Julian Dorey Podcast - 😳 [VIDEO] - Bill Cosby's Lawyer Reveals The TRUTH | Brian McMonagle • #115

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

(***TIMESTAMPS in Description Below) ~ Brian McMonagle is one of the best Criminal Defense Attorneys in the United States. McMonagle is well known for representing Bill Cosby in his first trial (hung jury) and Meek Mill in his internationally-followed case for justice. His full client list over the years has included pro athletes, politicians, physicians, many *alleged* members of a certain Italian-American “organization,” movie and TV stars, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement officers, CEOs, and an American Cardinal. He is also a great guy. ***TIMESTAMPS*** 0:00 - Intro; Brian reflects on his legal career and moral questions all lawyers face about their work 22:26 - A story from Brian’s days as a Prosecutor; The Pendulum of Criminal Justice & The Justice System 44:20 - Defending the Innocent vs. Defending the guilty; Brian’s opinion on media attention he learned in a mob trial; Brian’s rate 58:50 - The Brandon Bostian Amtrak Case 1:11:51 - Debating a key social issue 1:24:20 - People Brian wouldn’t defend; Brian discusses a client found guilty of MURD3R; The struggle with winning cases for the guilty; An “Off Button?” 1:48:50 - The Bill Cosby Case 2:13:15 - Government witnesses and a story of when they go bad; Brian tells a story to make a moral point 2:30:00 - The Meek Mill Case & How Michael Rubin, Jay-Z, and Roc Nation facilitated the process 2:47:45 - The Key difference between the Cosby Case & The Meek Mill Case; Inside Scoops on the Cosby Case behind the scenes ~ YouTube EPISODES & CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0A-v_DL-h76F75xik8h03Q ~ Get $150 Off The Eight Sleep Pod Pro Mattress / Mattress Cover (USING CODE: “TRENDIFIER”): https://eight-sleep.ioym.net/trendifier PRIVADO VPN FOR $4.99/Month: https://privadovpn.com/trendifier/#a_aid=Julian Julian's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianddorey ~ Beat provided by: https://freebeats.io Music Produced by White Hot Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Listen, if you don't want to ask hard questions, we're not going to get anywhere. Right. That's the beauty of this. How do you represent a guy like Bill Cosby, then? Do you ask your clients if they're guilty? Yeah, I ask them to tell me the truth about what happened. How am I going to defend them if I don't know the truth? I've seen videos of clients that have committed crimes that I've had to defend.

I'll never forget, you know, anybody who knows me. You know, he's a tough guy and the guy of his word, quite frankly. And I saw him right after they took him into custody. Because of his celebrity status, they took him upstate and they put him into a wing with just the mentally ill patients for his protection. And when I first saw him, I didn't even recognize him when he came out of this cell. It was like a holding cell. It was like a thousand prison. And he looked at me and he said uh

the whole time he was in there you know sometimes the lawyer is educated by the client and uh he would say to me you know brian when we get through this and we're going to get through this there's a lot of guys in here need my help a lot of them when you operate at the level that those people operate failure is not an option losing is not an option. Losing is not an option. Rape is, I think, the greatest evidence of man's inhumanity to me. But remember this, jurors were being asked to make a decision about whether he did it. And that case was, at least the way we tried it, the time we tried it, I thought a very defensible case on the facts. You know, you want to kind of bring jurors to their best and make them realize that in a few short moments when the case is given to them,

they're all that stands between him and a conviction for a crime he didn't commit, is the argument. The jury of 12 people there, they know this is Bill Cosby in that room. They know Bill Cosby don't have a public defender. Like, you're a subtle guy, you're not like a flashy dresser, but they know that suit probably doesn't cost $2, and it's not from Joseph A. Bank. You get up there, though, and you look this jury in the eyes as Bill Cosby's attorney, and you said something to the effect of...

What's cooking, everybody? I am joined in the bunker today. Honored to be joined in the bunker today honored to be joined in the bunker today by mr brian mcmonigal and that intro right there said a lot obviously he repped cosby in the first trial not the second one he got the mistrial and then quit you'll hear about that today and he represented meek mill which i believe started around the same time like 2017 something like that and we know all about that case obviously because of what the city of Philadelphia did to him over many years but I really really appreciate Brian doing this I appreciate his candor so much he was so honest about the different moral questions you have doing a job like he does it and look I mean he's one of the best to ever do it but more importantly than that I have known this guy at least a little bit throughout my entire life. And he's as good a person as there is humble as could be just just a great guy through and through. And I'm very glad that someone with his moral compass is doing the job that he does, because I know most of us couldn't. So thank you to Brian for coming in. And I hope you guys enjoy. Two quick notes, by the way, in the second half of the episode, you will hear a one second skip that moves forward in the conversation. I was asking

Brian about an ongoing case. I didn't realize it. And so I was asking him about stuff for like two, three minutes and he was going, no, no, no, can't talk about this. So I just cut that part out. And early on in the podcast, first five to 10 minutes, you will hear me bleep out a name. Brian didn't catch the name I said. He asked me about it afterwards. It was another attorney. And when I told him who it was, he's like, oh, I would have pushed back on that a little bit. I know that guy.

So I bleep that out. I'll ask him about that in a future episode, and we'll see where it goes. Anyway, if you have not gotten your 8Sleep Pod Pro cover, what are you doing? The Pod Pro cover comes in queen or king sizes. It goes right on top of your current mattress, and it is wired directly into Eight Sleep's proprietary app that measures your sleep stages throughout the night and optimizes your sleep around you.

You're going to wake up feeling better than ever before. So hit that link in my description and use the code TRENDIFIRE at checkout. That's T-R-E-N-D-I-F-I-E-R, and you will get $150 off your own Eight Sleep Pod Pro covered today, and you will go sleep in six hours and feel like you slept eight. That's how good this thing is. Check it out. It supports the show. You're going to love it. That said, you know what it is. I'm Julian Dorey. This is Trying to Fire, and please welcome Brian McMonagle. Well, welcome to your second podcast ever. Thanks for having me, Julian. I'm honored to be in the bunker.

Of course. Thank you for being here. You have actually been discussed on this podcast a few times before. You took my name in vain a couple of times. Well, no, I was actually very, very nice because I've always admired you from afar. That's a high compliment coming from you. It's my pleasure. It's true. But anyway, I really, really appreciate you doing this because essentially I have been watching your career through the little teeny tidbits we get in the media, right? Like it's not much because you are not an attention guy at all, which is actually very rare for what you do. But I often think about the level of objectivity that you have to have to be a guy like you and represent people. Like, obviously, you've done some crazy cases. Bill

Cosby's one of them. Some big ones where the public opinion probably isn't on your side, and yet you have a job to do. You got to go in there and represent your client. Is this something that when you were a kid you ever imagined yourself doing or did this just kind of become something where you got into the law and one thing led to another and you ended up on the defense side of the table? Well, ironically, it started on the other side. I did envision myself being a career prosecutor. When I was in law school, I went to a seminar, and it was the local public defender and the local prosecutor. And I remember listening to the local county district attorney saying, you know, I don't represent people accused of crimes. I represent victims of crime. It struck

a chord with me. And I really thought that was going to be the way that I would not only go, but end. And I started as an assistant district attorney in the Philly DA's office, spent significant time in the rape and homicide units, and it was really only just a life choice economically that sent me to the dark side, if you will. And so I left the DA's office in 1990 and pretty much ever since then have been practicing criminal defense. built into the system where a great way to be able to get a reputation and then therefore economically do very well for yourself on the defense side is to start on the other side where you're trying to put a lot of the same people in prison now when you came out you had was it your own firm you started i actually went to a big firm i was doing some civil litigation for about a year

and then left uh to to work with a guy who had been set up as a criminal defense lawyer, a guy named Dan Alba, excellent lawyer. And I worked with him, and then I started my own firm shortly thereafter. Gotcha. So you didn't take that exact path. You went to a different part of law. You went to non-criminal stuff yeah out of the office i did uh great firm in philadelphia cozen and o'connor uh was doing a lot of traveling across the country you know we had young kids and it was it was a challenge quite frankly and i missed the courtroom you know with civil litigation you know they're they're the brightest and the best but they don't get into court as much as as we do in the criminal end and i was spoiled as an assistant district attorney. I was trying, you know, a couple murder cases a month when I was in the unit. And, you know, I loved it and lived for it, and I missed it. And so I thought, well, I've got to go back to the courtroom, and that was the easiest path to take.

But, you know, the conflict of interest, you know, I remember when I first started doing it, I said, well, I'll be good at this. All I have to do is put a knot in front of everything I say. And it's a little more complicated than that. There's a lot of restless nights. There's a lot of sleepless nights. If you have a conscience, you got to check it at the door. There is a greater good that we embrace, but let's not make any mistake about it. When you go in there, you go in there there to win and it is a win at all costs mentality if you're going to survive and uh you know quite often you know you're not sitting next to the innocent man there have been times that i have and they're the greatest challenges because if you think defending the guilty uh is is hard try defending the innocent yeah um so it's a it's

not a it's not a life i i would recommend to all. You pay a price for it. Sometimes it's in friendships. Sometimes it's in social circles. Sometimes it's in the dark moments that you're alone. But it is what I do, and I do take pride in the fact that I do it with lawyers in my firm that I admire, I respect. And I like to think we do it the right way if there is a right way. That's a really, really transparent way of putting it. So there's a lot on the bone here, and there's a lot I would love to talk with you today about. But maybe a good way to really get into it, because you just hinted a lot about the mentality

and how it changes from going from just sticking a knot in front of the word. I love that. That's great. But when you're in the prosecutor's office and you're trying cases, it is the same thing. You're playing to win, just like you said, on the defense side. And so your job is to represent the people who have elected the administration to uphold the law. Obviously, that's what it's always supposed to be but there is also a numbers game to it so as an example the guy up and his whole thing was that he was like 88 and 0 or something like that and that's what sells to be able to get him his next ticket in life and get him the big name and everything.

And that's great. But you're telling me 88 times he tried a case and 88 times he was sure they were guilty? I could see 77 for sure. Like a lot of times people are guilty when they're bringing it. But like I don't think we – I think we should be celebrating it if like a prosecutor is 86 and 7. And like the seven he's like you know what yeah i don't think that guy did it or maybe once in a while that won't happen but sometimes i'm sure you got to be thinking to yourself oh that guy didn't do it

well you know what's interesting you say that because um you just turn that mic a little bit like keep it straight yeah there you go good yep um. You like to think, and I like to think, that everybody I ever prosecuted was guilty. And I never had any questions about it. But you do find yourself, I got news for you, no matter what side of the table you're on, playing to win and winning at all costs. If you can't, or if you struggle with the idea that a person you're prosecuting might possibly be innocent, you've got to stop. You know, you've got to check yourself. And anybody who's 88-0 was walking in the winners for the record.

We used to have guys like that in the DA's office, quite frankly, that used to pad their stats. They'd take the winners and not try all the difficult cases. So I'd be real interested to see what cases he was trying at 88 and no but you know a lot of the the cases that are brought it's not a question of guilt or innocence um you know god decides that god only knows that in many cases it's it's is where's the evidence what amount of evidence do you believe is the level to put somebody on trial for the rest of their life? And that's where the hard decisions are made.

You know, you start second-guessing yourself on whether somebody could possibly be innocent. You'll never prosecute anybody. Flip side, you start prosecuting everybody who walks in the door. You know, you may be 88 and 0, but there'll be some innocent men, women, children, et cetera, who are going to be convicted of crimes you never, you know, committed. So it's no easy job. And, you know, a lot of people get on prosecutors. I don't run down that road. I was one. I married one. My best friend is one. It's a hell of a difficult job. You're representing victims of crime. You're the voice of the voiceless but you better you better be a minister of justice because well guys like me on the other side can get away with our shenanigans you represent the people it's a higher calling um than than the one i have quite

frankly now and i looked at it that way and i think most prosecutors do i i haven't i haven't really run into too many, you know, bad apples in the prosecutors that I've dealt with. Now again, I'm only in one part of the country. I don't know how people, you know, put their pants on across the country, but most of them are pretty good. Sometimes though, ego can ruin a good prosecutor, I will tell you. Yeah, that other thing you brought up about padding stats too, That's like I guess the lesser example because they are technically going after the cases that usually are home runs like this guy did it. But still, they're not going after things that actually could use justice that are harder for them to maybe win. But like you go in there, you argue the case, you believe in it, and you have great evidence to show that the other person did it.

I mean if you lose – I mean the oj trial happened that's like well that's sometimes it happens that's changed the world but you see what i'm saying like that one the prosecutors you could definitely they didn't do a great job in that case in particularly but like sometimes you have 12 people on there you don't know who they are you don't know how they woke up that day they may see something a different way and we shouldn't in my opinion we shouldn't be punishing prosecutors when they do lose unless it was something clear where it's like well they suck at their job i couldn't i couldn't agree more um yeah if you got a if you got a cause worth fighting you fight it um you know that's your job win lose or draw um i will tell you as a prosecutor, you do suffer though, the pain and I suffered it.

You live and die by those verdicts. Because if you really believe, particularly when you're in a context that I was in as a homicide prosecutor, that somebody took a human life, the idea of losing to you is unimaginable. Not so much because it's personal, I lost the case. It's because you're streeting somebody who did the unthinkable. So from that perspective, you've got different pressures, different thought processes than obviously we do on our side. On our side, we're worrying about obviously the innocent man. Do I have that innocent person next to me?

And if I don't do my best here, will I do my best when they do knock on my door? So the criminal justice system isn't perfect and you know we live in a society right now where people really demand perfection in everything yeah not just law so true and you know so you're going to hear well he didn't do his job she didn't do her job whatever that person did not do that person's job whether it be a prosecutor or a defense attorney, you better stop expecting perfection because last I checked, none of us are. It doesn't exist. I agree with you. And I think we do, you know, I sit here in an armchair. I try to remember that sometimes. Well, you look comfortable.

Right? I am comfortable, but I'm in an armchair. You know, I'm not in, I'm in the arena doing this, but I'm not in the arena of other things. So I'm sure I fail at it sometimes, but I try to be – like when I go to criticize, I got a lot of evidence on my side to do it. Yeah. Right? Because to me, these things are so nuanced and it's so refreshing to hear someone be so open about that. But I think about like the concept of time when it comes to what you do and again we're on the prosecutor side right now we'll get to defense yeah but like you're a prosecutor you're trying a case it's the worst one it's a homicide someone died right this is a person you're trying

you have a lot of evidence to prove they did it and they have to pay for that and they're not someone who is safe to walk among society however when you convict them i mean the word life someone who's 25 years old or 20 years old those are the worst when i see someone who's like 18 19 it was just a fuck up and then you know they they did it and they get sentenced to life i get it but it's also heavy as hell man i mean like you as a prosecutor you gotta be sitting in there like you obviously need to punish this guy but you're gonna go home that day yeah you know it's interesting you say that and i i when i was a prosecutor i i i was prosecuting murder cases very early i was lucky i moved quick but quick, but I was 26, 27 years old.

And, um, I didn't blink, um, never blinked life, but that's penalty cases. I mean, imagine putting, putting a needle in somebody's arm. Did you win some of those? I assume. Well, a lot of them never made it on appeal. Um, so nobody got executed, thank God, on my watch. But you get older and you start having kids and you start living life, really living life, you know. Some people do it at an early age. I didn't. And now I think about what you just said and I think about it a lot. And the idea of spending the rest of your moments on Earth in a cell is a horrific thought.

The idea of having somebody die by lethal injection is a horrific thought. responsibility of of doing those jobs may not be in in in the experienced um part of their lives um where they take all the things you're talking about into consideration um i'm not so sure i did if i'm telling you the truth i was in there i had a job to do this guy did it i was looking at one thing all the mess he left behind you know the the the parents the family members who had to wake up every morning with their life sentence which not having a loved one next to them yeah um that's a life sentence too and um uh but you're right um you know as you sit as you live a little bit and then you know you switch sides i switch sides now i'm defending guys and i'm looking at guys that, that are supposed trigger men or, or killed somebody. And I'm having conversations with them and they're, and they're being more

decent than most people I know to me are. And, uh, and, and you start to get a perspective. Somebody can make a mistake. Somebody could never have a chance. Somebody could never have had a shot. Somebody could have been raised by a wolf, you know? And so it's a tough place to spend your days. There is such a level of, in that kind of seat, being able to reflect and say exactly what needs to be said here in the sense that a lot of these prosecutors that we are seeing are just like you were they were 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 right i'm in my late 20s i get to talk to people all the time like of all different backgrounds so i probably

have a little bit higher on the curve like slightly than the average of like some understanding of things but i can't change my age i can't change where i've been and what i have yet to experience i can't i can't change the wisdom that comes with seeing things on earth maybe the second time around or third time around and so it is hard for me to a imagine being in that seat doing that at my age now like and having that heaviness on me and it's also hard for me to understand why that's the system that's the best system we've created because it's like we were saying earlier it's all the incentivization you come out of law school you get a prosecutor's job you have a good record you uphold the law boom now you're on the other side and now it's kind of like you know it's an internal game too everyone knows everyone

prosecutors know you you know them you can make a deal things like that behind the scenes and that's where it gets that's where it gets dirty and to me it's like we're kind of setting up the system where when we rely on people who are so young and inexperienced in life maybe they're great attorneys, like you were obviously a great attorney. You know, what is to say like you're a 26-year-old and you're sending a 20-year-old away for the rest of their life? How much can you really know about that? Yeah, it's an amazing perspective. And one that, you know, you're not thinking about when you're doing it. The whole system's set up kind of in that way, though, if you think about it.

We pay people hundreds of millions of dollars who are preeminent athletes, and we'll pay a starting prosecutor, what, $40,000? I mean, when I started it was $16,600. So that will tell you how old I am. But now what is it now, $40,000, $50,000. It's nothing. And they're charged with the awesome responsibility of being a minister of justice. And it's probably not the best way the system could be designed, but no one's going to take the time to redesign it.

And it's tough to redesign, quite frankly, because keeping people in law enforcement is a difficult thing when they've got other alternatives and other opportunities. And maybe we should really think, you know, across society, stop just talking about law for a second, but how we pay people, how we pay prosecutors, how we pay teachers, how we pay public defenders. I mean, you talk about doing God's work, public defenders, what they have to put up with day in, day out, you know, just taking whatever file comes across their desk and seeing the most difficult lives that our criminal justice system, you know, deals with. And you're on to something.

Yeah. You're on to something. to make sure that only the wise are in positions of decision-making in the criminal justice system, or at least have had a chance to gain wisdom. You get that a little bit. You don't just go to the DA's office and get to the homicide unit. You've got to try a bunch of trials. But trying a bunch of trials, you could try, heck, when I was in the DA's office, we could do 15, 20 in a year.

It's not giving you life lessons. It's not giving you wisdom. I tell a story all the time, and I remember her. She was the first murder case I ever had. Her name was Cheryl Casper. She was murdered? No, I prosecuted her. And she found out her husband was cheating on her and went over to the house where the husband was,

knocked on the door. She had a gun in husband was, knocked on the door. She had a gun in her hand. Girl answered the door. She said, where's my husband? The victim said, well, you know, forget him. They get into an argument in the doorway. She shoots her, and the husband comes running out of the bedroom, out into the street, gun.

She stands there, gets locked up, gets charged with murder. Never in trouble a day before in her life. I get the case. It's my first case. What's the charge? Murder. Murder one? Murder one.

And the lawyer that she had, I don't remember much. He wasn't a real experienced fella. And I said, listen, she's got no prior record. I'm going to give you way out here. Why don't we plead her to third degree murder? You take your shot with the judge in terms of how much time she does. And this guy, you know, kind of thought he was the cock of the walk or something. And he said, well, he said, no, no, no.

This is, you know, this is an involuntary manslaughter case. We're going to try this, the verdict. And I'm looking at him thinking, you know, I know I'm not the greatest thing since sliced bread but how am i losing this case and try the case convictor she gets convicted of first degree murder gets a life sentence no parole she you know nope there there is no parole in in i know it's different state yeah you're right pennsylvania life without parole. She literally convulses right there in a courtroom. She had a kind of history of health conditions.

And there she is in a convulsion. She's swallowing her tongue. I go down. She's bleeding. I'm trying to keep her from swallowing her tongue. And she's bleeding all over me. I'll never forget it. And I go back to my office, to the homicide unit,

and, you know, I look like I'm like, man, I was shook. I mean, I was shook. And I said, listen, I just convicted this woman of first-degree murder. She almost died in the courtroom. And my boss said, well, mark the file. You know? And so, you know you again what was that that was a lawyer probably not not thinking about maybe what he should have been thinking about could have resolved the case in a way and she's still in prison um to this day uh and how old was she uh i want to say she was in her late 30s it's's a guess. It's been a long time. It was 1987, 86. But I think about that subscribe, like the video. And as always would love to hear from you down in the comment

section below to everyone who has been sharing the show around with your friends. Thank you so much for doing that. It is the best possible thing we can do to grow this show and continue to get great guests like this. So thank you once again, to all of you who've been sharing around the episode each week, and thank you to all of you who are going to do it now. Through negotiations, through even sometimes when I think I can win, quite frankly. Now here's another one though. I love that you use this example in particular because you use one where you actually went to the guy with a deal. You looked at this and you said, and I'm putting words in your mouth so correct me if i'm wrong but you looked at this and you said okay there's a huge difference between what

happened here versus somebody who plans how to do a murder for seven straight days right so on the level of danger and most likely to do it again or like most likely to be a bad crime or whatever it's all bad obviously but like the worst of the worst yeah you're looking at it differently she who's not an attorney happens to hire someone who's a jerk off clearly and he says no we're gonna win it yeah okay so you offer something that could get you a win because it gives you and this is what i don't like but i understand why you're doing it like it can get you a win because you have the murder instead of involuntary right like that's more time it's a bigger headline all all that. But you pull it down two notches.

You go from one to three. She then, on the advice of what turns out to be a bad attorney, goes to trial and gets convicted. This is like what they call the trial punishment or whatever, where if you decide to go, then you're fucked. I don't know how to fix it. I think about this out loud, but I'm like, well, what do you do? Because you're fucked i don't know how to fix it i'm just taught like i think about this out loud but i'm like well what do you do because you're trying to well a perfect system would be one in which i

shouldn't say a perfect system but a better system would be one in which you didn't have mandatory sentencing um you know and some states do not and and we do and um you know there would be a perfect example where a judge could do justice. He could bring the victim's family up and say, listen, I want to give you justice, but I want to give justice to the case. This is not somebody who premeditated this murder. This is somebody who acted in the heat of passion.

This is somebody who wasn't rational at the time, and this is somebody who's never been in trouble before, so I'm going to give her a chance at life. I'm going to give her a chance to get her life back after she spends some time trying to think about the life she took mandatory sentencing takes that away right and it's not and it's obviously like we're not just talking about murder we're talking about a whole bunch of things there's people in in prison right now for life who have weed charges now that's fewer and far between but holy shit man don't get me started like the end i understand that the law and i'm saying this again like as not a lawyer and i know you guys like there's a way you guys think about this that i can't but like the law you can't just get like

picky and choosy with it right it's there because there's a set of standards and every time you do something where it's picky and choosy, it's precedent. So now what's the slippery slope with that? And I understand that. But also as time changes, things do change. And also as time changes and I get older, I realize how much time is. Someone gets sentenced to five years in jail. You're like, all right, buddy.

You'll be out in no time. You go get Dunkin' Donuts afterwards. That fucking guy is in jail for five years in jail you're like all right buddy you'll be out no time you go get dunkin donuts afterwards that fucking guy's in jail for five years yeah you know like that that's a lot like we look at this and we're like oh he made a deal he got five oh that's tough that's a long fucking time i don't i couldn't even talk to myself five years ago right like i don't even know what i was thinking think about if you could spend five years in your bathroom yeah that's literally what it is chewing your arm off yeah no there's your and if only everybody had your perspective my friend because they don't and and the system um the system obviously is designed in a way where people keep their jobs because the way the system is yes and perpetuate

this madness at times um yeah there's there's a lot wrong about the system. And obviously, politics so often get in the way of smart decision making, because no one wants to, you know, be in politics and run on a platform where they're going to be changing the outcomes of criminal cases and how long murderers stay in jail. And the next thing you know, they're looking at a commercial and they're no longer you know in public office anymore so you run into that pitfall how do you get the laws changed who's going to have the guts to change them and then you know you flip it then do you get so lenient that you have the wild wild west like like you know sadly we're seeing in some of our major cities today right so you know know, and the pendulum in the criminal justice system, whether it be with mandatory minimums, crimes of violence, the Me Too movement, any of it, it always swings. And when it swings, it always swings to one end.

It never swings in a rational way. And so the law obviously swings with it. And when it swings one way wide or another, injustice will occur. I'm going to correct your statement. You're 100% right, except for this. It's not just the law. It's everything. Yeah.

It's literally society can never be right here. I talk about it all the time. The law of reaction in physics, right? Every action gets a reaction. It's not called that, but you can tell I didn't law of reaction in physics right every action gets a react it's not called that but you can tell i didn't do too well yes but every action gets an equal but opposite reaction yeah so you can never live at that 50 there are a lot of people in this country even if you're just talking like with bullshit like politics there are a lot of people in this country who if they stayed away from just letting their emotional reactions then dictate what they

need to think moving forward they could step back and they could see well i think this but i think that too oh you know i think this but i think that over there as well huh maybe i'm not maybe there's more nuance to this yeah and so in the the law, you are also a victim of those swings as you're explaining it. So like right now, the emphasis is more on what you were just talking about with the cities. Like we're seeing, you know, there's people getting in fights with cops and shit and they're out the next night. You know, like there's some crazy stuff going on. You have to have, you have to disincentivize crime. I understand that completely.

But how about, how do I get that happy medium? How do I have a department of corrections where there's actually correcting going on? How do I have a department where you pay for crimes, but there's hope? You know, when you get out, you're not done. You know, you're not carrying a scarlet letter. You've paid your debt to society as the constitution set it up to be you don't you're not carrying a scarlet letter you you've paid your

debt to society as the constitution set it up to be and now you can go be a citizen and you can try to move on with your life and be an upstanding person yeah well not only not only is that good for the individual but it's it's the greater good i mean think about it how much recidivism is there it's massive yeah it's insane i forget the percent and so if you're if you're if you're if you're worried about recidivism give just like you say people the opportunity to to not only have a second chance but to learn something you know most of the people that are that are punished by the system and in the system are in the system because they they you know came into this world without great chances and great opportunities like I had, like you had, and aren't raised. You know, we say it's kids who are never raised who are having kids they will never raise.

And the next thing you know, they're being raised out on State Road, you know, in the criminal justice system. And to your point, can there be something done there in the penal system that can help? Guess what? Most difficult job in the world is working in a prison, quite frankly. And what are they? They're people who go in there every day. They are risking their lives quite often in very difficult circumstances. They're not built for that. They're not trained difficult circumstances. They're not built for

that. They're not trained for that. They're not engineered for that. They're in there to do a job. They do the job. But what's happening? Somebody's in there. They spend their time in there. They come out with really nothing other than a lost part of their life. And then when they re-enter, what are they really doing when they re-enter? Are they going back to the same neighborhood? Are they going back to the same problems? Are they going back to the same problems? Are they going back to the same modus operandi that brought them into the first place, there to first place? So it's bigger questions than you and I can answer and bigger questions that will get answered in our lifetime, I'm sure. And that's the problem with this.

I don't see – I've never seen viable solutions i see themes that can help but you have to you have to break something down completely from within which could risk the entire system breaking in half if you do that right so you you said somewhere in there five ten minutes ago where you talked about the politicians and the system and how it runs and this is regardless of party this is how it always is you when you were 26 27 there is a prosecutor yeah your name was in the paper when cases happen and that helped you and everything but at the end of the day you were a statistic you were somebody that in november on an election year was running in an ad unknowingly that you didn't choose to be in where some fucking candidate was saying and I was tough on crime in our office successfully prosecuted and we had x number of convictions and no losses and vote for me on Tuesday

yeah and you are unfortunately now in a position where if you're the guy who's standing in court you said this very early on when we were talking maybe before camera but if you're the guy who's standing in court you said this very early on when we were talking maybe before camera but if you're the guy who's standing in court and you realize as a prosecutor this motherfucker is innocent you are disincentivized from saying your honor i'd like to get rid of the case i don't think this guy did it yeah yeah let me let me let me say this though and i and it's it i think it's it's true um i i've always been a big fan of what I call career prosecutors, meaning somebody who's making a career of it. And you want a group of individuals who have – and you see this in the United States Attorney's Office, in the Department of Justice quite often. Folks that have been there for 20, 30 years, and a lot of them are some of the best trial lawyers you've ever seen. And they have not only talent, but wisdom and some discretion. You know, discretion is another big deal too, because you don't want to give too much discretion

to an individual line trial lawyer or prosecutor. Can you explain what you mean by that? Yeah, because for instance, my case that I started with, with Cheryl Casper, I never walked out of the district attorney's office homicide unit and said, you know what? Maybe today I'll just give somebody a break. I had a boss, an assistant chief and a chief, and they told me what offers I could or could not make within some limits. And so, you know, you can't give that discretion to 27-year-old Brian McMonagle, right? Because what the heck do I know? Which isn't the worst thing either but wouldn't have been where i was concerned but but you you could um you could give it to somebody who's who's

45 and 50 and sometimes i'll see that i'll see you know fantastic trial lawyers and the department of justice and they don't have the authority to negotiate and i'm like well why not you're the one that should be doing it you know right um're single-minded in anything in life and not, as you said a little while ago, looking at both sides of the equation long enough, or you have a thought that's an original thought maybe once a week if you're lucky. You know, if that could happen, then I think we'd all be a lot better off on both sides. I think our streets would be safer. I think our innocent people would be safer from injustice. I think the people that make a mistake and deserve a second chance,

and there's lots and lots and lots of them that nobody ever wants to talk about, would benefit from it. It just seems like there could be a better way. You know, right now in Philadelphia, you know, there's always such a – it's always so difficult to keep prosecutors, you know, and to keep them for long periods of time. How long did you do it again? I was only there for a little over five years. Keep that mic close.

I was only there for a little over five years. And, you know, so pretty quick, maybe six, something like that. But, you know, you don't have that. And when you don't have that, boy, it's a hot mess. You're not going to get expertise in the courtroom where you need it. You're not going to get the kind of people that have the kind of thought process that's necessary to really do justice. We're lucky that many of the lawyers that I go up against in Philadelphia are really smart, really talented, and pretty mature for their age.

But you can't buy wisdom. It's got to come. And it doesn't come early. It didn't come for me early. It's still coming. I'm still a work in progress, and I've been doing this for over 30 years. I'm sure there's something out there that i haven't seen there's got to be the internet's a big place but i don't know how many high-powered defense attorneys who came from that side would or have or have spoken the way you're speaking about this i really i just really appreciate it

because it's something i care a lot about and you're you are admitting that like yeah i was young and like you know we got a lot right but there's stuff that gives me sleepless nights about that yeah you know so you talk about the one case that was that's a wild story but was there was there a case a serious one doesn't have to be a murder but something serious where someone went away for a long time where while the trial was going on or even right after you thought to yourself this person didn't do it yeah no and and i don't know that i could have survived that um i was lucky i mean listen and back then you know i worked under ed rendell and ron castillo later um we had a pretty good vetting process um you know you weren't putting people on trial for for murder where you weren't pretty sure sure can be that that you had the right guy

and i don't ever have that memory um i do have a memory when i was in the rape unit of a couple of close cases um and they ended up being split verdicts where, you know, it, it, it was, there were, there was always questions and the juries always seemed to get it right. Um, you know, the worst thing in the world would be the idea of prosecuting somebody who was innocent. And, uh, and back then we did death penalties. Um, and, and think about it, you know. You get that one wrong and there's no tomorrow. Once the appeals are over, it's game, set, match. So I was lucky, I think. I mean, I haven't heard of any cases that I had that somebody found out that somebody was innocent.

And if I did, I'm not sure I'd recover from it. Think about this, though. That was 85, 86, 87, 88. You're 35 years older now. There are people that you put in. Still there. Still there. Oh, yeah.

Never getting out. Oh, yeah, sure. Think about how much could have changed in that time. Yeah. Not saying it did. Yeah, no, I do. And, you know, it's funny. I'm working on a case now involving – this person will be nameless.

But for a pardon, and, you know, in Pennsylvania, we have the governors able to, you know, do the commutations. Oh, so it's a state issue. Yeah, and the person had a pretty significant record. And since the release has gone on to be one of the, quite frankly, great artists anywhere. I mean, anywhere. And I'm not talking about music. I'm not talking about music. Oh, okay. That's where I was going.

No. And you look at it from the perspective. I see what this person has done with their life since and is doing with their life now and the magnificence of it. And it is the exception and not the rule. And, you know, you see so many nice stories that are really, you know, you want to tell them over and over and over again because it's what can happen when the system works. And, you know, unfortunately, there's too many countless other stories that are on the other side of it. But we need to do something to allow people to change the way the book ends for them. And to give them the chance to change the way the book ends.

And yet um you know it's it's complicated it just isn't and you know every time somebody walks into a school with an ar-15 and and slaughters innocent children or drives a plane into the world trade center you know um it it it removes the possibility of you know, kind of that kind of discretion because we will always look to those cases and say, well, you know what? The system has to be in a place because of that. Otherwise, what else are we going to do? And so I'll sit there and I'll go, well, that just changed things forever. That'll just change things forever.

And, you know, listen, if any of this was easy, somebody a heck of a lot smarter than me would have thought of a way to fix it. And it's not easy. You know, prisons exist in this country for a reason. They always have all over the world. And you would have thought, though, by now we would have gotten a lot smarter in the way that we deal with folks that go into prison. Because selfishly, we should. Selfishly. What do you mean selfishly? I want to be able to walk down the street of Philadelphia not worried about somebody who'd been in prison for three years coming up to me and putting a gun in my head.

Selfishly, you want people rehabilitated. Forget what's good for them. Selfishly, for your kids, for their safety, for the good of the order, for the good of the many. And so I don't think people look at it that way. They're always thinking, well, he doesn't deserve it. She doesn't deserve it. They don't deserve it. Forget them for a minute.

What about you? What about your neighbor? Don't you want somebody to get the chance to come out, to do it right, get a job, become productive? We can't figure that out. Some people obviously never figure it out who go to prison um but every now and then again i'm working on this case now and i'm gonna i'm gonna kill myself getting this guy a commutation because he's earned it and i think you need to earn things in life and people should have to earn them but if they earn them there ought to be there ought to be a reward um so we'll see

that's another thing too like how we look at crime in society versus like what type of crime it is to use your story what was her name again so cheryl casper that was a crime of passion in the moment wasn't premeditated she did kill somebody yeah now they took some very poor actions to put her in that situation, but she still did it. Oh, yeah. Right? Oh, sure. So it's a bad crime.

She took a life. Yeah. However, you know what's worse than that? Like in our book, and in my book, too. Somebody raped somebody. Yeah. Right? They didn't kill him, but they killed a part of him.

And it's like, you know, you have daughters. You can imagine what you'd want to do in that type of situation. I used to actually say, I've said it time and time again. I used to say it when I was in the rape unit, DA's office. Rape is, I think, the greatest evidence of man's inhumanity to man. Plain and simple. It can be worse in many instances than murder because, sadly, the murder victim is gone. The rape victim can lead a life life sentence so you're not wrong so how do you how do you represent a guy like bill

cosby then knowing that well you know we forget bill cosby how do i represent anybody charged with rape or anybody charged with murder um i have to believe that the system needs to work. And so the only thing worse than a rapist is the person who's falsely accused of rape. So who defends that person? Who's there for that person? So, you know, make it Bill Cosby, make it anybody you want. If I don't do what I do, then you could be that guy. You could be that college student who I recently represented who law enforcement searched his dorm because there was an accusation of rape at a party. And horrible story. Horrible story. They're getting ready to charge this kid with rape.

Excellent student. Good kid. Accusation was that he took somebody out onto a balcony and raped them okay and law enforcement reaches out to me said you want to bring him in for an interview we're going to charge this kid and I said well hell no so you know I don't let my clients be interviewed you know huh hell no maybe you didn't google me arrogant stupid way to think right and um detective says well um i really think you ought to bring him in because we got something for you and lo and behold the balcony was overlooking a parking lot in this complex where the alleged rape took place.

And, you know, they're breaking into cars, so they stuck the video camera up, and it took the entire incident into play. And we had a video of it. And exactly what my client said happened happened, which was a consensual sexual encounter. I won't get into the nitty-gritty details, but you know what I'm saying. Video saved him. And I swear to you, and I know this to be a fact, and the detective told it to me, who was a great guy. He said, you know, but for this video, he's going to prison. An accusation from a young person that he did it, who was probably too drunk to remember what the heck he or she did.

And how is it that I can do what I do? Let me tell you what, for anybody who's ever been accused of a crime, somebody like me ought to be there, just in case somebody gets it wrong. The way that you put it with fighting for the guy who's innocent and being more concerned about that, I do agree with that. I am more bothered. Now, the other side is that— I know you want to talk about Cosby, so I'm happy to talk about it. We'll get there.

We'll get there for sure. We'll talk about that. But I also want to go where you go to. I don't force things. No, I know. But like the idea that someone did something bad and got away with it is awful. When you let that happen on a mass scale, you get some of these problems in cities that we have. Yes, you do. So no one wants that. I don't want that. And this is me where someone can call me out and use my words against me and say well you'll want it both ways julian and that's not possible however i do i would lose more sleep i'd lose

sleep over both but if i were in your position and i defended i had two cases one guy the guy got found not guilty and he did it and i know he did it and then the other case the guy got found guilty and he's innocent and And I know he's innocent. I'd lose sleep over both. Trust me. But I'd lose more sleep over the fact that a man is sitting in a six by eight cell for the rest of his life for something he didn't do. That is my personal, like in my life, that is my phobia. The idea that I could ever be in a cell for something I didn't do.

And I could, you know, you know how you feel when the truth's on your side. You could be screaming it to the world. Like, guys something I didn't do. And I could, you know, you know how you feel when the truth's on your side, you can be screaming it to the world. Like guys, I didn't do this. And no one believes you. And they say, you fucking did it. And they put me in there. Like that would be heavier to me. So I, I, I admire the fact that that seems to be like, and I'm putting words in your mouth here, but like, you're thinking of it as, all right, I do five cases. I get a few not guilties, but if one of them actually was not guilty, then it was worth it. Well, all right, I do five cases, I get a few not guilty's, but if one of them actually was not guilty, then it was worth it. Well, you know, and the reality of it is probably not even that. I mean, you know, it may be a hundred to one. I don't know what the numbers are in my career, how many people I've defended and whether or not, you know, somebody might or might not have been

innocent. It's the idea that there have to be adversarial roles for the system to work because you need to be there to protect the innocent. You need to be there to protect people who are charged with crimes, whether they did it or not, so that the system can work. Otherwise, it's a train wreck. What are you going to do? You're going to have a prosecutor in there? It's like a grand jury. You know, you're going to have a prosecutor in there who could indict anybody for anything. Test the facts.

Who's going to test them? Who's going to challenge them? Who's going to put it up to the light? If the system works perfectly, then guilty should never go free, right? You've got a prosecutor there. I got news for you. When I was a prosecutor, you'd have to be one hell of a lucky guilty guy to have gone free while i was a prosecutor so the system should work you know just because i'm there doesn't mean

some guy's going home who did it i mean no matter what my website says we lose cases so i mean think about it i mean for the system to work there has to be an adversarial system i get i get it i've got friends i've got loved ones who like how can you do what you do yeah how do you sleep at night guess what ain't easy but um make no mistake about it i can't tell you how many people particularly you know in in my everyday life um who thought that way whose kids I've defended, who give me the call, oh my God, I'm under suspicion for something. You know, if I was a catty kind of guy, I'd say, well, how come I didn't get invited to your party? But, you know, listen, you know, there are certainly more noble ways to make a living than the way I make mine, I suspect, but not when it comes to defending an innocent person. There may not be.

No, I think the way you do it, as I said at the outset, I think, or maybe before camera, but you do it in the classiest way possible. You are someone who legitimately avoids the cameras. They only get you when you're walking out of the courtroom and like there's 20 well you know what that wasn't always true i gotta tell you julian it's nice you to say that and and you know i i there was a guy i tried a case with a hundred years ago it was a big mob case this was the martinez case yeah so you know everything so um and you know i just started doing criminal defense work and i was trying to make a name for myself and just about every day somebody from i think it was fox news or somebody would have had a camera outside the courthouse i'd i'd be the first one down there and um they'd be sticking a mic in my face and a federal court there's rules against that you're not supposed

to be commenting on criminal cases while they're being tried which a lot of guys breaking that and i was let me tell you daily and the prosecutor in the case or strike force guys they're really good guys and uh they called a sidebar and they said uh judge listen we really have all the respect in the world for mr mcmoneagle but he's having a press conference every day downstairs and the judge who was a great guy um and he said brian is that true went yeah judge i said basically every day he left he goes oh you know you're not supposed to be doing that is that going to end now i went yeah it's going to end now so i got back to counsel table and one of the lawyers in the case it's boy i tell you talk about wisdom a guy named harvey weisbart uh and harvey would go on to become a judge uh later but he'd been traveling, he'd been trying cases forever.

And he said, you know, Brian, I'll never forget, he said, Brian, he says, you know, just to let you know about publicity and stuff, he says, a hundred years from now, nobody's going to know you were ever alive whose last name isn't McMonagle. It was like a silver bullet like just do your job you know and what i've since learned since then is more often than not i do

my client a disservice by being out there um you know you think you're you're accomplishing something in the whirlwind and cosby is a perfect example where you're going to get out in front of the story and you're going to tell the narrative the way your clients tell it. And you walk out there and you say something stupid, and I've said some horrifically stupid things over the years. And I can tell you that I've learned kind of the hard way. I do pick my spots. I do think there's a time for it, perhaps. If I feel like someone's been victimized, and the Meek Mill case was a classic example of that,

where we really had to drive a narrative so we'd get some support across the state. But for the most part, I think you do yourself a disservice. And more importantly, it's ego. And, you know, when you're driven by ego, I've learned you're going to fail. You know, maybe not right away, but it's going to catch up with you. And yet, I appreciate you saying that I'm doing a lot better job of it now. Yeah, because that was, you're not saying this, that was like 25, 28 years ago. And I guess that's why, because there's no videos available.

Like you're not really, there are not a lot of videos of you online. There's not a lot of news reports. Like whenever I used to see it, even growing up, and I'd see like, you know, you walking out of the court on 6 ABC or something, they never got a word from you. Well, you know, there's a couple of things too. One is the best work I've ever done have been in cases that no one's ever heard about. For clients who really didn't want the story of their exoneration or the story of their acquittal or the story of their wrongful prosecution, or really the story of their mistake being told in the media they gotta go back to their lives their homes so what are you doing you're up there for you you're not up there for them they don't want you out there um and so yeah

in high profile cases you may have to do it you can't run from it but i i think most of the time you're really doing it for you and and that's just pure ego and and and quite frankly counterproductive um but i'm sure i'll i'll make that mistake again a time or two before somebody taps me on the shoulder and says you're thrilled. Well, I mean, what do you – because I don't know if you want to say this out loud. Yeah. Your rate's pretty high. Yeah. Yeah, you've been around the block.

So I'm always looking at some of these cases where it can be obvious, like a Cosby one, that guy, he's not missing any meals, so it's no problem paying you. But like, then I'll see you take other cases where I'm like, well, that dude is probably not wealthy. So are you doing some of this stuff pro bono? Sometimes we get involved in cases because people have asked us to, that means something to us. And I guess maybe that's just the easiest way to put it. There'll be colleagues, sometimes former law enforcement officers, sometimes former lawyers, lawyers, family members, friends, where, yeah, we'll bite the bullet if that's what you want to call it. Sure. And get involved in cases that have some meaning that are not going to be a financial reward for us.

I used to do a lot more of that than I do anymore, only because of energy and also because I figured something out. You know, I should have figured out a long time ago that, you know, you really want to be taking less cases because you do better work than going back to back to back to back to back. And you're going to drop balls. You're going to make mistakes. But we try to be fair. I mean, quite frankly, there's a lot of other lawyers probably charged a little bit more than me. But no, our rate is high and probably not high enough

for some of the guys I work with. They think I should be charging more. That doesn't surprise me. Yeah. But, yeah. And you know what? It all works out in the end. You know, I think.

And I think in doing cases sometimes that there is no financial reward for. I'm a big believer in karma. Like crazy. My wife would tell you. I mean, big believer in karma. So it goes around wife would tell you. I mean, big believer in karma. So it goes around, comes around. You know, you do a solid somewhere. I figure it may not come back to me, but maybe it'll come back to one of my kids in some wind of life.

Wow. So why not just do things that way? Now, again, you know, there's always a selfishness involved in this profession. We're in it to make money. Hell, if I wasn't in it to make money, I'd still be in the DA's office. Right. No, and that's the reality in life. People are going to act.

They're going to act in the interest of ambition and the interest of them and their family and things like that. And I'm not going to villainize that at all. I don't want to be sitting here worth $8,500, you know, years something tells me you're not going to well we're working on it but you know i couldn't afford you right now put it that way you'd rip through me in about an hour but anyway like i do often joke that you're always representing guilty guys and it's hilarious to me but you did just have one where i mean this one was bad the The Amtrak conductor? I mean, this guy was so clear to me, looking at it through the media and what happened, that he made a human error in 2015, and you can explain the full case in a second. But this was the state simply trying to get a W and simply trying to say, oh, society needs a fall guy, so we need the fall guy, this is the fall guy guy and we're going to try him in court and they dragged it out for seven years of his life and i would imagine this guy's not a wealthy dude who probably couldn't afford your rate for all the work you had to do for him but you went in there

and i think the jury deliberated for like an hour or something it was quick it was quick um you talk about um you know one of the worst experiences and best experiences in one case um this was a young man who was um by everybody's description one of the top engineers they had at amtrak and um the train by the way for people listening yeah the amtrak train here in philadelphia that ran on 30th street and um heading to new york and uh that you're just talking Mike, a little bit? That particular night, they left 30th Street, and whoever they were, criminals on the tracks, were stoning passenger trains that were coming up and down the Northeast Corridor. And they had struck a SEPTA train and disabled it. And when Brandon, Brandon Boston was my client, he was coming out of 30th Street. He was getting all this chatter that the SEPTA train had been hit by projectiles, which didn't turn out to be the case. It was actually a stoning.

And that the SEPTA engineer was disabled. He actually was struck by glass in his eyes. So all this chatter. He passes the Sa train and then by everybody's account including the international transportation safety board that investigated it for two years um he lost situational awareness there was a curve that he thought he had already hit that um he hadn't hit yet and at that curve you had to come down from 110, which is where they can get to, to 50, and just missed the curve at night. And the district attorney's office investigated the case, found there to be no criminal liability, that it was obviously a mistake.

This is 2015? 2015. 2015. And then inexplicably, the lawyers that represented the victims of the crash brought a criminal complaint in the Philadelphia courts. And the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office said, we've already looked at this. We're not taking it. They shipped it to the Attorney General's office, and over a weekend, they charged him with seven counts of involuntary manslaughter and hundreds and hundreds of counts of recklessly endangering another person. Case got dismissed once. Case got dismissed twice by judges. An appeal was taken and went to the Superior Court. And then seven years later, however long it was, he actually is forced to go on trial for charges that could have sent him away for, you know, hundreds of years. And he was acquitted in an hour. And it was that. It was, you know, when something horrible, it was a horrible, horrible accident. It was just terrible, the lives that were lost and the people that were injured.

But when something like that happens, you know, everybody wants to curse the heavens. And they want to look for somebody to blame. And one of the things, and we spoke to some of the jurors that resonated with them was, I said, you know, think about it from the, from the context of life and the difficult decisions that people make. And, and we, we use, I use the example of, of, you know, the, the operating room, you know, great great doctors good doctors under the gun making a decision making a mistake malpractice it's a mistake um are we gonna start locking them up you know and and that i think really resonated with the jury that good people can make mistakes

and don't have criminal culpability or liability but you talk about like why do i do what i do i've never felt better about being a lawyer in my life than being able to have a beer with him and his family after that and his family these remarkable people from way out in the midwest and they spent their life savings defending him on that case people People who'd worked their whole lives. So there's goodness. It's not just me every now and then representing somebody that deserves to be buried under the prison. There's a lot of good stories, and that's probably the best one recently that uh that i've had and one that i'll uh cherish always and that's why you do what you do right there you can't say

you can't say it better than that it is it's such a you know and it's also and this is the lesser situation because this is someone's life in the balance and there's other people who died and like that's over like their loved ones can't get them back but you also have a money thing into balance there too not just for the payments that have to go to you to defend this fucking guy for seven years but what about all the taxpayer money that goes towards that yeah i mean how many that must have been like two or three different da's offices at the end of the day that ended up like filing through where they turned it down turned it down turned it down then eventually this one has to try it yeah like that's you know as as somebody who's paying taxes into the state i'm not in pennsylvania but if i were like

that's where my money's going this guy who's not gonna hurt a fly made a mistake yeah yeah i mean and we see a lot of that i'm seeing it now with a lot of the law enforcement officers that i'm defending in philadelphia because know, ever since the, that horrible murder in Minnesota, you know, the spotlights changed and the pendulum swung. And now we're, you know, I just see these cases that are being brought. And I think to myself, like Rome is burning. What are we doing? We're taking our eye off the ball. Again, it's that swinging of the pendulum it's it's like you say people not taking a step back and looking you know it's the forest from the trees no one wants to kind of take the view from above and look down and say wait a second this is what i should be

focusing on and so that's a classic example of it a rare example of it i mean there's not many of them but when they happen it really crystallizes the problem yeah and and that's like the whole police thing i don't know that i've ever seen more attention go to one occupation across the board than especially after the George Floyd one. Like, it got down to every little thing they do. And don't get me wrong. Like, whatever the percentage is, if it's 10% of cops or it really shouldn't be cops and they're not good, there are still many of them that are good. And, like, I hold them to a higher standard because they're law enforcement, right? Like, you know, they're there to protect us and serve but at the same time when you can't empower them to do anything you know i feel for some of these guys

who now get blamed when they don't pull their gun out because they're afraid to do something wrong and i'm not by the way i'm not talking about the uvalde shooting in that one that's totally different that was fucked up but you see some of these other situations where cops get called and they're like i don't know what you want me to do like i'm not going to jail they determine like the level that it's at it's like okay well this one isn't a murder i'm not going to jail over this so figure it out for yourself towards the never now because because of exactly what you say and and i say to people all the time because you know people get mad well you guys defend the police you defend them you're just defending the police officers i'm like wait a second last i checked are they are they not

citizens of this country first of all are they not entitled to a defense and more importantly did you ever risk your life for a stranger i mean did you i i ask rhetorically not you but i mean like i love these people that this one you know that all the police are bad. Really? So when you woke up this morning, did you go out and realize that you probably might not be coming home tonight because you've got to go into some demilitarized zone and police? You know, 3 o'clock in the morning when there's a crime, I don't go out there and check it out. I don't go out there and break into a house and have to go in and worry about automatic reference weapons or ar-15s being on the other side of the door so take a deep breath you know take a deep breath bad cops are bad cops and when they're bad cops they'll get prosecuted but but to to prevent police officers from doing their jobs to disparage what they do and to make it almost impossible for them to do what they do well you

talk about the greater good i mean just use your head be selfish a little bit do what's good for society you know and and the other thing is as i you brought up you know what happened down down south recently texas horrible um go back to it these aren't navy seals right no these aren't these are people that that we we pay we pay them no money we get people that aren't trained yes and that's true and and and and then we're shocked i mean listen i i say to myself and i said it at home i went in there with a water pistol right yeah i'd like to think, but again, I never had to leave my house and defend anybody. And there's the classic example where you look at the most horrific situation

where police officers did not do what we expect of them, which is to risk their life. But say it all, like when you're saying that, when you're saying that that was a mistake, and it was, when you're saying that, my God, could they have saved a kid or two? sure as hell could have yes i believe that but say it all say that's what they do every day so when they do what they do every day you put it in perspective because i don't you know the guy down the street doesn't the politician doesn't the defense lawyer

doesn't you know so i just i just want you know it's like every other thing in life you know i always try to step back and say all right well i get it but you try it yeah and and it's also that's with anything and i try anything i try to be careful anything i don't mean you because i i know how you feel about it i mean listen if you don't want to ask hard questions we're not going to get anywhere right that's the beauty of this you know what you're doing you're putting ideas into the into the marketplace for people to discuss because somebody better start discussing them and and i love that and and that's what this country's kind of built around if you really think about it um but i find so many people unlike you who, who are one-dimensional. Yes.

All wrong here, all right there, all wrong here. And some of them are friends of mine. And hell, maybe I've done it a time or two, but it's one of the things I've tried to pass on to my kids. Like, sit back and look. There's not always just one right answer. And sometimes there aren't any. No. And there can be

there can be cases that are not can be there are cases that are i don't know what the word i'm looking for is but they're totally they they're an outlier there's something that's exactly different right now like the george floyd thing unfortunately that was getting to a point where that was not an outlier whereas you know maybe you just ran into a bad police department in Uvalde in this case. Maybe a lot of them would have gone in, you know, and the thing I do try to be careful with, and I fail sometimes, so it is what it is. But the whole thing of if I were blank then i would blank you don't know as you said you don't know for sure now are there a few that i've thought about like literally like sitting in my car thinking about for like eight nine years of my life on and off yes do i feel really good about i don't need to get in

what those are but do i feel really good about those yeah but could i be a thousand percent no they're still 99 point something yeah you know what i mean like you don't know how you're gonna lock up i i listened to one the other day there was i forget who it was but it was a navy seal in an interview talking about a fellow navy seal a guy who had made it through buds out in coronado who was on one seal team two three six something like that and they're on a mission and the guy locked up and he's and they're all like what the fuck are you doing and he turns them he goes i got a wife and kids yeah i can't i can't do this now it's fucked up that it got there but like that's the best of the best and there was still someone in

there who made it through everything and like when push came to shove in a tough situation, couldn't do it. So like you're never, you said this was something else, but you are never going to get perfection. And I do agree. You're never going to get it. And, you know, listen, you keep striving for it and you keep hoping for it and good things, you know, tend to happen. But we just, and again, we're spending all our time with that particular incident talking about that it's on the news every night yes why aren't we talking about how some idiot gets a hold of an ar-15 rifle so i mean i you know i i it's we we always seem to end with the news piece

that's gonna drive i don't know, the narrative a little bit and move the needle a little bit. And we sometimes forget, you know, the reason that the police officers had to get there that day and who it was that assassinated all those innocent children and teachers that day. So I don't know why I'm not talking about that more. I guess a lot of people are, and we ought to be talking about it more because, again, selfish. Be selfish. Be selfish. You know, I hear all these people, well, I have friends that are hunters.

I believe in the right to bear arms. What do you need an AR-15 for? So a police officer can blink? So you can kill more people? I mean, so, again again why isn't anybody just being you know let me think about this a little bit more let me really think about could i sacrifice a little bit of my own just a little bit of my own freedom so that maybe that doesn't happen again can i you know we we drive 55 miles an hour i got a a nice car. I can hit 100 anytime I want.

I want to hit 100. I'm not allowed. I hit 100, I got to pay a price. So let's just kind of step back. We'll spend all day talking about whether the police officers blink. Well, how about not putting them in that position and giving them a fighter's chance and not not letting somebody get access to an ar-15 i'm done with that by the way i won't talk about that anymore you're done with what the the assault rifle thing it just it's one of my it's one of my you know my pet peeves well let's let's lean right into it actually because you're

getting at something and this is one of those impossible lines and i struggle with it all the time but you are getting at a prime slippery slope so i want to give you an example that would probably explain this the best because i won't do a good job if i try to put this in words but jim diorio who you know he was on a podcast with me six seven months ago and i actually never knew this but it turns out he was one of the FBI agents involved with the San Bernardino shooter in, I think it was 2015, which was a whole thing for people that don't remember. There was a terrorist who was allegedly ISIS-inspired who killed a bunch of people in San Bernardino, California, and the FBI recovered his cell phone. Now, to get into his cell phone, they they needed the codes and no one had the codes and tim cook at apple said to them he goes i want to give them to you i hate what this guy did i think it was like in his backyard too like

i want to catch this guy i want to catch anyone who's associated with him but if i give you that code i am setting a precedent where i give up the privacy of someone in this case a horrible person the worst of the worst but i give that up and now you're going to come at me with something less after this and you're going to say well you gave us up the last one give up this guy's almost as bad give up that one too and eventually i'm going to be giving up everything on my users now this might have been some public posturing to make apple look holier than now because as i like to say they're a dwarf among midgets when it comes to like privacy right all these companies don't give a fuck about your privacy they don't but apple's apple's at least like well look at us we did it once you know what i mean so like we can reach the cereal box that you can't yeah but nonetheless i know what i know publicly and this was the stance he took on that and it was tough because

like of course i want to make sure there's no other terrorists in there but jim diorio's sitting here saying i want him to give me that fucking iphone andy bustamante the cia agent who was in here who i told you about he wasn't involved with that case that fucking guy won't buy apple products though because of that yeah and i understand it because these guys are patriots and the way i put it to jim is i said jim if i give you that power jim diorio and i'll replace it now brian mcmonigal if i give you that power do i feel really comfortable that you're going to do the right thing moving forward even if there's a couple human elements that like you slip on something here and there do i feel like you're going to uphold the constitution and not use that power for bad yeah i i feel really in

fact i don't have any hesitation on that and do i also think that probably statistically nine out of ten people who i put in that room with you who work for agency x are probably good people who want to do the right thing yeah i do think do think that. You know what the problem is, though? The 10th. The 10th person's a bad guy. And it could be, you know, the 100th out of 100, right? Whatever it is. When I give that power to you,

I'm not giving it to Brian McMonacle. I'm not giving it to Jim DiIorio. I am giving it to fucking everyone who comes after them. So when you talk about AR-15s, dude, I couldn't agree with you more. I don't know why the fuck someone needs that however i know how slippery slopes work and someone who's not

a good person like you i think will take it much farther than that yeah i hear you i hear you i uh i just it just seems like the 10th man's always getting a hold of the ar-15 you know and and and and that and and you know i always think that society has to adjust to its problems you know i mean the framers of our constitution didn't envision some of the things we live with today on any number of levels and it both sides of it conservative liberal either way and so when somebody throws in my face the well the the bill of rights of constitution come on it's 2022 we got big problems we got to deal with them let's be a grown-up in the room you know you're right you can you can you know abridge freedoms and it's the beginning

of an end um something tells me this country's smart enough, democratic enough to deal with it. And I just, you know, at some point, enough is enough. I've just, we've seen enough of it to know. And we're seeing enough of it to know that we got to fix it somehow. And I don't think the fix is in the mental health system, because that's a bridge too far. So there's an easier. Why? Because we live in a democratic society and we have problems now. We have problems now where there are mentally ill people that we want to commit and need to be committed.

We can't commit under our laws, can't involuntarily commit people. So why? Because it's against our constitution it's against the laws we've created so how are we going to fix the the the the penny the penniless um mental health system really in our country we're going to fix that but we and we'll spend money toward that, but we won't take away somebody's ability to get an AR-15. To me, when they start making these arguments, I always come back to common sense. And common sense tells me there's an easy way to deal with some of these problems. It's not the way that the far right or the far left ever wants. It's the way that people and i would

deal with you like you and i would deal with it like like somebody with half a brain would deal with so you know what i don't want anybody taking anybody's right to bear an arm i don't i really think it's horrible that that we would we would ask of that we're asking now we're asking if it saves one kid's life i'm asking now go take that shotgun out there and knock yourself out. You got the 38 in the house. You got, you know, any ability you want to have weapons. We're going to give police officers a chance. You know, most of the, many of the people that are against, you know, removing some of these assault rifles are very conservative minded.

They love police officers. You love police officers? Take them off the street give them a chance it does come down to the whole like you give up something then how much and we have crowds that are like i'm not gonna give up a single thing and then we got crowds who are like take it all away where you make the point about the constitution though is i think where we need to live you said something really really deep there that i'm not sure if you know what you said so if i interpreted this wrong correct me but you were talking about how it's too you know this was made a long time ago and so we have to have things do change we have to have some room for change i agree i think that the crowd who says rip up the constitution is

insane i think it's the greatest legal document ever written as do i i also recognize it was written in 17 83 89 like all that time right so yeah they they didn't have ar-15s back then they didn't have these issues we do have to be able to change it otherwise we would still consider black people three three-fifths of a person. There you go. Right? So where do we draw the line here? And how do we do it? What I don't want to lose when we're having this conversation, though, on a given issue like weapons that are AR-15s or other automatic weapons, things like that.

It's like AR-15 is semi-automatic. But still, either way, death machines. When we're having that conversation i don't also want to not have the conversations about other things though too like why are a lot of these school shooters 17 18 19 years old sometimes they're a little younger too who have access because they're able to buy the gun at 18 when even though i disagree with it we have a drinking well it's 21 in this country who secondly also are usually hop the fuck up on SSRIs and crazy pills that doctors are giving out like candy. You know, these are conversations that people don't want to have.

But, okay, let's have the gun conversation. Cool. Well, let's have the other one too. Because how do we – we have a profile. We have a profile of a shooter. How do we stop this type of person from existing? Oh, yeah. We have a profile. We have a profile of a shooter. How do we stop this type of person from existing? Oh, yeah. And a better way to skin the cat, for sure, but no one's figured out a way to do it.

You know, so much of this stuff is, to me, always centers around, you know, I hear all this all the time, the expression, know um the the the community has to raise the child i've never been a big believer in that nonsense um you need parents to raise children yes and and neighbors and friends to be aware and i see so often in those kinds of cases the the the cries for help whether it be on social media, the medicating of these kids, the access to drugs, as you say, and the like, and everybody's asleep at the wheel. And, you know, that's why I was talking about the mental health system. Yeah, we could certainly blame the mental health system. But what is the mental health system? It's a system within our country. Our people live here.

We make the laws. We create the laws. We vote. We have access to the ability to make changes. Nobody wants to do it. It's all bureaucratic. But if somebody's at home paying attention, it shouldn't happen uh if it and and since they're not like with crime like with everything else we got to do things that are unpleasant whether it be changing the ability of

an 18 year old or a 17 year old to get a gun we don't want to do it got to do it you know i'm with that got to do it that one got to do it got to start somewhere and and and guess what the more things change sometimes the more they stay the same you'll make changes and then four years from now eight years from now depending upon who's uh who's got the uh the votes uh it changes but what i've seen over the last 10 years um with with these kinds of violent attacks i never thought i would see in my lifetime we had different problems you know issues when we were kids the things are and to your point about the constitution um you got to move with the times you got to have an answer um you know for the enemy and sometimes the enemy is is right in front of you you just can't see it well i like how you have also like as your careers progressed you have started to see as you've

pointed out like some of these things that are wrong with the system and one theme that you've been hitting on a bunch today that i haven't asked about directly is the whole environment thing you know you said a line maybe an hour ago where you were like i prosecuted people who didn't grow up like you julian or didn't grow up like i did roof over my head two parents decent life nothing to worry about not not even being rich just comfortable you know you don't you have to worry about where the next meal is coming from you don't have a dad who's in prison and you don't have a home environment that's untenable now there's some people who live in suburbia where

that absolutely isn't the case there's exceptions to everything but by and large when you're prosecuting someone who grew up in a home where their father was never there their mother's work in three jobs just to just to try to pay the bills basically and they never had a prayer when they do something really bad at 19 because there was no other chance in hell that they could be a part of a good surrounded like group of friends they were around bad people because there was no hope in life now i know you have that empathy but as a prosecutor when you were young know you have that empathy, but as a prosecutor, when you were young, did you have any empathy for that? Well, I mean, you can't have empathy for the act if you're going to be a prosecutor. That's not what you're asking me.

Yeah, exactly. And you're prosecuting the act, you know, and the actor. And one of the things that I always say is the person who's there, who's committed this unpardonable act, do they ever deserve a second chance? Do they have the ability to ever appreciate the value of human life? There are some people, quite frankly, that don't. They would take and extinguish a human life as quickly as they would step on a bug, and that will never change. And there are others who, quite frankly, are in the wrong place at the wrong time, who, if given the chance, if given the opportunity, could be a law-abiding, productive citizen.

That's why I always go back to discretion. Mandatory sentences are for for the i think the the simple-minded view that that we're just going to punish the act and not the actor there are some acts though i will tell you no matter what the age of the individual that are unpardonable you walk into a school and you assassinate countless children um as a prosecutor who's now 60 something i wasn't going to tell anyone something that's your fault um with a lot of wisdom and a lot of rubber, you know, on the road. I could walk in and prosecute him and sleep like a baby knowing that he will spend the rest of his life tucked away. Would you defend him? I've never done such a thing and don't think I could bring my best to bear.

There are some cases that I'm pretty, uh, I think there's a chink in the armor, elderly kids. Um, I just don't, I don't know that I trust myself enough to bring the fastball, um, that needs to be brought all the time. And I just defer because I have the luxury of doing it. That's why I talk about public defenders all the time. Case comes in, they got to say, yes, I don't. Uh, and there are some cases that I believe are different from others. You, you commit a terrorist act, you need another lawyer. Um, that ain't going to be me. Um, but you know, again, it's hypocritical in some ways. I have somebody here, hypocr here hypocrite my guy you've defended countless murderers I said yeah I've met them I can't you know I see

good in them I don't see depravity in the act itself you know you walk in and you commit a senseless slaughter you've thought about that and your mind is in a way that I really don't

I think I'm good enough sometimes to win cases. I got no business winning. I got no interest in winning them. Cheryl, the woman you talked about earlier, who we've brought up a bunch of times, it's just great to go off that one because that was such a perfectly put example to use against other things as like a foil.

But that one makes a ton of sense as we said because it's a crime of passion in that way it's wrong but it's not the same it's not it's nothing like going in and massacring kids in a school agreed i've warned my wife if she ever you know had an affair like that she'd have to die but you had another one and there's there's been a lot you know you defended as you said this so you defended mob guys i guess you're talking about that on the record i didn't know if you were going to be able to say that out loud but okay ledge mob there we go we got the alleged in there but like that's that is different to me it's wrong but it's different because the guys who are in that world they they know what they signed up for.

Now, if one of them fucks around and kills a citizen, that's a different story. But there is a different – I don't want to take away anything from – you take a life. You've got to go away. It's wrong. But there is – they chose that life and it ends in the can or it ends in six feet below right whereas when we're talking about people that commit senseless acts cheryl being passion another guy who you defended who did get found guilty i forget his name but you know in like 2011 he killed his girlfriend and then like hung a wire around her neck and they made it and they made it believe that it was a suicide

so when you're talking about some people you defend and again you do the job there's something else i'm going to want to ask here but i want to stay with this for a second like you know you did go in and defend that guy that's about as premeditated as it gets to me and so i don't see there is still a chasm between that and a terrorist or child killing and stuff like that but it's not a big one no and you know you there's so many cases like that that i have been involved in and and in the one that you've just referenced uh this is an individual who to this moment um maintains his innocence uh a case in which the original um investigation revealed that that it

was a suicide two forensic pathologists called it a suicide. They called Jeffrey Epstein a suicide. defended and deserved a defense as contrasted with what i'm talking about which is hey listen i did it yeah i did i i i hung her and i'm glad i did it i drove into the world trade center and glad i did it i wore uh the backpack uh in boston and did it uh i walked into the school or the movie theater and did it i got nothing for that guy i got no interest in that guy um those people embrace the crimes they commit those people have no interest in in whether or not um you know people can can survive. They don't quarrel with the fact that they did it. And so what do they need me for? And I got no interest in being there. Do you ask your clients if they're guilty?

Yeah, I ask them to tell me the truth about what happened. Sure. How am I going to defend them if I don't know the truth? Have you ever had someone say yes? Sure. Of something serious? Sure. And then you went in and defended them?

Sure, I'm obligated to. What I'm not permitted to do is to ask somebody what happened and they tell you they did it and then put them up on a witness stand and they say they didn't. That I'm ethically barred from doing. But I really believe a lawyer has to know the truth. What if somebody says to me, I didn't do it and i'm in chicago uh i was in chicago or somewhere else and you go and you you you put a defense on that that is completely based on uh fallacy how are you going to what do you what are you really accomplishing and for the people that that that will tell me they did it quite often you're work trying to work out plea bargains for them you're trying to resolve the cases for them and say, okay, you did it.

Give me the circumstances. Why? What happened? What went down? You work out a deal. Some of those cases go to trial. Listen, if I, you know, everybody makes a big deal about the issue. Do you, wait, so you know?

My God, you know? I've seen videos of clients that have committed crimes that I've had to defend. If criminal defense lawyers only defended the people that either maintain their innocence or were innocent, there wouldn't be a lot of cases tried and you're just saying to finish that all off you've been saying that there is still like some high line there that like you can't be the guy for but like if it's a certain crime just on a personal level right i mean we're all human beings i mean they're and and it's a bit of a cop-out because you know a lot of the real great criminal defense lawyers of all time don't have those issues. They see it very simply. There's a defense, there's somebody who's entitled to that defense, and you got to be there for them. And I truly believe in that. I think in every case,

there needs to be an adversarial system and someone needs to be defended. It just don't got to be me. Right, right. And I'm a big boy and I get to pick, quite frankly, because I think I've earned it, what cases I take and what cases I don't. And there are some that I quite frankly don't think I can be at my best and quite frankly some that I'm so appalled by on a humanitarian level, for whatever reason, that if I'm telling the truth, I'm sickened by it. So sickened by it, as opposed to maybe some other cases like you're describing. How come you're not sickened by them? I don't know. I don't know. But I am.

So why be untrue to myself? Why be untrue to the client? I mean, why walk in there and you're thinking, I can't even stomach being seated in the room with this person. That person deserves better than that. And there are a couple of cases, and there are a handful of them. I think I just ticked them off for you. But, you know, you want to go in and commit a crime of mass destruction, you're going to need somebody who's a little bit more noble than me it is telling you the truth well yeah because you use the example like the person who raises

their hand and say i did it yeah i want attention for it whatever which is the most blatant example but you talk about not being able to be at your best because they're admitting to it everything no it's not the admission it isn't the admission that that bothers me it's the embracing of it it's right it was the desire to do it i mean some people you know some people they they'll make a horrible mistake they'll get so furious at a spouse they'll kill a spouse we've talked about that um and and yet when i when i see people who who have no regret, no remorse, and commit senseless slaughter, I choose not to. I've had cases, quite frankly, that I was asked to get involved with that I didn't get involved with that would have made me an enormous amount of money or got me an enormous amount of popularity. Selfishly, if I wanted to help my career a little bit more i could have taken them

i took a pass and had people quite frankly people saying how you doing i'm like man so and we obviously that's all attorney client privilege so we can't know who those are but inherently when i look at this i do often think about well i wonder what ones he is passing up and why he chose this one over that one because maybe they were going on at the same time. And it's like the level of objectivity you have to do that when you know is on – like when they actually told you is actually on a whole different level than what I was referring to earlier. It's not something that anybody who doesn't do it can understand or I would expect them to, quite frankly. And guess what? If I didn't do what I do, I wouldn't be able to appreciate it or understand it either.

You mean to tell me, Brian, that you can go in there and defend somebody that you know is guilty? Absolutely. For the worst crime. For the worst crimes imaginable and you know they're guilty brian but you go in there and you you don't just go in there brian you don't just go in there and mail it in you go in there and fight like hell yep that's the system only way the system can work because if i don't if i'm not there you know for for those folks those clients of mine that did do it how am i going to be there for those that didn't and who am i you know to judge so often because so many quite frankly when you ask the question did you

do it are going to tell you no you know what 90 some percent of them are going to you know not probably close to 100 we're going to say you know what me you percent of them are going to you know not probably close to 100 percent i'm going to say you know what me you probably have a good hit ratio though like from reading people oh do i know yeah oh i know yeah you're asking me if they've told me but there's still that level of doubt oh yeah well but you shouldn't you can't look at it that way i mean yeah that's where that's the slippery slope the l lawyers fall off and well i had some no you didn't you knew okay they had to tell you you know you knew i listen i it was one of the biggest difficulties i had doing criminal defense work when i made the switch was the understanding that in many many cases if I won, in some measure, society lost.

In some measure. And yet, I have to have the principle steeped into the depths, you know, driven into the depths of my mind that says, now society really won because you're there to put government to the test so that they don't get it wrong for the innocent man who does come down the pike guess what that's a beautiful principle it's it's what kind of the entire structure of the criminal justice system is built on right but try sleeping on that and that's why they invented wine i didn't see that last line coming. That was good. But what you're talking about here is not – you're talking about being able to ignore the anecdotal for the greater good. And the concept that under the Constitution, a great thing that's written into it is that the government can't be all-powerful, can't be like Russia or China, and like you go in there, you're guilty the greater good is really is really accomplished by the adversarial system by the defense by the lawyer who's willing to go in there and you know i always say everybody

wants to talk about who's the greatest lawyer there's greatest lawyers in america the ones that defend indefensible causes that's the fundamental precept yeah of the criminal justice system i'm just not one of them um i'm not one of them i i i'm a more of a of of of of you know kind of a reduced version of that because they're they're the the lawyers that just they'll stand next to the the bomber in in boston um and fight like hell for them and they are really embracing the you know the philosophical greater good um that's not me right so they just again they they just don't have the hard line somewhere really high but to be clear again like i'm really surprised whenever i ask and i've talked to defense attorneys before they say you don't ask, I've never talked to a guy who said, I will often ask, and like...

Oh, I don't ask him if they did. I ask him, what happened? What can you tell me? And it's not, did you do it? But you really need... How are you going to defend somebody? Like, you know, they're accused of doing something. But where were you that night?

What did you do? I mean, you got to get into it. How are you going to defend him? Are you just going to sit there like a moat? No, no, that's true. So I'm not saying that of you, but yeah, a lot of people say, what do you mean you asked me? What do how you going to defend him you're just going to sit there like a moat no no that's that so i'm not saying that of you but yeah a lot of people say what you mean you asked me what do you mean i ask him what am i going to do not ask i mean so you don't necessarily lean in and go you do it you don't do it like that just blink once yeah okay no i don't do that gotcha so there's some there's some level of

being able to deny through objectivity there where you still know in your head but you haven't really asked so at least there's something there but and again remember this you know people get confused with guilt or innocence all the time and i remember a lawyer once telling me this it makes perfect sense our system of justice isn't isn't built you know in terms of burdens of proof and everything else um in in disproving the possibility of innocence you have to understand that i mean there's a burden of proof with us and we want that bird it's the highest burden of proof of any court anywhere in the world and we keep it high with the belief that if we keep it really really high we'll never put an innocent

man or woman or person on death row so that that's really all you're a gatekeeper and put them to their proofs. That's why I say in theory, the system works because I'm putting the prosecutor to his proofs. The prosecutor is proven it like hell, like he or she should. And somewhere in that justice should come. If you got enough evidence to convict somebody, convict them. If you don't, you don't. I mean, a lot of people, you know, get away with crimes. They're never charged. Couldn't solve the crime. Couldn't find the evidence. There wasn't enough evidence. Now, there's countless cases like that. The system is when they bring a crime, they bring a charge. And the only way that system works is

it's got to be an adversary system now and is is that does that taste well to people uh-uh until they're charged until a family member is charged or until god forbid they are a family member or falsely accused and then the system makes a hell of a lot of sense to them yes and that's why it balances out and i appreciate that yeah there's you had said though in there somewhere where it's like you'll see people for the person behind there right so maybe many many many instances i i can i can that's one of the the nice things about having done this you know on this side um i and i see more of it than not quite frankly there's there's a human being in there and in many many instances particularly for some of these young people

um just you know chances that were never given um home lives that are horrific think about your worst you know worst case you know example and then multiply it by a hundred um and then and then some glimpses that at their humanity will they'll do something and you'll think wow wow like that's not a lost that's not a loss there that's not a complete loss there there's some there's a pulse there there's a heart there there's emotions there now there are some uh-uh you know uh-uh just sadly enough now how can you be at your best when you know that well because they might be innocent number one and number two that's your job my job is to always be at my best. I mean, you know, and on an intellectual level, are there times where you're not?

I suppose there are. But if I walk in there and I'm not, man, I've committed the greatest sin a lawyer can ever commit. That's why I don't sign up for every case. Sure. Because if I'm going to blink like we talked about blinking before where you know people can blink under pressure if i'm going to blink and i know i'm going to blink uh-uh they don't they you don't need me there yeah that that that's when the system fails because then you really run the risk of an innocent person getting

convicted so i got to be there guns a-blazing', and if I can't, for whatever reason, again, you know, and I know enough about myself to know what my vulnerabilities are as a human being. And there are some things that hit closer to home than others. Every human being's like that. Every lawyer's like that, whether they tell you or not. Someone will probably tell you, no, no, no, you know, bullshit.

They're humans. And so I kind of know where those places are and sometimes i i i need to hear about it to know about it i'll just go uh-uh not not me that not this time do you have a button like do you have do you go into the office you work for the day you leave you pull out in your car button now I'm home quite the opposite mm-hmm that's that's the problem with this life if you want to I think if you are able to do it for a long time if you're able to press a button and turn this stuff off I think you're you're gonna live a lot longer you're you're going to live a lot longer you're going to have a far happier home life

but you won't be a good lawyer um you can't be if you don't take this stuff home and you don't live with it and it doesn't keep you up at night um and you don't think about it and when i'm on trial i mean i'm not i'm a i'm a zombie i'm the most worthless person in my personal life, my home life, that you could even imagine. I have a very wonderful and patient wife and great family who just, you know, are willing to ignore me for those time periods, but I can't turn it off. And that's why this isn't for everybody, because um it's an impossibility if you want to do it successfully and care enough about your craft and care enough about you know getting it right and and you know i don't go in there to lose you know i ain't gonna lie to you um no matter who they are

and you want to you want to do it right And I would think that would be probably pretty consistent with most professions. I don't know. I'm only in this one. I agree. You know, you want to – I mean, I've interacted with other professions in this profession. And I've seen the people that operate at the highest levels. And they – if you even uttered the word, do you have a button, they'd lob your head off. I mean, they're like, what do you mean button?

I'm 24-7, man. I've gotten a little bit better at it. You know, we've got a great family. And so as I kind of got through my profession a little bit more, I was able to make sure that no matter what was going on i had time to go you know watch ball games and and you know watch my son play football or baseball my daughters play lacrosse and tennis and and uh be there in their special moments um but you lose a lot of them and that's with any profession you know i'm not whining there are people that are working 10 times harder than i am

again i i can't i can't relate to how i would react because i never wanted to be a lawyer in the first place right yeah i i said the same thing i think the world's got too many of them yeah that's just me yeah but like it is still so necessary and the human element is you're you're a victim of the burden you have to carry with that too. But you believe in the higher system so much that you're willing to do it and that's why I respect it. I just like – probably one of the most – what makes you one of the best attorneys to ever do it if i could use one example one of the greatest arguments i've ever heard in my life i will never forget this for the rest of my life where i was reading it i think it was tmz who broke it when the cosby mistrial happened where you got him the mistrial and they didn't know if they were going to retry it yet or anything like that

but the news came across. I haven't been able to find the article because they may have archived it. But when it first happened, TMZ broke it. And I was in my office and my boss – we were about to go to lunch and he was walking by. And I'm like, they just got a hung jury with Cosby. And he goes, oh, that's the guy you know, right? I said, yeah. And so I start reading it and the way you went in there

was you got you would argue to i mean it was a vicious case there was a lot going on in there but you get to the closing arguments and at this point obviously you're not a guy who puts his face all over the media like you were saying earlier in your career you would have but the jury of 12 people there they know this is bill cosby in that room yeah they know bill cosby don't have a public defender defending him yeah like you're a subtle guy you're not like a flashy dresser but they know that suit probably doesn't cost two dollars and it's not from joseph a bank that's right and you got up there after this long case of going back and forth and you're known for example as a guy who's like one of the greatest cross-examiners to ever live right so? So you have some intense moments in there. You're going back and forth. You're taking

some expert witnesses and putting them in a goddamn like spin cycle. You get up there though, and you look this jury in the eyes as Bill Cosby's attorney, and you said something to the effect of, I haven't been able to sleep because I have been a bad lawyer in this case. I have argued the worst. This is the easiest case. I have argued the worst case ever. And this great man over here is going to pay with his reputation and years of his life and go to prison because his lawyer is bad. So for the love of Jesus Christ and everything holy, will you not fucking hold that against him?

And will you hold it against his horrible attorney? And I can't see these jurors, but my boss is on the ground laughing like, what a motherfucker. And I can just picture like 12 people who are too, no disrespect, too dumb to get out of jury duty, sitting there going, what the fuck? Did this dude just, Bill Cosby hired a bitch? Did he not do it? Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, am I going to put the...

He's a good comedian. Am I going to put him in jail? Is this motherfucker... Is he messing with me? He's fucking with me, right? He's fucking with me. No, my God. You know what?

Let's just get a hung jury. And you get a W out of it. Yeah, well, you know what? It's funny because I have for years gone back and forth with what are the best ways to deal with the obvious in terms of jurors and reaching them and you don't know quite frankly when you try a case how many jurors you you pissed off had fallen in love with you hate you to the rest of time you don't know where you stand you also probably made a mistake a time or two during the trial quite frankly I, I always have used that piece of and Cosby wasn't one of them. They could easily, I think, some of the older jurors identify with him.

You really want to connect with them yourself so that maybe they'll give it to you for you. Why do you think they identify with him, the older jurors? Because think about the greater good that he accomplished in his lifetime. At one point in time, he was more popular than Ronald Reagan. He gave back to his community. He was one of the most charitable benefactors of Temple University. He fought for law and order, trying to bring people up to his career.

He was, for all intents and purposes, probably one of the great Americans until this fall. But also, like Jimmy Savile over in Britain, you could say the same thing. No, you could. and purposes probably one of the great americans until until this until this fall but also like jimmy saville over in britain you could say the same thing no you could right but remember but remember this jurors were being asked a decision about to make a decision about whether he did it and that case was at least the way we tried, the time we tried it, I thought a very defensible case on the facts, on the facts, on the allegation. And I thought there was reasonable doubt all over of that case. And so I directed my closing toward those jurors who had a memory of him for all the good that he did of all the the things that that were important to them i mean think about it i mean people went to sleep watching bill cosby people

people brought him into their living rooms bill cosby created a um a way for for the world to really maybe rethink their racism in many respects um and so i you know i always thought that that had to be the way that we were going to win that case if we were going to win that case and coming back to me and and why i always use the um you know uh piece that i'll usually throw into a closing about me which is is, hey, listen, you know, I suffer many curses and many failures and many weaknesses, and maybe this guy deserved a better lawyer, but he doesn't have me anymore. Now he has you, and you've got to do your jobs better than maybe I did mine.

You know, you want to kind of bring jurors to their best and make them realize that in a few short moments when the case is given to them, they're all that stands between him and a conviction for a crime he didn't commit, is the argument. And so I probably did that a little bit inartfully in that case. I remember reading the headlines. Inartfully, that was an Oscar winning performance. They bought it. I remember one of the articles because they were, you know, the press was, you know, the press was against us.

That's what made that case so impossible to win was when we went to pick a jury in Pittsburgh on that case, they asked, you know, every single night was, you know, nightline, dateline, you know, women falling all over the place saying that they'd been victimized. And 96 out of 100 jurors had heard it all. And so you were picking a jury that had been, you know, now all of a sudden overnight asked to accept the fact that this was a serial predator and trying to overcome that perception that was created in the media and both news and television. And that was the challenge of the case. And it was a challenge that we certainly embraced. But, you know, you talk about handling the media and the media,

and that was a classic example of it being an absurdity thinking that we were ever going to change public opinion pre-trial or in press conferences or anything like that. That ship had gone. That ship was lost. We had to do all I take in the lawyering in that case, the first motion that we argued in that case was that the case should have never been prosecuted because of the promise that had been made by a prior prosecutor not to prosecute him, which led him to a deposition that would be his undoing and um while it was denied in the state court after we hung the jury and then it was tried by other lawyers a second time and they were unsuccessful he was convicted yeah because you to be clear you got the hung jury and then you resigned as his attorney right well it was a it was a mutual parting believe me it wasn't it was there was a there was a you know obviously at the end of the first trial, there was some issues with respect to public comments that were being made about the system and the judges and the prosecutors that I just wasn't going to go down that road.

And to their credit, the Cosby family had their views of the system and the people that were prosecuting them and they thought they should bring some people in from out of town to try to burn the village down and uh it didn't burn um quite frankly and you know the the case was lost but then on appeal the issue that led to the reversal and his exoneration was that issue that that he had uh made the promise uh the prosecutor made a promise and he should have kept it. He didn't. So case dismissed. And is there was there a legality there, though, or was that a was that a true judge's ruling like this was unethical on the part of the prosecution?

You can't be telling citizens and their attorneys something and then revoke your word. It's a ladder. You're you're you know, you're really right on word. It's the latter. You're really right on it. It's the latter. It's almost like a common law fundamental principle of fairness that you can't make promises as a prosecutor that people will rely on to their detriment and then use what they relied on to their detriment against them in a criminal prosecution. So it was really a case of first impression uh and um and so it it you know it uh it was

it was an amazing experience quite frankly from beginning to end i could go on and on and on for days talking about that case you know the case we tried that case in five days the jury deliberated four or five days before deadlocking and they were the five you know longest days of of my life i mean you know you're sitting there waiting for a jury to come back they were working like 12 hour days and you're just sitting there thinking oh god this is gonna this is it i'm gonna i'm gonna be the i'm gonna be the guy that loses the bill cosby case or i'm gonna be the guy that wins well or the guy that wins it yeah it would that would have been nice quite frankly too but but it wasn't meant to be. So here's the thing. All the things you said about Cosby and societal effect with his greatness as a comedian and all that, that can all be true.

And, again, where I give you the credit is that you are, this is how the system works. And you decided to take the case, and you're defending defending him and you have to do your job. But like if he were guilty and you're not going to say one way or the other because obviously you represented the guy. So I don't expect you to say it on camera and people are going to have to understand that at home. But if he were, we weren't just talking about Andrea Constant or however you pronounce her last name, who was the woman who was the key central accuser there we're talking about a slew of drugging women with ghb and raping them which we talked about premeditation earlier holy shit man that is some premeditation to the nth degree and again he maintains his innocence to this day and everything but you know i i struggle with this one a lot man like i i went to i went to bed who the fuck cares what i think but when the whole deshaun watson thing came out that was very sketchy that attorney on the other side busby there's a lot of sketchy shit going on there and so i've always been one

who i'm much more likely the burden of proof is on tell me that the woman's wrong like i'm believing that but on that one i'm like this one smells it smells so bad and again he's never been convicted of a crime two grand juries came back and said no right which to me when i first saw that i was like i mean the burden of proof for a grand jury is you just need one juror to be like maybe yeah maybe so true maybe yeah could have could have it's not like a trial yeah and he can't he's not in there to defend himself either that's right there's no defense and they brought in the first grand jury they bought they brought nine witnesses to tell their story and 30 jurors, whatever it was. Not one of them was like, maybe.

So I'm like, oh, at that point, I'm like, this guy, this was a total setup for this guy. And then you see some of the stuff come out and some of the stuff that's inarguable. Like, I think it was like 67 massage parlors in 17 months, text messages, all this shit. And then you're like like you hear the accusations and you're like even if 20 of that's true i'm not saying the guy's a full-blown rapist but like this is fucked up and so i even question myself because i'm like god damn it the one time i take the guy's side like blows up in my face gotta own it it appears that way and so i see something like cosby and this is a powerful man this is a guy where stuff had followed him around for a long

time i mean this case was a whole he got a promise he wasn't going to get prosecuted why do you get a promise right is that because of his connections things like that same guy wants to burn a village down like you said and so we're talking about someone abusing allegedly a position where where he was especially given the time and the era like he was able if true able to do that at will and so when people in the court of and we'll talk about the court of public opinion too that's another thing but like when people in the court of public opinion see so much smoke around the fire and they say there's a fire and then they see you go in and defend that and say yeah i'm in there to win i get it because i understand how you have to

look at it but like you know is this a guy that you're you're going to take home around you're maybe not now you wouldn't care because he's fucking 80 years old and can't see he's out of shape but like if you knew him 20 years ago would you want him near your daughters yeah it's a fair question and it's a question i never have to answer, quite frankly, because if I answered that question for every one of my clients, I wouldn't be able to do what I do. Any lawyer who does criminal defense work isn't making personal judgments against people they defend based on the allegations. And, you know, you got to go back to where I began with all this, which is this is a guy who vehemently denied that accusation. He was on trial for that accusation. The case I tried, you couldn't get 12 jurors to agree whether there was even proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it, let alone come into the inescapable conclusion that he did it.

Because he had such a bad lawyer, well there was that there was that but you know i i you got to keep going back to the fact that if if everybody's all right about something go back to the simpson case you know people want to talk about the cosby case talk about the simpson case i said earlier it changed the world So yeah elaborate on that. Yeah, so Simpson, you know Simpson was probably the the greatest example of circumstantial evidence of guilt Maybe not the greatest but one of the greatest that I've ever seen Can you accept to people who don't understand what that means? Can you just say so?

I mean nobody saw Jay Simpson kill anybody right but the circumstantial evidence was was pretty i thought fatal to him uh in in that case and would have thought fatal to him and as if i had prosecuted that case with you know his dna a bloody glove back at his house this that this that motive out the wazoo um and a pretty unshakable quite frankly circumstantial case and i always say the difficult thing about cosby was nobody wanted to believe oj simpson committed that crime that knew oj simpson at the time of that trial because his public opinion his life he as a you know spokesperson as an athlete there was never anything at all at the time of his trial that suggested he was capable of that crime was there nothing nothing up until the time of his trial the charge well

he had there were allegations the one thing was there were allegations that he had hit his wife i think they had some sort of court so forgive me you're right there was there was that but contrast that with cosby at the time we went on trial every magazine in the world had written that he was a sexual predator in cases completely different than they were not different but separate and apart from the case we were trying so i always said you know trying the the cosby case would have been in like trying the simpson case except that in the simpson case you, everybody in the jury would have been told that he'd committed 10 other murders besides Nicole and Ron,

who he was charged with murdering. That was the challenge of the Cosby case. And one of the things that I learned in watching the Simpson case was that nobody, and I mean nobody um is incapable of being of being acquitted nobody nobody i mean you i mean like i i remember when that verdict came in thinking to myself now a lot of speculation has gone into the fact that that the reason he was acquitted was where he tried the case and what kind of jury he had and all that kind of good stuff. But Simpson really, I thought, changed the way cases were defended, how they were defended. And the lawyers who were involved in that case probably engaged in some of the greatest lawyering in the history of criminal defense.

Put aside what you wanted to happen or didn't happen or anything and brought people to their best he also had the greatest team yeah the greatest team ever assembled and and they were all remarkable and and so again um you know as a lawyer it's always in the challenge it's always in the challenge and you know there were great challenges in cosby that i thought um probably could have never been on overcome except by a legal you know maybe a legal defense which ultimately proved to be the case um but we we certainly tried like him when they wrote that constitution with a feather pen or whatever the it was called back in the 1700s they didn't have a mass media that was another

thing they didn't have no they didn't they didn't have forget mass media that's another thing they didn't have no they didn't have forget print media like they had that but you know paul revere had to ride with a horse like six hours just to tell people to fuck british were coming right like that's the world we were living in so you could have some sort of lack of a mob mentality not to say it didn't exist it absolutely did but in smaller doses right now me too twitter era like you're gonna have a not mob mentality across the entire united states of the usa you know when cosby's going on i agree but do you think that based on how the constitution is written which is right to a fair trial jury of your peers who are unbiased to the situation, meaning they are also unknowing

to anything that has been reported around it or known. Do you think that's even possible? Well, not only is it not possible, but it's not even the law. Jurors are permitted to have read about the case and know about the case. They're then asked the question, if they answer that question in the affirmative, okay, knowing what you you know would you be able to accept my instructions that you're to put it aside and presume him innocent anyway which is an absurdity wait i didn't even know this oh yeah i mean we we otherwise we'd be you know we'd be able to get rid of jurors who simply had read about the case or heard about the case for cause you know when you pick a jury, particularly in Pennsylvania, in a non-capital case, you get seven strikes.

That means I can strike seven people just for the love of it. You know, just for the love of it. Go fuck yourself. No, yeah, get lost. I don't like your outfit. I didn't like Marilyn Monroe. So, you know...

That's a crime. I'm lying. But you know what I mean. Like any reason, how they're dressed, whatever. And that's it and you're out then you're out of strikes so we're always looking for challenges for cause we're always looking for a reason to cause someone to go that we don't want so something in the case just about every juror that sat on that jury had read everything there was they ever try try

getting a fair shake under those circumstances so or they had admitted to having read about it of course yeah i read about that's what i didn't know oh but they got to say the magic words but i could be fair yeah right sure you can and i'm a lousy lawyer too that makes it even that makes that closing even more legendary the fact that they all said yeah i know I know who Bill Cosby is. Even if we know they did, like they even admitted it out loud. And you still went up there and said, yeah, he's paying me $2 an hour. I'm a jerk off.

I have not, listen, listen, listen. Innocent, guilty. Let me say one other thing, though, while I'm thinking. I'm going to tell you a quick story, and it's funny. I'm wearing this watch right now. So, right, you're looking at this watch. Same watch. So I'm trying this case, and yes, it was an alleged mob case.

And it turned out to be a— Narducci? No, it wasn't Narducci. And it turned out to be a mistrial. Something happened with the jurors. Oh, Nicodemo. This is my favorite argument ever. Go ahead.

They interviewed the jurors afterwards that didn't—because of the mistrial, they didn't get a chance to vote. And one of the women, and I know she didn't like me very much or just didn't like the case very much maybe. And she was interviewed after the case and she said, well, it seemed to me that that man must have been involved with the mob or something because his lawyer was wearing a watch that cost more than my house. That's me. That watch? And see this? This was a gift from a client of mine. It cost $100.

So you see how wrong you can be about that? Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I was going to say, for a guy who's done what you have, that's a nice watch. Why not have the rolex why not have the rolex but you see you you can even lose being humble is is is where i'm going with this but yeah i'll never forget that i'm like it's a hundred dollar watch but it was a gift so i i wear it from time to time i mean it's a that that underscores the human judgment of this stuff it's exactly like again i know know i know you can't win i

know you have to love juries because you're like they're doing they're diplomatic you know citizen whatever but again like you know it's not hard to get out of i actually i found jury duty requests that were like a year old in my mail a couple times oh no one came and got me my one friend this was bad my one friend he's like oh i got i got the perfect thing to get out of jury duty i won't say where he lives but he lives in a place where they'll come after you yeah like if you do it he said i have this shirt it says i heart my two dads i wear it real tight i walk in there and they go he just looks like a loose screw you're struck and i'm like this is not hard to get out of this so like these people really isn't

hard these people it isn't hard these people it's like who are you dealing with but but some of them i got news for you i tried a case right after covet it wasn't even after covet it was really still in covet and it was out in harrisburg and i mean think about it all you had to say was i can't wear a mask or i can't be in court or i can't and not one juror out of like a prospective, I think it must have been about 70 people, raised their hands to get out. They all wanted in.

I'm not talking about the ones that just got nothing better to do, and wanted to kill a couple of weeks. But there are some people that really kind of consider it their civic duty. And sometimes they're the ones you've got to worry about as a defense lawyer. Oh, because they're active. Well, yeah. I mean, they're the ones, oh, I'm here to do justice. So, you know, you got to kind of read it.

But, you know, any lawyer who tells you he can figure out jurors and they have jury selection figured out is lying to you. Whereas when you tried the Martinez case back in the day that's another thing and this is another whole issue here i had on a totally separate yeah different case i have raj raj ratnam in here oh yeah who talks about the government witness thing yeah and obviously that fucked him when when that happened and that's a whole nother thing but like with the mob that's always how they have to build the cases right because it's this law of silence and all that so well until they invented wiretaps yeah yes but then still like they had wiretaps in this case but they still had like corroborating people yeah and this is where you like made your name because you get in there and you basically like, how did this even work?

You get in there and you sat on the witness stand talking to the jury as if you were the rat witnesses. And you put on an act like, I'm John Veazey. I whacked seven people. I cut their heads off, put it in an acid can. But believe me, because you know what? I've seen God now. And that's, I guess, the only way you could do it. But when you're arguing that case, and let's say, and I don't have to admit this, but let's say in your head, you're like, okay, yeah, I'm representing the fucking underboss of the whole thing.

He did this. But are you also like, this case was made, they cheated. Because they took people who very well are just telling them what they want to hear so they can make the case and the evidence isn't there. So therefore, I need to protect the system by arguing this case because they shouldn't be allowed to do this. Well, I genuinely believe that that informant testimony ought to be taken really with a grain of salt. It is the worst form of evidence you could ever have because people are inspired to lie. And sometimes people have been liars their entire lives and wouldn't hesitate to lie about someone's innocence or guilt. Um, you rarely see prosec've said all the time, anybody, any lawyer can cross-examine an informant, whether it be in a mob case or otherwise.

You can't cross-examine a tape. And so the Department of Justice is usually pretty smart to realize that and to realize that if they build a case just on informants alone, they're usually incapable of winning because jurors don't like it. They don't like it, quite frankly, when that's it. Usually they're smart enough to mix in some devastating wiretaps like they did in that case and make it a bridge too far. But yeah, they're the easiest.

A lot of times I'll be asked to come speak on how to cross-examine informants. Anybody can cross-examine an informant. I mean, they're just walking, talking liars for the most part. That doesn't mean they're lying in this case, but their whole history, you know, they're sometimes murderers, they're sometimes thieves, robbers, you know. They've lied seven times in their interviews in this case, and now they're supposed to be believed. So it's pretty easy to do it. Sometimes you're artful in doing it.

I will tell you that sometimes, though, these informants are good witnesses and challenging because some of them are street smart. And in some cases, a little smarter than the person examining them, quite frankly. So you get, you know, lulled into sleep thinking, oh, this will be easy. It's an informant. And then boom. So you got toulled into sleep thinking, oh, this will be easy. It's an informant. And then boom. So you've got to be careful with it. But I am a big, you know, I'm not a big proponent of informant testimony. I've used it.

I use it as a prosecutor. I'm prosecuting a mob case because I think it needs to be bolstered by real evidence. And testimonial evidence can be can be really shaky at times and and none more shaky than informant testimony now you've been on the other side of that though too where you were trying cases and you're using witnesses sometimes they're not necessarily totally clean themselves like that it's just a part of doing the job sure it is then on you ethically as a prosecutor this is where i get into those nine good guys and one bad guy in a room this is another example of that it's on you

to make a judgment of okay i can't have it all the way where people are going to be great but how much is this person saying what i want to hear versus how much – and because I'm pressuring them versus how much of it is actually the way I know the facts to be and I'm being honest with myself about that. Like that Raj case, I think about this all the time because the star witness in that – there's so many problems. You would have a field day with that. I should introduce you to. You would have a field day with that case. It should have never gone to trial. The guy, his name G. Robert Blakey, right? The famous professor who wrote the wiretap laws and everything. the court on his own account they didn't ask him to where he said yeah you have to throw out this case the government violated every single thing that we require to get wiretaps the judge then admitted it in the frank's hearing he admitted it in court he said the government lied right but i'll keep it so they kept the wiretaps which they shouldn't have kept because wiretaps like

the way the judge explained it in an interview after the trial when he took his cushy job from getting this trial and all the attention, is he said, to be honest, when you're on a wiretap, if you're telling your mom you're coming home for spaghetti that night, people are going to think you're guilty. Anything can sound guilty. But the second layer to it was the witnesses. That's what I want to focus on right now. The star witness of all the witnesses that were sketchy that the government used the star witness was was a really bad guy this guy and neil kamar he had done a whole bunch of things i don't need to get into it but he was a smart guy who had been at mckenzie he was high up and everything and as the prosecution said after

the case he was the reason that raj got convicted because he was – they said he was so credible and he put on a performance. The jury, just like some of the guys you were talking about, the jury believed him. Three years later, Raj's brother, who was way lower in the business, right before the statute of limitations gets pulled, now Raj is in in prison his brother gets charged while his brother's out of the country on the last day because the prosecutor's office wanted to make this be like oh he's not going to come back now we'll win the public opinion the whole bit we're going after wall street rah rah he gets on the first flight back he's just like oh i didn't do shit well we're gonna it's too bad we're gonna go defend it so the guy, Anil Kumar, the witness is now off probation. He got the big fish in prison.

Raj is already there. Biggest insider trading conviction of all time in the history of the country to this day. And so, of course, for the same exact trades, insider trades that Raj was convicted of, they're going to now try his brother on. So who are they going to bring in for the witness? They're going to bring in gonna bring in for the witness they're gonna bring in a Neil Kumar the witness long story short and Neil Kumar goes in there and changed his testimony he said the opposite and they didn't want to put Raj out of prison because that would take away their whole narrative so what did they do his brother was found not guilty in

three hours in a securities case, which is like, yeah. That should take two days minimum just to go through the numbers first. So completely innocent. They shoved it under the rug. Raj, of course, files an appeal, as he should. Court, you know, everybody knows everyone. They throw it out. And you have a situation where the government then didn't go after and you know kamar for

perjury because it was against their best interests so my question is when you are because you've been on the other side of the desk when you're on that side of the desk just like we said with police you're held to a higher standard and you're there to uphold the law and the last thing you want to do is put an innocent man in prison or someone who was completely violated of their rights even in prison because it sets a bad precedent do you think that there should be some serious penalties for beyond a reasonable doubt prosecutors who ignore evidence or hide evidence and try things that they shouldn't and therefore take away people's freedoms and change lives well it's layered i mean if if you're asking me should there be consequences for criminal conduct which is what you just described yes a prosecutor

hiding evidence um a prosecutor misrepresenting evidence in order to be a conviction that to me it's it's far more whether or not there should be layers of checks it's criminal conduct um you know so the way you're describing it to me um begs an easy answer the more difficult question really is is and i think it's the question you're you're asking and it's where i kind of started with all this there is such a danger in the use of polluted or corrupt sources such a danger that we instruct jurors think about this we instruct jurors that their testimony is to be taken with caution when their testimony is predicated on them receiving some benefit, you know, like a plea deal or something like that.

Who instructs them? You? The judge. Okay. And so, if we've got to give an instruction for a witness like that, why are we calling the witness? You know, and the retort to that is, well, you know, the only way to cast a play in hell is to have devils as your cast of characters. Mr. McMoneagle chose that witness for us because he lived a life of crime with that individual.

I get it, but we're talking about a court of law. And so I always go back to, if you don't have credible, credible evidence to corroborate an informant, there's no way in this world you should either ever call that informant or base a prosecution based on informant testimony. Now, that rarely happens. You're describing a case, obviously, that maybe it did happen, but you should never, ever, ever do it. And it's so dangerous. I use the analogy time and time again. It's diseased. It's just a diseased form of testimony if you went to it wouldn't be wawa because wawa is great these days right but say you went to some convenience store that's not so good and you got a candy bar right and it's a it's a pretty decent mounds bar they still have mounds bar really kitty cat bars whatever and you opened up the wrapper and part of the part of the you know candy was rotting you know would you cut it in half and eat the good part and that's what happens in these prosecutions you know know, they want you to, well, okay, yeah, this part was diseased.

You might have lied about this, but he's telling the truth about that. Well, are you kidding? People's lives are on the line. So, and, you know, most of the people that I've ever tried cases against, I think would embrace that view. And those that don't, those that would put up a polluted source and are aware of of you know something that's exculpatory or someplace where they've lied that's

unpardonable and and it's quite frankly illegal yeah and it goes back to something we were talking about right at the outset with the fact that you're also incentivized in this system to win the case sure you are right you know when at all cost I get it I mean I'm not saying that's it that's exactly how it fact that you're also incentivized in this system to win the case sure you are right you know win at all costs i get it i mean i'm not saying that's that's exactly how it does happen um and you know i i think in in the few occasions where it does happen i think if you if you stuck true serum into the person who who you know might have done that the the prosecutor the lawyer who might have done that they'd probably tell you well you know you know, I really believed he did it,

and I was just going to win at all costs. You know, the end justifies the means, and that's the danger. The means sometimes are unconstitutional. The means are sometimes fabricated lies. And so what have you done? You know, go back to St. Thomas More, right? Man for All Seasons. Did you ever read that?

Great. You should read it. No, I haven't read it, no. And if you read the screenplay, there's this scene, you know, and everybody knows about St. Thomas More. He lost his head for his principles. And there's this scene where Moore is trying to warn this kind of prosecutor-type fella that he can't prosecute a case because he doesn't trust the evidence, but that the person that was involved in the accusation was certainly guilty. says to the the protagonist in this roper he says what you know would would you you know would you would you do anything um would you would you would you do anything would you break all the laws to

prosecute the devil himself and and roper the guy says well for the devil um yeah i would i would i would throw out all the laws to prosecute the devil himself. And Moore replies, well, with all the laws gone and all the laws in England lying flat, what will you do when the cold winds blow and the devil turns round on you? And there it is i mean like so prosecutors have that have that responsibility to say hey listen i may have somebody here who's guilty but i can't take this shot because i don't trust what i'm doing and i don't trust my proofs and if i can't trust them here then i can't ever trust them anywhere um so i'm going to give the devil a pass this time catch you next time that I have to read that

that encapsulates it what will you do when the devil turns around on you where will you hide from the cold winds that will blow then it's great stuff it's fantastic what does it talk about it talks about the slippery slope of it all

it's another example this is why I struggle with it so much with other things too it's like you the ends justified the means argument in life is such that's a dangerous one and it depends on the context and whatever but like when we're talking about the way that society's held together at the threads on law and rights and individual rights and freedoms and not living in a tyranny and things like that. When you start violating those, that's how you get to the China level. That's how you get to the Russia level. That's how you get to these other totalitarian governments where it's a done deal.

They decide you're done. You might be whacked. You may not even make it to court. How do you stop that from happening? they decide you're done you might be whacked you may not even make it to court you know like how do you stop that from happening i i think i i agree that there has to be like you said the word criminal which is exactly what it is when when things get to a certain level where they're straight up lies coming out that the prosecutor is aware of and you have to be able to go after that without disincentivizing prosecutors to be able to do their jobs, which is –

That's a slippery slope. I get it. It's a tough balance. Yeah, immunity – the immunity laws that exist – and listen, I'm not advocating anybody be – I've ever been – even been aware of that prosecutors ever broken a law. I haven't seen it, thank God. But if it happens, then the hell with them right you know i think it's actually on an even higher level though when it's the actual supposedly unbiased system itself this is not the prosecutor it's not the it's not the cog in the machine that's what a prosecutor is a lot as we already talked about it's like well they got to get a w because the da the boss said we need it and the boss's boss is the guy that's

running for office and he needs to be able they don't give a fuck they just want to win office right it's this group think yeah you know corporate mentality in in in this case the public sector but when it's judges when it's the system when it's laws being protected that aren't laws and it's judges, when it's the system, when it's laws being protected that aren't laws and it's the people making them who say, no, no, we're above that. That's where – that's my red line. That's where I go, nope. Especially if it's people who are like in elected positions or – excuse me. I meant to say unelected positions where they're put in there by elected people and things like that which could be judges and stuff like that and some judges have to win

office but when you took this meek mill case you know this is one people see the hashtag free meek they knew he was in trouble for something or whatever but i was really glad to see you take this one because we're talking about something that followed around a guy for like 10 years or 12 years all because a judge was clearly in this case un or biased to say the least but i would argue corrupt with with how she ran the case and so what a lot of people don't know is the actual facts and how this transpired so would you mind from way before you ever represented him you can talk about that too but can you explain what had happened to him back when he was 18 19 where he messed up and then sure what what

they did to him you know back in uh when he was a kid he was arrested for um a weapons and small amount of cocaine charges i think he was charged with possession with intent to distribute and firearms charges. And went to trial, was convicted, and given a period of incarceration, which he served, was released. And the incarceration that he received came with a significant tail. We call it a tail. So he not only served his time but was on probation and parole for a significant period of time and then had what we would call technical violations where you could miss a curfew, you could ingest marijuana or have something in your system

where you're not actually committing a crime out there, but you've had a technical violation of your probation, and it leads to more probation and more time. And he went through really decades of being in this cycle, even to a point where he'd made it in his career and was still running into problems with technical violations. And, you know, I always say to people, well, people say, well, he violated his probation. I mean, well, don't come crying to me. You know, you talk about being in a prison cell

for, you know, a long period of time. Try being on probation for a long period of time and walking it off without a misstep. And he served time. And did his time. So at any rate, I'm not crying the cry for him, but he had been, like so many, just in this unbelievable cycle of probation

that he was just unable to, what I'll call, walk off, that ultimately led to a violation on some, like, summary offense violations, driving his, you know, motorcycle too fast or got into some incident with an airport with somebody, all of which resulted in the dismissal of criminal charges, but again, technical violations. And finally, the judge that he'd been on probation and parole for for all these years sent him to stay prison for over two years. And that's kind of where I get involved.

How did you get involved? I was, you know, a large firm that represented Meek up in New York, great firm, great law firm, reached out to me and said, listen, we have a problem in Philadelphia. We'd like you to get involved in that case. That's going to be ugly because everybody kind of had a sense of how it was going to end for him given the history of his problems with the probation system. But I get involved, and it's amazing. I reach out to the prosecutor on the case who was a really great person. I said, hey, listen. I said, these are technical violations, and this guy's doing really great. His career is taking off. Yeah, he's killing it.

He's doing wonderful. We gave him it violations, and this guy's doing really great. His career is taking off. Yeah, he's killing it. He's doing wonderful. We gave him itineraries and everything else. Yeah, great. Talked to probation. Spoke to his probation officer. We're not recommending a violation. We're not recommending he go to prison. We're good.

He's doing great. Great, great, great, great, great. We go. We put the presentation in front of the judge. I don't care what the prosecutor's got to say i don't care what the probation officer's got to say he's got to go so there it is unheard of i mean never had anything like that happen that i'd ever seen in life and to their credit um meek supporters, Rock Nation in particular, Mike Rubin in particular, moved heaven and earth and we threw the kitchen sink at it. Appeals, attacking the sentence, attacking the original conviction, like really great lawyering that was done. And I'm not talking about myself but really talking

about the team um and then you know there's an old expression it's better to get be lucky than good and um we got real lucky it turned out that the uh one of the police officers in his original arrest had been put on a do not call list by the philly da's office because um they were looking at old cases and allegations of misconduct by by you know law enforcement so like a cop witness type deal cop witness in his case and so we then went and asked for a new trial based on that um and got the district attorney's office to agree to their credit. And although the judge disagreed with that as well, we were able to take that appeal to the appellate courts, and the appellate courts said, you know what, we're granting them a new trial.

Not with her. No. Well, they also agreed that she should be recused. So they granted him a new trial on his original charge of whatever, 15 years ago, however long it was. And we went back with the district attorney's office and worked out a resolution where he pled to a misdemeanor no further penalty case over so but i tell you what none of it happens um quite frankly if he's if he's joe smith um none of it happens but but for the fact that, that he was fortunate enough to, to have people behind him like Roc Nation and Desiree Perez and Mike Rubin and amazing people who literally you talk about, do you ever press, press a button and stop working, um, worked tirelessly, um,

and made sure lawyers like me who worked on the case were at our best um and didn't take no for an answer and uh and really recreated a way in which you can challenge wrongs in the criminal justice system the free meek buses and uh you know you couldn't look up and see a billboard now he had he had the luxury of having that kind of support and it proved to be helpful. At the end of the day, quite frankly, I think what was most helpful was the intervention of the district attorney's office.

But everybody's motivated by, you know, being on the right side of things. On that case, we managed to get on the right side of things. But I'll never forget, you know, anybody who knows Meek Mill, he's a tough guy, and a guy of his word, quite frankly. And I saw him right after they took him into custody. They put him in because of his celebrity status.

They took him upstate and they put him in into a wing with just the mentally ill patients for his protection. And he was there for a few days and when i first saw him i didn't even recognize him when he came out of this this cell it was like a holding cell was in the bowels of prison and he looked at me and he said uh he said i'm i've been in this in this hellhole with all these mentally ill people and i was sitting there thinking oh my god i must have gone mentally ill and they put me in here and i don't even know it that's how impacted he was by by the early moments of incarceration and it led for months i mean it took us months to go up and come back on appeal. And, uh, um, to his credit,

um, he stood tall and, uh, and, and one of the other things that needs to be said about him, um, the whole time he was in there, you know, sometimes the, the, the lawyer is educated by the client. And, uh, he would say to me, you know, Brian, when, when we get through this and we're going to get through this, um, there's a lot of guys in here who need my help. A lot of them. And I'm not, you know, he wasn't coming from the perception of everybody's innocent, but I need to give back. And boy, has he ever. He got involved with the Reform Alliance. time energy money and everything to try and reform um you know a system where you could really spiral

in on probation and parole so it's it's a great happy ending that isn't in large part you know attributable to him and in large part attributable to the people that supported him i think a big part of the story and there's a lot of big parts but the point about probation and the counterintuitive nature it can have because of how deep it goes and how long it goes and stuff like i understand if someone who committed awful crimes is let out of prison and maybe they let them out on the shorter end of what the sentence could be and there's like okay we gotta watch it i get that and i think that's constitutional like i would make that argument but we're the most incarcerated per capita nation on earth you said it yourself our recidivism rate is through the fucking roof and a part of the reason it is is because these guys and women who get out of prison from, quite frankly, simple charges or things that you can quickly say,

all right, I'm not going to do that again. They're followed around by this stuff. And then if you're Meek Mill, let's call it what it is. The guy is one of the best rappers we've had in a long time. I mean he's fantastic. And there's certain elements that go with being a star being on the road having to go across state lines Right, like these were common violations. He was getting he has to go perform. It's how he makes a living That's right. So he pays off all the debt from all the legal fees he had

Yeah, no kidding think he had like 30 million in legal fees or something. Is that right? It was Let's please check that the audience out there, but it was it was high I read some high number when I was looking at this a few days ago just to remind myself on the case and it's like well that's not the point the point of of the punishment and crime is to deter and to correct right goes back to the whole department of correction there's no correcting going on and you don't deter and correct when you're trying to follow people forever and not give them a chance to do it. So even if there were like some small fuck-ups, literally like, as you said, like popping a wheelie in New York where someone just took a video of it because it's Meek Mill. Right?

Like, is that guy a danger to society? No. That's not like when we're talking about the people on the streets doing shit, that's not the guy I'm worried about. That's not the guy at 3 a.m that i'm thinking twice about when i walk outside it's like hey what's up man how are you you know what are you doing out here cool all right me too right like that's all it is completely it's completely the right thing to not only say but it is the right thing meaning we we can do both you know we always think we can only do one we can do both we can eliminate probation and always think we can only do one. We can do both. We can eliminate

probation and parole for folks that are not dangerous to society and say, okay, all right, go. You're back. Listen, you run into a problem, you're going to run into a problem just like anybody else. You're good. And then there's a small group, obviously, that we want to monitor. You kind of lost the right not to be monitored for a while you committed a crime of violence you you did some things that that we're worried that you might do again and if you do these things again as opposed to popping a wheelie or smoking a joint or whatever the hell it is we can't come back from that um and i think we're getting there we're starting to see a lot of changes in the Bail Reform Act, in probation and parole.

I think a lot of judges completely agree with you, by the way. From a very practical standpoint, they don't want people coming in constantly for reviews and probation reviews. They want to get on with it. They've got lists in Philadelphia. I mean, the violation of probation list for offenses is enormous. And I think most judges really agree with this. At least the ones I talked to are in agreement with it. And the sooner it happens, the better it happens because I think it's going to, again, it's a win-win.

It's selfish. It's sensible. There are some things that are just sensible but you know we get mired down on what was and and we don't want to you know get smarter and and work better and work quicker um but i think meek meek's case is great for that reason um because you know we'd have never heard about it it drew it drew a light to it let's just say that needed to be drawn and i think it's it's it's one of those few situations in the criminal justice system where it is an easier fix than than dealing with mandatory minimums or other things that people are more

passionate about when you this is actually a good dichotomy to draw here too i just thought of this but when you're talking about you said like without rock nation without michael rubin who just he was used to be the owner of the sixers or one of them he just sold out because he founded fanatics and they have some conflicts of interest in business but really amazing guy like for sure these people when you say you couldn't have won without them besides just like you know being all over you and whatever frankly no one needs to be all over you you're going to do the job. Guess what?

I'm going to tell you this. You haven't really seen it unless you've seen it with particularly the folks that we're talking about. They were all over us. And I remember when the case was over, telling people, you know, working on that case made me a better lawyer. Because when you operate at the level that those people operate, failure is not an option. Losing is not an option. And if you lose, well, then you've got to go back in court the next day and win they they they operated a level particularly in terms of an energy level and a and a and a level even in terms of understanding the law that i've never ever seen in situations where i've represented somebody and had people want to intervene in the

case that aren't lawyers you know what i mean like somebody's president of a company he wants to have his input those folks in that case were creative in terms of strategy legal strategy a legal so you are talking all about i'm telling you all of it and and you it stunned it stunned me the versatility of the folks that were involved in that case um desiree and and mike and uh it obviously came from, in Mike's situation, really a labor of love. Yeah, that guy's amazing. And in Desiree's position, both from a labor of love and from a business perspective, and I'll tell you what,

you don't want to be on the wrong side when they're right because it was amazing to see what they did on meek's behalf and um thank goodness well michael rubin's a guy who walks the talk through and through as well self-made guy and he i mean as far as like giving back on this cause i'm gonna forget the names but he has like multiple organizations that he's heavily involved with that are working on issues like this like criminal justice reform sure having a good balance to things you know you can't just let everyone out on the street but yeah it's great to hear that literally at his lowest moment meek himself was the guy in there saying you know there's some people here who who definitely they don't have a

voice it was remarkable and case after case i mean he's he's seen to it that some of, there were a couple of guys that were up there that really were being looked at by the Innocence Project. And he is, he, you know what? He didn't just say it, he did it. That's awesome. Not a lot of people do that, so I've got enormous respect for him. Have you been involved in some of that stuff since then with him at all? You know, very, very rarely other than, you know, contributing because they, you know, the alliance itself is fantastic. I mean, they're, you know, they're lobbyists and, you know, doing stuff at the highest level. What they're really trying to do is change legislation and change laws. And they've got a great group and,

you know, Mike Rubin got some of the most powerful people in the great group and you know Mike Rubin got some of the most powerful people in the country involved you know he goes and gets craft and other colleagues who respect him were willing to put their money where their mouth is it's it was an amazing probably one of the

nicest experiences and coming from hell to like heaven i mean i was there when when we mike went and picked him up at the at the prison in his helicopter and brought him in to ring the liberty bell oh yeah and i kept thinking you know i remember seeing him up at that prison thinking that he'd gone insane and the way he put it like oh my god did i go insane and not know it and there he was um so goes to show you you know um what effort can do and and uh effort on the part of good people you in this case i don't know if i got to this point because we were talking about some of the people involved in like the things they were doing on the legal side as you pointed out so that's impressive like that is what you were referring

to mostly like i didn't expect that but on the other side of it where you talk about like if this were john smith you know it wouldn't have been able to get to that level because he wouldn't have this help you wouldn't have free meek signs everywhere and everything how could you which by the way is fine because now he can be as you say he can be an advocate for this he can use that platform to be able to do something great so it's it's it's a great thing all around but this is a case where you're actually working on the other end as opposed to like cosby and cosby you're working against public opinion yeah right yeah we were public i've said this so many times the two greatest examples of in cosby there was an impossibility in trying to change public opinion there'd been too much

damage done um and too many you know allegations made to come to come back from that um and that's my mentality going into meek you know i go into meek thinking well you know you're what do you mean public opinion what do you mean and i i you know as i was saying before with with rock nation and and they're like what do you mean what do we mean we will get public opinion on our side and they went and did it um and did it in remarkable fashion i mean at the end of the day again i i said we we did have to get a little bit lucky but there wasn't even amongst you know you'll hear as a rapper and he deserved what he got you know you had some of that but at the end of the day by the time everybody got there like yeah like it was a probation violation yeah this is crazy i mean like what are we doing and and he was 18 yeah and it happened and it taught me that you can if you've got the resources

and a little bit of right on your side too let's not forget i mean like we had great talking points we had somewhat of a victimization there. Cosby, it was pretty impossible. But with Cosby, I also learned. You talk about getting in front of the cameras and stuff like that. As I try to instruct folks, you always have the ability to be creative when you get the chance. Clearly. Clearly. You know, yeah. And with Cosby, there was a time or two where I thought we did some good things,

but I really never appreciated the breadth of the Me Too movement until we tried to do that in Cosby because then they came after us. How so? Articles. we tried to do that in cosby because then they came after us um how so articles uh it was one article written about me about how i victim shamed shamed during a during cross-examination of the preliminary hearing like i'm victim shaming because i'm cross-examining the complainant well actually a detective they didn't even call the complainant about the inconsistencies and the versions that have been given by the complainant and the fact that the complainant in the case had gone on her own to visit him at his home after the so-called sexual assault. That's victim shaming now.

And so, you know, lawyers now have to really be careful in the public setting when they're defending their clients because sometimes no matter what you do you can't win right so why bother trying to win try the case in the courtroom litigate your motions keep the you know a lot of times i'll say you know the press will call me for a comment i'll say well i said everything i had to say in court now that was a preliminary hearing you said that cross-examination with the witness yeah with with the detective who took the statement from the witness article lawyer shames you know lawyer it was almost like i think one of the quotes was i was raping the complaint the second time even though she wasn't even there but i mean that's how personal it gets now with with today and and the media and and uh you know

the internet and everything else you can be you can be gone in a minute. They can come get you. Did that have, did that carry weight in your decision, hold on, in your decision to then at trial have Andrea, your female counterpart, do the cross-examination of, I think she was also named Andrea, right? Yeah. The alleged victim. Angela Grusin. Andrea Constant was the complainant. do the cross-examination of i think she was also named andrea right yeah the the angela angela angela andrea constant was the complainant so you who again one of the greatest cross-examiners in the history of history did not cross-examine yeah the key witness because you're a male yeah that wasn't my choice oh interesting yeah I'll leave that one there. I know.

You can leave it live. Yeah. Okay. Well, that says a lot. That changes things. That wasn't strategic on my part. It might have been strategic. I think it was strategic, quite frankly, in the end of it, which was to have a woman cross-examine.

And there's always truth to that strategy, I think. I've always been a big believer in the fact that, you know, you cross-examine to cross-examine. Right. Objective. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's really important. When I see subjectivity of the Twitter mob reaching the courtroom, that's where I get, and it's, I mean, it's there. That's where I get so worried. Everywhere. It's everywhere it's there. Like, that's where I get so worried.

Everywhere. It's everywhere. It's in all walks of life. It's in everything. You know, you really, if you care enough, or if you're in a position where you, you know, for me, I don't care, quite frankly. I mean, I care about, you know, how it certainly affects my farmer, my family, but I really don't care what somebody says about me on social media. I do care about how it might resonate with my client

because now I've adversely affected them by something I've said that's caught fire. And that's why you just have to be so careful as you're handling cases to just tuck it in and just leave it be because they'll parse every word they'll they'll try and put you on trial and then by definition affect your client and so uh sometimes less said is best right and that goes to what you were saying about the change in your approach to media and things like that i agree like when ben brafman's out there standing next to somebody going my client did not do this he is absolutely innocent it is a ridiculous case this prosecutor is corrupt we absolutely hate to see the city fall apart he's standing next to fucking martin screlli you know it's like all right bro like there's no way those people on the jury haven't seen that

and there's no way they're not going to be like, oh, this fucking guy. You know, whereas when you're... It's a great imitation and Ben's a great lawyer and it's a great imitation. But, like, you understand what I'm saying? I understand he's doing what he's got to do. And I don't know the guy. But, like, I know how it looks. Yeah. You know, and they can't say that about you when you're in there arguing for Cosby.

That's exactly right. Just keep it in the courtroom. Say it. You know, say what you got to say in the courtroom and go home. Yeah. But you had said something in the Meek thing. I just didn't want to get you off the Cosby example there. Sure.

Where you were talking about like following people around with this whole probation thing we were talking about, like it following you around forever and being counterintuitive. You know, the thing that really bothered me about him is yes, on the one hand, okay, if he were Joe Blow, this wouldn't have been able to happen. He's a powerful guy with powerful friends and whatever. But on the other hand, this was a kid from nothing who made something of himself. And, okay, he made a couple mistakes when he was young, but they weren't – he didn't rape anyone. He didn't – there was nothing like that, right?

It was minor stuff. And then he gets out of prison and he's a star and he's trying to do it the right way and he talks about trying to do it the right way he's trying to be an example to people like hey all right i had to do music why don't you be a lawyer you can make it out too and yet the system in order to make a story because oh we're and you had the same thing with alan iverson too what they tried to do to him in order to make a story like they're like well let's go after him because that'll be the headlines. And you have to say, well, aren't we being counterintuitive because we're supposed to help this person be an example to all the others who are surrounded in a no win situation growing up.

So true. And even in his hearing, the irony of it would be brought in and we're like, judge, listen, look at the work. Look at the people that he's, listen. Look at the work. Look at the people that he's employing. Look at the good. Isn't this what we hope for out of probationers? This is the gold standard. But it goes back to something I've always said.

I brought up the fact that it probably doesn't happen with the great people that he had behind him. But quite often, celebrities um whether they be athletes or rappers or actors or comedians whatever they might be um you know having celebrity status can also be a a huge detriment and in meek's case it really was um at least in terms of how he was dealt with by the system initially on the way there yes on the way there yes um you know there's always there's always It really was, at least in terms of how he was dealt with by the system initially. On the way there, yes. On the way there.

You know, there's always jealousy. There's always, well, there's also the fact that, you know, with high publicity cases, they're really tough because judges, you know, judges don't want to read about themselves in the newspaper. And everybody's watching and everybody's different. The prosecutors are different. The judges are different. Everybody acts differently in a high-profile case. So do the criminal defense lawyers, by the way. I mean, all of us react to the bright lights

and rarely do any of the players react well to the bright lights. They're always doing something different because of perception, because of this or that. Now, sometimes it could be a good thing because everybody's at their best but you know people tend to to flock to the light i've noticed and um you know sometimes the celebrity cases are the ones you don't wish for because you're going to get a lot of light you know yeah it's important to say it does cut both ways yeah there's people who abuse power and their right to have it and use it and then there's the people who are quite literally

targeted unfairly because of it and i've seen both ends it's another thing where it's like well i don't have a good answer for it because you're always going to have no self-motivated humans around you know what i mean you're crying there's no fix to, you know. No one's whining for them. They have the money, they have the resources, etc. But from a lawyer's perspective, you know, and I'll sometimes have to speak to you were talking about something, but you did mention it separately a few minutes ago. The whole Innocence Project thing and what they do. I think that's so cool because, A, one thing that they don't get credit for is their burden of proof to take a case is high. Yeah. Like they do. Sometimes they take the time and they do years of homework to be like, is this person –

You can never be 100%, but is this person innocent right they're painstaking yeah but they take on the the cause of of society's lowest someone locked in a box usually for like the rest of their life for something they didn't do the innocence project is amazing but some of the people some of them are you know great lawyers that could simply just take high profile cases and make a lot of money and they're there and they're putting their time in and they're working hard and it's all pro bono and it's all for the good of the cause. And it's an amazing organization. And you're right. They don't take every case. They look really hard at it. They don't want to make mistakes and promote people as innocent who aren't. And in the same breath, they don't want to miss one. And it's an amazing organization. And there's a lot of people involved in it and a lot of people who aren't like the faces of it that work behind it and God's work. Yeah, I appreciate what they do. And I should

talk about it more too, because it's the kind of thing that I think needs attention. But listen, this was great. I appreciate you so much coming in. It's a pleasure being here. I'm glad I got the chance to sit in this seat. I'm a fan, and I appreciate you making me part of your show. Well, thank you, and I hope I can have you back at some point because i could have you in here all day there's a million things i could ask you about but i really and i think i will speak for most sane people and the same people aren't always in the content in in the comment sections but i think i will speak for most people when i say i really really appreciate your candor today you know i and i didn't know i've only ever talked to you off camera off the record you know and you do have a job to do where you have to you can't say things publicly but

to give us the viewpoint in how that mentality shift is a real question mark it's a moral dilemma with going from one side to the other you know the light side to the dark side but also then having to uphold the law and how you look at that and how it's a very imperfect process. I really, really appreciate that. And I wish, I know there are a lot of great defense attorneys out there.

I do not, it's not fair to say there's a lot of scumbags. There's a lot of great ones, but like, I do wish all attorneys had that presence of mind. Well, that's nice of you to say. Thank you. All right. Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it that's nice of you to say. Thank you. All right.

Everybody else, you know what it is. Give it a thought. Get back to it. Peace.