00:09:40.380So these cases would actually be presented to me for many, many years where you sit down with a detective
00:09:45.100And you talk about the potential for a criminal conviction and the ethical standard for filing.
00:09:52.560A lot of people don't know this for a prosecutor is, number one, you must have subjective certainty that the person did it.
00:09:58.640And number two, you must have a reasonable belief that you can convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt under the law of whatever state you're in.
00:10:06.520Okay. So the first thing that you have to do as a prosecutor, and I kind of want to walk through this Cornell thing, is you must divorce any decisions from your emotions. Everybody's against rape, at least anybody in a prosecutorial capacity. Everybody's against sexual assault. Everybody thinks that behavior, like especially some of the stuff we saw in some of these text messages, is abhorrent.
00:10:29.320um we're all there okay but you have to divorce emotion and you have to coldly and methodically
00:10:37.080go through the evidence in a case like this and and think did these young men commit sexual assault
00:10:43.020and step two is the evidence strong enough to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt and
00:10:48.380if the answer to either one of those questions is no then you cannot and should not ethically
00:10:53.460file a case like that. Okay. So by the way, just to highlight is you and I've talked about this
00:11:01.400countless times, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it. The prosecutor has a different
00:11:07.500ethical North star than the defense lawyer. And you want it that way. Our system is predicated
00:11:15.220on that. You want a prosecutor who, like Matt, if they don't really, truly look at the evidence and
00:11:24.540say, I can get a conviction beyond a reasonable doubt, I have that kind of mindset, then I'm
00:11:32.380going to walk the kind of public blowback be damned. Isn't that correct? As opposed to a
00:11:39.160defense lawyer who is public blowback, blowback be damned. I'm here to zealously defend my client.
00:11:48.020It is perhaps the most important job of any prosecutor, Mark, and that is fundamental
00:11:53.600fairness. And a lot of times that means standing up to an angry mob and you have to make that
00:12:01.580unpopular decision. And one of the units I rotated through in my career was I went through the gang
00:12:08.620unit for a brief time before they moved me on to the felony panel. And Mark, you'll remember this,
00:12:13.500there was a thing called the Target Program, where what they would do, law enforcement would target
00:12:17.460gang leaders. Got such a good memory. As soon as you said that, I knew where this was headed.
00:12:22.680Yeah, look, and I was 100% for that. And you'd see these older gangsters, the ones that were
00:12:27.340the real psychopaths, and they would recruit the younger guys. And they were an absolute cancer to0.99
00:12:33.100the communities in which they lived. And I supported the Target Program.
00:12:50.280But when you're a prosecutor, using that two-step process that Mark and I were just
00:12:55.480talking about, sometimes you would have really enthusiastic detectives, and you'd have a
00:12:59.920really bad guy, legitimately really bad guy, and they would put, sorry, I got to swear0.71
00:13:05.180here a completely bullshit case on your desk and you know and and i and say and you look at it and0.98
00:13:11.960be like what is this piece of crap i'm not filing this and they'd get and this is important for the1.00
00:13:16.620case they'd go yeah but this guy's an asshole and i cannot tell you mark how many times i butted1.00
00:13:22.260heads with detectives the yeah but this guy's an asshole thing is not an element to a crime you0.99
00:13:27.800don't get to introduce that that doesn't come in as big of an a-hole as that guy might be or in this0.97
00:13:34.120case as as abhorrent as the behavior was you know and mark just quick war story i had one case that
00:13:40.120stands out remember those carl's jr little plastic numbers you you you place an order at carl's jr
00:13:45.820and for our east coast audience it's a that's a big burger chain in california carl's jr you you
00:13:50.960make your order and they give you these plastic number thing then you put it on your table and
00:13:54.560your order's ready so like number 47 they did a probation search on one of these gang leaders and
00:13:59.460they wanted me to file a 496 for the audience. That is a felony possession of stolen property
00:14:04.680on a plastic frigging Carl's Jr. tag. And I'm like, I am not, I can't do this with a straight
00:14:10.600face. And I got the, yeah, but this guy's an asshole thing. You can't file a case because1.00
00:14:14.820somebody is an asshole. You can't ethically file a case because somebody is an asshole.1.00
00:14:18.820The first cousin of that, of the, yeah, but he's an asshole is the, if he didn't do this,1.00
00:14:24.080he did, we know he's good for something else. Right. And that's called injustice,1.00
00:14:27.880Right. And that's another thing. Nietzsche has one of my favorite quotes, Mark. You've heard me quote him many times on this. Those who endeavor to fight monsters must be careful lest they become monsters. And fundamentally, when we're talking about campus rape, the idea that some guy could rape a woman on campus or anywhere else and get away with it. What gets us is the injustice of that. It is fundamentally an injustice. That's what gets our blood boiling. It's not fair. It's not right.
00:14:53.120And I dedicated my professional career, guys, to going after sex offenders and protecting victims of sex crimes.
00:15:01.040OK, but when you when in the idea of going and fighting injustice, as soon as you start abandoning due process or fundamental fairness, you are now creating injustice in the idea of fighting injustice.
00:15:17.660And in Nietzsche's view, in other words, to go fight monsters, sex offenders, you have now become a monster.
00:15:23.820You are now generating injustice. And that's that's not the way that this can work.
00:15:28.100Remember the LAPD Rampart scandal. That became the whole theme for LAPD Rampart is that while fighting the monsters, and that's why all of a sudden people were getting phony, you know, evidence put on them, having all kinds of, you know, people were aghast at it.
00:15:51.240And the argument always was, how could this happen? How could this happen? There's gambling here in this establishment. You put your finger exactly on it. When you don't rigorously apply the standards that you have to is when you get to these kinds of basically bowing down to the mob.
00:16:11.700And you cannot bow down to the mob. Mob justice is injustice every frigging time. It's like my cop case that I just did in L.A., Mark, where Black Lives Matter, it's like, OK, we had a white police officer who shot a black man who turns out it wasn't a firearm.0.83
00:16:26.440OK, but the idea that we're against that, we're against police officers unfairly shooting people, that doesn't mean that then you go convict an innocent man because we're against it.
00:16:37.060Because we're against campus rape does not mean that you can prosecute a case when the evidence does not establish proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
00:16:46.220So I'm going to drill down on that even more, because what was driving me crazy in your absence, and I may have even invoked you, and now we'll see how well I know you after 35 years.
00:17:00.620I said, the idea, and who am I to, you rarely, do you rarely see me taking up for a prosecutor?
00:17:10.880I mean, this Thompson County, I don't know the Tompkins County prosecutor from Adam.
00:17:15.680I don't even think I could pick him out of a lineup. But can you imagine I used to say I've told this to so many people, the the somebody coming in, a cop coming in, having a robust investigation to begin with, or at least just getting the text messages and having a text message where the purported complaining witness is saying everything we did sexually was consensual.
00:17:39.820a real-time text message that says that i can you imagine matt murphy saying yeah i'll just put that
00:17:46.640aside because she could evolve it around that later on i mean you know no it's look let's and
00:17:53.060let's let's look at it he's gotten so much he i saw an interview between him and jake tapper
00:17:57.900where jake tapper clutched his pearls and said i have a daughter and i can't believe you didn't do
00:18:02.740more. I have. How angry did that make you? I've got a daughter. I've got granddaughters. And Jake
00:18:10.160Tapper was so ridiculous in that interview that me, who never misses an opportunity to slam a0.95
00:18:18.800prosecutor, as you well know, I was like, in sense. In fact, I don't know why he didn't get0.96
00:18:24.560more in sense. That's all right. And the DA, and I can't even remember his name. He handled that
00:18:31.000pretty well. And he said, I'm bound by New York law. Okay. So let's, let's talk about that just
00:18:36.000for a second. What was he presented with? He had a six page statement sworn under penalty of perjury
00:18:40.840where this woman described a crazy night where she engaged in consensual sex, according to her
00:18:47.540with several young men. And her concern essentially was she believed that she had voluntarily consumed
00:18:54.200so much ketamine that she wasn't capable of properly consenting. Okay. And this is important
00:18:59.340for everybody to understand under new york law voluntary intoxication is a significant factor
00:19:05.800in determining whether or not an uh an intoxicated person can be raped california has a different law
00:19:12.720but but and and whether i bet new york winds up changing their their their code on this work i
00:19:18.520wouldn't be at all surprised always just well remember point out that case remember the case
00:19:23.100at stanford that is a good way to put exhibit a exhibit b california new york yeah and look and0.90
00:19:32.460personally i think that that a woman who is voluntarily intoxicated to the point of0.72
00:19:37.140unconsciousness it should not be a defense if somebody takes advantage of that and then rapes
00:19:41.100her that's the way it is in california and and mark i've argued those before and just so the
00:19:45.620viewer i was just gonna say matt i see if they for those who don't aren't in the weeds on your
00:19:52.720history. Matt was truly in Orange County, a take no prisoners, sex crimes prosecutor before he
00:20:00.820became kind of everybody knows you as the homicide guy. I know you as that young,
00:20:07.480swashbuckling, you know, good looking prosecutor who I hated to have on my cases because
00:20:13.540dashingly good looking. Yeah. Trial was always a problem. I'd have to bounce every eligible,
00:20:38.000And I'm going to go even a little bit farther, Mark.
00:20:40.840Back when I was at UCSB, I joined a fraternity.
00:20:45.300And I stumbled in as a fall quarter freshman.
00:20:48.740and the you know i'm going to talk about this at the very end of our show today but i lived in my
00:20:56.100fraternity for four years and um you know the fraternities right now are so they're getting so
00:21:02.320much heat and a lot of people that walk by a fraternity party during college who are now on
00:21:07.800cnn bashing fraternities my fraternity started a date rape education program called greeks against
00:21:14.480rape um my my sophomore year mark and and i'll go into that a little bit more but the idea that
00:21:22.480fraternities are are somehow this like all these guys twisting their mustaches next to a rape a0.83
00:21:30.260rape petri dish right then it's a rape petri dish there in fact they are the exact opposite and i0.89
00:21:35.380and i will debate it anytime with anyone i lived in my fraternity house for four years they're some
00:21:41.220of the best people I've ever met in my life. We raised money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and
00:21:46.540for handicapped kids. And we kept the Galita Valley Boys and Girls Club afloat. And we coached
00:21:53.640Special Olympics. And among the things, my fraternity created a program where we basically,
00:22:01.040we realized, and let me just back up again, Mark. When I was a fall quarter freshman, we had a woman
00:22:06.220from the UCSB Women's Center who came in and to speak to the students about rape on campus.
00:22:11.880And she was angry and she was, you could tell that she did not like men. And she began basically
00:22:19.460by telling us some of the statistics and scolding every man in that room for essentially being a0.98
00:22:25.100de facto rapist. And when she saw my pledge pen, I was the devil in that room. And Mark and I,0.97
00:22:31.960look, Mark, you and I communicate for a living, right? Our job is to stand up in front of juries
00:22:36.860and have people have an open mind and follow the law and explain what the evidence and the facts
00:22:43.340were. And if you want to shut down a group of people, start by saying, hey, you're all a bunch
00:22:47.440of rapists. Now let me tell you why. Okay. So what we did is we approached it from a different0.99
00:22:54.240perspective. This is the date rape education program at UCSB. It was, we're going to gather0.55
00:22:59.440They're all the incoming pledges for the sororities and the fraternities.
00:23:02.940We're going to sit all these young men and women in a room that are all going to be getting drunk and partying together and have an honest discussion about communication when when you know when you're drunk and horny, like clear communication, understanding what's happening.
00:23:18.520And then we'd also explain to these young men what the definition of rape was and how if you go beyond the word no or you're with somebody who's too intoxicated to affirmatively consent, that not only is that rape, to remove any ambiguity of that, but you're going to bring dishonor on your entire fraternity.
00:23:37.360There will be guilt by association like we've seen in this case, and you will bring every single guy that has trusted you with the pin on your chest into disrepute if you cross that line.
00:23:52.200It started getting adopted by other schools.
00:23:54.200I worked with Tom Hayden, famous one of the Chicago 8, Jane Fonda's husband, who's in the California State Legislature.
00:24:00.020I didn't know that. Tom brought me the founder of Homies Unidos many years ago, and we were able to successfully get him out of immigration custody. We talk about a different era. But Tom was very ahead of his time, I guess.
00:24:18.220He was ahead of his time. And it didn't pass the California state legislature then. I bet it would now. But the idea was like, let's have a constructive education program for incoming students for all UC and state schools. Okay.
00:24:30.280so that that was good though i have a question though in from the framework of cornell seven
00:24:35.920because as you're talking about this i don't know if you've seen this week when this lawsuit was
00:24:42.940filed kind of everybody was named including the president of the fraternity and you see
00:24:49.720i know where you're going on this it drives me insane how and i'm sorry guys for the viewers i
00:24:56.180I I'm told not to swear so much. I can't help it. How do you fuck that up, Mark?
00:25:01.920You have a responsibility as a prosecutor or filing civil cases.0.99
00:25:06.280I have filed sexual abuse, civil cases as a plaintiff's lawyer before you have a responsibility before you name somebody in a complaint to do a modicum of due diligence before you ruin the life of a young man.
00:25:20.840And for the audience, what Mark is talking about.
00:25:23.720Matt, at the same time that you're arguing, cloaking the accuser in anonymity, you are identifying and misidentifying young men and ruining them.0.71
00:25:37.140Just think about the the amazing hypocrisy, the amazing incongruence and where and how you have to divorce yourself from any North Star in order to proceed in that fashion.
00:25:52.120It is, Mark, this is my opinion here, that conduct represents the worst of our profession, where you are going to willy-nilly, slipshod, throw a name on a complaint like this.0.92
00:26:04.020You're going to destroy a young man's life.
00:26:05.860And by the way, being the president of a fraternity, so the viewers understand, it is the most searchable, obvious, easy thing to find.
00:26:13.620Who was the president of the Chi-5 fraternity in 2024?
00:26:21.100Mark, every fraternity has an annual composite. It's like your book where the president is right in the middle and their name is right underneath it. It is it is inconceivable to me that you would not check that before you accuse somebody of being responsible for a vicious gang rape.
00:26:39.100It is, I can't wrap my head around it. It is not okay. And even, I love our colleague,
00:26:45.580Jonna Spilboer. I agree with almost everything she says, but she was like, oh yeah, it's a
00:26:49.680mistake sometimes happens. It's the only time I've heard Jonna say something that I disagreed with.
00:26:53.620And I, I cannot tell you how strongly I disagree with that. And this is the same guy and I'm sorry,
00:26:59.200he's a frigging clown. This, this plaintiff's lawyer is a clown. He accused my partner,1.00
00:27:04.260mark garagos of leaking information to to to harvey levin on tmz as if tmz needs sources
00:27:12.920right he he did that mark with no basis it i was well it's actually what's offensive is it's
00:27:20.240almost sexist he did it because of my daughter no and he's trying to fight he's trying it's like0.96
00:27:26.080he's trying to use you to get to your daughter that is a that is a scumbag move i'm sorry i0.92
00:27:33.120don't know this guy but i i i cannot believe he did that and another thing mark he is now on this0.56
00:27:39.540gag order thing that he lost i saw an interview the day before i left between him and again jake
00:27:45.380tapper where he's talking about the the the title nine investigation um that and then he came out
00:27:52.600and said i'm i've only been responding to what the defense said that is a demonstrable falsehood
00:27:57.860that is not true. And I'm watching this from 10,000 miles away, Mark, like looking at my
00:28:03.100computer, just going, I cannot believe that this guy is so ballsy that he's accusing you with no
00:28:08.240evidence, trying to say, trying to link that to Tenney. How many people did they interview in
00:28:13.900this Title IX thing? Like over a hundred people, Cornell. And by the way, going back to the
00:28:19.440prosecutor's job of reviewing this, one of the things that came out in the Title IX investigation,
00:28:27.260and this is a huge deal. In her statement, she accused two of the young men of doing ketamine
00:28:32.340off of her body. And during the Title IX investigation, they did a pretty thorough
00:28:38.780job here, Mark. Part of the evidence in that is those guys said that's not true, and they
00:28:44.100submitted themselves to a hair test. And for the viewer that doesn't know, the way ketamine and
00:28:51.100other drugs is metabolized in the human body, there will be searchable elements of that found
00:28:56.880in hair and root root or retrospectively yeah that's right you can go back months
00:29:06.720and both of these guys said that's not true remember what's her name shaved her head
00:29:11.540remember search yeah search my hair right and they did and they were able to conclusively prove that
00:29:17.840that part of the statement is not true that's a fact that was not available to the prosecutor
00:29:22.160or when they refused it, from a prosecution perspective, once we, again, divorcing all
00:29:28.200emotion, taking a step back, this one is not even a close call, guys. And the idea that Tish James
00:29:34.700in New York would come in, and I'm going to offer one tiny bit of criticism here towards a legal
00:29:40.660move that your daughter made, Mark. And I know this was well thought out, but Tish James was
00:29:45.460appointed by Kathy Hochul. So this has become overtly political. Another thing that nobody
00:29:51.220talks about is there's an ethical prohibition in the model rules. You cannot base any criminal
00:29:56.680prosecution on political considerations. It's black letter ethics. And nobody seems to have
00:30:03.540a problem with this in the state of New York. I don't get it. You cannot politically charge people
00:30:09.200with a crime if politics are playing a role in the prosecutorial decision. Okay. So Tish James
00:30:14.420already made a series of statements saying I'm with the victim and I've got another problem with
00:30:19.280that too but but before we even get to that she has already like announced a bias before she is
00:30:25.620in any official capacity has had an opportunity to review the investigation or the files
00:30:30.660so so tenny your daughter filed a very proper motion um to have tish james removed this is my
00:30:40.680strategic problem with that mark i had a case where i represented a group of women in a very
00:30:45.640very similar thing involving a newport beach surgeon i'll leave his name out um where i
00:30:50.600represented five women pro bono as marcy's counsel so for the viewer that means i represented them
00:30:56.340through the criminal process and the the orange county da i in a move that i totally disagreed
00:31:02.580with brought a motion to dismiss that case i opposed it i won second time in california history
00:31:08.960a judge they agreed with me and refused to dismiss a case based on a motion by the prosecutor
00:31:14.960so that means that the california attorney general came in mark and i will and i'm here to tell you0.55
00:31:19.800they are utterly inept in sexual assault cases um and that they wound up getting like the the
00:31:27.320process went on for two years they treated my clients like hell um they dragged them through0.97
00:31:32.400the mud it was an awful experience and that is because they were cohen's case yeah it was phil
00:31:38.380cohen's case and as you can imagine phil and i went at each other okay for about two years
00:31:43.160And he's like, he's a, he's a fine lawyer, Mark. He really is. He's a smart guy. We wound up on opposite ends of that one. But, but I couldn't, I couldn't, I couldn't prosecute the case myself. And I had to try to convince the California AG how to do this.
00:32:00.380And I say all this because when Kathy Hochul appointed Tish James to this case, it sounds really heavy, right?
00:32:07.960Like, wow, the New York attorney general is coming in as a special prosecutor.
00:32:12.180Attorney general has this huge ring to it.
00:32:14.900So for the viewer, it sounds like they actually know what they're doing.
00:32:23.680I guarantee you, Mark, all the king's horses and all the king's men, there is no lawyer in the attorney general's office of New York.
00:32:29.920There is no team of lawyers in the AG's office in New York that has the competence or professional experience to successfully prosecute this case under prong number two.
00:32:59.400she's out there shopping for for independent prosecutors right now of course she is feeling
00:33:04.380about independent counsel tish james is actively searching for an independent prosecutor as we take
00:33:10.260this because of exactly your point there isn't a single person that i'm aware of that knows
00:33:16.840yeah any like you've forgotten more than their collective office knows about sex crimes
00:33:22.760prosecution they can't win it mark they cannot win it tish james can't win it she can personally do
00:33:27.840or stuff so that was that was my strategic like oh i'm not sure about that when they because oh
00:33:33.240you wait and see they've gone to the usual suspects i um i i can't you know what it's kind
00:33:40.040of funny or ironic i i one of the people who they normally would go to i think is obviously
00:33:46.940conflicted but i have a pretty good if i were on the prediction markets and not set for trial in
00:33:52.820December defending Mr. Van Dyke, the American war hero, I would probably be on the prediction
00:34:00.000markets and start a question, resolve whether Tish James appoints a outside independent counsel to
00:34:08.120prosecute the Cornell 7 case for precisely the reasons you just articulated. Yeah. And that's
00:34:14.060the thing is that a good judge would look at her statements ahead of time and say, yes, this has
00:34:17.700the appearance of impropriety, which is the standard, and conflict her off. My fear there
00:34:23.320is that then somebody with some game and some zeal might come in and present a much more formidable
00:34:30.540opposition to that. I've got two minds for that, conceptually. If I believed,
00:34:42.100and I'm thinking this through hypothetically, I'd love to get sure, but if I believed that,
00:34:46.980look, it's clear to me that there is an appearance of impropriety. And I've noticed James, I know her socially, not professionally, but socially. And if I believe that her statements were dispositively an appearance of impropriety, which it just appears to be, I mean, you don't want somebody who comes in, as you said, kind of bowing to the crowd or taking a knee to the
00:35:16.980mob as the knee is as the mob is coming at you if that's the case i would and i thought and
00:35:23.920rightfully so that she would file come hell or high water because it's a political football
00:35:29.920and then i would want an independent sex crimes prosecutor like a matt murphy
00:35:35.080i had if i was pollyannish and i believed that there was a version of matt murphy in new york
00:35:43.300I would want you to take the case because, as I've said with you in absentia, a Matt Murphy who looks at this case would not file this and he would take the heat.
00:35:53.080But that's what worries you, I guess. Right.
00:35:56.860No, no, exactly. Mark is look fairly evaluated.
00:36:00.500The D.A. in this case. And that's another thing, like Jake Tapper saying, oh, I can't believe you didn't investigate it more.
00:36:06.120This is the way it works, guys. The police investigate the prosecution reviews it.
00:36:12.060also that statement it's my understanding she had it was a female detective that interviewed her
00:36:17.620she was allowed to make a series of corrections she made over 20 corrections to the one this is
00:36:23.080the the original six page affidavit i guess we can call it because it's signed under penalty of
00:36:27.980perjury she was allowed a victim advocate during that and one of her friends to sit in there so
00:36:33.480they didn't mail it in either they they got all this information from her i don't know how you
00:36:39.060win that after that. And again, for the audience, before I start getting all the hate, I'm
00:36:46.960approaching this from the position of what a prosecutor sees when it is presented them under
00:36:51.860the ethical umbrella of when it is appropriate to file criminal charges and when it's not.
00:36:56.500And another thing, for the viewer, one of the parts of being a sexual assault prosecutor that
00:37:02.480is the toughest part is you see cases all the time. You see two different, I mean, you see a
00:37:07.360lot of different kinds, but one is you see cases where you believe fervently that the person is a
00:37:13.760horrible human being, that they even committed the crime, but you can't prove it, which means
00:37:18.500you missed that second prong. You cannot file that case. And you know that this happens a lot
00:37:23.160with little kids that when you refuse that case, it's the person may become a victim again. It's
00:37:29.340hard. It is one of the hardest parts of that job. It's mind boggling to me, just the bad
00:37:35.500information the misinformation the coloring of the what the real standard is the law is and
00:37:43.280everything else and it is the frustrating thing about this to build on your point the this case
00:37:51.320was people go well wasn't investigated you know the jake tapper clutching of pearls i love that
00:37:56.860but have you ever seen as much material i mean there was more material and more investigation
00:38:04.080done in this matter than there is in 98% of the cases that come across my desk over the last
00:38:13.260almost five decades. Well, that's the thing, Mark, and you hit the nail on the head there,
00:38:16.780because what the DA can do under a circumstance like this and what the DA has gotten criticized
00:38:21.060for is not doing follow-up investigation. So when you have a case that lands on your desk,
00:38:26.620there's three things you can do. You can file it, you can refuse it, and you can refuse it for
00:38:30.960additional follow-up, or you can make a determination that the person's innocent,
00:38:38.180okay? So the additional follow-up, Title IX here, they went through, Cornell did
00:38:42.800an extensive investigation here, including review of all the text messages. And those text messages
00:38:48.900are tough. And look, there are cases certainly where legitimate victims of sexual assault will
00:38:55.360come back and they're hesitant to report. That happens all the time, where it's real,
00:38:59.540The person really did it. But one of the things you also have to look for as a prosecutor, Mark, is you have to look for ulterior motives.
00:39:06.620OK, and one of the one of the most common cases you see in sexual assault is you see custody disputes where there is a an uncorroborated accusation of sexual abuse against the dad.
00:39:16.640Right. And right on the heels, right on the heels of the filing for divorce or the custody custody battle.
00:39:24.140You see those all the time. I had an old detective, Don Howell, with Huntington Beach. He used to submit those on my desk, Mark, with a little yellow tab with R&R written on it. And it stood for read and reject because it's so clear. It's not true. It didn't happen.
00:39:38.720It's funny you say that. I made a point while you were gone that it's so often one of the kind of, I think, axiomatic practices of criminal law. If your investigator does not want the case filed, the investigator knows what levers to push.
00:40:16.240But there are cases that you either can't file because there just isn't enough evidence or sometimes you encounter ulterior motives and actual reasons to lie.
00:40:25.780And so one of them is you've got a custody dispute.
00:40:28.240Another big one, Mark, is when you look at the facts of this one, you get a civil suit, right?
00:40:33.360And also, when you name the wrong guy as the president of a fraternity, ruining his life,
00:40:39.020and you're so negligent in the way you do it that you ruin – he has been subjected to public scorn.
00:40:53.960What else is incorrect in this complaint, right?
00:40:56.480And another thing that nobody's talking about, in the official statement by the DA, he said that after refusing the case, the attorneys never came to him and asked for them to reconsider.
00:41:07.640I was really surprised by that, that Jane Doe never came and asked for him to reconsider.
00:41:13.380There's a thing called collateral estoppel for the viewer where because the burden is higher in a criminal case, as a plaintiff's lawyer, you always want the DA to prosecute it because once a fact –
00:42:37.520And look, when it comes to this fraternity thing, again, I will debate whoever that faculty member was.
00:42:44.140I will debate anybody, anytime I dedicated my professional life to advocating on behalf of sexual assault victims, as Mark knows.
00:42:52.020And this is one where I don't even see it as a close call. I'm sorry. I just I don't. And I'm as anti-rape, as anti-campus rape as anybody could be. And this is one where I see like the mob is making noise. It's not fair. And I worry on this one, Mark. I really do.
00:43:15.780um yeah so i appreciate i appreciate that you've landed i uh it's almost like
00:43:23.760the amen choir and i appreciate it and um it's fantastic to have you back you can't leave again
00:43:31.820for three straight weeks i got another dive trip coming up but it's only about one so you're gonna
00:43:37.000have to you're gonna have to figure out a way or we're gonna have to rope in natasha to figure out0.63
00:43:41.980away. So thank you. And before we get back, you had some final thoughts on Cornell seven in the
00:43:48.460fraternities. I don't know that he's good, that he can top what he just did, but I'm going to sign
00:43:54.400off now. And Matt, I missed you. And like I said, you're not going away for three straight weeks
00:43:59.620again. Thank you. No, no. Yeah. Not until next year when these guys make me get on that boat
00:44:04.360again, Mark. So no, I missed the show. I missed talking to you and I'm really happy to be back.
00:44:11.980before we leave i just wanted to talk briefly about fraternities and i wanted to share a little
00:44:28.400bit of my personal experience um i grew up in a in a house um where my parents um were kind of
00:44:36.280unhappy people and they had a drinking problem when i went off to college i was never going back
00:44:41.480home. And I'm not complaining. It just was what it was. But a fall quarter freshman year, I showed
00:44:48.280up at the doors of Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity at UCSB. And those guys took me in and they gave me
00:44:54.020a home. And I lived in that house for four years. And they were then and remain some of the finest
00:44:59.080human beings I've ever known. So people in college, they walk by fraternity houses and they hear the
00:45:04.320music on a Friday or Saturday night. But so many of the people that are talking about this Cornell
00:45:08.440L7 case have never been in a fraternity themselves, and they don't know what happens behind the
00:45:15.440parties, what happens on the other six nights out of the week, or really the other 29 nights
00:45:21.660out of the month when they're not having a party. And what fraternities do, it's an American
00:45:26.940tradition where it is men and women that live in a house together. And in my fraternity,
00:45:33.820it was straight men. It was gay men. It was, we had every race, virtually every race in the world0.93
00:45:40.200represented. And you put these young men together and they call each other brother. And what you do
00:45:46.620is you go through life together for those four years and you deal with breakups and you deal
00:45:51.140with the deaths of parents and you deal with really heavy life things and you support each
00:45:56.200other. And you also learn about what professors are best and what classes for your major and
00:46:02.940what programs are available. And it was in conversations with my fraternity brothers that
00:46:07.680made me decide to go to law school. And you take these young men and you teach them responsibility
00:46:12.580and you learn the history of the fraternity. And you learn things like honor and fidelity
00:46:18.900and mutual endeavor. And you talk a lot about helping other people. And fundamentally,
00:46:26.340these are charitable organizations. And as I just talked about with Mark,
00:46:31.400We raised money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation and for handicapped kids at Devereaux School.
00:46:36.000And that fundraiser we did with Omega Phi Psi, which is a black fraternity.
00:46:40.160And we got together, and there were black guys in my fraternity already.
00:46:42.940And we raised money together, working together for handicapped kids.
00:46:47.340And we kept the Goleta Valley Boys and Girls Club afloat.
00:46:50.800And then my fraternity started Greeks Against Rape, which was focused on preventing sexual assault on campus.
00:46:59.140and it worked it was it was a huge hit um and you know you're trying to measure a negative here
00:47:06.200but the idea that fraternities are this hotbed or mark use the word petri dish of rape and sexual0.98
00:47:13.340assault is bullshit and i will debate anybody anytime about the good that can come around0.98
00:47:19.740from fraternities and sororities and how they can help people and for me and i didn't drink either0.99
00:47:26.140I never touched a drop of alcohol the entire time. I didn't drink and my fraternity didn't care. And they saw potential in me that nobody else saw up to that point. And they funneled me into positions of responsibility that I was over my head in. I became vice president of my fraternity. And it was one of the best, most transformative experiences of my life.
00:47:48.920And so for all of those who watch the parties from the distance and think that's what fraternities are all about, that is, of course, when you throw a bunch of young men together in a house, there is beer and there is fun and there is that.
00:48:02.880But there's so much more behind it about helping people and helping each other, and they are truly forces for good.
00:48:11.220And I know this because I lived it, okay?
00:48:13.980So I was gone. I was on my trip. And I've heard a lot of people bashing fraternities and sororities. I think that Cornell shutting down some of the fraternities, I think that's wrong. And I think that people need to take a deep breath, take a step back from their emotions and ask themselves, like Jake Tapper said, well, I've got a daughter and I'd be mad if it was investigated like this.
00:48:36.220um uh i ask everybody to think about their best friend who is a man or their son or their uncle
00:48:44.960and whether or not you would want them um to go through a process where the mob decides their
00:48:51.100guilt or innocence where due process is thrown to the side and where people are treated fundamentally
00:48:56.460unfairly to appease the emotions of uh of a mob that doesn't know all the facts so um i know i'm
00:49:03.160going to get some heat for that. Uh, I'm okay with it. Um, uh, that's it. Thank you for letting me
00:49:09.420vent. Um, I missed this whole thing while I was gone and, um, yeah, thank you for watching our
00:49:16.620show and please, uh, watch us next week too. Maybe it's just a phase you're going through.
00:49:26.140You'll get over it. I can't help you with that. The next appointment is in six months.
00:49:30.520you're not alone finding mental health support shouldn't leave you feeling more lost
00:49:36.560at camh we know how frustrating it can be trying to access care we're working to build a future
00:49:42.480where the path to support is clear and every step forward feels like progress not another
00:49:47.600wrong turn visit camh.ca to help us forge a better path for mental health care