On this episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the host of the podcast "The Irishman" sits down with Josh Dubin, an advocate for the Innocence Project and former prosecutor. They discuss the recent exoneration of two former Kansas City police officers who were convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and why they should have been released. They also discuss the role of race in the criminal justice system, and the role that race plays in our perception of injustice, and how it affects the way we view the justice system. The Irishman is a podcast that focuses on the intersection of journalism, politics, and law and order in American society. It's a place where we talk about what it means to be black in America, and what it looks like to be a black person in America. Joe and Josh discuss race, justice, and injustice in American life, and their experiences with race and injustice. Thank you to our sponsor, The NAACP, for supporting this podcast and supporting the work they do to help make sure that more black people are not only free, but that they have a voice and a voice to speak out and speak out against injustice in our justice system and justice system and that justice is done in a fair and just way that serves all of us, no matter who we choose to believe in, and no matter where we are or who we are, and who we don't have a chance to do it. Thanks to everyone who has been a supporter of this podcast, thank you, and thank you for being a friend, supporter, supporter and supporter, and supporter of the work we do it, and all of the people who are doing it all, and supporting us, and we are so much better than we know we can do it! - Thank you for supporting it. Thank you, Joe, Thank you Joe, and Thank you all for being here, and thanks for listening and supporting it, Joe and I appreciate you, we appreciate you. . Joe, I love you, Josh, I'm not for it, Thank You, I'll see you, I really much more than that. - Joe, we'll get back, we're back! - -- Thank you! Joe Rogans Podcast by Night, all day, All Day, By Night, By Day, All Night, All day, By Nite, by Night - All Day. -- - Joseph Rogan
00:00:59.000Determine with any certainty the various factors that go into an exoneration or, you know, prosecutors dropping charges.
00:01:11.000But there are two immovable truths here.
00:01:15.000Two young black men have a new lease on life and have had horrific nightmares end.
00:01:24.000And I know that this platform and this show not only helped that, but were a driving force behind it.
00:01:36.000And I know it not just based on what I think.
00:01:38.000I know it based on empirical evidence because there was a time when I was asked to come to Lawrence, Kansas, and sit at the Lawrence Police Department on the case against Ron Torres,
00:01:55.000Washington, so that the Lawrence Police Department could tell me, here's the evidence we have against your client.
00:02:04.000And before the meeting started, the district attorney walked in the room, and instead of saying hello to me, she said, welcome to the armpit.
00:02:17.000Now, that was a direct reference to something I said on this podcast that I quickly, right after saying it, caught myself and corrected myself because the context in which I was saying it, and I said that was a horrible way to put it or whatever I said,
00:02:36.000but the context in which I was saying it was...
00:02:40.000In my mind that if you are a black man or woman caught in the criminal justice system in Lawrence, Kansas, that is the armpit.
00:02:49.000So I knew then and there that she was paying attention and not just paying attention, paying attention to this podcast.
00:03:00.000And she knew full well that I had the cavalry behind me.
00:03:06.000Now, what How much that factored into the story I'll tell later about how those charges against Ron Torres Washington were dropped.
00:03:17.000And what happened to Albert Wilson, who was the same prosecutor's office, we'll never know.
00:03:24.000Isn't there also an argument for you expressing the facts of the case outside of a courtroom setting where they're trying to win, right?
00:03:33.000Isn't there a problem with prosecutors and defendants and the system that's set up like it's a game?
00:03:42.000And I don't mean it's a game like it's trivial.
00:03:44.000I mean it's a game like people are trying to win.
00:03:46.000Yeah, yeah, there's a part of that, but I think that in recognizing, and you and I have spoken about this, in recognizing that sort of fault that exists amongst us as mammals, as human beings,
00:04:02.000that is especially so when you're talking about prosecutors, in my opinion, that have this tunnel vision that we'll talk about.
00:04:12.000I think you just have to recognize that pressure breaks pipes in these cases.
00:04:17.000If you think about what's going on with Purvis Payne right now, what's going on with Julius Jones, with Rodney Reed, I mean, Purvis Payne is going to get out.
00:04:31.000Julius Jones, Rodney Reed is facing a new trial.
00:04:35.000Those results were brought to bear by pressure, public pressure.
00:04:42.000So one immovable truth, I referred to before, but one sort of overarching known is that this works.
00:04:55.000And it's because I want to tell you the spirit in which I'm here today.
00:05:05.000I am here not on behalf of the Innocence Project.
00:05:08.000I don't speak for them, even though I'm the ambassador advisor.
00:05:13.000There are other organizations that I'm involved with that pay attention to news cycles and media.
00:05:20.000I'm here as Josh Dubin, the human being, that is doing my part, and it's not for me to judge whether it's small or large, doing my part to help in whatever way I can Whether it's a drop in the bucket,
00:08:30.000Over 25 years ago, founded by Barry Sheck and Peter Neufeld, I was offered the role of becoming the executive director of a new program called The Redemption Project.
00:08:46.000And look, again, this is why not only the show, but being able to find common ground with people we disagree with is so critical in this process.
00:08:57.000The founder, or excuse me, the chairman of Marvel, Ike Perlmutter, and his wife, it's going to be called the Perlmutter Center.
00:09:07.000And he's a right-leaning Republican that was friends with President Trump and We otherwise wouldn't have much to agree on, but we found common ground in this.
00:09:20.000And that is a role that I'm going to be taking on where we're going to be focusing and it's going to start in the fall.
00:09:26.000Now I'm going to have more resources to help more people because Ike Perlmutter and his wife Lori have agreed to fund it for 10 years.
00:10:42.000So there is this faction in this condo community that wanted the tennis pro removed because she was selling real estate out of the tennis pro office and this faction wanted her to partner up with another couple that sold real estate.
00:10:57.000It was a condo dispute right out of Boca Del Vista in a Seinfeld episode.
00:11:02.000So he took the opposing side and said, you're not removing her.
00:11:06.000And in any event, about a year later, this hate mail against the people that wanted her removed, this one individual, starts to arrive in the community.
00:11:15.000And it's accusing him of all sorts of awful shit.
00:11:19.000Accusing this other man of being a child molester and a murderer and all kinds of craziness.
00:11:25.000And there's Jewish stars on it and like Hebrew slang all misspelled.
00:11:30.000So this guy gets in his mind that Ike Perlmutter is behind it.
00:11:35.000And they have Ike and his wife subpoenaed as third party witnesses in connection with the tennis center lawsuit.
00:12:18.000So the famed criminal defense lawyer, Roy Black, brought me into the case.
00:12:24.000Just to really help with trial strategy, which is allegedly my forte.
00:12:29.000And then it descended into DNA. And I have some expertise in that for my work at the Innocence Project, because all the cases that we do at the Innocence Project are using biological evidence to get people off.
00:12:43.000So when Roy had sort of hit his Limit on what he knew about DNA. He said, now I need more from you and will you join the case?
00:12:53.000So I figured out how they had set her up.
00:12:56.000I figured out that it wasn't her DNA and the case ultimately got dismissed.
00:13:01.000The only thing that exists now is his case against the insurance company for setting him up because The allegations in the lawsuit now, he's suing Chubb because it was a Chubb lawyer that engineered this.
00:13:15.000So they have the actual correspondence, the actual evidence where someone said we're going to get his DNA? Yes, and it's all a matter of public record.
00:13:48.000So it is possible that someone could do something like that where they could set you up for a crime and steal your DNA, and that would be a misdemeanor in some cases?
00:14:01.000No, they did not prosecute him for it.
00:14:03.000Palm Beach decided not to prosecute him.
00:14:06.000But to answer your question, so the way...
00:14:09.000The way Ike Perlmutter, a strange bedfellow, if you will, with me in criminal justice reform and his wife got interested, is he is a very hands-on guy.
00:14:20.000And why aren't you paying attention to my case?
00:15:27.000So I drove down to Palm Beach a couple of days later and he sat me down and, you know, he's a very stoic, older Israeli man.
00:15:38.000And he had a tear in his eye and he said, I realized that His case was still very much alive.
00:15:46.000We hadn't figured out the DNA. He said, by watching what just happened with this man in Orlando, I realized that if I didn't have the resources and the means by which to have you and Roy Black...
00:16:34.000I think that's the major problem, honestly.
00:16:36.000Because when you have a two-party system, you have people that...
00:16:40.000I feel like they have to subscribe to all the opinions on one side if they agree to the critical ones like what's critical to them whether it's a woman's right to choose or whether it's freedom of speech or whether it's gun control like whatever it is on the one side that you feel like you need to be aligned with and then you'll accept all the other nonsense that goes with it instead of what most people are most people are in the center I think the vast majority,
00:17:09.000So a guy like Ike Perlmutter, he seems like a very compassionate guy, but he's also a businessman.
00:17:17.000And when you're a businessman, and you want your taxes taken care of correctly, and you want loopholes in place, and you want to do what these guys have been doing forever with their money, that's a right-wing thing.
00:17:56.000There's more common ground than there's not.
00:17:58.000People, they get ideological, and they get tribal, and they find themselves segmented off in these groups that can't communicate with other groups.
00:18:09.000And that's one of the things you see, even in the podcast world, as weird as it is, there's certain people that you can't go on that guy's show because he's right-wing.
00:18:19.000Or a right-wing person will say, why do you talk to that person?
00:20:26.000Within three or four seconds, apparently, he is sleeping.
00:20:32.000Five seconds later, by second number nine, he's dead.
00:20:38.000Now, when the doors blow open and five cops come in, you don't know who they are at first, and you go to reach for a gun that you legally have, and you get blown away.
00:20:58.000I want to go back to this no-knock warrant, but this is an epidemic happening mostly to people of color, to black men and women, and they're not all no-knock situations.
00:21:13.000But Breonna Taylor was a no-knock warrant situation.
00:21:26.000Botham Jean was not a no-knock situation, but it was the same type of thing, right?
00:21:33.000Here in Texas, where this white female officer says he's eating ice cream in his own place, and she comes in and thinks she's in the wrong apartment and blows him away.
00:22:32.000But let's take like a step back and look what these no-knock raids are about.
00:22:37.000And by the way, the difference between a knock raid and a no-knock raid is the difference between a few seconds.
00:22:44.000So let's forget about Democrats and Republicans.
00:22:47.000No-knock raids were born out of the 1980s, just say no, Nancy Reagan war on drugs campaign.
00:22:56.000And the rationale behind it, not that she was responsible for the legislation or the phenomenon, But the rationale behind it from law enforcement standpoint was we want to surprise drug dealers and people involved in narcotics trafficking and we want to prevent them from being able to grab a gun or from destroying evidence.
00:23:23.000So they have warrants, no-knock warrants?
00:23:26.000So you would go in front of a judge and you would say, this is probable cause this person's selling drugs and they have guns and we want a no-knock warrant.
00:23:38.000And so it was born out of the 1980s, quote unquote, war on drugs.
00:23:43.000So in the wake of the devastation that it's caused, specifically to people of color, Because there is some, whether you call it institutional racism, whether you call it whatever it is, we're just not living in reality if we are not recognizing the fact that there are many white folks that see someone of color and think danger,
00:24:16.000They have all of these conscious and unconscious biases.
00:24:19.000This is not a coincidence that all of these people that are being killed in these situations, whether it's a no-knock warrant, knock warrant, a black person running from police.
00:24:28.000So if you get back to these no-knock warrants...
00:24:32.000You know, the failure is not on the part of Republicans or Democrats.
00:24:37.000It's on the part of all of them as human beings and politicians.
00:24:42.000The George Floyd Policing Act, for which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris championed, and I think Tim Scott, who is the only African American Republican, really got behind, you know, it ultimately failed.
00:24:58.000And That failure is not a Democratic failure or a Republican failure.
00:25:08.000There were many police reforms in it, but critical to this conversation was the George Floyd Policing Act.
00:25:19.000Sought to do away with no-knock warrants by telling municipalities, we are going to cut off your access to state and federal funds unless and until you stop this practice.
00:25:36.000So when an act like this is proposed, how does it get reviewed and what makes it get denied?
00:25:45.000It passed the House because the vote was largely on party lines, and then it didn't pass the Senate because they could not get enough votes for it.
00:25:57.000So what ends up happening is that when you involve—this is my theory— Anytime you involve human beings in any endeavor, it gets messy, right?
00:26:33.000So the problem is that it passes the House, it fails in the Senate, and the votes were largely along party lines.
00:26:43.000And Democrats are quick to say, oh, but the Republicans didn't do it, and Republicans are quick to say, well, Democrats put all this other stuff into it.
00:26:55.000It covered other things, but it takes...
00:26:57.000People on both sides to say, well, where can we find common ground?
00:27:02.000Because when I think of Washington and I think of politicians and I think of Capitol Hill and any of those words, I get a fucking headache right here without even knowing what the conversation is going to be about.
00:27:19.000Yeah, it just conjures up a visceral response in me of people that just cannot...
00:27:28.000Figure out a way to sit across the table or at the table or next to each other and figure shit out.
00:27:36.000And I don't know, you know, it's like, I guess a fair question would be like, alright, Dubin, if it's that easy, why don't you go run for office and solve it?
00:28:51.000But when he was running, he was in a very unique situation where he had massive amounts of resources.
00:28:57.000And so he could actually buy, this is pre-internet, he bought entire half-hour blocks on network television to explain why you're getting fucked.
00:29:50.000I think there's still hope, but we have a problem.
00:29:53.000We have a major problem in this country when it comes to the way we feel about leaders and politics.
00:29:59.000And the shenanigans that go on behind the scenes, like what's really operating the machine versus what we would like.
00:30:06.000What we would like is it to be a representative of the people and everyone working together to make this world a better place, to make the environment better, to make the economy better, the infrastructure better, to make the inner cities and the communities better.
00:30:21.000They're working for the people that got them into office and those people are just trying to make the most amount of money possible.
00:30:26.000And that's what muddies, you know, that's when I was with you.
00:30:33.000Vis-a-vis hope until you got to the last part of the sentence and that's where I start to lose hope, right?
00:30:38.000Yeah, it's a problem, but I think people realizing that this problem will exist forever unless we change the way we view things and one of the problems that we're having is we think along ideological lines and when you do you will you will Not judge people that are on your team that are fucking it over for everybody else.
00:31:06.000You'll give them a pass for doing all the same things the Republicans did or doing all the same things the Democrats did.
00:31:12.000For doing all the same things for their special interest groups and whatever the lobbyists are setting up for them.
00:31:20.000And you'll forgive them for padding these acts with these ridiculous measures where nobody wants to vote for them.
00:31:28.000Like when you look at the Build Back Better, I forget who the politician was, but they had that Build Back Better bill and he brought it up in front of these press people.
00:31:51.000They're just passing it because their party wants to pass it.
00:31:55.000Especially when our mindset these days is to grab the lowest hanging fruit in terms of headlines and use that as the basis upon which we form not only opinions but make decisions and decide how will I act and who will judge me for acting that way based on whatever decision...
00:32:14.000I come to, and I question whether when people tell me they have an opinion about something, the same way I question myself.
00:32:36.000The system is engineered that when you step outside the lines, they will attack you and that will force a lot of people who are watching that to stay quiet.
00:32:45.000Yeah, and I think that, like I said, the easy thing to do is to stay quiet or to go with the crowd.
00:32:52.000And out of fear of whether it's being canceled, retribution, losing relationships, if we can't have these discussions and be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and be introspective enough to say,
00:33:08.000you know what, I'm not going to be a Democrat or a Republican.
00:33:12.000I'm going to be a free-thinking human being.
00:34:15.000That was a bit ironic to say it was in my DNA since we do DNA. But I will take that experience with me to this new role, which I'll talk about later.
00:34:23.000But I just feel like it requires us to take a step back.
00:34:29.000And, you know, if you just look at no-knock warrants as just the example we're using, and you look at the Amir Locke case, there's example after example in the South of this happening, not just in the South.
00:34:44.000You know, there was a kid during one of these no-knock warrants where they threw a flashbang through the window, and it landed in a baby's crib.
00:34:55.000And a cop got, you know, all caught up in it.
00:35:32.000He fires back, and there's an explosion of gunfire.
00:35:37.000And I encourage people to look these cases up.
00:35:41.000The one that I mentioned earlier with the baby in the crib, Nikki Autry, just how it sounds, was the police officer that was charged in that case.
00:36:52.000But there is a reason why the African American population is roughly 13% in the U.S. and roughly half Of the wrongful incarcerations, exonerations, are black men and women.
00:37:10.000That should blow people's fucking minds.
00:37:13.000Right, because that's just the exonerations.
00:37:56.000So if you think about that in the context of The other thing that is known is that we incarcerate African Americans in this country at six times, six times the rate that South Africa did during apartheid.
00:38:17.000You know, we just need to be real about...
00:38:56.000You're here so we could keep doing this, so we could do more.
00:38:59.000But I can tell you in those cases that...
00:39:02.000You know, Ron Torres, Washington, was accused of a horrific murder That he did not commit.
00:39:19.000And he was good for it because he was, quote unquote, the black guy, because someone testified that there was a black guy in the parking lot downstairs.
00:39:34.000And the whole case was built There was stunning evidence that the husband of this woman that was butchered did it.
00:39:49.000And there was her blood on his clothing.
00:41:45.000So I went in and listened to this presentation, the details of which I'm not allowed to talk about, and I got one of the best cell phone experts in the world that taught the state's expert this theory,
00:42:07.000There was evidence that they should have caught that that husband stopped on that freeway and headed back in the other direction.
00:42:16.000And you could see it from the way the cell phone towers are pinging.
00:42:20.000And I figured it out with him, with his help, that he had plenty of time to go back and commit the crime.
00:42:27.000And so I had the Midwest Innocence Project as my co-counsel.
00:42:32.000I had been discussing the case and there was a lot of activism that this show and other people that got behind it as a result of this show, it started to generate that pressure.
00:42:47.000So, and then the Albert Wilson case, which you know about, which is this young black man that was at KU and gets accused of, you know, sexual assault of a white girl, who I believe strongly in his innocence, I had already won him a new trial based on ineffective assistance of counsel.
00:43:07.000So I had staring down, my 2022 was going to be retrying both of their cases because Albert was offered a deal which would have been no jail and he wouldn't take it because he said, I'm not confessing to something I didn't do.
00:43:24.000And Ron Torres was facing a retrial as well.
00:43:30.000So I had been in discourse with the DA's office.
00:43:35.000And, you know, I think that they finally realized the problems with these cases.
00:43:43.000And they will never come out and say, these two men are innocent and we fucked up here.
00:43:48.000She was a new DA and I give her enough credit to do what she finally did.
00:43:54.000It didn't feel good along the way because I was not treated very well, but this wasn't about me.
00:43:59.000She would alternatingly be kind to me and understanding, and then she would also walk into a room and say, welcome to the armpit.
00:44:08.000There was a lot of passive-aggressive stuff.
00:44:11.000But I know it was an indication to me like, aha, this works.
00:44:16.000And the ripple effect of it is such that...
00:44:23.000I try very hard to keep up, and I'm not great at it, with Instagram Messenger or the messages I'm getting on Instagram that come as a result of being on the podcast.
00:44:33.000There's one guy, and I can go months without looking at it, but there's one guy that reached out to both me and Jason Flom.
00:44:39.000His name is Jordan Grotzinger, and he works at a big firm called Greenbrook Traug.
00:44:45.000And he had never done this kind of work before, but was, like, very relentless in pursuing, I really want to help, I really want to help.
00:44:55.000And, you know, he just took on a case in California.
00:45:34.000Whether it's writing letters, serving on juries, and we'll talk about that, but not trying to get out of it, because there is a movement taking place here.
00:45:49.000And you made a promise to me that I wasn't expecting.
00:45:53.000And that is bearing fruit in a way that is the sweetest fruit you can imagine.
00:45:59.000Because, you know, I want you to hear and speak to these men.
00:46:05.000And you met Robert last time I was here.
00:46:08.000But when I called Ron Torres, Washington, and told them that they dropped the case against him, I cried like a child.
00:46:22.000And to hear the relief and the joy and, you know, out of the two of them, I got very close with Albert Wilson and his family, his sister-in-law, Nikki.
00:46:37.000You know, he pulled over to the side of the road when I told him, and we cried together.
00:46:42.000And, you know, I've said it before, I'll say it again.
00:46:47.000There's no drug material, but there's just no way to match that feeling.
00:46:53.000And the fact that we're doing it and making a difference just, you know, is very gratifying.
00:47:00.000It is very gratifying, and I should also tell people, you don't believe everything.
00:47:07.000I've talked to you about several different scenarios and situations, but there was one case where a guy came up to me, and he had a family member that he said was innocent, and I said, well, get me your information, tell me who that person was, and I'll send it over to Josh, and we'll see what's up.
00:47:23.000And we have a phone call a couple days later.
00:47:28.000Yeah, and I don't, you know, look, I thought that about Clemente for a second until I scratched the surface and I said, not only is he innocent, he's innocent as fuck.
00:47:40.000Because it's until you hear the whole story.
00:48:20.000I can't talk too much about it because I'm handling the federal civil rights case.
00:48:25.000But some of the shit that I have found out that the police knew at the scene is so infuriating.
00:48:34.000And some of the lies that I believe they've told that I've never known and I've lived that case as much as you could live a case.
00:48:41.000You know, it's like you think you've heard so much about so many different scenarios and prosecutorial misconduct, cover-ups, lies that your mind can never be blown again.
00:48:55.000And, you know, when your mind keeps getting blown, it's fuel for me.
00:49:00.000And I just don't know, you know, like, it's hard to know how to feel about different reform issues sometimes, because like, you know, there's an argument that I heard, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on, that police aren't needed for traffic stops.
00:49:18.000That's a weird argument because sometimes they are.
00:49:21.000I've seen people get pulled over for traffic stops and then they pull out a gun and start shooting at the cop.
00:49:59.000I have a friend who's a cop, and we had this conversation recently, because they're trying to pass some new rules for cops in Los Angeles.
00:50:09.000And one of the things that he was saying is they don't want to pull people over for bad taillights, they don't want to pull people over for failure to signal, for all these different transgressions.
00:50:21.000And he was saying that the problem with that is this is often how we catch A lot of people that have warrants out for them and oftentimes very dangerous criminals.
00:50:30.000Right, and I've seen, you know, videos of people, you know...
00:51:11.000And he's armed, and it was a wild video.
00:51:14.000It's wild, because the guy got out of the car, and he's shooting at the cop, and the cop got out of the car, and he's hiding behind the cop car.
00:51:45.000There's a long road to get to this point, but I think we got to get to a place where people respect police because the police are better than they are now and I don't mean all of them I mean there's for sure bad cops just like there's for sure bad bankers and and every other profession the problem with a bad cop is someone who cuts corners and lies and fucks with things and fucks with the rules as a cop you make other people's lives Hell.
00:52:12.000Because you put other people in jail that aren't supposed to be in jail.
00:52:18.000You withhold information that would exonerate somebody.
00:52:21.000All that stuff should be a horrific crime.
00:52:24.000And it's far too commonplace in the world of prosecutors and police officers and all of this world that we live in where the people that are supposed to be withholding the law and upholding the law are actually breaking it.
00:52:41.000Like, that's a giant problem, and I think the only way to fix that is careful examination, massive training.
00:52:48.000I think you have to treat cops, and my friend Jocko said this very well, Jocko Willink, who's a Navy SEAL and just embodies leadership in basically every cell in his body, and he said, These guys have to go through real training and they should be spending a large percentage of the time they're on the force training,
00:53:10.000whatever that is, 20%, whatever it is, but they should be training the same way tactical troops train, the same way someone would train if they're in special forces operation.
00:53:19.000You have to be prepared for everything, and you also have to understand this extreme position in society that you have.
00:53:27.000It's an extreme honor, but it's also an extreme, the job and the obligation and what it means to serve as a police officer, and that's what it is.
00:53:38.000That is an incredible position of power and influence, and it's got to be treated with far more respect than it's treated today.
00:53:48.000You know, I drove down the street in LA last time I was in town, there was a billboard hiring, like they're looking for cops, and it was like talking about how much you get an hour, you know, how much you get a year.
00:53:58.000And I was looking at that, I was like, that should be the last thing you think of if you want to be a cop.
00:54:01.000Not saying that you shouldn't get paid well, you definitely should get paid well.
00:54:04.000But you shouldn't be saying, oh, I need fucking 80 grand a year.
00:54:09.000To go and be a cop, that is the last fucking thing you should be thinking of.
00:54:12.000You should be called to service and duty.
00:54:15.000It should be something where you're thinking, you know, I want to do better for my community and I think I would be a good police officer because I'm a fair person and I'm a kind person and I really care and I think I can protect people from bad guys.
00:54:27.000Yeah, and it's interesting because I've seen similar ads and I've thought...
00:54:35.000You got to try to induce people somehow to want to do this, especially now, when it's tough to be a cop.
00:55:00.000You know, there was just video of this judge, this white woman using, you know, the most horrific racist language looking at a video in America.
00:55:18.000But then there's amazing judges like Judge Galuzzo, who was in Clemente Aguirre's case, and was like, I'm not...
00:55:25.000Not on my watch are you gonna, like, you know, abuse this man's constitutional rights.
00:55:31.000But there's great cops, and it's a hard job, but everything you said made total sense to me.
00:55:37.000I guess the part of it that becomes much more complicated is you come to that job with certain life experiences, value beliefs, You know,
00:55:55.000philosophical leanings that inform that training and how you're going to act.
00:56:02.000So this whole, you know, driving while black phenomenon is a real thing.
00:56:08.000So I worry that, I guess, what gets left...
00:56:14.000Sort of out of the mix or lost in the shuffle is, you know, I don't know what the solution to this is, is how do you teach racial sensitivity?
00:56:24.000And I've often struggled, and I have lately, with trying to figure out whether it is nature or nurture.
00:56:39.000To look at someone as dissimilar to them and decide whether or not When I see something or someone dissimilar, I equate that with not good.
00:56:54.000I think it's almost always nurture and not nature.
00:56:58.000Because if you look at little kids, when little kids have a friend that's white or a friend that's black, they don't give a fuck.
00:57:13.000Someone sent it to me and I... It'll make you cry.
00:57:16.000They just, this little boy and his friend, and one of them's black, one of them's white, and they run toward each other and they give each other a giant hug.
00:57:24.000And you're like, this is supposed to be the world.
00:57:26.000This is not supposed to be separation by looks or by economics or by neighborhood or by state.
00:57:34.000And there's a problem with people that there's so many variables in life to take into consideration when you're dealing with other human beings that it's easier to generalize.
00:57:46.000And I think when you're a cop there's a real problem when you're seeing the same crimes and the same situation over and over and over again and you get calloused.
00:57:55.000And I think the root problem with that is that the source of what's causing a lot of the economic despair, a lot of the rampant crime and drug dealing and gang members, that's never addressed.
00:58:10.000No one ever goes into these neighborhoods and says, think about the amount of money that Halliburton got with no-bid contracts to rebuild Iraq.
00:58:21.000Fucking insane amounts of money to go build up shit that we blew up, right?
00:58:25.000Why wouldn't they do that with Baltimore?
00:58:28.000Why wouldn't they do that with the South Side of Chicago?
00:58:33.000Hire giant corporations to go in and clean them up, make them safer, present a plan, and put a shitload of money into it so it becomes a profitable venture.
00:58:53.000What's the best way to have less losers?
00:58:55.000Have people start from an even position.
00:58:57.000Have people start from a place where they have a community, where they have some sort of role models or guidance or a safe place to be, where their community is more safe because whether they have better police presence or more compassionate police presence, Figure out a way to stop people before they commit these horrible crimes.
00:59:17.000Do something to make these places better places economically.
01:00:12.000Last summer, when all these corporations were feeling guilty that they hadn't done enough for social justice causes, I can tell you it was probably one of the biggest fundraising pushes for social justice reform organizations across this country.
01:00:32.000To the point where they raised more money than they probably ever did, right?
01:00:37.000And it was like the summer of like white guilt, right?
01:00:43.000And I bet you that amount of money eclipses the billions.
01:00:50.000Because I can draw on examples and organizations that I may be involved in tangentially or otherwise that benefited from that.
01:01:00.000That's to make a company or a corporation feel good in the moment and check the box that I'm doing that.
01:01:06.000But what you just said, if you look at what Bill Gates and the Billionaires Pledge have done, whether it's for clean water or for other public health endeavors, this is a public health human rights crisis.
01:01:46.000And it makes total sense because when you, it was funny because when you said how you make America great again, make less losers, it's true.
01:01:53.000It's like I'm tired of hearing these stories of after the fact people realize that it was my upbringing and the nightmarish situation I was born into that had I had the perspective I have now,
01:02:08.000if I was able to overcome that, I may otherwise have been on the path I'm on now.
01:02:17.000And it's like it makes you sort of feel helpless and hopeless inside that, well, yeah, you're right.
01:02:24.000And how do you solve that problem of someone being born into circumstance?
01:02:28.000I mean, I've managed a bunch of professional fighters that...
01:03:01.000Do you know that that's the craziest path ever?
01:03:03.000The path of being a world championship fighter, to get out of the ghetto, as a person who uses his knuckles to punch another guy in the face, that is one of the craziest ways to become successful ever.
01:03:13.000And there's so many variables that are outside of your control, like genetics, speed, fast twitch muscle fibers, whether or not you can take a punch.
01:03:23.000Whether or not you have good coaching, whether or not you have a trainer that gives a fuck about you that doesn't send you to the wolves right away.
01:03:29.000The idea that a guy should be able to do it because this guy did it or Mike Tyson did it, you're out of your fucking mind.
01:04:59.000But for every Zab Judah and Shannon Briggs and Mike Tyson, and I mentioned those examples because they're all from that neighborhood, and they all happen to be dear friends of mine, right?
01:05:10.000You know Shannon Briggs is going to fight Rampage Jackson?
01:05:13.000Yeah, and he won't listen to me or anyone else.
01:05:28.000Now that I'm thinking about that, I think that's Demetrius Mighty Mouse Johnson and he's fighting Rod Tang and that's how they're doing it.
01:05:35.000One round Muay Thai, one round MMA. Shannon just ends up being a laugh fest.
01:09:41.000He had magic about him, and we were all out getting hammered, having dinner, celebrating your epic conquest of the garden, and he was like, show us some fucking magic.
01:12:44.000I had the opportunity to get very well versed in Vata.
01:12:49.000Because Andre Ward thought Kovalev was on something or suspected it.
01:12:55.000So I educated myself as much as I could.
01:12:58.000And I joined the REC, where you could run, you know, any supplement through it.
01:13:04.000Margaret Goodman I got to know very well, who runs VADA. But look, he has been in a random drug testing program that's been sanctioned by the WBC for a while.
01:13:15.000And then Shakur, you know, if you have good management, which I'll give myself at least that much credit, James Prince and I made sure that I'm not like
01:14:07.000The reason why that's not real is because there's all these stories about guys going over to Bellator and making more money in Bellator or guys going over to the PFL. There's a lot of organizations now.
01:14:17.000There's one FC. If you're a championship level or a high-level professional fighter, you can go to these other organizations and you can get paid, especially if you have a name.
01:14:26.000They're willing to give you a bigger chunk of the pie because they're trying to build up their organization.
01:15:55.000Like, where they're looking for testosterone compared to estrogen, testosterone compared to all these other hormones, and there's a balance that has to be.
01:16:03.000There's like a natural level of balance.
01:16:04.000But he's pointing out, like, a lot of these balances are way off.
01:16:07.000Like, there's nothing that would make them off other than cheating.
01:16:11.000So what you need is like a far more comprehensive examination of that individual to find out what's causing that.
01:16:17.000Because VADA, I know, speaking for them, and they do a fantastic job for what they do, is just telling you if there's the presence of a substance.
01:16:25.000So I went deep down a rabbit hole on it before with the Catlin Institute in California, and I spoke to Oliver Catlin.
01:16:33.000Because I just wanted to make sure that if I was in charge of policing, not policing it, but understanding the testing procedures for a guy like Andre Ward and now Shakur, that I had as much knowledge as possible.
01:16:47.000Have you ever talked to that Balco guy?
01:17:05.000He actually came up with a formula to give people something that would evade testing, because it's a molecule removed, or it's like something that's different from...
01:17:14.000This is one of the reasons why the Olympics...
01:17:17.000And even the UFC, they hold on to these samples of blood and urine, and then they test them when new technology becomes available and when new knowledge of new supplements become available,
01:17:32.000because there are things that can avoid detection initially, and then they come up with new methods to check.
01:17:38.000And because of that, there was a bunch of metalists, and I believe Gold medalists from Russia in wrestling had their medals removed because they went back and looked into old samples and they go, well, look at this.
01:18:20.000Brian Fogel is filming this documentary about himself.
01:18:23.000Brian is an athlete and he's a cyclist.
01:18:26.000So he decides to enter into this cycling competition and he's going to do it two times.
01:18:30.000He's going to do it one year completely clean and then he's going to hire someone to dope him up so he can see and document the effects and put it in this documentary.
01:18:48.000He wanted to do it like a cheater would do it, but he was documenting it.
01:18:51.000So I don't think he had a chance to win, honestly.
01:18:54.000I think he's a very good cyclist, but he's not elite, so it's not like he was a Lance Armstrong or something like that.
01:19:00.000So he does it once, this way, and then he hires this guy, Gregory Rechenkov.
01:19:05.000And Gregory is the guy who runs the, air quotes, anti-doping program for Russia.
01:19:11.000But really, he's just doping everybody.
01:19:13.000So what Gregory does is he gives him this protocol, he tells him what to do, how to do it, what to happen, and while this is all going on...
01:19:21.000It turns out that the Sochi Olympics had been rigged, and they find these microscopic abrasions in the urine jars.
01:19:31.000And it turns out that these urine jars that were supposedly untamperable, you couldn't get into them, the Russians had figured out a way to get into them.
01:19:39.000And they devised this wild scheme where they made literally a fucking hole in the wall.
01:19:45.000And one person would hand out the good urine, and the other person would give them the tainted urine.
01:19:54.000So they had this place where they stored the urine, they swapped the urine, and according to Gregory Rychenkov, the Russians doped everybody except the figure skaters.
01:20:04.000It turns out for the figure skaters, these fine movements, there's actually like a negative consequence of giving them testosterone and all these things.
01:20:11.000They were the only people who were clean.
01:20:14.000But they did this through trial and error.
01:20:15.000So what they did was they doped everyone.
01:22:00.000When they take away Lance Armstrong's jersey and they say that he didn't win, you have to go back past 18th place to find someone who didn't test positive.
01:22:16.000But when Lance was competing, it was a fucking dirty sport.
01:22:20.000That's why, you know, he's a good example.
01:22:22.000Like, he's before this whole phrase, cancel culture, came about, right?
01:22:26.000But here's a good example of a guy that, without context, without frame of reference, we write people off so easily.
01:22:36.000And, you know, like, I do believe, I don't know if Bryan Stevenson coined it from the Equal Justice Initiative, but I really do believe this.
01:22:44.000And it's hard to live it all the time.
01:22:46.000Is that we are all better than the worst thing or things we've done.
01:22:50.000If you took anybody's life and put it through a mild microscope, You'd find way worse shit in mine or the next person's than what Lance Armstrong did.
01:23:30.000And he calls it processed information.
01:23:34.000The same way you have processed food and it's bad for you, there's processed information.
01:23:39.000And when you're getting a tweet, you're reading a tweet rather than being around a person, talking to that person, or experiencing their whole life.
01:23:49.000Someone can say something abrasive in a tweet and they're just trying to be funny or they're just in a bad mood.
01:23:54.000And you can just decide, well, fuck that guy forever.
01:23:57.000But what he is trying to say is that- I've seen it happen.
01:25:09.000It's the most dangerous thing because Look, a big part of this new endeavor that I'm taking on is clemency.
01:25:19.000And, you know, at the Perlmutter Center, if it's going to be called the Perlmutter Center for Forensic Science, Education, and Criminal Justice Reform, we haven't arrived at a name.
01:25:31.000But clemency is a very important process that has at its heart and soul, not only I will grant you clemency because I think you may not have done this or didn't do this, but because I think you are worthy of redemption and forgiveness.
01:25:48.000And instead of throwing out your life or a large portion of it, I'm going to see past it and redeem – help redeem you.
01:25:58.000And it's up to us as the public at large to start putting pressure on politicians regardless of – because you know how easy it is?
01:26:10.000It's so – like you just sort of crystallized it.
01:26:15.000The easiest thing to do is to say, fuck it, I'm done with that person, and then put them out of your mind and consciousness.
01:26:23.000It's easy when you hear someone was accused of committing this crime to say, fuck them, they deserve it.
01:26:30.000And I see that happening in governors who have this unbelievable magic wand and power.
01:26:42.000Maybe even on a higher plane than police officers and other members of law enforcement to say, you know what?
01:26:49.000I'm going to treat this clemency process as a real thing.
01:27:29.000He's one of three people in their 70s and 80s that are sitting on death row.
01:27:35.000And the clemency regime in Florida is one that exists, but is not in practice in any real practical way.
01:27:44.000Don't you think that if a governor does have the ability to pardon people, and they do, they also have almost, I mean, next to the president, the president has the most obligations, right?
01:27:56.000Because they have to deal with international issues.
01:27:57.000But the amount of issues that a governor has to deal with, the amount of things they have on their plate, the idea that we're asking them to go over thousands and thousands of cases just in their state where people might be innocent, There should be some sort of a program that examines all of these cases.
01:28:16.000Don't you think there should be like each state?
01:28:18.000If you're going to have like, you know, defendants and you're going to have prosecutors and you're going to have incarceration and the death penalty and all the various things that go along with that, shouldn't you have- A wrongful incarceration department,
01:28:34.000like an actual organization that can go over all the pertinent facts, the DNA, witness testimony, everything, find holes in it.
01:28:44.000Someone who's completely dedicated to truth, not dedicated to winning Or losing, winning on each side, right?
01:28:59.000There are these things called conviction integrity units that re-review old cases, and they are an arm of the district attorney's office.
01:29:09.000Now, in New York, we just put one in place, and I believe it's being headed up by Terry Rosenblatt, who is, if I'm not mistaken, is being headed up by her as an old friend of mine, where they re-review old cases,
01:29:24.000and they're an arm of the district attorney's office.
01:29:26.000There's one in Jacksonville, Florida, that has been responsible for helping get people exonerated, but those are exonerations, and those are re-reviewing cases.
01:29:37.000But getting to your point about the governor, You're A, absolutely right, and B, it exists.
01:29:44.000He doesn't act alone, Ron DeSantis, or any other governor.
01:30:04.000Nicky Freed, who is the Commissioner of Agriculture, I went up to Tallahassee to try to lobby on James Daly's behalf, not to set him loose, just give me a fucking hearing.
01:30:57.000He has nothing to, no reason to do that.
01:31:00.000And then he doesn't want to testify in open court because his mother is in the courtroom.
01:31:04.000But check out the 2020 special on James Daly.
01:31:08.000And so when you're failing in the courts, clemency becomes, okay, let me present it to you.
01:31:16.000When I was up there trying to talk to people on the clemency board, Nikki Freed was the only one that would give me a meeting at a time where she wasn't running for governor.
01:31:25.000Now I'm supporting her because she gives a shit.
01:37:02.000There is hopefully forming and will continue to form enough of a groundswell of support for her.
01:37:11.000She's been on death row more than a decade, I think close to 15 years.
01:37:16.000And she's accused of killing her child.
01:37:19.000And I want to preface the story of Melissa Lucio by saying...
01:37:25.000If you're inspired by anything I say and you want to do anything, if you just Google Melissa Lucio and it's L-U-C-I-O and Innocence Project, right on the landing page of the Innocence Project, you will get the information about how you can support right now.
01:37:43.000But, you know, here is someone, and this goes back to rebuilding communities and why this is so important, right?
01:37:50.000This is someone that was born into awful circumstances, history of sexual abuse that started when she was six years old, and finds herself being interrogated by the police.
01:38:07.000And why I reference why it's so important to building communities, not that that's going to cure all instances of sexual abuse, but oftentimes sexual abuse happens in lower socioeconomic, depressed areas where there isn't the social emotional intelligence that people,
01:38:29.000it's proliferated through generations.
01:38:31.000It's not always, but she was born into awful circumstances and not very well off, and she's at the hands of this terrible abuse.
01:38:40.000Why I tell that story is, with stronger communities, I think we get less instances of that, and many other things.
01:38:48.000But the reason why I raise that is because someone that has had past trauma like that It's way more susceptible to being broken down during an interrogation because they have a certain vulnerability to them.
01:39:06.000So she is the mother of 12 and is pregnant with twins.
01:40:02.000A lot of wrongful incarceration cases start with a false confession.
01:40:07.000And the false confession is hard for people to understand because the reaction that it invokes in folks is that I would never confess to a crime I didn't commit.
01:41:22.000When you are having an interaction with law enforcement, it is a stress-inducing event, even if it's because you're being pulled over for speeding.
01:41:30.000There is no one among us that will deny that.
01:41:35.000Now, try to put yourself in a windowless room where on the day...
01:41:45.000Of losing your child or in the weeks or months following losing your child, you are being accused of doing that.
01:41:54.000And try to wrap your head around the grief and the depth of the pain.
01:42:04.000The spectrum of emotions that comes along with trying to cope with that.
01:42:09.000And add that to your already existing vulnerabilities.
01:42:15.000And the psychology that goes into that is very complex and very well documented and well studied.
01:42:23.000There's a professor at John Jay College in New York named Saul Kasson who has done some of the most famous experiments about this.
01:42:31.000You can read about why people falsely confess.
01:42:34.000There's tons of great stuff to read about it.
01:42:38.000But It's a strong indication of a false confession.
01:43:07.000A popular example that most people can latch on to is Brendan Dassey, who my dear friend Laura Nyreiter, you know, who was in Making a Murderer and runs this really amazing...
01:44:18.000You can read about the case on the Innocence Project.
01:44:20.000Do they know what the kid actually died from?
01:44:23.000They know now, and her experts show that it was not...
01:44:28.000I don't want to speak about the case in details without giving people a chance to read the details and decide for themselves.
01:44:37.000Because getting behind something is not something you should do because somebody says it on a podcast.
01:44:44.000I encourage people to do their own research.
01:44:48.000And frankly, I don't know enough about the details of the nooks and crannies of the case.
01:44:54.000But I know enough to know that the people that I'm close with that are working on her case have done the amount of due diligence that I would do and way more.
01:45:04.000And what I do know is that they had CP, Child Protective Services records to go through that didn't document a single instance of physical violence toward kids.
01:45:18.000And as a starting point, the statistic on this is staggering.
01:45:25.00070% of women that were exonerated are exonerated for crimes that never happened.
01:45:37.000Of the women that have been exonerated in the United States for crimes they did not commit are exonerated of crimes that never actually occurred.
01:46:03.000You know, I just think that if you go and read about her case, and if you were ever like, I want to do something right now, you know, that is something that the governor's name here is Governor Abbott,
01:47:04.000So go to the Innocence Project and Melissa Lucio, L-U-C-I-O. There's a very specific way that you can sign on to a petition and a very specific way you can contribute and learn about her case.
01:47:19.000And, you know, I deal with this often.
01:47:26.000And this is more of a question for you.
01:47:31.000Because I don't know the answer, and it's a riddle I've been trying to solve for more than 20 years.
01:47:39.000We like to think of ourselves as impartial, right?
01:47:43.000So whenever I'm an alleged expert in jury selection, that was like my initial claim to fame.
01:47:49.000I wrote a book with a federal judge called The Law of Juries, and that was like the sexiest part of what I did, right?
01:48:18.000And the psychology behind that is, let me get rid of the people that I think are not, in a criminal case for instance, are not going to presume my client innocent.
01:48:30.000In the great fallacy of our system of justice...
01:48:36.000Perhaps the biggest fallacy is this notion that we presume people innocent until proven guilty.
01:48:43.000It's something we like to say, and it's something that we like to trot out there as what makes us different from the rest of the world.
01:48:54.000And we say we're the only system of justice.
01:49:36.000So there is no presumption of innocence.
01:49:39.000So my question is, there have been decades and decades of lawyers far more gifted than I'll ever be that have tried to crack this code.
01:49:53.000And I can encourage you to, you know, serve on juries and not look for ways out.
01:49:57.000I can encourage you that when you stare at the person sitting in that seat at the table, you look at an innocent person and say, And there are all sorts of tricks and, you know, devices of persuasion,
01:50:14.000the great criminal defense lawyers from Clarence Darrow to Ted Wells to, you know, Roy Black and Barry Sheck and, you know, every great Jerry Shargell, Jerry Lefcourt, you know, Lisa Wayne,
01:50:29.000the best criminal defense lawyers I know have tried.
01:50:32.000You are shrouded in a blanket of innocence and that that This shroud does not fall from your shoulder, not a bit, unless and until the government can tear it away from you.
01:50:47.000And when you go back into that room to deliberate, you should walk through that door saying we are dealing with an innocent man or woman, unless and until the government can meet its burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt.
01:51:05.000And the problem that we have is that if you look at the rate of conviction in most federal jurisdictions across the country, it's over 98%.
01:51:17.000So my question to you is, and I don't know that you know the answer, or I invite people to sort of, how do you impress this notion of the presumption of innocence?
01:51:30.000Because if we don't breathe life into it, Through our deeds, through verdicts, and through saying, if I have a matter of pause in my own life and a moment of importance, that is reasonable doubt and I must acquit,
01:51:47.000which is what the journey instruction usually is.
01:51:51.000How do we make that happen with more regularity so that it's better to have 10 innocent—10 guilty people walk free than one innocent person go to jail for a crime they didn't commit?
01:52:07.000And I don't—I've run out of fresh ideas today, but it's something always on my mind.
01:52:14.000I think we have a problem with human beings just in general that we don't really know if someone's being truthful.
01:52:52.000I think we're going to come to a point in time with civilization where there is going to be a technological innovation that allows us to bypass what we're looking at as a bottleneck now, which is like, what is your intent?
01:53:06.000What's going on actually in your head versus what you're saying?
01:54:15.000If they've never done anything wrong, they fucking feel guilty and they're terrified for no reason.
01:54:19.000Just they have this fear of authority.
01:54:21.000And if a cop is behind them and the lights go on, they're a babbling mess.
01:54:24.000And if you pull them over and if you're quick to judge or if you think you're smarter than you are, you think you're more perceptive than you are, you might decide this is a guilty person and you might detain them.
01:55:03.000We're not talking about very recent in the future or very soon in the future.
01:55:08.000There's going to be something where we're allowed to see into the contents of someone's mind without the use of verbal language.
01:55:16.000And the way Elon's put it with this Neuralink thing that he's working on, because essentially what that is is going to be some sort of an interface that allows you to have much more access to information and also to share whatever this frequency is that this thing's transmitting with other people that have the same device.
01:55:36.000And what he said to me is, you're not going to have to use language to talk anymore.
01:55:43.000That, to me, is the gateway to ultimate truth.
01:55:55.000I don't like it when it comes to being incarcerated wrongly or when it comes to someone getting away with a terrible crime because they're a good liar.
01:56:03.000But I do like it because the messiness of humans, that's where romance comes from.
01:56:10.000That's where intrigue comes from, mystery.
01:56:13.000That's where charisma like when I love talking to a charismatic person an interesting person I love like Listening to someone's words how they craft their thoughts together and express them to you I think it's one of the more fascinating aspects about human communication It's just I love it and trying to find out and trying to solve the mystery of that person yeah seems like Neuralink He'd be a fascinating guy to talk to about this.
01:56:40.000It robs you of the romance that surrounds the mystery of solving the riddle of another human being.
01:56:47.000I think we are destined to become cyborgs, and I don't think there's any way around it.
01:56:52.000I think what our reliance upon technology is so extreme and so overwhelming, and I think One of the answers to the solution that we were talking about earlier about this The social media aspect of communication like that the social media aspect of the way we talk about people and share information and write people off This the only way we're gonna pass this is better technology We've embraced that shitty technology so much.
01:57:21.000It's so overwhelmingly a part of people's lives whether it's text messages or social media use and That I can't imagine there's going to come a world where people wake up and go back to flip phones and say, this is too nuts.
01:57:35.000This is not the way people are supposed to be interacting with each other.
01:57:41.000I wonder if you have this feeling, and maybe it's like a misery loves company thing, where you're with someone...
01:57:48.000We've all had this experience and they're...
01:57:51.000I feel like a hypocrite because I'm sure I do it too, but where you're with someone and their face is buried in their phone and you're trying to talk to them.
01:58:19.000Maybe it just hasn't happened in a while, but when it does happen, you're like, hey junkie, put your phone down for a little while.
01:58:26.000We're here for a couple hours and millions of people are going to listen to it.
01:58:29.000And it feels great just to have this conversation when we're sitting across the table from each other and it's like, why can't my phone's off?
01:58:37.000And, you know, it's like, I'm not jonesing for it right now, but I'm not going to lie.
01:58:47.000I went to this talk at my kid's school years ago.
01:58:52.000I wonder where she's at with it now, this psychologist at Harvard that was doing a study on what this technology, and specifically phones, do to kids' minds, but more so what you being on it in front of them does to their minds.
02:00:49.000It presumes that you wouldn't do this awful thing that someone is saying you did.
02:00:56.000And it presumes that before we go ruining a life, and I can tell you that whether it's someone being accused of a white-collar crime, A robbery or a murder?
02:01:10.000Until you have lived the emotional toll...
02:01:18.000Of human destruction that any prosecution leaves in its wake for the family and friends of the person accused.
02:01:30.000And I, you know me, I'm like emotionally overwrought about a lot of things and that's one of them.
02:01:37.000Is that sometimes, you know, I'll go through the process of, well, even if they did what they're being accused of, isn't it enough at this point?
02:01:46.000I mean, this person has suffered enough.
02:01:49.000And I'm not talking about violent crimes.
02:01:51.000I'm talking about, like, white-collar crimes and, you know, what motivates U.S. attorneys to do these things.
02:01:58.000And, you know, it's a hard issue to solve because If you've ever been through, and in thinking about the psychology of it, you know, I don't know if you guys, Jamie, if you guys have been involved in jury selection ever.
02:02:40.000I'm going to start with the federal system.
02:02:43.000If you were accused of a federal crime in this country, 99% of federal jurisdictions do not allow the attorney to ask a single question of a prospective juror.
02:03:25.000You can submit questions that you want the judge to ask.
02:03:30.000They will ask maybe 1% of those questions.
02:03:35.000And then they seek to rehabilitate people and talk them out of whatever bias they are willing to share, which is rare, and I'll tell you why in a minute.
02:03:45.000And you have to base it on their occupation, you have to base it on how you think they might think based on just very general demographic information, where they work, do they have experience in finance or accounting, if it's an accounting fraud case, because a lot of federal cases are white-collar cases.
02:04:04.000And in the rare case, like the El Chapo case, the Glenn Maxwell case, there'll be a jury questionnaire, which you'll get information, but when it comes to following up with the jurors, look, the Glenn Maxwell case is a great example.
02:04:19.000The last two pages of the questionnaire in that case asked if you have ever had any experience or been the victim of sexual abuse.
02:04:29.000And there's one juror in that case that checked off no.
02:04:34.000And then did an interview with a British news outlet and said that when they were deliberating, that the way that he was able to get the other jurors to understand that these alleged victims weren't lying was to recount his own experience with being sexually abused.
02:04:56.000So he lied about the most fundamental question that the defense was interested in.
02:05:02.000And whether you think she's guilty or innocent, you followed the trial or you didn't.
02:05:08.000She, in any universe, should get a new trial.
02:05:15.000So, the answer to your question is, most of the follow-up is done by the judge 99% of the time, if not 100% of the time.
02:05:26.000You are in a situation where somebody's liberty is at stake.
02:05:30.000And you can't stand up trying to defend that person and protect their presumption of innocence by saying, look, and this is my shtick in state court when you can ask questions.
02:05:43.000And it comes from a place of understanding that when you are in a room full of strangers, You want to view yourself as being fair and impartial, and you want others to view you that way.
02:06:00.000That's Psych 101. So I always start by saying, look, bias can be a dirty four-letter word when you apply it to someone's ethnicity, sexual orientation, and so forth.
02:06:14.000But it's not always because we all have biases.
02:06:28.000For instance, if I was in a case where I was asked, would you believe the police and give them equal weight if they were on the stand?
02:06:35.000I might say no because my experience has been in situations that skew my perspective because I've been involved in cases where police have covered things up.
02:08:05.000So in cases where there has been a ton of media attention, totally up to the judge, totally up to the judge, they can grant what's called a supplemental juror questionnaire.
02:08:17.000So, they granted one, and then you have to worry about people lying, and then, you know, if you say to the judge, I'd like to follow up on questions X, Y, and Z, oftentimes the judge is like, no, we got enough, that's why you did the questionnaire.
02:08:33.000And the question becomes, in most federal cases, jury is picked by lunch.
02:09:55.000And then they get a note from the jury.
02:10:00.000The judge gets a note from the jury saying that there's one juror that doesn't want to look at any evidence and is just going on their emotions and can't even show evidence to prove her side of it or his side of it.
02:10:14.000And then the judge goes back and says, you need to put emotion aside and you need whatever instruction he gave.
02:10:20.000It was obviously a juror that wanted to acquit.
02:10:23.000The defense has no burden to put on evidence.
02:10:28.000So the judge should be taking their time there and being very careful.
02:10:32.000And this judge essentially didn't put a finger on the scale, smashed the scale down with his foot.
02:10:37.000And that's not saying I believe or don't believe in Michael Avenatti's innocence.
02:10:42.000I just think that these are high-profile examples.
02:10:46.000So in federal court, if you say attorneys have to start making a record, And saying, Your Honor, I really need you to ask how many people assume my client must be guilty and I need to be able to be the one to ask it.
02:11:01.000And, you know, as for your listeners, if you're summoned to go sit on a jury, you know, remember these stories of the wrongfully convicted.
02:11:14.000And God forbid it could be you or someone in your family and really think about the human life and take a long, hard look at the person.
02:11:22.000And, you know, I think we know by now...
02:12:45.000You know, something that happens more often, but as for your jurors, I get a lot of interest from aspiring lawyers as a result of being on your show.
02:12:55.000Whether you're going to be a prosecutor or a defense lawyer, these are things you need to keep in mind because we're dealing with real people and real human beings.
02:13:04.000And it's easy to talk about them like they're numbers, but it's like you didn't know that this was the process in federal court, right?
02:13:14.000The idea that you can't ask any questions doesn't seem to serve any purpose.
02:13:19.000Yeah, and if you juxtapose that with state court, I mean, I had this dentist that was accused of poisoning his lover's husband to death with midazolam.
02:13:40.000Bedazolam is some, you know, relaxation amnesia agent that is administered by dentists.
02:13:52.000And, you know, when they're pulling teeth to get them to get people to, you know, it was an anesthetic.
02:14:04.000And I conducted the jury selection in the case, and it was one of, you know, one of the great criminal defense lawyers of our time, Jerry Shargell.
02:14:13.000It was one of the last cases that he tried.
02:14:15.000And he asked me to conduct the questions, and it was in state court.
02:14:23.000Because you know how many panels we went through of people where I was able to get their guard down and say, look at him, Mr. Nunez, stand up.
02:14:31.000You know, he must have done something, right?
02:15:21.000Because the description they were given of the case, the names may not ring a bell, right?
02:15:28.000But if I know that the media coverage of the case was such that two men from X bank were accused of trying to fix the market By this process called spoofing and make it look like there were trades happening that weren't to drive up the market price.
02:15:52.000If the judge says, have you heard of John Q. Smith or Mike Q. Public before and charges against this bank and no one says yes...
02:16:04.000Okay, how about, well, have you ever heard about a case where people were accused of doing what I just described?
02:16:13.000That sometimes raises hands, and then they realize, oh, I have heard about this case.
02:16:19.000So what happens is that you'll get a chance to submit questions, and oftentimes I'll submit the question, please ask how many of you assume the person's guilty, and the judge will, just using their own judgment, I'm not asking questions 1 through 17,
02:16:34.000but I'll ask questions 19 and 20. And then the judge will go through two rounds.
02:16:40.000One is called for cause, and you have an unlimited amount of what they call cause challenges.
02:16:46.000So if somebody knew one of the parties, if somebody was a former FBI agent, if they had a family member that was, those are usually grounds that you have cause to get rid of someone.
02:17:00.000Or if someone has read about the case, right, and all they've read is that the person's guilty.
02:17:49.000I'm going to instruct you that you are only to listen to the evidence in this case and you are only to consider that evidence and put aside whatever it is you have read or heard.
02:18:08.000You have someone that is physically standing above you on a bench In a black robe, appointed by the President of the United States, these federal courtrooms are very regal.
02:19:06.000Would you mind if we should all step back a little bit, give you some space?
02:19:11.000But I really want you to search yourself because you can't unhear what you've heard and unthink what you've thought.
02:19:18.000And I want you to look at my client and I really want you to give this some thought because is it fair to say that might be difficult for you to just forget it or put it aside?
02:19:30.000And I would say 80% of the time I will get the person to a place of honesty and say, yeah, I think it might be a problem.
02:19:37.000And the person should be excused right then and there.
02:19:42.000The very vast majority of judges won't even allow that, and federal court will not even allow that follow-up.
02:19:49.000And to the extent they do, they will – and I could send you example after example.
02:19:54.000It happens all – it's like the kind of joke in circles of criminal defense lawyers that is you have to laugh or else you'll cry.
02:20:06.000So you then just end up being relegated to if you can't make an argument and get the judge to agree that person needs to go for cause, which you should have an unlimited number of challenges.
02:20:21.000You then have the peremptory phase, which are what are best way to describe it as free strikes.
02:20:28.000And for certain felonies, you get six.
02:20:32.000You just get a number of strikes that you get to get rid of people.
02:20:36.000And if you have eight problems, but only six strikes, you're going to be left with two shitty jurors.
02:20:44.000And shitty, meaning that they're not there with the presumption of innocence.
02:20:48.000They're there with the assumption of guilt.
02:20:52.000So I had a situation once where I got so fed up.
02:21:00.000With the judge, because I was a former prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.
02:21:07.000He's now sitting as a judge in the Southern District of New York.
02:21:12.000And the juror, prospective juror said, I've read about the case.
02:21:16.000I think your client's probably guilty.
02:21:19.000And he said, okay, well, I'm going to instruct you.
02:21:22.000And he went through that whole bullshit routine and then said, you know, so I'm going to ask you, can you put that aside?
02:21:30.000So I said to him, I asked the prospective jury to leave, and I said, Your Honor, with all respect, it is a fundamental impossibility and departure from the most basic tenets of human psychology to ask someone to put something aside and erase it from their mind.
02:22:50.000And called the marshals back into his chambers.
02:22:54.000And I didn't know whether I should take my shoelaces off because I was going to get arrested.
02:22:58.000But if I say to you, Joe, I know that you've been a UFC commentator and that's been a huge part of your life, but I'm going to ask you to sit in judgment on something that requires you to put that aside.
02:23:56.000And it's just a part of being a human being.
02:23:58.000So you should have at least some sort of fail-safe mechanisms in place to stop the intentions of a bad human being from ruining somebody else's life.
02:24:10.000Yeah, and I don't know if the answer, you know, I don't know if one of the solutions is for people that are listening to say, you know what, my job will survive without me for two weeks.
02:24:24.000Even if I'm not asked the question, I just want you to know, I think if the federal government would go to the point of convening a grand jury and indicting someone, they must have the goods on them.
02:25:58.000Because she's faced a level of uncertainty and of conflict and of just chaos in her life at 20 years old, being accused of a horrific murder that she had no connection to.
02:26:22.000Yeah, it's horrific, but for people that are just listening, it's a horrific miscarriage of justice that she was tried not once, but twice for this crime.
02:26:31.000And if you haven't seen the Netflix documentary, you should, because it will give you insight into how How absolute power can so corrupt absolutely in a prosecutor who just decided that she must have been good for it because he didn't like her reaction at the scene.
02:27:33.000And, you know, wow, she's a force of nature and just such a brilliant person and a really important voice in the movement.
02:27:41.000You know, the thing that's uplifting about this, if we were going to leave it on a note of positivity and sort of triumph, is that...
02:27:53.000You know, you never know how strong you are until you go through some shit.
02:27:57.000And look, I personally could be going through something at the time, and I draw strength from thinking it's never remotely close to what some of these men and women have endured.
02:28:12.000And they, you know, I remember speaking to a woman named Deborah Milky.
02:28:17.000Who was exonerated in Arizona of killing her son or having him set up to be murdered.
02:28:28.000And I remember asking her one time how the fuck she survived.
02:28:34.000And she said, you know, it sounds cliche, but you don't realize your strength and how strong you are until you're put in a situation where you're either going to succumb to it or figure out a way through it.
02:28:48.000And I draw so much strength in my personal life from, and that's why I think people are attracted to this movement of the wrongfully incarcerated, because they end up on the other side.
02:29:01.000And you've met Amanda, and you've met Robert, and you've met others that have been wrongfully incarcerated, but, you know, there's something special about them that you feel.
02:29:12.000Well, that's the same thing when we're talking about people that grow up in bad neighborhoods, or people that grow up in challenging circumstances.
02:29:18.000They develop character that you don't get if your parents are billionaires.
02:29:22.000There's something about going through adversity and coming out on the other end of it.
02:29:27.000They're more compassionate, they're more understanding, there's something there that exists because they've had to endure.
02:29:35.000Just like, I mean, it's maybe not the best analogy, but the only way you get good at running is to run.
02:29:42.000The only way you get good in shape is to push yourself.
02:29:46.000These people have been pushed emotionally.
02:30:03.000But I would never want anybody to go through that.
02:30:07.000I would never want my worst enemy to go through what she went through.
02:30:10.000To be unjustly accused of a horrific crime, and because of that uncertainty and that chaos, and also she became this famous person, famous for being accused of a crime,
02:30:25.000and most people don't look past the headlines, right?
02:30:28.000So most people look at her and probably thought, oh, she killed that girl.
02:30:43.000Or, you know, there was so many things about that case that were connected to, like, devious sexual practices and Satanism and all kinds of wacky shit that prosecutor devised to try to justify his bias towards her.
02:31:00.000There's an important book that people should read, and he would be a fascinating guy for you to speak to at some point.
02:32:58.000Is really one that explores the power dynamic and why law enforcement gets it wrong.
02:33:11.000I used to think early on that the way to get across to juries in federal civil rights cases where I was trying to get compensation for someone that had been wrongfully incarcerated was to demonize the police.
02:33:27.000And first of all, it's not factual because I don't think that most cops—in fact, I think the very vast majority of law enforcement in wrongful incarceration cases don't set out to frame someone or to put something on someone.
02:33:42.000I think that they succumb to their biases, subconscious or not, and their gut or their hunch that someone did it, and then they make it try to fit.
02:33:53.000And when that light switch went off for me, I became far more effective advocate because you don't need to demonize people and take on that burden, A, because it's probably not true, and B, because you have to understand the phenomenon of tunnel vision.
02:34:11.000And David really explores that in the book is that you become incapable of seeing evidence outside of your tunnel of vision, which is you did it or they did it.
02:34:31.000I will not consider this evidence over here or this witness statement because I can't see it.
02:34:37.000So it's an important read and he's an important guy to consider that perspective because I think, you know, like often like my mom sometimes...
02:35:21.000They need to understand psychology and human nature and then the pressures and then this thing that we were talking about, about winning and losing.
02:35:27.000I have that problem with all things that involve power, like police and judges and even teachers.
02:35:36.000There's this thing where people want to win or lose.
02:35:40.000They want to be able to decide how things go down, and then they want to walk away with it with a victory.
02:35:49.000When you have something set up as simple as pulling people over, were you speeding?
02:35:58.000I caught you going 65 miles an hour in a 55, and you're like, no!
02:36:31.000There is pressure put on some cops in some places.
02:36:36.000Not saying everywhere, but I've talked to cops who tell me that you can get shit on if you don't arrest or you don't write a certain amount of tickets or you don't have a certain amount of interaction.
02:37:44.000I remember thinking, I remember going like this.
02:37:48.000I was in third grade, it's all motherfuckers.
02:37:53.000Dude, I had a similar thing happen when I became a security guard.
02:37:57.000I was a security guard at this place called Great Woods and I talked about it in that video that I made about the whole Neil Young controversy.
02:38:03.000When I was a kid, I was 19 years old, I worked as a security guard and I saw right away from my first day on the job that there's this very clear separation between us and them.
02:38:14.000Because the first day on the job, somebody stole one of the golf carts.
02:38:18.000We drove around these golf carts, and some kid stole it, and there's a guy named Alley Cat.
02:38:22.000Alley Cat was running the security thing, and he was a hardened, older dude who'd been around the block for a long fucking time.
02:38:30.000They tackled this guy off the golf cart, and they beat the fuck out of him, and they beat him with a walkie-talkie, and I watched it happen.
02:38:37.000And I was like, oh shit, this is a serious job.
02:38:40.000And what I had said about it is that one of the reasons why I quit, the main reason I quit, was actually a Neil Young concert, which was hilarious.
02:38:51.000Like, Neil Young's concert, while it was going on, it was kind of cold outside, and so a bunch of people, it was an amphitheater.
02:38:58.000So there's a covered area and there's an outside area that's not covered, it's a lawn area.
02:39:02.000And on the lawn area, these Neil Young fans started bonfires.
02:39:07.000And we were told to go put out the bonfires and tell them to stop.
02:39:11.000And we went out there and then chaos broke loose.
02:39:35.000I mean, I was literally driving, keep on rockin' it.
02:39:38.000Because I was a Neil Young fan, and then here he is playing, and I get to see him while I'm working there, and then a brawl breaks out, and I have to help put the fires up.
02:39:46.000So why did you, because you were just like, fuck this.
02:39:49.000It was 15 bucks an hour, if I was lucky.
02:39:50.000I mean, I'm not exactly sure how much I got paid.
02:39:52.000This was 1986, I believe, when I was 19. So I was like, I'm not going to get my ass kicked for $15 an hour.
02:41:10.000And at that age, that probably felt good.
02:41:12.000Well, it did, but I was also, like, if I ever lost my temper, always, I would always be like, I was always disappointed with myself, always.
02:41:21.000And then I'd always be like, why was that?
02:41:24.000And then I would think about it, and I was like, this is like a thing that's happening where I'm separating the people who work as security from the people in the crowd, the audience members.
02:42:03.000But it's not shocking when you hear about people having power to tell people what to do and not to do and abusing it.
02:42:09.000You see it at TSA. You could see it almost everywhere.
02:42:15.000There's certain people that are abusive when it comes to power.
02:42:19.000And this is a strange time when it comes to power, when it comes to police, because the respect for police has waned considerably since the George Floyd murder.
02:42:30.000Everybody is like, if you think about the way people view the police from 2019, from that moment, I guess it was 20, right?
02:42:41.000From 2020 to now, it's a very different world in terms of the way people see the police.
02:42:47.000Once they started lighting cop cars on fire in LA, and you started seeing some of these crazy riots, and then you started seeing these smash-and-grabs all throughout New York City where that fucking goofy mayor told everybody to not do anything and to stand down and let this all take place,
02:43:03.000let them burn it out of their system, you're like, oh my god, this is wild.
02:43:07.000We literally have a different world now.
02:43:09.000It's a different world in the terms of perceptions, like how people think about law enforcement.
02:43:14.000And it has a corrosive effect on the good cops that are out there that are afraid to get accused of something when they're actually enforcing real crime.
02:43:27.000And I think defund the police is an easy thing to say, and I understand the motivation behind it, and I agree with the motivation and the sentiment behind it.
02:43:36.000But I think that a better way of looking at it is, let's find out what the fucking root cause of all these problems are.
02:43:46.000Fund whatever it is that's causing all these problems.
02:43:49.000And then when it comes to police, let's find out why they behave so poorly when they do and fund better training.
02:43:56.000And also, come to grips with the concept of PTSD. Because how many cops have seen the videos that I was talking about earlier, like where the guy pulls over and pulls the gun out and starts shooting at the cops?
02:44:07.000They've all seen those, because that's their job.
02:44:10.000Every cop has seen a video online of a cop getting shot because he makes a mistake, or they have a buddy where it happened to them.
02:44:17.000Every time they pull someone over and they have tinted windows, they have no idea.
02:44:23.000It's got to be, and they've probably seen so much violence.
02:44:27.000I mean, I have friends that have worked as EMTs, and they'll tell you that there comes a time where you've seen too many people dead.
02:44:36.000You've seen too many people that have been shot, too many people that have been hit by cars, and you have like a numbness, a horrible numbness that can come upon you.
02:44:48.000Now imagine if you're a cop, and you're 10 years on the job, 15 years on the job.
02:44:53.000How many people have you seen fucked up?
02:44:55.000I mean, how many times have you seen this?
02:44:57.000How many guys do you know that have been shot?
02:44:58.000How many times has this happened where your whole life is centered around mitigating the threat to yourself and trying to get home every day?
02:45:10.000We don't think about it because we just think of these cops doing these terrible things.
02:45:14.000And there are cops that do terrible things.
02:45:28.000And then also worrying about your own life.
02:45:31.000Yeah, no, and that's why I get really frustrated with people that I know that make these blanket assertions about whether it's cops or whatever other profession.
02:45:44.000About anything, yeah, because there are shades of gray in between it.
02:45:49.000One thing I do know is that not being a person of color, you know...
02:45:57.000I guess I'm the kind of person that always wants to solve the problem, and I get frustrated if I can't in my personal life, even professionally.
02:46:10.000And I know that the problem, as it relates to police, is more complex for a person of color, and their feelings about it are something that I can't speak to with any sense of empathy because I'm not them.
02:46:27.000So I guess where I'm at, you hear defund the police, which I get and understand and identify with aspects of, and then I also know some great cops.
02:46:40.000And I know one that has been in some horrific circumstances, and I know his heart, and he's such a good man.
02:46:49.000So I think I'm finding myself in situations like that I'm quicker to listen and slower to speak and learning as much as I can because I don't know that there's one easy solution.
02:47:18.000I've listened more now than I used to.
02:47:20.000I've gotten better at it, but it's a process.
02:47:23.000I think one of the things that I've gotten out of this podcast is this process of understanding people, that I understand people way better than I ever did before, just from having these long-form conversations with them.
02:47:37.000You're different than the guy who was here yesterday, who's different than the guy who was here before.
02:47:40.000It's like there's this constant interaction with different minds, with different life experiences, and different circumstances, and I'm different every day too.
02:47:52.000So it's like these things are just layers upon layers upon layers of education.
02:47:58.000That's what's come out of this podcast for me that was very unexpected.
02:48:02.000You know, when I first started doing this, it was really just talking shit with my friends.
02:48:06.000We'd just get high and say stupid shit and just laugh and joke and just talk, just have fun, just to hang.
02:48:11.000And it then became something very strange, like what it is now, where it's this, it's too big.
02:48:19.000It's like, it's just two people, right?
02:49:41.000It's very strange to be me, but it's always been strange to be me.
02:49:44.000It's like this is not anything that much stranger.
02:49:49.000My life is very odd, you know, but somehow or another it seems to make sense.
02:49:56.000And whatever challenges you do face, I really firmly believe that you come out of them on the other end more educated and more resilient and better for it.
02:50:10.000I think that's the case with most people with most things.
02:50:13.000I don't think it's a golden rule or steadfast rule, but I think it's possible.
02:50:18.000And it depends entirely upon how you look at these circumstances while they're taking place.
02:50:23.000But that's, again, so much easier than what we're talking about with these cases with the Innocence Project, with these cases that you've helped get these people free.
02:50:34.000These cases where these people, on their own, do not have the resources, there's no possibility of them getting a new trial.
02:50:46.000No possibility of them getting exonerated.
02:50:50.000Just to leave you with this, I just notified someone that I was going to take their case on pro bono, and it's not important who it is, and he started to weep.
02:51:52.000It takes a network of beautiful people that are kind-hearted human beings that are in this for the right reason, and I'm one grain of sand.
02:52:03.000There are these two women at the Innocence Project that are dear friends of mine.
02:52:09.000One is Vanessa Potkin and one is Nina Morrison.
02:52:11.000Nina Morrison was just nominated to be a federal judge.
02:52:15.000And there needs to be more federal judges like her because she's someone that comes from not a prosecutor's office, but the Innocence Project.
02:52:37.000And One thing that the podcast has done is help provide a lot of people hope so I encourage people to keep reaching out and now the bandwidth to help more people is here as a result of you giving me this platform that will continue hopefully.
02:54:42.000You can learn all about her case on that website.
02:54:47.000And it tells you who she is, all about her case.
02:54:54.000And then if you scroll down, thank you so much for pulling this up, Jamie.
02:54:59.000If you scroll down, this is why I said let people go and make their own decisions and educate themselves.
02:55:11.000Find out more about her case, and then you can add your name as you just passed it to the petition, and we know that we can stop this execution.
02:55:23.000And there's detailed information on this page, and then I'm at Dubin.Joshua on Instagram, and anything you guys can do to help get the word out, because I now have the resources to help sift through some of the contacts that I'm getting And address some of these cases,
02:55:42.000because some of the cases are coming to me through Instagram.
02:55:45.000Jordan Grotzinger, who's handling this Pierce-Rushing case and has put a lot of resources behind it, came to us through Instagram.
02:55:54.000So reach out, and I'm excited to come back with more good news, and I thank you again for everything, and particularly for your part in the exoneration of Ron Torres Washington and Albert Wilson.