right here in this podcast feed,

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01:05:11,200 --> 01:05:13,920
Speaker 1: scroll back and give them a listen if you haven't already.

1402
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:17,840
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer

1403
01:05:17,920 --> 01:05:22,760
Speaker 1: is Alexis Amrosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This

1404
01:05:22,880 --> 01:05:27,000
Speaker 1: episode was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer.

1405
01:05:27,280 --> 01:05:31,760
Speaker 1: Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen

1406
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:35,640
Speaker 1: Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow Wicked Words on Instagram and

1407
01:05:35,680 --> 01:05:39,959
Speaker 1: Facebook at tenfold more Wicked and on Twitter at tenfold More.

1408
01:05:40,200 --> 01:05:42,080
Speaker 1: And if you know of a historical crime that could

1409
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Speaker 1: use some attention from the crew at tenfold more Wicked,

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Speaker 1: email us at info at tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also

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Speaker 1: take your suggestions for true crime authors for Wicked Words

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Speaker 1: one