Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Justice Served, Justice Delayed, and a SCOTUS Justice is Made

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Midas Touch Legal AF. If it's Saturday, it is Legal AF live. If it's Sunday, it is also Legal AF. It's Legal AF basically every day of the week, then, my cellist and Michael Popak delivering and downloading you with the legal cases of the week, the key legal issues of the week, the key legal issues of our time in digestible ways that you can all understand legal aaffirs. We've got a lot to talk about. This week, Michael Popock, welcome and great seeing you. Hey, you two Ben, this one I could not wait for you and I to record tonight just just so

Starting point is 00:00:46 many great things for us to talk about a lot of updates, but you know, just as a heads up to you and to the and to our followers and listeners, this is episode 51. This is our 51st podcast together doing legal a app. We're coming up on our our birthday soon. Wow, we didn't. I thought we should have probably celebrated 50. That's usually a milestone. We kind of glossed right over 50, but here at legal a f, the milestone is 51 congrats on hitting 51. Maybe an episode 107. Popoq, we can also celebrate maybe 211. We can just celebrate at the oddest of numbers. But I think as we reflect on this week's legal news,

Starting point is 00:01:33 I think I wanna talk a lot about temperament of a good lawyer because there are lots of ups and downs in the life of a trial lawyer. And there are lots of ups and downs in legal news. And last week, we reported on a lot of great important developments in the various prosecutions of Trump. This week, we're going to be reporting on some developments that are not so good. Granted, there are some conflicting reports about the Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg and what he's doing or what he's not doing out of the district attorney's office. But later in the podcast, we're going to talk about how he lost his two top deputies, his two top prosecutors who were incredibly experienced,

Starting point is 00:02:30 incredibly talented prosecutors who were leading the investigation. Mark Pomeran's and Kerry Dunne have left that prosecution. Alvin Brad confirmed it. The governor of New York, not too happy about these developments. But we're going to talk about that later in the pod. But you know, you got to have the right temperament as a trial lawyer because the news is going to go up. It's down. You'll have big wins. Then you'll have losses. That's just the life of a trial lawyer. And I like to compare it to sometimes a Hall of Fame baseball player. Well, bat 350 400 is a great batting average for a Hall of Famer. I think a great trial lawyer's average is slightly higher than that because you have more ability to select the cases you pick as opposed to selecting the pitches that

Starting point is 00:03:22 you get as a batter. But nonetheless, you're going to take your beatings as a trial lawyer. I think there's an old adage about that. Sorry. Good. But what's the adage? The old adage is if you haven't a new and I or season trial lawyers, I have over 30 in my career. If you haven't lost a trial, it means you haven't tried enough of them. It's absolutely true. And you have a lot of people who claim to be trial lawyers who when you really break it down, they've just done depositions or they've sat at a trial. But when you actually are in that arena,

Starting point is 00:03:55 you're going to lose. It's just the nature of it. You can't control every aspect of these proceedings. And so that is true with the news as well. And we're going to break down what's going on with these prosecutions out of the Manhattan DA's office. But I think we would also be remiss Popeyes at the top of the show. We didn't talk about what's happening in Ukraine. And we're not going to talk about it from a foreign expert, foreign policy perspective. You should listen to the Midas Touch Brothers podcast for that. Our podcast focused on Russia, such as Kremlin file is a great source of information there.

Starting point is 00:04:30 And of course, by following the key of daily Twitter feeds and there's some just great news and great reporters out of there. Why would suggest that you definitely follow? But from illegal lens, because as we see, Presidentensky, his bravery, his courage out there, I think the contrast and the starker contrast is brought into picture of Donald Trump's initial impeachment, extorting this individual and President Zelensky, who is going to be a hero that lives on for centuries as a hero. And this was the person who Donald Trump was extorting and telling that he was not going

Starting point is 00:05:12 to give the Javilan missile system. And the Javilan missiles are like the key critical thing that we see now in the defense of Ukraine. And that was one of the things that Donald Trump was saying he was not going to deliver. And in fact, held up while he demanded that Ukraine gin up a phony investigation into Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and all of Donald Trump's relationship with Putin.

Starting point is 00:05:39 All of that to me is brought into stark contrast and the insurrection. Like why we do this show here is brought into star contrast and the insurrection. Like, why we do this show here is brought into star contrast and Pope, I think we see this very specifically as well in judge Reggie Walton's sentencing this week. And judge Reggie Walton sentenced one of the insurrectionists. It was that insurrectionist who was holding up the podium and the podium stealer. Yeah, he was the podium stealer. And he sent in that individual to think it was about 75 days. The guy's name was Adam Johnson and Adam Johnson said that he screwed up, he admitted

Starting point is 00:06:26 fault, he admitted that he was wrong in the situation. And I think he may have like dangled polo seas, doorknob. He didn't cause any damage, but he was in there making a full of himself. And specifically what Judge Walton said was, quote, this is what we see in countries like what we're experiencing now in Ukraine. Judge Walton said, that's where we're headed. If we don't do anything to stop it, talking about Putin's invasion of Ukraine and everything that Putin is doing to delegendomize democracies. Reggie Walton, by the way, is George W. Bush appointee, a Republican appointee, and very strong words about the insurrection, about those who inspire the insurrection and comparing them to Putin.

Starting point is 00:07:17 Bush and George W. Bush and his father and Reagan appointees seem like a generation and a different party from those that are appointed by Trump. It just seems like it's a whole different party. But the profile encouraged that you're rightly pointing out about Zelensky and contrasting it to Trump goes even deeper. We're in wartime right now. We're not at war. We haven't declared war. but we have a NATO adjacent country, but we're very supportive of through various treaties and trading relationships and humanitarian reasons. It's under attack to be decapitated by Russia. And what does Trump, former president, say and do during this

Starting point is 00:08:04 time of potential war where you need to support the current occupant of the White House? He compliments Putin. He says Putin's a genius. Putin's, he just observes attributes in Putin that, of course, are anathema to everything else that thinking human beings and moral people see in his operation. You're not supposed to say those things during potential wartime. You're not supposed to be at odds with your president. And the profile and courage of Zelensky is amazing by contrast. He's turned down and offered by the US to evacuate him and his family. He is gonna be at the radio and at social media until the very end. And I'm hoping when this is all over, he's prevailed. We've supported him and we make the Ukraine a member of NATO.

Starting point is 00:08:57 And then we got another episode. We can talk about all sorts of things related to international treaties. And by the way, one day when you're ready, I have one of my partners is an expert in that region, former General Counsel for the National Security Council for two administrations. And I think he brings some good focus.

Starting point is 00:09:13 I'll offer his services to you and the brothers one day when you're ready. We should definitely have him on to discuss. And the thing too is that Putin strategy objectively was the opposite of brilliant. I mean, the Russian troops are taking on serious losses. The initial days from the Russian perspective has been an utter failure.

Starting point is 00:09:40 And the fact that you have Trump and you have these radical right extremists, Republicans, cheerleading, Putin, even to a greater degree than RT. Like even Putin's own propaganda people have to use Trump and his stuages because Trump and his stuages are more clowns than even Putin's own propaganda. So they have to actually use these clowns in America to, to, to, to, to, to, you know, to perpetuate Putin. And give aid in comfort to the enemy. I mean, to give aid in comfort. This is something that my mother's generation, my father's generation, who grew up during World War II, would be a guest to see a former president

Starting point is 00:10:25 critiquing a sitting president during a potential wartime. But this is the world that Trump has created. And when you have Elise Stefano, who's the number three in the Republican leadership, stand up and criticize Biden and by extension, by inverse proposition, compliment Putin. I mean, it is the world that they have created that you, your brothers, and me by extension, have to fight hard against that tie. That's not a world that's acceptable to us.

Starting point is 00:10:57 It's not a world that's acceptable to progressive Democrats. And we shouldn't, when I say it's not acceptable, we shouldn't accept it. That means exactly what it sounds like. I love when people throw that phrase around, something's not acceptable. You've accepted it. To declare it unacceptable means you have to do something proactively to prevent it and to make sure it doesn't happen again. That's why, yes, well, why are you talking about foreign policy at the beginning of a legal

Starting point is 00:11:25 podcast? Because it all relates to all of the cases that we're talking about, because whether we let use the label progressive, conservative, at the end of the day, we should all be pro-democracy, pro-our judicial system, pro-our constitution, and what Trump and what these radical right extremists have tried to do is destroy our institutions and to create in the United States a system that is akin to Putin's authoritarian regime in Russia. And that system that fake tough guy bullshit authoritarian Kim Jong Unish bullshit history has shown

Starting point is 00:12:16 that that is a utter failure. The reason that America has been this shining beacon across the world is because of our incredible constitution, because of our one of its kind, its first in history, legal system, and the way the checks and balances work here. That's why we talk about these issues each and every day on legal AF celebrated the good, the bad, the ugly, but ultimately our system and keeping these systems in check and keeping these systems in place. We're going to talk about a major update to our legal system in a little bit in this podcast, the nomination of Katanji Brown Jackson. We called it first on Midas Touch podcast like five weeks ago,

Starting point is 00:13:10 whenever it was first announced that Biden was going to have the opportunity to announce a Supreme Court justice. We called it, I said, I have, I said, Katanji Brown Jackson, you reiterated it. A few times, Popoq, we will talk about that nomination. Well, let's be frank. I, I, you and I originally talked about C. Michelle, childs. And we thought because of Lindsey Graham supporting it, then as a couple of weeks went on, you and I both looked at each other and said, you know what?

Starting point is 00:13:40 Lindsey Graham pushing this this hard is actually a bad thing. It's not a thing that Biden should embrace. And I also didn't think, Clydeburg, I thought he was hitting this note too hard to get somebody from his home state of South Carolina on. And I flip back and you flip back to Katangi, which was our original. So we started with Katangi, then we moved to Michelle Childs, because we thought, maybe that's the path of we resisted. Could be rise like I first thought was rising. I think I was stronger than that.

Starting point is 00:14:10 I thought I thought I one for one week in between the book ends of Katanji and Katanji, I thought childs and then I flip back and I said, no, it's gonna be Katanji Brown. And I want it to be frankly, and we're gonna talk about in this part of the segment when we hit it later this evening, why KBJ, my new favorite, EJ, you know, said of LBJ is perfect for this. And I love the fact she comes from Miami and she's got

Starting point is 00:14:36 amazing roots. And there's a lot of firsts here, not just the first black woman that we're going to talk about when we talk about her candidacy and why I'm very confident that she's going to be the next associate member of the Supreme Court. Also a first public defender, which I'm sure you're just crazy. It's 230 years. She's the first part. This is, we'll just give the stats. We'll tease the stats that we'll get to her.

Starting point is 00:15:01 First public defender, federal public defender, any public defender in the history of the Supreme Court, meaning she was representing people that accused of crimes that could not afford their own representation. So deep inside the criminal justice system in a way that none of the sitting justices currently are, and she's only the second person on the current court, who's ever been a trial judge. All the rest of them went from private practice or law school to the appeals court and skipped the day-to-day work of being a trial judge, seeing criminal, you know, potential criminals, criminals, sentencing, civil cases, her and so to my or the only two that had the experience of being a trial judge. That's what appeal courts do. They look at trial judge decisions or appeals court

Starting point is 00:15:51 decisions. And she brings that special, that special background to that position to a perfect, I couldn't think of a more perfect pick. And one that Lindsey Graham apparently hates. We'll talk more about it at the end. Yeah. Despite the fact that he voted to approve her. Oh, yeah. Now it's, I love the quote. It's obvious that the radical left is co-opted the process. The person you voted for, right? The radical left.

Starting point is 00:16:13 How about just that? Can't you just for a moment, Republicans, stand back, honor a dignified selection of someone who came from a middle class background. Fathers and uncles were police officers. Father went to night school to go to law school at the University of Miami. A mother public education went to Harvard, got the right clerkship with Stephen Breyer, who is replacing editor of Harvard Law Review.

Starting point is 00:16:43 Breyer, who she's replacing, she clerked for 20 years ago. She was a trial judge, a federal defender. She was on the U.S. sentencing commission. I mean, can't you just stand back and acknowledge and admire a body of work that is actually better than any of the senators that are judging her? I'm sorry. She has a better, better, more accomplished body of work than any of the people that will be judging her

Starting point is 00:17:08 to be to vote and to be selected for that position. Yeah, and she was approved by pretty much a bipartisan vote before. So all this things that the Republicans are trying to gin up is completely baseless. But again, we'll talk a little bit more about her, but we did a pretty good decent deep dive into her just right now but we'll talk about more about her at the end of the podcast. I want to delve into this other case, Popoq. We've talked about it

Starting point is 00:17:34 before on legal AF. This is the case, usual, unusual case of Pamela Moses. She was sentenced to six years in prison. I think it was like six years in a day or six years in a month. But for trying to register, despite the fact that she had a felony conviction in 2015, registered a certain circumstances of her felony conviction were very odd to begin with too. So it seemed that she's been in these political crosshairs her entire life. She wanted to run for political office again in 2020. And that's why in 2019 she was trying to figure out her voting registration status and why it appears that she may have even been targeted for political purposes. But in this case, she went to her probation officer.

Starting point is 00:18:25 She got a sign off from her probation officer that she was apparently eligible to vote, which the probation officer made a mistake, but nonetheless signed off on it. The prosecutor in this case that actually prosecuted her for this. Someone named Amy Wyric, her claim, was that Pam tricked the probation officer into basically giving Pam the free and clear that she could be a voter and that she was free to continue about her days. Did you need a piece of paper to register to vote?

Starting point is 00:19:04 Right. And so she got the piece of paper, but Amy Wyrick said that was basically induced by fraud. And they prosecuted her in Memphis and and with a jury with a jury, but a jury trial. But now the guardian did some incredible reporting. Amazing. They brought this to light. And as a result of the guardian reporting, I think the judge felt some heat. And the judge admitted that the court,

Starting point is 00:19:33 when they say the court, the meeting of the judge made mistakes in certain rulings, not allowing certain evidence to come in. That should have come in. And Pope, I'll tell us about that. Really, really one. I read the order. I read the order.

Starting point is 00:19:45 I read the whole order. So you've done a very good job as always of giving the sort of how we got here with Pam Moses and now Judge Mack Ward, who was the judge that presided over the jury trial in December, where the jury found her guilty because of the evidence was provided. Her team filed a motion for new trial.

Starting point is 00:20:03 She's been sitting in jail since December, while the new trial, she's not out, while the new trial motion was being prepared and filed, and they filed it on five or six grounds. You only need one ground for the judge to find, or to court to find, that you get an entire new trial. We start all over again, we etch a sketch it, and go back to the drawing board. You don't have to win at all five. She brought other arguments about testimony that was

Starting point is 00:20:32 excluded testimony that wasn't properly credited by the jury about whether she was guilty or innocent of this issue or whether she had the proper mental state, criminal mental state at the time. But the thing that actually the judge found out of the six grounds for Neutrall, he only found one to be valid. All you need is one. But the one was based on the Guardians reporting, what you and I've talked about in the past, because I do read it regularly and many of our topics sometimes come from reporting that the guardian does. So an out of country news agency based in the UK found evidence related to an email exchange concerning the person that gave her that piece of paper, the probation person that gave her that piece of paper. And that evidence was presented to the judge.

Starting point is 00:21:20 And the judge found that under the concept, the concept of Brady material, B-R-A-D-Y, that you and I've talked about in the past in criminal cases, where the prosecution is obligated to turn over exculpatory things that can help you prove your innocence, exculpatory material without being asked. Anything that's designated Brady material has to be turned over in a timely fashion

Starting point is 00:21:44 to allow the defense to put on a proper defense of their case. I mean, they have a right to that. And so the email the judge found was Brady material that should have been provided and believes that they were prejudiced as a result of not having it in time to use it at trial and has ordered a complete new trial. Now, I assume the prosecution, because I think you mentioned in the last podcast that we talked about it. For some reason, this prosecution or prosecutor has been like hot for Moses and like wants to, you know, make her career

Starting point is 00:22:15 on this case. I assume she's going to file some sort of appeal. My God, she'll lose and that and that there'll be a new trial for Pam Moses, who hopefully will avoid having to spend any more time in jail because she wanted to vote after her, her term, as she served her, she served her time, you know, for a prior crime. And she, her right to vote should have been restored, should have been allowed to vote. And at the very least, that shouldn't have been a new crime for which she had to be sentenced to jail. Well, Puck, I think that's a good analysis. And just talking about the Brady rule that you mentioned, it's named after a case, Supreme Court case called Brady versus Maryland in 1963.

Starting point is 00:22:56 And the ruling from that case requires prosecutors to disclose materially exculpatory evidence in the government's possession to the defense. A Brady material or evidence the prosecutor is required to disclose under this rules includes any evidence favorable to the accused, evidence that goes towards negating a defendant's guilt that would reduce the defendant's potential sentence or evidence going to the credibility of a witness. And if the prosecutor does not disclose material, exculpatory evidence under this rule and prejudice has ensued,

Starting point is 00:23:32 there could be a motion for new trial that's filed, and new trial can be granted. The case can ultimately be dismissed. In some cases, even a grigis Brady violations can lead to the dismissal with prejudice, where a case gets totally dismissed because of outrageous government abuse. Even if the information is not requested by the defense, under a case called Kyle's v. Whitley, you have to turn it over anyway.

Starting point is 00:23:59 It's the government's duty to turn that over as a constitutional right that defendants have. And so that is what is known as the Brady rule. Popo, what do you think is ultimately going to happen in the Moses case? I think with the new kind of scrutiny over it, the prosecutor is going to have to think twice about re-bring these guys. I would think you're exactly right, except I've done the reading as have you and you rightly pointed out in a prior pod that for some reason this prosecutor has a, let's pardon my French has a heart on for Moses and wants to make a career out of it because

Starting point is 00:24:36 I don't think you and I or any other sort of mature prosecutor exercising discretion would bring a case like this, especially in this atmosphere, but this one does. And so I think she's got it in frimosis, and I think she's just gonna retry her case. She got a conviction, she probably feels I'm guessing here, speculation based on experience, that she's got a good case anyway, and even with that email, she'll be able to explain that away,

Starting point is 00:25:01 and that's not gonna be enough of a bombshell to change the direction, or to change the ultimate jury result. I think she brings it. I don't think she does it. If we are in a different state at different time at a different prosecutor, I think there would be a lesson learned here by the motion for retrial. But I don't think this prosecutor will learn it. Sunlight is often the best disinfectant for corruption and the Guardian's article, bringing this up though, has made an important impact in the trajectory and so kudos to the Guardian for that. Talking about sunlight being the best disinfectant,

Starting point is 00:25:35 I think that relates to another legal development this week in a case involving the United States women's soccer team, which reached a $24 million settlement with the United States Soccer Federation. This case took a interesting direction because originally the district court out of California, judged by the name of Judge Clouzner, who I've appeared before, who actually is a very well-respected

Starting point is 00:26:08 judge in California. Part of the case was dismissed by Judge Clousner, originally, about a year and a half ago or two years ago, and oral arguments were supposed to begin on March 7th before the 9th Circuit, which is the Circuit Court of Appeals when cases get filed in California. Judge Clousner allowed working conditions claims to proceed. These were issues relating to charter flight discrimination,, accommodation, discrimination, playing surfaces,

Starting point is 00:26:47 discrimination. Those cases were able to proceed, but the equal portion, the equal pay portion, was thrown out. And Clowesner was a very long ruling, made a very technical ruling about the collective bargaining agreement and saying that the women's had a separate collective bargaining agreement with the United States' soccer federation, then the men's. This is what was collectively bargained for. But what ended up happening in the case going back to sunlight is the best disinfectant, was the head of the United States' soccer federation made statements and authorize statements to be made in pleatings that said that the women's soccer team was inferior to the men's.

Starting point is 00:27:30 That women were not as good a players, were not as exciting players, and really demeaned the abilities of women to compete competitively and professionally. And now the former head of the United States Soccer Federation. As a result of those arguments that were put into those pleadings, which that wasn't even the legal argument that they won on, it was just unnecessary cruelty and prejudice that was put in there. So he was removed. A new head was in place who was actually sympathetic and they reached the settlement,

Starting point is 00:28:05 despite losing in the district court before the court was, before the case was heard out of appeals, a settlement was reached for $24 million. Yeah, so you got it exactly right, but let's go over it. So Carlos Cardiro, who was the idiot, a former male, male head of the USSF, as you said, gratuitously made a filing in which he said, well, there's a reason women have disparate pay and don't have equal pay. They're not, basically, they're not as good as men, and they're not as physically challenged as men. By the way, just to be clear for those that don't follow this sport, the United States women's soccer team is the most successful soccer program male or female in the history of the United States and globally the United States women's soccer team has one not one not two but four

Starting point is 00:28:53 World Cups the US men's soccer team has one Zero world cups and the last world cup They didn't even qualify to be in the world cup tournament let alone Challenge for the World Cup. So we're talking about elite athletes who are who are more successful, statistically empirically and bi-accolate than their male counterparts, yet they were being paid considerably less being made to play in stadiums that were not up to world class conditions as the men were. And the replacement that you alluded to is Cindy

Starting point is 00:29:27 Parlo Cone, who was a former woman soccer player and is the first woman in 107 years of the USSF to ever head that organization. So I am glad that even though they lost on a technicality with what was going to be an appeal to ninth circuit on equal pay disparity. That is exactly the focus of the settlement led by Cindy Parlo Kohn on one side. And the women's soccer league Megan Rapinoe and the rest on the other. And they reach this, it'll be $22 million as a money pot that's going to go to the current, I guess recent current players to give them more money to equalize their pay and balance and their bonus imbalance with the men. And then two million that's going to be set aside for future scholarships

Starting point is 00:30:10 and things related to sort of post career activities of these of these women as they move forward. A landmark settlement, you and I like to talk about these things. It's right in our in our in our wheelhouse right in our alley when in our wheelhouse, right in our alley when we're talking about gender discrimination, equal pay disparity. And you know, there is no more, there is no more acute example of equal pay disparity than the women's soccer team versus the men's soccer team. One is an elite world class winner of cups. And the other is it. And the one that is is the female team. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:30:47 And, you know, I'm glad the settlement happened. You know, Judge Clowes, they're analysis. Unfortunately, from a strictly legal perspective, was very critical of the collective bargaining agreement that was negotiated by the union and the lawyers for the women's national team. And basically saying, you actually negotiated this. And while I'm sympathetic to your cause and your claims, in his words, you can't now retroactively

Starting point is 00:31:20 deem the collective bargaining agreement you just bargained for worse than the men's based on the fact that you entrusted your lawyers and your people to negotiate this for you. Ultimately, though, this was the right outcome. To me, just because the CBA was negotiated that way still doesn't mean that the overall federation is permitted to be discriminatory and how it treats two different groups. But this was the right outcome. And again, sunlight being a disinfectant for corruption, when these pleadings, it was very telling what the true views were

Starting point is 00:32:05 of the US soccer federation through their legal work and their legal pleadings and how they even treated the women's team in their legal arguments, which had nothing to even do with where they won. Yeah, there's nothing more egregious and ironic than mansplaining in your filings against the women's soccer team that's claiming that they have been discriminated against because

Starting point is 00:32:31 of their gender. A lot of updates to discuss. We want to talk, Pope, talk about the, the federal criminal civil rights cases against the murderers of Ahmed Arbery, the police officers and co-conspirators in the murder of George Floyd and talk through those before doing that. Wanna talk about one of our sponsors on legal AF, express VPN.

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Starting point is 00:35:27 Express VPN dot com slash legal AF go there and learn more and don't let those advertisers ever see your searches through ever again. And they're trying to harvest all of your data. And this is a good way to stop and prevent all those pesky advertisers from like trying to learn everything about you. But you want anything about me or on me harvested. Exactly. So why don't we start Pope by talking about the federal civil criminal trial against the murderers of Ahmed Arbery? Obviously, the individuals who were tried were convicted in the state case, there was a potential plea bargain, plea agreement reached in the federal case before the family of Ahmed Arbery rejected any sort of plea agreement they wanted that case to go to trial. Many legal observers, not us, but many legal observers thought that it may be a difficult trial to prove that the murders were racially motivated, despite the fact that these individuals had

Starting point is 00:36:33 a racist history and made racist statements before and were white supremacist sympathizers before. Could you tie that to what specifically happened on the day of became a question that legal observers felt, if you can reach a plea agreement and the individuals can confess and just admit to it, that would be a success. But ultimately, the family rejected that. The family told the federal court they rejected it. The federal court rejected the plea agreement. It went to trial and what happened, Pope Buck? Yeah, and we talked about this case before.

Starting point is 00:37:10 So just to bring everybody up to speed from where we started in the state court proceeding, Brunswick, Georgia, the jury convicted Travis McMichael, his father Greg McMichael and a neighbor, Roddy and Brian, of murdering an Arbery, and they were sentenced to Mick Michaels were sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility parole, and Roddy, Brian was sentenced.

Starting point is 00:37:37 But has ability to seek parole in about 50 years when he's 80 or 90 years older, whatever he's going to be. And they were going gonna start their sentence there, but and they're in jail already in Georgia. And then the US, the Department of Justice, you know, American Ireland's Department of Justice went forward with a prosecution of them

Starting point is 00:37:59 under civil rights violations. And the prosecutors we talked about in the prior podcast, you know, came to the spoke to the families and came to a recommended decision on a plea deal and offered a plea deal of 30 years, additional 30 years. Remember, they're already sitting in life in prison at over in the state court, but they would go first, apparently, in the federal court, and 30 years, or actually in the state court, and then they'd pick up their, if they would go first, apparently in the federal court, and 30 years, or actually in the state court, and then they'd pick up their, if they were still alive, which they're not going to be, they would pick up with their federal sentence.

Starting point is 00:38:33 And the judge and the victims and others said 30 years basically is not enough and rejected the plea deal and made them go to trial. And it looks like the Department of Justice in the US Attorney's Office for Georgia did a masterful job in, as you said, connecting the dots between their racist conduct in the past, including text messages using the N word, how they basically celebrated after they captured and killed and murdered Amid Arbery, how they celebrated that while they allowed him callously to die at their feet without trying to help him. Why, they treated him, as the prosecutor said,

Starting point is 00:39:16 in this federal case, criminal case, they treated him like an animal that they hunted and captured and then celebrated over the carcass as if they had bagged some sort of game. And they then connected that to text messages that they were able to extract from two out of the three defendant cell phones and personal devices. Apparently one of them, Greg McMichael had a device at the FBI couldn't crack and they couldn't get us text messages. And we'll talk about it on another pod,

Starting point is 00:39:50 about Fifth Amendment privilege and the ability, do you have to turn over your password so that the FBI can crack it. But in executing the search warrant, they found all the other text messages. So the jury was presented with screenshot after screenshot after screenshot of all of the racist hate hate hateful racist language that these gentlemen used in private about black people not about

Starting point is 00:40:13 Amadarbury per se but about black people and people of color and then they brought in live witnesses people that worked with them Either in the military when they were in the military or at other jobs, where they said that they told bad racist jokes, they made comments about black people. So by the time a jury was done because of the presentation of the evidence, they were like, yeah, these were racists that went after the sky. And if he was a white jogger, who he would have just been sort of patting on the back for running through a neighborhood and waved at, maybe even giving a cup of coffee, but because he was a black jogger, they decided they were going to hunt them down and literally kill him.

Starting point is 00:40:51 And so they have now, they haven't been sentenced yet. They'll be a sentence. The judge is giving them the right to file an appeal over the next two weeks. She's not going to let them out. They're already sitting in jail because of the first conviction. And then she's going to sentence them after a pretrial sentencing reports are prepared. So I assume there'll be sentenced the next 16 to 90 days on the federal side, which will be cumulative on top of the sentencing they've already been subjected to on the state side.

Starting point is 00:41:16 So in the case of the murder of Ahmed Arbery, you had the state case preceded first, and then you had the federal civil rights criminal case. Now moving over into Minnesota, where we're talking about the murder of George Floyd, the Minneapolis officers who were with Derek Chauvin, Derek Chauvin was found guilty in the state court proceeding. And then Derek Chauvin, Popok also pled in the federal proceeding. Yeah, he pled guilty. So to avoid having a federal trial, he's already be serving a life sentence related

Starting point is 00:42:00 to the his murder of George Floyd by sitting on him for nine and a half minutes and squeezing the life out of him. And these were the fellow officers that were all involved from the moment that George Floyd was identified as a potential whatever passing fake $20 bills in a convenience store and for which they gave him a death sentence, you know, within 15 minutes later, all of the officers that were involved from the arrest or attempted arrest at the convenience store to show them jumping on top of them and restraining him and crushing him to death are all now being prosecuted. These are the three officers who were prosecuted. Now, federally, as you said, they were not prosecuted

Starting point is 00:42:42 state. That's going to come up next. So this one, it went federal first, and the conviction we'll talk about. And then they're gonna be tried again in state court the way Shovey was. So there was the federal proceeding that resulted in the conviction of the three additional office. Yeah, let me ask you a question,

Starting point is 00:43:01 because this is something I'm sure our followers and listeners are wondering, why why if they've already been convicted, what is the purpose in a justice system, in a judicial system? What is the purpose of having somebody who's already been sentenced to life or worse imprisonment on ascetic claims and let's say state court or federal court being prosecuted again for other crimes or other violations related to the same conduct. Why does this, why is this society, do we do this?

Starting point is 00:43:31 Well, if we're a society that demands accountability and we don't want our laws to be flouted, why else would we have these laws on the books? You know, if you don't utilize a clear and obvious example or the most egregious examples of federal civil rights violations resulting in the murder of individuals, then why do you even have these on the books in the first place? And I think as federal prosecutors, you have independent duties. Your duties may be aligned in many ways with the agendas and duties of state prosecutors, but it's like asking, hey, why should Trump be prosecuted from Georgia, and New York,

Starting point is 00:44:21 and the DOJ? Well, each entity is an independent entity. They have their own laws, they have their own rules, and they're following them, and we demand accountability under the law. Now, it wasn't a foregone conclusion, though, that, for example, in the Derek Chauvin situation with the other officers who were involved and sat there and watched it and did an intervene and in many ways were responsible for encouraging

Starting point is 00:44:49 What took place by nature of their omissions and even some of their commissions? It's not a foregone conclusion that there is going to definitely be a guilty verdict in the state and a verdict to federal so you want to make sure that you're utilizing, you know, the laws. And now those individuals who were just found guilty in federal. So just the quick summation, Pope, is that these individuals who the police officers who were with Derek Chauvin who are responsible for the death of George Floyd, they've been found guilty in the federal criminal process. They now get tried and state court, right? Right. Exactly. And I'll tell you what exactly exactly right. And what I found is interesting

Starting point is 00:45:29 here and I you and I followed deeply and it and really put a microscope on the chauvin case. I either I missed it or I forgot that the way that whole the the timing of events, the dominoes that led to the death of Chauvin started because two rookie officers, literally rookies, like their first year, which was Alice, Alex, Kong, who was also black and Tom Lane, who was white, were called to investigate a suspected person passing fake $20 bills, which was George Floyd at the convenience store. The backup that arrived was more senior officers in the form of Chauvin, who I think was a sergeant, and to Tao, T-O-U, T-H-A-O,O. was among American. And their arrival is what turned, you know, what basically a stop and frisk into a murder

Starting point is 00:46:30 scene at the hands of more senior officers. And I think it was a very breathtaking moment in the wrong way during the trial when Tao was cross-examined and said, why didn't you pull? Why didn't you pull Shoveon in nine and a half minutes off of Floyd, gasping for air and saying he can't breathe? And his response, again, demonstrating utter callousness. And I'm sure it resonated with the jury when they convicted him was, I would think that a 13-year veteran

Starting point is 00:47:01 wouldn't know what to do and I wouldn't have to intercede. That's the answer. That's the blue line answer that was given. And what's, we hope from this, I mean, it's a hope, is that there'll be a change in national police standard operating procedures, SOPs, so that there's better training, so that rookies and veterans never execute

Starting point is 00:47:29 training so that rookies and veterans never execute restraints this way to kill and murder another person at the scene of a alleged crime. That SOPs change as a result. What do you think, Ben? Are SOPs going to change, nationally? You know, I hope they do, And I hope that in small ways, we could be a part of that change. And to that end this week, when I'm not doing legal AF with you, Popock, in my other job as General Counsel of Colin Capredix, know your rights camp. We announced a very important program how we want to help and try to make a difference in this area. And so we launched

Starting point is 00:48:06 what's called an autopsy initiative where we're giving families who have lost loved ones to police related deaths to have a second free autopsy that will pay for 100% will pay for the travel, the transportation, the forensic pathologists fee, which could be expensive. Sometimes these second autopsies can cost five to $10,000 and in some cases more. But we're going to fully fund all of those initiatives. One of the issues that came up in the George Floyd, you may recall, the George Floyd murder trial. The murder trial of George Floyd, there were two autopsy reports, one by a private medical

Starting point is 00:48:51 examiner that was commissioned by Floyd's family and another by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner, which ultimately reached the same conclusion that Floyd died of homicide, but the medical examiner from the county corner highlighted fentanyl intoxication as a factor relating to Floyd's death. On cross-examination, the medical examiner was just completely ripped apart because that had nothing to do with the underlying cause of death, but you have a bias that is frequently injected into cases involving the deaths caused by police officers in situations like George Floyd and in other situations. I personally had experienced this a lot when I litigated cases in Bakersfield and Fresno

Starting point is 00:49:46 and I would represent families and wrongful death cases against the Kern County. Sheriff's, in Kern County, the coroner is the sheriff. They have the same position. The sheriff is their own coroner. And so they would prepare these reports. And in one case that I recall very vividly, the death was a pulmonary embolism that was caused by the police canine unit.

Starting point is 00:50:13 They released their dog on an individual who was complying. The dog bit my client's leg, and that caused the pulmonary embolism and they died a few days later. And the report talked about resisting arrest as a cause of death. The autopsy report talked about drug use as a cause of death. And none of those were causes of death. The cause of death was the dog bit his leg and it caused the pulmonary embolism and died. Right. Dog bit his leg and the carotid artery. So the short of it is popac is I hope that the standard operating procedures change, but

Starting point is 00:50:50 I did want to highlight that's an initiative that we're working on to try to make a difference in situations like this in bringing accountability and bringing truth and shedding a spotlight. Yeah. So we're right back to where we started. Don't we want our listeners and followers to be energetic and muscular in their resistance to things that are going on around us that we don't like that are not consistent with our democratic ideals. Don't use the phrase, that's unacceptable. That is the least of the things that you can do.

Starting point is 00:51:27 You basically have accepted it if you're at the point of saying it's unacceptable. Do something about it. I mean, the cavernic initiative is an amazing, amazing development and one of many that I know you and he have done and will continue to do it. But others have to pick up the torch and do things large and small to contribute to this. You know, this is a huge boulder that has to be chipped away at in order to be successful. So listening to the podcasts, yes. We think it's important and it arms you with information to be able to debate in a dignified way with your friends and neighbors and hopefully change their minds or at least understand what's going on around us, but you have to do more. And that's an example of doing more. Yeah, and you know, in other kind of very difficult developments. I mean, looking at what's going on in Oklahoma right now, Oklahoma, their legislature is, has a bill that's working its

Starting point is 00:52:28 way through their legislature, which looks like it's going to pass. They would ban abortions after 31 days. And so we see across the country, the Mississippi law, which is the subject of the Supreme Court case, dobs versus Mississippi, that oral argument was heard a few months back. We expect to get a ruling by the Supreme Court, whether or not the 15-week ban on abortion, that Mississippi instituted is constitutional. The short answer is it's not constitutional

Starting point is 00:53:07 under Roe v. Wade and its progeny, but is the Supreme Court going to uphold the 15-week ban and many fear and I fear that if they were to uphold the 15-week ban and almost seems like that's a foregone conclusion based on the questioning that that is what they are going to do. Deeper fears are they going to completely overturn Roe v Wade in general and make this up to the states to enact any legislation. So if you look for example, even at Texas SB8,

Starting point is 00:53:39 it has an automatic provision and that's the bounty hunter law which allows individuals to sue each other, you know, for anyone who aids in a bets and abortion. But even that SBA law has an automatic provision that a grovy way is overturned that abortions would be banned consistent with the with the new law and you see states in Florida and other radical right bastions, pretty much every radical right state now, is rushing to do abortion bans. Now, it looked like Mississippi, but here we have Oklahoma doing a 31-day ban,

Starting point is 00:54:14 which at some point, Popoac, the state's just gonna totally ban it, but for all intents and purposes, a 31-day ban is a ban, and any ban is an absolute absolute band and any restriction that is a government intrusion onto the constitutional right of privacy, the constitutional right to an abortion that women over child-bearing persons and women that should serve no place for our government to inject themselves in those

Starting point is 00:54:57 decisions that women child-bearing persons, their faith, their doctors, their family that they make. This we're watching, yeah, Ben, that was poignant and sad in the accuracy of what you just said. We are watching ladies and gentlemen, a race to the immoral and unconstitutional bottom and states like Texas and Oklahoma and the like are racing to see who can outdo each other for taking away a woman's right to choose bodily

Starting point is 00:55:33 autonomy. And we're seeing it now writ large. This is the very Pandora's box that Kagan and Satamayor warned about when SB 8 was allowed to stay on the books while they, while they in leisurely fashion decided the constitutional issue in the summer. We think in Dobbs versus Mississippi. This is the license that the US Supreme Court has allowed for states, almost like a child testing the limits of their parents authority. Can I do this? Can I put my hand on the stove? So Texas does six weeks.

Starting point is 00:56:13 Mississippi does 15 weeks. Oklahoma says, oh, well, what up you? We'll do 30 days, 30 days from a woman's last menstrual cycle. That is the only time, that's the only window of time that she can get an abortion. If she knows she's pregnant, of course. And the statistics that have been put out by Planned Parenthood and others

Starting point is 00:56:34 is that the average woman does not know that she's pregnant then until five and one half weeks after her last menstruation. So if you don't know your pregnant on average until five and one half weeks, how does a 30 day rule, how is that an abortion right at all and to your point which you made eloquently?

Starting point is 00:56:55 It isn't, it means it's a ban on abortion and why this is even more dastardly and more and more all, is that what state sits at the border of Texas, Oklahoma? And so all of the people in Texas that have now been denied their fundamental right, constitutional right to an abortion and have no other choice go across the border to Oklahoma.

Starting point is 00:57:21 And what does Oklahoma do? Have they done, have they taken refuge for Oklahoma do? Have they have they done? Have they taken refuge for these people? Have they given them sanctuary? Have they allowed them to exercise their constitutional right? They said, no, we're going to close the border completely and we're going to make it a 30 day rule. Thank you very much, Texas women and Oklahoma women. Goodbye. And it's just it's exactly the dystopian future that you and I predicted, not with any joy, but with just cold sober acknowledgement when the Supreme Court did what it did by not in joining SBA in Texas. And it just bodes terribly for what's going to happen in the summer

Starting point is 00:58:03 when they likely at least roll everything back to the 15 weeks in Mississippi. And we go from there. So that's where we are. Yeah. And as you're there in Oklahoma, you look at what the radical right extremists are doing with the book banning and in the House of Representatives in Florida, they don't say gay bill outlawing any discussion about LGBTQ plus issues, pretty much in all schools at all ages. It purports to have an age requirement of when you can't talk about it,

Starting point is 00:58:42 but then it also says, or any other years, as maybe deemed to be unreasonable or inappropriate, which just expands the language of the statutes such that you can no longer discuss LGBTQ plus issues. Now, the law hasn't been signed yet yet by the governor, but it's on its way. The vote Thursday was 69 to 47 was the vote in favor of this don't say gay bill. And again, going back to the top of our show, Popok, when I talked about the Russia Ukraine crisis, you know who has don't say gay bills, people like Vladimir Putin, people who are trying to portray this anachronistic view of masculinity that presents masculinity as hating and destroying any other. And that is an incredibly problematic view for a host of reasons, including its abject failure

Starting point is 00:59:47 in history to create peaceful thriving societies. And when you have these want to be fake strong men, like desantis and Trump and what we have in Oklahoma, I mean, it's just, it's sickening to see these bills making its way through, which is why, as you said, just saying it's unacceptable is not enough. I mean, for me, when it was unacceptable, we created Midas Touch. For you, when it was unacceptable, we started talking about these issues and delving into it and putting our time and our reputations, you know, and, you know, and everything we have on the line. And, you know, when it comes to changing issues about the problems with autopsies, create the autopsy program. If it doesn't exist, don't say, oh, one doesn't exist. What do I do? Create it. Just create the program and, and make be the change. And here, just saying it's unacceptable is not enough. You have to show up to school board meetings.

Starting point is 01:00:50 You have to run for local offices. You have to write letters. You have to call members of Congress and call Senate. You have to take to the streets and peacefully protest these issues and let your voices be heard. Yeah. It reminds me of the lie we talked about in the past. It was used by one of the judges in the Jan 6th Sentencing's, you know, Benjamin Franklin when asked, what kind of government Mr. Franklin do we have? And he said, we have a republic if we can keep it.

Starting point is 01:01:23 And there's just the fact that we are throwing away the crown jewel of our democracy, which are its institutions, its constitution, its democratic ideals. And we're throwing it away. And instead looking to, as you said, oligarchies and fascist regimes that have austerity measures that are failing. Right. And we look at them with envy. As you said at the top of the show, we're the beacon on the hill. We're, it's our democratic society that people gravitate to and want to be like.

Starting point is 01:02:01 And why we want to morph ourselves into some strong man authoritarian regime. I guess it's, is it just, I don't know, I'm just asking, this is rhetorical. Is it just easier for people to give up and just let a fascist president make all the decisions for you and cheer on like you're at a NASCAR rally? Is it just easier? Is that is democracy? Ben, I'm asking. Now it's not rhetorical. Is democracy hard? Is it hard every morning to support the Republic and to be a lover of democracy? So people are fatigued and they've just given up and said, I want other people to make decisions for me. I want to act like I'm in the Roman Coliseum thumbs up or thumbs down for my neighbor. Is that what it is? It's just hard. I think it's slightly more complicated than that and I think that we can

Starting point is 01:02:51 I think we could probably write volumes and volumes and volumes of books delving into it But I do think it is one factor that it is hard to have truthful it is one factor that it is hard to have truthful, fair, complicated discussions about the nuance of what's going on. I think it is exacerbated by technology, by all the stimuli that people now encounter in a given day, including untruthful, disinfo, sources, I think that paramount on the issue is ultimately tribalism, is racism, and when democracy doesn't work for tribalism and racism, then the tribalists and racists will try to create structures that look like apartheid and that are apartheid in place of the democratic institutions. The democratic institutions

Starting point is 01:03:55 when they're elected and they could still be in power under the system is a complicated system they can live with, but when they're out of power and they, you know, they being, you know, the trumpest, the radical right extremists see the writing on the wall, that under a democracy, even though the prosperity of the United States of America will be so much greater, even though our country is headed in a far better direction. If we have this diverse, incredibly, yeah, incredibly diverse United States of America, they would rather have austerity measures for 90% of the United States, similar to Russia, where an oligarchy style, small minority of white Americans and their neighbors have the power, even if the country is not doing well.

Starting point is 01:04:52 That's ultimately what they're willing to do. But anyway, it's a more complicated. On that note, just to make a little more lighthearted, I posted on my Twitter feed a video of a rat infested set of garbage in front of a national coffee chain. That was near my apartment, which got a lot of publicity, including that chain reaching out to me and calling me about how they could fix that problem. And I had a friend that I know who's over in Russia or in, write a comment when I posted that to social media and said, oh, we don't have that problem

Starting point is 01:05:29 here in our country. She lives in a dictatorship. Lukashenko who runs Belarus is Putin's right hand and it's basically an extension of Russia. And to which I commented back to her, because I have to be careful, because her social media is not from my perspective. I have to be careful for her, because her social media is reviewed by their police. And I just wrote, you may not have the rats out in front of your coffee

Starting point is 01:05:56 shop, but we in America have a few more things that you don't have. And I just put dot, dot, dot. And I want that to always be the case. I want us to be different and have a differentiating set of principles and values than those in countries that were part of the Soviet Union or our own curtain. And like, you know, you think about what a lot of the legislation also is that the radical right extremist want to do. They want the government to control social media, right? That's what we saw DeSantis, the type of legislation he wanted.

Starting point is 01:06:34 That's the type of legislation that Abbott wants. That's the type of legislation that Trump wants. And you ask, well, why do they want that? Why do they want that? Well, look what's going on in Russia. And the dichotomy again, and this is why it all relates to the law, Ukraine being a free and open society, their ability to communicate and to be nimble

Starting point is 01:06:56 and to get truthful videos out right now in a time of war is in deep contrast to an isolated dictator in Putin who can't communicate effectively and openly and honestly with his troops. A lot of the ability to rally behind Ukraine and for Ukraine to get these messages out is they have an open society and they have people who are able to post on social media and have this exchange of data. But strong, armed, anti-democratic leaders like Putin and like DeSantis. I put DeSantis in the same

Starting point is 01:07:32 category as Vladimir Putin. I put Trump and Putin in the same category. I put Abbott and Trump in the same category. Trump and Putin in the same category. even people like Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz, if you're gonna sit there with Herschel Walker under a photograph of Donald Trump, who doesn't even look like Donald Trump, like wearing his blazer, you can't then say you're strong against Putin. If you have Trump's mural behind you in a set photograph where you're trying to promote an insurrectionist candidate,

Starting point is 01:08:04 you're not anti-Putin. You are pro-Putin in that propaganda, in any event. We got a lot more to talk about. We want to talk about Alvin Bragg and I want to talk about Katanji Brown, Jackson's nomination. But first, this podcast is brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is my favorite. You all know that by now. I always say the proof is in the video. Go back four months, five months.

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Starting point is 01:11:17 Everybody check out legal AF Wednesdays with Popak and Karen Friedman Agnafalo. Karen's was side-vances number two at the Manhattan DA's office. And she hosts this show with Popok. So obviously she's going to have incredible insight into what's going on. And there are some things that she can't obviously talk about because she's literally too close to the action where she's not allowed to talk about certain things. But Popok, you are allowed to talk about it. Break down the Alp and Bragg situation and what's going on there. I don't know if you're around, but we jumped on a, we did a new thing that's going to be a regular feature for legal AF, including you and me on legal AF. We did a Twitter spaces with like a 20-minute

Starting point is 01:12:02 countdown, and we jumped on and 24,000 listeners and followers joined us and listened to Karen and I break down in real time. I think within an hour of the news hitting that as you alluded to in the earlier in tonight's podcast, the two lead prosecutors that were responsible for the Trump investigation and prosecution in Alvin Bragg's Manhattan DA's office resigned in protest and sort of a noisy departure which is quite unusual just to give everybody some sort of perspective. That's not supposed to happen. That doesn't happen. And if it happens, it happens private. It doesn't happen with sort of

Starting point is 01:12:38 a noisy departure where they say the reason that they are departing is because Alvin Bragg is not is getting called feet over the Trump organization prosecution and the Trump or the Trump personnel, including Donald Trump and his children, their prosecution being led by the Manhattan DA's office to remind everyone there's a joint investigation going on. You've got the Tisha James at the New York attorney general level at the state level doing a civil investigation, pardon me, what she's doing. She's making tremendous progress. But they share information with the prosecutor's office and the Manhattan DA's office and Alvin Bragg who took over for Sivance who started the investigation and started the grand

Starting point is 01:13:25 jury process. You know, and he renewed the grand jury for another six months has to make the decision whether to continue with the case or not. And these two prosecutors, Carrie Dunn, who is a man and Mark Palmer, and very well known private lawyer, both private lawyers that were deputized for this position, who came in specifically for the last year and a half to do this, left. Now, all of the immediate, media speculation, and even our own professional speculation on the space Twitter event that we did with Karen, was that this indicates that Alvin is not going to continue with the prosecution.

Starting point is 01:14:07 He's going to pull the plug completely. And that's it. That was a death knell for the Trump investigation. And it was a very sad evening for most of us that didn't want that to happen. Of course, we're not privy to all of the evidence that's being developed at the grand jury level. I know other people like our fellow podcaster Michael Cohen is like, I've seen the evidence that's being developed at the grand jury level. I know other people like our fellow podcaster, Michael Cohen is like, I've seen the evidence and he should continue with the prosecution. It's a good case. Well, with all due respect, he hasn't seen all the evidence because it's in a private, confidential grand jury process. The only one who's seen all the evidence are the prosecutors and their boss, his Alvin Bragg. Now, I think Cohen was saying though that he literally saw the, he was the lawyer there. So he knows the document. Well, he knows that the guy did bad things and

Starting point is 01:14:49 should be prosecuted. But in terms of how the evidence is being developed, I think he's, that none of us really know that now. Let me explain something we've never talked about on legal AF. In most states, including the state of New York, the, even though we elect the district attorney or the county attorney, if you're in a county who's the prosecutor for the cases, the governor ultimately has the power. I think in almost every state to replace for malfeasance or for other, for other bad conduct or other conduct or other reasons can replace any counties or cities attorney, a district attorney or prosecutor or and or reassign cases if she finds or he finds that the prosecutor is not doing their job.

Starting point is 01:15:35 And so there is a boss, an ultimate boss, even above the duty, dutyfully elected prosecutor, and that is the governor. And the governor of New York, my state, Hokul, who was the lieutenant governor who replaced Cuomo and is running for re-election or election as for a full four-year term, was interviewed just two days ago by a local paper. And she said she is having a meeting with Alvin Bragg,

Starting point is 01:16:06 who's had a couple of missteps since he's been in office. His first day memo, which he issued upon his being put into the office, I think on January 2, he took a lot of heat for the first day memo where he said he wasn't going to prosecute at all, certain low level in his view, nonviolent crime, including things related to the police all, certain low level in his view, nonviolent crime, including things related to the police. That pissed off everybody in New York, including the new mayor. And I think ultimately the governor. So that was bad. And now this to very public of, you know, prosecutors quitting because they believe that that Alvin Bregg isn't dedicated to the case of prosecuting Trump.

Starting point is 01:16:45 So the governor sent out her first sort of shot across the bow. She let it be known in an interview that she's aware of the issue, that she's going to be meeting with Mr. Bragg about the issue. And when they asked her, are you aware of your powers to replace or replace the elected prosecutor or reassign the cases. Her response to the reporter was, I am well aware of my powers. I mean, that's a very like, your boss, your boss is asked, Hey, do you know you can fire a bed in Michael? And the boss just responds, I am well aware of my powers. So Alvin Brown apparently got the wake up call.

Starting point is 01:17:22 The things were not going well for him because it was just reported yesterday that he has not, in fact, gotten cold feet over the prosecution and that he is re-assiding the prosecution to his, to one of his division heads within his office and that she will inherit the entire group of 20 veteran prosecutors and investigators and they'll continue on with the Trump case. I think this is a great example of the media and shows like ours, shining that sunshine that you like to talk about on an issue. And let's be frank, Alvin Brad getting the signal from his governor that he could be removed or replaced on this, on this prosecution.

Starting point is 01:18:01 And then the next day, he announced, says, Hey, I've got an idea. I'm going to bring in a new prosecutor. So Ben, what do you think? This is a big fuck up. I agree. It is a big fuck up because when you, uh, if you're a managing partner of a law firm, you're a partner at a law firm, if you are the president of an organization, if you're a coach of a football team or a coach of a baseball team, if you are the president of an organization, if you're a coach of a football team or a coach of a baseball team, you have to know, I can keep giving more analogies.

Starting point is 01:18:32 You have to know who your superstars are. Okay. If you are the coach of Lakers and LeBron James is leaving your team, that's a big problem. Okay. And Mark Pomerance and Carrey Dunn are the Lebron James of the of this prosecution and Whoever division head that Alvin Bragg is going to assign this to he had superstars You don't lose your superstars and not only are they your superstars. You don't lose your superstars. And not only are they your superstars, you're lucky to have these superstars who left private practice to join for this specific purpose. And so when you lost the confidence of them, to me, that's a big problem. Now, I'm sure

Starting point is 01:19:18 there's a beautiful division head or a person that's working there who now has to kind of catch up to speed. But Pomerancin carried on, we're doing a lot of work. Yeah. This was taken place for a long period of time for them to leave and the way they did. They're obviously because of their position. They're not going to say why they did. They'll be leaks to the press, which we heard about. Why they were unhappy about leaving.

Starting point is 01:19:42 But they wouldn't leave both of them at the same time unless they thought that this was and being entirely mishandled. And it is a big problem because, you know, I do agree with Michael Cohen, the lawyer who did draft these documents and it was intimately familiar with these documents. He's aware that there was a lawful criminal conduct taking place. You know, and again, there's lots of conspiracies floating out there. Alvin Bragg must have been bought off or Alvin Bragg this or that. And you know, when I think I just don't think out, there are people who are meant for the moment. Okay. There are people who are meant for the moment. The same way Zelinsky is meant for the moment. There are times in your legal career that you're meant for the moment. Katanji Brown Jackson is meant for this moment to be a supreme court. Just Alvin Bragg. I hate to say it, but he's probably just not meant

Starting point is 01:20:40 for this moment. This is overwhelming to him. He probably can do a lot of great work out there, but being at the district attorney of Manhattan is probably not the job for him. He can't handle this job. I think that's what it comes down to. I agree with you. I've used a phrase when I was doing hiring at a very high profile, high intensity company. I would use it in hiring. I would say, look, high pressure either creates diamonds or dust, right? Bright lights, really hot, bright lights. You either shine in them or you melt under them. And I think we're watching it with Alvin. Unfortunately, and he's got a tremendous reputation, but he is, but he is not, this is not ready for prime time player here. Um, you know, he's only been, it seems like a lifetime, but he's only been in since January.

Starting point is 01:21:31 And either one of these would be career suicide. And he's done it now twice in three in two months. And he's unable, and as a lawyer, you have to defend yourself. Like you have to be out there and be willing like, you have to be able to defend others, but at the base level, you have to go out there and be willing, like you have to be able to defend others, but at the base level, you have to go out there and instill confidence. And he's not instilling confidence. I mean, we'll see, you know,

Starting point is 01:21:51 and I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt. And I hope Ken Legala Eves from now, we go, oh, we were wrong about Alvin Bragg because he does have an incredible reputation. But this may not be the gig for. And something that I'll cover with with within the limits of her abilities of of being formerly in that office. But I want to I want to hear a little bit from KFA, Mike, our co host on Wednesdays about

Starting point is 01:22:16 Susan Hofinger, who I'm sure she worked with, who's a career prosecutor in the office, who is now the Trump prosecutor under Alvin Bragg as part of his leadership team. I'd like to, I won't get into the specifics of the case because we know that the KFA worked on the case and was supervisory over the case. But I would like to hear more about what she thinks about Susan Hofinger and her ability to do this job. You have to do the blink twice if you think this method and see that works. I want to talk about Katanji Brown, Jackson nominee to the United States Supreme court. I love the serve of your views about Katanji Brown, Jackson, who is definitely meant for

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Starting point is 01:25:26 So again, go to join calibrate.com and use the code legal a f popok. I'm just going to say these three names, Katanji brown Jackson first, middle last name. Tell me about her. Tell me what you think about this election. Bye bye. Love her. Love her. KBJ. I don't know if that's what she goes by, but she's going to be going by it really soon. Everybody likes those initials after Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I love everything about her. I love I love their background. I love how she's already consensus building. When I was in Miami last week, as everybody knows, Popeyes after dark,

Starting point is 01:26:09 as the sun went down in my Miami office Alleyway, I was doing the podcast from, but I did run into a lot of my friends who were part of the Cuban American Bar Association, which is a very powerful bar association in Miami, Kaba, and they wrote a very poignant support letter for her because of her Miami background, because of her her racial background and diversity that she would bring to the court. They got behind her and I was proud to see that that Miami as a community, which is diverse in itself, got really behind

Starting point is 01:26:46 her. In a way that, you know, I don't think the others, Michelle Childs had her backers and they really hear much about Leandra. And then ad campaigns that are now being committed to her. I think there's some other social media progressive entities that are going to be running millions of dollars of ads in favor of her to make sure that she gets in. I like the fact that she went to public school in Miami and comes from a humble background, parents, public servants, and police officers already, the fraternal order of police national

Starting point is 01:27:18 have supported her, which their last time they did an endorsement, it was for Donald Trump. So she's already bringing together because of her background as a federal public defender, the first public defender to ever be on the US Supreme Court in 230 years. The second black person and first black woman, the first black person, I know I don't, sometimes I think I don't have to say these things,

Starting point is 01:27:44 but I have been with adults who don't know what's going on the Supreme Court the way you and I do or don't remember. Third good marshal 1967 was the first black person to ever be on the US Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas the second. And now we have the first woman. I like all of the things about her. I like the fact that she is the second only of the nine who serves a trial judge having been appointed by Obama and Biden elevated her to what you and I have referred to in the past as the feeder program for the US Supreme Court. That's where if you're a president, you have an ability to put somebody at the DC, a court of appeals for the DC circuit. You, you stashed them there for training. It's almost like a leadership or judicial academy because if you have the ability during your tenure to elevate somebody, you're

Starting point is 01:28:36 going to look there first. That's where Merrick Garland would have come out of to be a Supreme Court justice. That's where others on the bench have come from. And so he put her there, I think, to put her in line for the first choice once he made it. And so she was confirmed, as you said, not with the numbers that you and I expected from 20 and 30 years ago where Supreme Court Justice is confirmed 95 to one or 95 zero. But she was confirmed with five or six Republicans who have crossed the aisle and voted in favor of her to confirm her the first time, including Lindsey Graham. Now, I want to lower the temperature of some of our Democrats with all the back biting and cannibalism that happens within our party with, yeah, but what about Kristen Sinaman?

Starting point is 01:29:19 What about Joe Manchin? And they'll jump ship. And they'll, no, they won't. There is not one judicial nominee and you and I have talked about in the past, how efficient Joe Biden has been to get his judicial appointments, a judicial nominees confirmed in record time.

Starting point is 01:29:39 At every level of the trial court, now he's moving on to the court of the, to the appellate court, cinema and mansion have voted for every one of Biden's nominees. So don't worry about any kind of leakage from the democratic side. And I think, and I want to hear your opinion, Ben, I think she picks up a couple of people from the Republican side. And it will be a bipartisan in that way, it will be bipartisan.

Starting point is 01:30:07 The other thing I love about her is that she's the only person that will be sitting on that bench that knows the nitty gritty of the criminal justice system. So much of what the Supreme Court does is, yes, of course, constitutional, but it goes to liberty and innocence and guilt and what will be a crime and not be a crime and how someone will be sentenced and racial disparity in sentencing. And she's the only one that served on the Federal Sentencing Commission, developing the Federal Sentencing Guidelines and the only one that's been a federal, a federal public defender. And that is a viewpoint that has been sorely lacking on that bench. And now we'll be solved by

Starting point is 01:30:52 the addition of K, KBJ. But what really has to happen quickly is that she's got to get her sea legs. It was not going to be the first day. It's not going to be the first round of arguments. She's got to find ways to build consensus behind the scenes at the judicial conferences held by the Supreme Court members at the in writing opinions and getting opinions assigned to her so that she turns six to three votes against progressive democratic ideals into five to four or even greater in favor. And that's what Briar was masterful of doing when he held kind of the center for a long period of time before these new people came on. And we have to see that.

Starting point is 01:31:32 Otherwise, it's just a replacement for Briar and we keep losing six to three. She has to find a way, in a way, that even Kagan and Sartana Mayar have not been able to do and to try to bring a voter to over with her in order to get five to four or greater decisions in our favor.

Starting point is 01:31:48 I hate to be the cynic here. Okay. Somebody has that inspirational. I know. I'm happy about it. Encouraging. I let me go through each point. You were thinking, do I think that there's going to be a bipartisan vote confirming her? No.

Starting point is 01:32:07 My prediction is, is that people who actually voted her from the court of appeals, like Lindsey Graham are not going to vote for her for the Supreme Court. You won't get one Republican vote. That's your prediction. I think she may get two. All right, that's bipartisan. Okay. I think she may get one or two, but I don't think she will get more votes than she did previously. Oh, I agree with that. Okay. I think she will get less votes now, even though she's a consensus builder and should get more votes based on the fact that she's proven herself as a judge on the DC circuit.

Starting point is 01:32:42 And she's brought together these various factions, but nonetheless, they're going to start ginning up and making up all these kind of BS fake propaganda type of stories against her. So I think that's going to happen when she's on the bench, she's not going to be able to change the minds of the radical right extremists and you're're just going to get six, three, and five, four votes. I would love for that to be different, but we need there to be other nominations. And we need to make sure that we have democratic, big D, democratic leadership in the executive branch, the president needs to be a Democrat so that we can make sure that we appoint small D democracy loving judges who can actually

Starting point is 01:33:36 be Supreme Court justices. That is what I'm looking for. And so to me, it's not even about progressive ideals anymore, you know, while I'm progressive, while my views line up as a liberal, if you were to go down the views that I espouse, to me, it is a, it is a binary decision. There is a political party, and there are people in this country, a faction that loves democracy, that wants America to be this diverse beacon of light and hope for the rest of the world and support democratic institutions. Within my big tent, small, D democracy group, we can have debates role of the IRS, we can debate student loans, we could have debates. But the threshold is democracy, you against the insurrection, do you support America as

Starting point is 01:34:34 a diverse beacon of light in the world? Do we support our allies and do we support people? Do we want to make healthcare a universal human right and education a universal and human right in the United States of America. That is the faction that I'm with. And those are the types of judges and justices that we're going to be a point. And the other faction is the pro Putin toin authoritarian loving, oligarchical individuals like DeSantis, Trump, Abbott, those cronies, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who want to turn the United States into Belarus,

Starting point is 01:35:17 who want to turn the United States into Russia, a Putin-led Russia. We're not going to let that happen. You're not going to let that happen. You're not going to let that happen. That is why we do these legal AFs every week. That is why we discuss these key issues. That is why we fight for our democracy and you fight for democracy in any and all ways that you can. I want to give a special thanks to all of our sponsors on today's podcast. I want to thank Athletic Greens. I want to thank Calibrate. I want to thank ExpressVPN, use those codes, Midas to get an unlock of the discounts that we've

Starting point is 01:35:56 talked about in those ad reads. And as we always say, Popak and I are practicing lawyers. So if you have or practicing lawyers. So if you have a case, the cases that we usually take involve like very, very serious traumatic injuries, like sexual assault, sexual trauma, sexual harassment cases, in employment settings, wrongful termination cases, large business disputes. Those are the types of cases that we take and we're happy to evaluate your case. If you want to send an email to me, benatmitustouch.com, benatmitustouch.com, and popok is mpopok at zplaw.com send us an email if you have any cases. Our hearts and prayers and actions that we can take are sent to the people of Ukraine on this weekend. We created a video at Midas Touch Defeat Putin, which I know is now not only getting millions of views here,

Starting point is 01:36:54 but is also spreading across lots of Ukrainian message boards in various Ukrainian apps. We're trying to convert the language also into Russian so that we can get the message out there as well, spread that defeat Putin video and Popok. Always a pleasure sharing. Yeah, you too. I'm sorry. I have a personal close to Popok. Yeah, I got a personal relationship to that one. As people know, my relationship is from Belarus. She's American citizen, but her family is really trapped in Belarus on the border of Ukraine. And so we live it and talk about it every day. And we can't thank you and your brothers enough

Starting point is 01:37:39 for the comfort in the social media powerhouse that you're putting behind these things. We think on this show that people know what we're talking about, but I can't tell you how many people in normal walking America don't think about these issues and our targets of misinformation campaigns on Facebook and other social media platforms. And so you're getting the truth out

Starting point is 01:38:05 and shining a light on it, the way that we've talked about it today. And I want to thank you and your brothers for doing that. Thank you, Pope, I appreciate all the support from the legal aeppers, all the support from the Midas Mighty, if it's Saturday, it is legal AF live, if it's Sunday, it is legal AF, it's legal AF now,

Starting point is 01:38:22 every day of the week. Thank you for joining us here at Legal AF University. Shout out to the Midas Mighty.

Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Justice Served, Justice Delayed, and a SCOTUS Justice is Made

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