Pearl - November 23, 2024


How the US Legal System FAILS Innocent People! ｜ Pearl Daily @Lawofselfdefense


Episode Stats

Length

12 minutes

Words per Minute

196.62952

Word Count

2,423

Sentence Count

166

Misogynist Sentences

6


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Andrew Brinka is the author of The Law of Self-defense Principles, a best-selling book, and the host of the popular YouTube channel, "Law of Self Defense: The Podcast" where he talks about self-defense and criminal charges. In this episode, Andrew talks about the difference between a "good guy" and "bad guy" self defense case, and why it's important to have a good guy defense attorney.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
00:00:00.000 I prefer to say that I teach people where the legal boundaries are for the use of force.
00:00:04.220 So if they do have to defend themselves, they're not only well positioned to win the physical
00:00:08.000 fight, which is the most important thing, but they're also well positioned to win the
00:00:10.900 legal fight that happens.
00:00:12.240 You don't want to survive the physical fight only to spend the rest of your life in a cage
00:00:15.500 someplace.
00:00:16.500 You want to be free to live your life with your family and all the things that make life
00:00:19.480 worth living.
00:00:20.300 Today I have a special guest on the show, our first ever in-studio guest.
00:00:24.960 Welcome to the show, Andrew Brinka.
00:00:27.220 Thank you very much.
00:00:28.200 It's a pleasure to be here.
00:00:29.140 He is the country's leading expert in self-defense law with over 25 years of experience, and
00:00:35.040 you have the YouTube channel, Law of Self-Defense.
00:00:37.460 I do.
00:00:37.940 More than 30 years of experience.
00:00:39.360 I keep getting older every year.
00:00:40.620 And you are the author?
00:00:42.180 Of our best-selling book, The Law of Self-Defense Principles, which, by the way, we give away
00:00:46.540 for free at lawofselfdefense.com slash free book.
00:00:50.640 You said something earlier about many people get convicted even though they're innocent
00:00:55.660 or they didn't do anything on the books wrong.
00:00:58.240 Why is that?
00:00:59.860 Well, part of it is just noise in the system.
00:01:01.900 So specifically in this context, we're talking about good guy cases of self-defense, right?
00:01:05.680 Not criminals just making up self-defense, but someone's had to defend themselves against
00:01:10.200 some kind of attack.
00:01:11.500 They don't really know where the legal boundaries are.
00:01:13.740 They may think they know, but in fact, they generally don't know what they're allowed
00:01:17.160 and not allowed to do.
00:01:18.600 And the system itself is not well-suited to deal with good guy cases of self-defense.
00:01:24.380 By the system, I mean the criminal justice system.
00:01:26.900 When you think of that phrase, criminal justice system, the most controlling word in that three-word
00:01:32.600 phrase is system.
00:01:34.820 It is a system.
00:01:35.940 It's a machine, like a steampunk era machine with giant wheels and gears.
00:01:40.160 It doesn't care about you personally.
00:01:42.100 It doesn't care about fairness.
00:01:43.840 It's just a bureaucratic machine for administering what we call justice, the rules of law to different
00:01:49.540 people.
00:01:50.040 And the second most operative term in that phrase, criminal justice system, is criminal.
00:01:54.740 It's a system that's optimized to deal with criminals.
00:01:58.900 For them, it does a pretty good job.
00:02:00.580 But when you feed a normal law-abiding person into that system, it generally doesn't go very
00:02:04.760 well.
00:02:05.520 And because the system's optimized for dealing with criminals, there's at least always a
00:02:10.000 10% chance that you'll get convicted if I have to put you in front of a jury.
00:02:13.920 That's what we call the justice part of the criminal justice system.
00:02:17.200 10%?
00:02:17.840 That seems so high.
00:02:19.540 It's low.
00:02:20.260 Many criminal defense attorneys will tell you it's higher.
00:02:22.840 Because most criminal defense attorneys or clients are actually criminals.
00:02:26.040 That's the nature of the business.
00:02:27.800 For someone who has a criminal history who's put in front of a jury, they could be completely
00:02:31.980 innocent of this particular charge.
00:02:33.640 They're looking at more like a 50% chance of conviction.
00:02:36.880 Wait, say that one more time.
00:02:38.700 So they're...
00:02:40.100 The normal person who's fed into the criminal justice system is a criminal.
00:02:43.260 They have a criminal background.
00:02:44.360 They've done criminal stuff before.
00:02:45.740 They're just back for another ride on the carousel of the criminal justice system.
00:02:50.160 If that person goes in front of a jury, it's more like a 50% chance of getting convicted.
00:02:54.020 Even if they're technically innocent of the particular charge at this time.
00:02:57.300 Okay, so who are your typical clients when you defend somebody in a self-defense case?
00:03:03.380 So most of the cases I work on, the clients tend to be normal law-abiding people, never
00:03:08.680 been in trouble with the law a day in their life.
00:03:10.380 Some of them have never had a speeding ticket in their entire lives, typically between the
00:03:14.320 ages of 35 and 50.
00:03:17.880 Now, I should be clear.
00:03:18.820 I have a consulting practice, so I don't take clients directly.
00:03:22.280 All the cases I work on, somebody used for somewhere in the country, ended up with a
00:03:27.100 criminal charge.
00:03:28.020 They hire a local attorney to be their lead counsel on their case.
00:03:31.320 My client is their attorney, so I'm consulting to their attorney.
00:03:34.400 Okay, and what are typical cases that somebody gets into that, like, winds, like, is it a
00:03:42.420 bar fight?
00:03:43.280 Is it a home invasion?
00:03:45.340 Like, what is the typical self-defense case?
00:03:47.880 So the most common criminal charge we're defending against is aggravated assault with a deadly
00:03:53.060 weapon.
00:03:53.860 We do murder cases.
00:03:55.440 We do all level of cases, but the most common is aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.
00:03:58.660 Because what happens is the client was facing something scary, frightening them, and they're
00:04:05.080 carrying a gun, legally carrying a gun, and they pulled their gun out and they pointed
00:04:09.120 it at that person and they said, stay back, I'm prepared to defend myself, which sounds
00:04:13.720 like perfect self-defense, right?
00:04:15.640 That same conduct checks all the boxes for a criminal charge of aggravated assault with
00:04:20.660 a deadly weapon.
00:04:21.640 What is assault?
00:04:22.660 It's putting someone else in fear of harm.
00:04:25.200 But what are you doing when you're pointing a gun at someone?
00:04:27.120 You're putting them in fear of harm.
00:04:28.960 You're telling them, I will hurt you if you don't stop doing what's scaring me.
00:04:32.760 It's aggravated because you're threatening them with deadly force harm, and it's with
00:04:36.740 a deadly weapon because you're doing it with a gun.
00:04:39.600 Collectively, in most states, that's good.
00:04:41.260 That's a felony good for 10 to 20 years in prison.
00:04:44.280 Keep in mind, I'm talking about mothers, fathers, people who've never been in trouble
00:04:47.980 with the law a day in their lives are now looking at a 20-year felony sentence.
00:04:51.520 Right, and so have you had any cases where, maybe not you, or like what are examples of
00:04:58.500 cases that commonly innocent people end up going to prison?
00:05:03.280 Like what's like a common case that that might happen?
00:05:06.160 Well, it can happen in any case.
00:05:07.340 Like I said, there's at least a 10% chance, no matter how innocent you are, that you'd get
00:05:10.660 convicted.
00:05:11.320 We have a very, very high success rate at law of self-defense.
00:05:14.580 We have almost 100% success in getting charges dismissed or people put into a diversion program.
00:05:19.240 So if they keep their nose clean for a certain period of time, the charges go away.
00:05:22.860 Or if we go to trial, we have a very high rate of acquittals.
00:05:26.220 So we're pretty good at what we do.
00:05:28.120 The cases that really trouble me is the ones where I actually see innocent people being
00:05:32.920 convicted and going to prison, and they tend to be many of the high-profile, politically
00:05:37.360 energized cases out there.
00:05:39.280 The George Zimmerman case, the Kyle Rittenhouse case.
00:05:41.800 Now, those two guys happen to get acquitted, but they were at risk of conviction.
00:05:45.460 They would have spent the rest of their lives in jail.
00:05:47.600 Derek Chauvin is another case.
00:05:49.240 There was reasonable doubt in that case, but he got convicted anyway, and he'll die in
00:05:53.220 prison.
00:05:54.500 George Zimmerman.
00:05:55.820 Can you tell me what the media said about it and what actually happened?
00:06:00.200 Sure.
00:06:00.520 So the way it was portrayed in the media was that George Zimmerman was a white Latino, a
00:06:06.000 phrase invented for his trial.
00:06:07.600 A white Latino.
00:06:08.280 A white Latino.
00:06:08.940 He was some kind of pseudo-white supremacist who saw a 13-year-old black boy walking through
00:06:16.100 his community and decided to kill him and shot him dead for the crime of that boy walking
00:06:22.560 around, minding his own business with iced tea and candy.
00:06:26.160 What actually happened was George Zimmerman was a neighborhood watch volunteer for his community that was beset by a tidal wave of home invasions and burglaries and thefts.
00:06:36.420 He saw Trayvon Martin, who was not 13 years old, but it was a 17-year-old, well-muscled high school football player.
00:06:42.760 Wait, he was 17?
00:06:44.000 17.
00:06:44.720 Okay, keep going.
00:06:46.000 Trayvon Martin was a street fighter.
00:06:48.840 In other words, he engaged in fights in the street as entertainment.
00:06:52.280 We know this because we have video of him fighting on his own cell phone.
00:06:56.000 His chosen technique was to punch people in the face, knock them down, and then mount them and beat them into the ground.
00:07:02.000 Well, Trayvon Martin saw that George Zimmerman was on the phone with police reporting a suspicious character, Trayvon Martin.
00:07:08.180 So he ambushed George Zimmerman, punched him in the face, knocked him down, mounted him, was beating him into the ground, smashing his head into a sidewalk.
00:07:17.000 There's eyewitness testimony for all of this.
00:07:19.460 And in the last desperate moment to save his life, George Zimmerman drew his legally carried pistol, fired a single round that killed Trayvon Martin in lawful self-defense.
00:07:28.340 And then there was all these riots, and they made it politically motivated.
00:07:33.360 But somehow Zimmerman still got, like, he got acquitted, right?
00:07:36.780 Yeah, when I first looked at the case, I thought, well, surely there must be something from the prosecution here that would suggest guilt, because everything I'm seeing is totally consistent with lawful self-defense.
00:07:45.840 And there simply wasn't anything.
00:07:48.520 But what was happening was it became an opportunity for a local prosecutor who was having difficulty getting re-elected in her black community.
00:07:57.060 She had prosecuted a couple of cases involving black people that were very unpopular in the community.
00:08:01.900 She was going to lose her re-election, and then she saw the opportunity with George Zimmerman and said, you know what, if I prosecute this guy for shooting that black high school student, I'll be in favor with the black community again.
00:08:14.240 Now, George Zimmerman was acquitted.
00:08:16.160 So that prosecutor lost that trial if you define winning as getting a conviction.
00:08:21.300 She didn't get a conviction.
00:08:22.100 But if you properly understand what motivated her, it was not to get a conviction.
00:08:26.540 It was to get re-elected.
00:08:28.520 And that worked.
00:08:29.500 When she was going to lose re-election, she prosecuted Zimmerman, and she got re-elected instead of losing.
00:08:35.520 So that's how politics get involved in the law, because the prosecutors are elected.
00:08:42.980 Right.
00:08:43.400 And so then they have to be political.
00:08:45.860 That's correct.
00:08:46.380 So it's got to be heavily dependent on the prosecutor in your area, too.
00:08:51.280 Right.
00:08:51.700 So, in fact, the prosecutor in George Zimmerman's area, he was pressured to bring charges against George Zimmerman, and he quit.
00:08:58.800 He resigned his job rather than prosecute George Zimmerman.
00:09:01.780 So the prosecutor who ended up taking the case was from a completely different part of Florida.
00:09:06.540 No way.
00:09:06.940 Who flew in to take over that case for political advantage.
00:09:09.800 How can they do that?
00:09:11.500 Because isn't it based on where you are?
00:09:13.580 Yeah, but once the original prosecutor quit, it left a vacuum.
00:09:16.920 It needed to be replaced by somebody, and she raised her hand.
00:09:19.660 And it got picked by the governor.
00:09:21.220 Oh, so the governor appointed her to go do it?
00:09:24.340 Essentially assigned her to go into that empty district and take over the prosecutor's role.
00:09:29.160 And because they made it like a race issue, then the facts didn't even matter.
00:09:35.200 Right.
00:09:35.640 So there's a cliche in the law, and it says, if you're a lawyer and the law is on your side, you argue the law to the jury.
00:09:42.160 And if the facts are on your side, you argue the facts to the jury.
00:09:45.280 And if neither the law nor the facts are on your side, you pound the table.
00:09:50.080 And so that whole prosecution was table-pounding.
00:09:52.420 The facts were not on their side.
00:09:53.980 The law was not on their side.
00:09:55.440 It was the cleanest case of self-defense I've ever seen brought to trial.
00:09:59.260 Their prospects of actually getting a conviction was shockingly low, probably just that 10% that's noise in the system.
00:10:06.120 So I don't think they really had an expectation of getting a conviction, although it could, of course, happen.
00:10:09.980 And the whole point was for her to win re-election.
00:10:13.060 And in that respect, she won.
00:10:14.720 Right.
00:10:15.460 And so it's almost like innocent people get, like, they're like innocent bystanders in the process where innocent people get thrown in jail because politicians are trying to get re-elected.
00:10:28.440 Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:10:29.900 And they're just like a twig floating along the river.
00:10:32.620 They're completely helpless.
00:10:33.920 Oh, and that's why they, oh, okay.
00:10:35.960 You just plugged, like, made something make sense.
00:10:38.900 That's why they hated Kamala, right?
00:10:41.380 Because she, I guess she was known for having some unfair prosecutions.
00:10:47.540 She was really contemptible.
00:10:49.000 First of all, she put a lot of young black men in jail for marijuana crimes at a time when it was becoming clear the social sentiment towards marijuana was becoming more favorable.
00:10:57.660 You didn't need to give these people long sentences.
00:10:59.920 Then she kept them in prison longer than California law required.
00:11:03.340 She could have allowed them to be released earlier and she wouldn't.
00:11:05.780 Then there were many cases in which they had hidden exculpatory evidence, evidence consistent with innocence on these guys.
00:11:12.700 So they were appealing their cases because the courts had hid that evidence favorable to them.
00:11:17.820 And she argued against getting them released.
00:11:20.720 So she was holding people in prison she knew did not belong in prison.
00:11:24.400 Well, what would be her motive for doing that?
00:11:27.080 She thought there was political advantage in it.
00:11:29.060 She wanted to be able to run eventually as someone who was tough on crime.
00:11:32.720 So, and did you look at any of those cases super in depth?
00:11:36.660 I'm just curious if you think that the cases they bring up were fair or no.
00:11:42.280 So the ultimate merits of the case are hard to know, right?
00:11:45.460 Whenever this guy did what he was charged with, I wasn't in the room.
00:11:48.280 So I don't really know in any absolute sense what happened.
00:11:51.020 But I do know that when the defense is saying, hey, we have exculpatory evidence that's favorable to our client and the state is arguing for that not to be admitted, that's a problem.
00:12:00.700 Yeah, because you would think that would be illegal for them not to bring up evidence, right?
00:12:06.080 At a trial, it would be.
00:12:07.440 It gets a little squishier when we're talking about the appeals process.
00:12:10.420 But if you're a prosecutor and you're genuinely interested in justice and not just a score, you seek justice by allowing the evidence in.
00:12:17.460 Right.
00:12:18.840 Interesting.