Locked In with Ian Bick - How Prosecutors Use Ghost Dope to Increase Sentences | David Bell

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

David Bell sits down with Ian Bick to break down his unconventional path through the criminal justice system — from going to law school for tax law and working at a major firm to walking away and joining the Missouri Public Defender. In this episode, David explains why he chose public defense, what it’s really like defending society’s “worst of the worst,” and how that experience reshaped his view of justice. He dives deep into sentencing guidelines, the use of “ghost dope” to inflate sentences, systemic changes in criminal law, and the real differences between public defenders and paid attorneys. Now in private criminal defense practice in Kansas City, David offers an honest, inside look at how cases are charged, sentenced, and defended — and what most people don’t understand about how the system actually works. _____________________________________________ #ianbick #criminaldefense #federalprison #publicdefender #justicesystem #pleadeal #prisonreform #truecrime _____________________________________________ Thank you to 300 LETTERS for sponsoring this episode: Visit https://300letters.org/ to learn more or get support. Your donation to 300 Letters is an investment in safer neighborhoods & healthier families. _____________________________________________ Connect with David Bell: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidbellattorney Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LensofaLawyer Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lensofalawyer/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/lens-of-a-lawyer-podcast/ _____________________________________________ Hosted, Executive Produced & Edited By Ian Bick: https://www.instagram.com/ian_bick/?hl=en https://ianbick.com/ _____________________________________________ Shop Locked In Merch: http://www.ianbick.com/shop _____________________________________________ Timestamps: 00:00 The Truth About Sentencing (Intro) 01:03 Why I Quit Tax Law for Criminal Defense 03:03 The Moment I Realized the System Was Broken 06:44 How Law School Lies About the Justice System 10:48 Leaving the "Safe" Path Behind 13:42 Inside the Mind of a Public Defender 19:13 The Most Shocking Thing About Criminal Court 24:35 Public Defender Myths vs. Reality 31:44 Paid Lawyer vs. Public Defender: Who Wins? 36:34 How Prosecutors Force Plea Deals 42:03 Defending "Guilty" People: How I Sleep at Night 50:25 The Dark Side of Private Practice 01:00:57 White Collar Crimes & The "Rich Man's Justice" 01:08:35 "Ghost Dope": How You Get Sentenced for Drugs You Didn't Have 01:13:33 Is the System Rigged? (Mediation & New Approaches) 01:22:48 How Police Use Search Warrants to Trap You 01:27:37 Why Prison Doesn't Fix Anything 01:32:46 The Fatal Flaw in American Justice Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It doesn't matter if you're some major politician in D.C. or somebody no one knows about. Every case, the federal level, starts with a sentencing guidelines. Those levels are based upon the harm potentially cause. There's a number of ways to say it. In financial cases, it's based on loss. And by the way, just to be clear, loss can be what you actually took or what you wanted to take. So it could be like the actual loss or the intended loss. So in drugs, it's weight.

It's just weight. But unlike state cases where drug cases, are based upon what you're usually they're found with. At the federal level of conspiracy, it's based on, for the most part, what people said you had. My guest today is David Bell, a criminal defense attorney who walked away from big firm tax law to become a public defender,

where he represented some of the most serious criminal cases in the system. In this episode, David breaks down sentencing guidelines, the tactic known as ghost dope, the real differences between public defenders and private attorneys, and how the criminal justice system actually works. behind the scenes. Where'd you grow up, David? I grew up in Kansas City, like a suburb of Kansas City. And it was, I bring this up now because it'll come up later, like kind of this upper middle class, almost predominantly all white suburb. I think my worst experience with the police was

like they didn't have the baseball card I wanted. You know what I mean? Like that was it. Like that, you know, so I did that was there and then went off to college and University of Pennsylvania for business school and then NYU for law school and was a tax lawyer. at first. I got an L.M. in tax and went back to Kansas City and tried that for three years, and it wasn't for me. What did your parents do? My dad's a CPA. My mom was a teacher. So just professionals. My mom wound up being a stay-at-home mom after a while. My dad had a solo practice. So I kind of learned a little bit about business from him because he was always out having to get clients, keep clients. So that was a little bit of education. Any siblings at all?

I have a brother, Jonathan, so he's an executive at a hotel and casino. Would your dad take you to work a lot? Is it good? Yeah, so tax law or tax CPA stuff doesn't make for a great dinner conversation. But they used to have books. Books are things with paper in it that you'd have to look through. I know they don't have that anymore. And you'd have to file these books. They would be books where you'd look up the tax kind of code, the law, called BNA, CCH. and you'd actually have to take out a piece of paper. It would tell you to take out page I-36

and put in I-36, the new one, because they kept changing the law. So I'd go down with him on Saturdays and file and stuff like that. My grandfather was a lawyer. So I'd go down with him and see his office and run around the law firm on the weekends and steal pins.

What did you think about all that when you're a kid? You know, what I thought about was, I wasn't sure, although I felt like law and tax were probably my entree into, like, being with the guys. Like, that was the conversation between my dad and my grandfather. And so I think part of me

went down that road in order to kind of fit in with them, kind of be part of that conversation. What kind of law did your grandpa do? He did antitrust law. There was a big case in Kansas City where the Kansas City Star stopped selling to carriers,

newspaper carriers, in like the 70s because they had been bought out. The Kansas City Star had been bought out and he sued the Kansas City Star so these carriers could have their livelihood back. And I got to go to meetings where he'd be up in front of 300 carriers, kind of the underdogs. These are guys getting

up in the middle of the night throwing a morning paper and then coming back, throwing an afternoon paper. And so watching him fight for them, I think that added to it a lot because it was like just these individual working guys getting screwed over by a big company and watching him fight that and eventually succeed to a certain extent was kind of cool. How would you have described yourself growing up? Kind of a nerdy, kind of bookish, you know. It didn't have any athletic ability whatsoever. I always joke like if there was a white Urkel, which I don't know if Urkel is somebody you know of or anybody.

Yeah, of Steve Erkel. Yeah, Steve Erkel. There was a white Erkel. I'd probably, you know, probably gravitate probably towards being more like that. A little bit, always a little bit, maybe a little bit of a sense of humor, a little bit witty, intellectual, but just kind of nerdy. What were some values your dad and grandpa instilled in you from the professional side? Oh, wow.

That's a good question. Hard work is definitely one of them. Always hard work. Always working. Always making sure you're doing your best. I think that was really important, always knowing the product you were delivering, whatever it was. And I think underlying that all, and I'm starting to appreciate it more now as I'm older, but passion for what you're doing. I think that's really imperative.

If you're going to do a great job, if people are going to respect what you do, if people are going to like your work, you've got to be passionate about it. What do you think you picked up from them that you use now in your line of work? I think that passion. There's a picture I have in my mind as you're asking this. question of my grandfather with a microphone. He's talking to these carriers at this hotel next to Chief Stadium, by the way, Arrowhead Stadium, talking to these guys that are, you know, kind of trying to, their entire livelihoods on the line because the star stopped selling them newspapers, and they had routes that were being transferred down generation to generation. They didn't,

weren't worth anything anymore. And I think it was that kind of fight. It was that David versus Goliath. And just by chance, I happen to be always be the David. How old were you when you decide to go into law? I don't know if I was ever an age where I hadn't decided to go into law. I just kind of drifted into that. I was at when I was at Penn, there's a business school, Wharton School, and I was with these kind of, I don't know, these kind of machines, if you will, and they're going off to investment banking.

It was around the time where Gordon Gecko, greed is good type movies and stuff like that. And I didn't fit in really with that. Intellectually, I was doing great, but like going off to Wall Street and stuff where a lot of people went, that wasn't going to be for me. And so I applied to law schools and I just, I got an NYU and that's where I wound up going. Did you go for taxes because of your dad? I think so. I mean, looking back at the time.

So, oh, I know. Another skill my dad was like, you have to have a salable skill. Always that. You got to have a salable skill. So, you know, now when I hear my friends of mine, their kids going off to college and studying like comparative politics in the 1950s, I'm like, that sounds really cool because I would love to take that. But that was not the type of stuff I took. I took accounting and finance in college. I took a million tax courses in law school.

So when I got out of law school, I could cite the Internal Revenue Code from probably one to the 2700s just by having studied so much of it. When you were going through the classes and becoming that type of lawyer, did you have second thoughts about it at all? Yeah, I did.

It was really intellectually stimulating. I'm kind of like chess probably a little way, although I'm not a big chess player. I think where I started to question it was when I was going back. and working over the summer. So as a lawyer, you generally start working summers at a law firm. And it's really the first time, like, I'm dressing up in a suit.

I'm going into work at eight. I'm leaving at 530 or 6, whenever it is. I'm having to keep track in my time and bill it, which sucks. Billing sucks. It just does. It always will, always will. I think at that point I started on like, wait a minute, this is it. And that's when I started probably questioning it.

But, I mean, I had grad, you know, law school's there. I was on this kind of path, and I think that, you know, that has some momentum that you can't change really quickly. You know what I mean? Like it's kind of pushing you in a direction and you feel it pushing you, but at some point you got to make a decision, but it took me a little bit of time. Where did you go after law school? So after law school, I came back to a firm that emerged into a firm that emerged into a firm that was where my grandfather had worked. And I worked there as a tax lawyer, and that wound up merging into another, anyway, it's a big. for him now, but I wound up doing tax law there, doing like corporate tax, mergers and acquisitions, estate planning, all that type of stuff. I did that for three years. So what would a typical case

be like? It'd be like, someone would come to me like, David, I remember the one, what happens to a net operating loss when an LLC and an S corporation merge? I'd be like, first of all, no one really cares what the answer is, but that memo may cost $10,000 me researching it. You know what I mean? So it didn't make for good, it didn't make for good dinner conversation. There wasn't a lot of warmth. There wasn't a lot of ump there. And I'm not disparaging it. For some people, they find that meaning there. And that's okay. I just, it started to whatever. I remember my grandma, you know, my grandma was really proud that I had my name on the outside of the door. Like, that's a big deal. But I remember that and the paycheck, the rest of it was, it was less

meaningful to me. And that kind of ate away at me a little bit, I think. Is there any excitement or drama in those types of cases or maybe an audit? No, no, no, no, no. I never handled like civil tax like that. Okay. What I like to do was the IRS used to publish. So the IRS has code sections, like the Internal Revenue Code is a statute, and then they have regulations.

And those regulations have subsection numbers and Little Eye, Romanettes, and all this cramp. And there used to be a phone book. And there was some lawyer in D.C. With the IRS or Treasury Department that was assigned to that code section. And what was really cool was when I would find their phone number, and I'd call them up and ask them the question that I was being asked to find by one of the partners. I found that really enjoyable because here I was talking to the person that's drafting the legislation or whatever it is that's becoming the statute or becoming the regulation.

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How do you switch from that? So, all right, I was thinking of leaving the law. I was going to leave the law. This was in 98. And I was like, what the hell? No, no, this is in 2001. I'm sorry. I was like, what am I going to do?

So I started looking around. And I remember I became an advocate for a domestic violence. shelter while I was working at the firm and I would have a beeper and we would go in to do like orders of protections and things for people that are being, you know, beaten. And I remember I love the atmosphere of the emergency room and I love the warmth of helping people, but how do I do that with a law degree? And someone came up. I forgot where I heard it. A friend of mine, I think it was Cheryl at the firm, a friend of mine, she suggested public defender's office. So I went there and kind of watched a little bit. And I applied the first, I remember I applied. It was a big deal to apply. I mean,

it was a big deal for me because I had been on this trajectory. And I applied. And I didn't make it the first time. And I want to talk to you about that when we get a sec. But, you know, people talk about public pretenders. So here I came with this pedigree, whatever you want to call it. I thought, like, the state of Missouri would bow down to me coming in. You know what I mean? And they'd reject it. I said, no. So I applied a second time, the public defender's office and got it. and I remember going into my the business man like the head guy of the firm I was at as a big firm at that point

saying hey I think I want to go to the public defender's office you know it's like the record player screeching you know like what you know that type of thing and and I said and I'm still I'm still risk averse to this day and I'm like you know would you give me six months to see so they essentially gave me a sabbatical in 2001 they said if you don't like it after six months

you can come back and that was like 25 years ago No, you took a huge pay cut for that. It was two-thirds. So I didn't get two-thirds of my salary. I took two-thirds of my pay, like just went away. Yeah. That was tough. But the meaning I was like set free, it was awesome.

Dude, I was in court. I was fighting. It was a David versus Goliath thing again. I was representing people, all different types of crimes, just going crazy and staying up all night, you know, going to the the jail, going to this little diner next door, or down the street, actually, a 24-hour diner. And, you know, looking at every defendant was innocent. Every cop was lying. Every prosecutor was lying. That was the mentality. And that was kind of pushed a little bit at the public defender's office. I found that's not necessarily accurate, but there's a certain energy that's there because no one

likes the criminal defendants anyway. You know what I mean? And so I was said, and there's no politics to it because I didn't have some like I had to charge a certain number of people like a prosecutor's office or hammer on a certain number of crimes. I didn't have any of that. I was on the defense side and it was faceless people and I gave a shit. And so that plus the public defenders were willing to give me the resources to do it. Not my pay, but an expert's stuff like that. They just said, here, David, here's a bunch of cases. Go do. And I did. So when you make a switch like that, do you have to go back to law school or how do you get brought up to? No. No. No. So what you do when you get brought, so what they do, the public defender's office is Jackson County, Public Defender's Office, Missouri State Public Defender's Office in, in Kansas City. They start you at just low-level stuff. So you start at like the initial appearance docket. You start maybe going to get new clients come in, filling out the form. Maybe you start doing preliminary hearings. Maybe you start doing misdemeanors. And after you get it for a while and you're studying as you're going along, you're kind of learning as you're going, then they start throwing cases at you. Or you start second chairing.

Or they would give me one where they would have me first chair a case, which was like a dead dog loser or something like that. And it was great. It was great. So that's how you learned. But by that point, remember, I had been a lawyer for three years. So I knew what I needed to know. One of the problems with law school, if you have never been out in the world working as a professional, you kind of don't know what you need to know. And so once I started to the second career, I knew what I didn't know. And I knew what I needed to know to be successful. Plus, I had the drive and the passion at the time to do that at the time, to spend all this time taking in all this new information. What do you think surprised you first about the criminal justice system and working in that line of work? I would probably say, as I think back, probably like just the dehumanization. It's a total dehumanization from the point of when they lead my clients in on chains, like a little chain gang thing where belly chains connected the next person, the next person in jumpsuits. the way people react to them in the gallery, the way law enforcement prosecutors,

even some attorneys, defense attorneys react to them. It was how do you take a human being and turn them into something less for a number of different reasons? And I think that probably was the most shocking, and that gave me the most umph, the most passion to fight for people,

because that I believe in, which is to say, there's some clients that I've had that have done awful things. A lot of clients I've represented done awful things. And I don't necessarily defend that, but I absolutely defend the person as a human being because that never changes in my mind. And so when I see the dehumanization, I've got immediate something to fight for right away,

even if the evidence is overwhelming of guilt, because that is something I truly believe in. Can you as an individual as a public defender turn down cases like you can the same way as a... No. No. So, okay, so what I used to do was there's an income requirement. and the bond requirement back then, and it might still be the same now, if you could post 5,010%, which is a $500 bond, you're not indigent. All right. So or, and I forgot there was the poverty guidelines and a bunch of stuff.

The way I did it was, if you came up to me and asked me that you needed my help, you're in. I'm not going to sit there and look at your tax. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, if you're coming up to me asking me for help, I'm in this to help you anyway. I'm not going to sit there and horse around with a bunch of numbers. So the answer is no, you really, no, you didn't have a choice. No, I saw a question posed on social media the other day. I forgot where I saw it, but it was, do you think that criminal defense attorneys are told by

their client that they're, you know, they're guilty and they're still representing them? The ones that are like, where the public can automatically assume that the person's guilty, say like a shooting when, you know, it's pretty clear that person did it. What do you mean? Is the defendant automatically telling you from the story? start, hey, I did this? Or is it just kind of like assumed? Okay. So, all right. So where I think this comes from is attorneys have an ethical obligation. You can't put someone on the stand and knowingly elicit perjury. So if you told me you did this

crime, I shot this person, I can't put you on the stand and you say, I didn't shoot this person. So from that, some attorneys, I think, they don't want to know. That's not how I practice. I think the truth has a life of its own. And so if you come in my office, I'm going to ask you what happened. I want to know what happened. Most crimes, by the way, and I know a lot of times people focus on this like stranger danger and people coming out of the woodwork, and that happens. But most crimes involve people you know. So a lot of times it's not like who did it. It's like kind of why it happened, what happened. And for that, I need to hear what your story is. I can come up with stuff. And I've had cases before where my clients didn't know. They don't remember. They were high or

whatever during some horrific act. And I'd have to come up with reasonable doubt defenses. But those don't sell as well as a client testifying and saying what happened. So I always ask. So if a client comes to me, I guess what I'm saying, how about this? Kind of a fact no one wants to talk about is most people in the criminal justice system, when they're charged, I believe the evidence is there to prove beyond a reasonable doubt they did it. Maybe in 75% of the cases. It doesn't mean they'll be found guilty. I'm just saying, it's not like made up bullshit. It's like there's evidence there that could convince a jury.

I would say maybe 20% more. This isn't scientific, whatever, but I guess that makes me an expert. But 20% is maybe overcharged. I would say 5% are just like innocent. They got it wrong completely. So that's kind of where it's at. But for me, the focus is more, certainly did they do it, I guess? Or it's really more just the evidence there that they did it.

But the bigger issue is, all right, so now what do we do? What should happen to this person? Like, what's the ultimate outcome as? a society that we want. And that takes more of a holistic approach to it. Sometimes fighting for that approach is through the facts or the lack thereof. Some of it's fighting from the evidence. Sometimes my guy's good for it. There's, you know, video 25 different ways of it. Then the question becomes, all right, okay, great. Now what do we want as a society at this point? What's best for you, the victim, for you, the prosecutor, for my client, for my client's family, for all of us?

that's kind of a different approach, but I find that to be more meaningful. So if you get a new client and he confesses to you on day one that he committed the murder, are you obligated to report that or do you still defend the person? No, no, no, no, no. So I have no, I have no obligation, nor would I. The one thing that is, I would say, this still exists in the criminal justice system for sure. There's probably two things. One is one person, one vote on a jury.

It takes all 12. It doesn't matter who your dad is, who your mom. is how much money you got. You need 12 people on a jury. And if one says no, then they can't find you guilty. The other one is attorney-client privilege. If you tell me something, I'm not, not only would I, I never say, I can't, but I wouldn't anyway. I mean, that's between you and me and nobody else. If you tell me you did it, that's great. That's fine. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about what we should do with that information. You can't testify now and say you didn't do it. But again, a lot of times the cases I get, the murder case I get, it's not a question of, like, who did it.

It's a question of what happened. It's more of a self-defense issue than it is an identity issue. So it's not, people kind of get confused about that. So if I get a case, I've had a bunch of murder cases where there's a fight between two people. It's obvious who the other person was, the decedent, and it was obvious my client. But the issue is what happened and what was going on in my client's mind at the moment it happened. That's where the real issue is. And that you're not really confessing to me you did it.

The real issue is why did you do it? Does it ever weigh on you morally when you're fighting to get that not guilty verdict, even though they might be at fault? Well, again, so the way I view it is, so I view every human being has within them a spark. And people say divine, you do whatever you want. I'm not big on the religion thing. but something that's something that's bigger than all of us that's innate to all of us that doesn't change you can't go out you can do the worst thing ever and the best thing ever that stays the same so i fight

for that that's number one the second part is on the moral part if the government doesn't have the evidence or if there's reasonable doubt there i don't have a problem with that and in fact i celebrate the fact that someone to be found not guilty when that happens that creates a protection for the rest of us. All right. People get all confused about that. What's the, listen, the best, the Fourth Amendment cases I've had where they suppress stuff, they all start with, or the confessions, the Fifth Amendment, they all start with the government getting something that makes our guy guilty, right? The Fifth Amendment ones where some guy confesses to something and they didn't Mirandize them or before they had Miranda. The reason we want that suppressed is it's really bad for us. So they've,

they're suppressing evidence of guilt. But the benefit of doing that for the rest of us is, is law enforcement. There's a check on law enforcement and how they're going to treat us, ideally. And that's the importance of those cases. Some people kind of, they forget about that, I think. Do you ever get under fire for some of the people you've represented at the public defender's level by the public? No, absolutely, absolutely. People can't believe, how could you represent that person? How could you do that? People jump to conclusions all the time. If the news say that someone did or they report it, they just say someone's been charged. People are like, oh, the person must have done it. That's not necessarily true, number one. But I'll tell you how

you change the opinion of that person. God forbid they get charged with something or some family member gets charged with something. Then they're like, wait a minute, just because it's reported in the newspaper, just because they put some picture up on Facebook or something like that, that doesn't mean they did it. And that, I think, unfortunately, for some people, they'll never get it until they're charged or their family member is charged. And I certainly don't hope that on them, it's the stress, the emotional stress, the financial stress, the, it, you're not sentenced to prison yet potentially, but you might as well be because it's taking up a lot of your headspace for the year or the year and a half it's going to take to resolve that case.

Have you seen any mistrials because of social media in recent time where there's an issue with the jury being kind of adverse to the case because it's pushed down their throats? No, I've had, no, I haven't seen mist trials on that. I absolutely have seen situations where in voir dire when you're questioning to see who's going to be on your jury where people have heard of the case. The problem with that is, is you're looking for people that are going to be reasonable, they're going to be fair, and while you have challenges that you can make as an attorney, that you can just make them for any reason, subject to a few exceptions, the issue becomes challenges for cause. So what will happen is when you pick a jury, okay, let's say you have 75 people,

state gets up or the feds get up first, then I get to get up. And then we go up and we challenge the each individual juror potentially. And the challenges start off with the peremptory challenges. Judge, this person has already stated an opinion that suggests that they're biased or something like that. And then the judge makes a decision. So that narrows the jury pool down. And then you then have to use your, I'm sorry, that's for cause strikes. And then you have your challenges that you make on your own. that narrows down, that forecast strikes, narrows down for the strikes that you have, you make for any reason, for the most part. And so a lot of times social media can influence individuals like that. And if someone gets up and says, you know, he did it and I'm done,

because I saw it on the newspaper, that person you may have wanted that person on or the state may have wanted that person on or the feds may want, that person's going to be off because they saw it on the social media and they've jumped to a conclusion. You may not be able to bring them back. What do you think was the hardest aspect to adjust to switching from tax law to criminal defense? There wasn't one. It was freeing. I'm just telling you, it was freeing. The passion that I saw there with public defenders, I worked with a bunch of guys, you know, Tim, Bill, Ruth, I had a mentor, Randy, Leon, Joel, all these guys, like, the passion that I saw there, it was all, I mean, I don't know how else to explain it. It was like everything I ever thought about being a lawyer was there.

And it was great. I don't think there was a really a hard adjustment. I remember even that you had to fell out a lien form at the end. Even that, I had very little requirements because they essentially said, here's your file. Go kick some ass. And that's what I did. Do you think the passion aspect is what's missing from these criminal or public criminal defense attorneys where people badmouth them? No. No, I don't. Let me. Everybody's just, All right, so I appreciate you bringing that up. So let's get that public pretenders is what I hear. It was a lot.

All right. So imagine, so you're in a Jackson County Detention Center. Most of the clients I have public defenders are African American. Just most of the clients. So you're sitting there. You've been arrested by a white cop. You walk into court in chains. The bailiff's white.

The prosecutor's white. The judge is white. And then you see me, white Urkel. You're like, I'm fucked. You know what I mean? Like, oh, shit. And so I think there's a certain aspect of that that comes into play. And that's a bias that I think is incorrect.

But it happens, right? It happens. I think the other aspect is when people don't pay for stuff, I don't know if they appreciate it as much. So public defenders, at least in Missouri, and I believe in Kansas, you don't pay up front. You pay on the back end. So you get the full representation, and then they'll try to get some money out of you later. When people don't pay for stuff, I don't think they appreciate as much. So people just assume that that, or they'll, they'll,

assume that because you're a public defender, you couldn't get like a real job. I've had people tell me, like, when I was a public defender, David, I'm not, I want to hire a real lawyer. I still remember that. I'm like, dude, I've had cases where I've worked out awesome deals when I was a public defender. And then some private attorney would show up just to do the plea and the sentencing, which I had already done. And that is too bad. I think the other, they think I'm like, you know, playing golf and sleeping with the prosecutor and the judge and the whole bit. First of all, I don't play golf. That's number one. And two, the people that were prosecutors and still are, there's a kind of a divide. I'm not saying it's a bad divide. There's certain people that

contribute to criminal justice system by defending people when I'm talking about, and certain people that want to prosecute. I find the way they view life can be dramatically different, and people tend towards one side or the other. And so, but as to why people thought public pretender, I think maybe the other thing would be the following. You know, as a private attorney I charge by the hour. So if you want to come talk to me about your problems, I'm going to advise you to go see a therapist. But the end of the day, if you want to call me and talk to me, that's great. If your parents want to call and talk to me, I would talk to them anyways, a public defender for a little bit, but at some point, dude, I can't take it. As a public defender, I had too many clients.

And so I had to pair it down to what I needed to do to best represent you. As a private attorney, I'm going to be, there's more handholding. So the other thing about public defenders is they may not have the time for the bedside manner. People are like, my public defender hasn't visited me in a month. Well, dude, how about nothing's happening in your case for that month? I'm sorry about that. That's it. There's no going to be no advantage. But the handholding part, I think maybe a little bit less on the public defender's side because you just don't have the time. I would be there until two in the morning at Jacks County Detention Center. I loved it. I mean, it was great at the time, but I was single, didn't have a family the whole bit. I think it'd be a lot harder now with a family.

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individual, could be even going back to school if that attorney went to a higher price law firm because he was able to afford that or something of that nature? So the question is, would it's a private attorney get a better deal? I would say, I have heard that. I do, in some cases, I have seen prosecutors view individuals, the public defender is different than. But I don't believe the skill of the attorney is any different. And in fact, in many cases, the public defender is going to be better. I have clients call me all the time that they've been appointed someone at the federal level on a drug conspiracy or something like that. Someone's in custody. Or at the state level, I'll be like, well, who's your attorney? I've got the public defender's office. And I'll tell them, as I'm saying to you right now, make sure that this,

person isn't the right person for you because I'm telling you there's awesome public defenders out there and I know because I was one. So don't push away this person that's in front of you because you can't get a hold of them right away. You need to look at the quality of their work product and the fight that they've got for you. And you're just going to be able to tell that or not. Again, the fact that they're not returning your call right away, they're not visiting in jail as often as you like. I understand that's troublesome and that's kind of the handholding kind of the bedside manner part. The question is what's the substance going on. And the public defenders that fight, that push hard or whatever, will get the same deals or better, I believe. Now, let's talk about prosecutors and deals for a second. What's your

opinion on all of that, how deals could vary, how they can kind of pick and choose what deals they give. It's very, it's not necessarily defined by a certain guideline in a way. Yeah, yeah. That's a great question. So people view the judge having all the power. It's not the judge, guys. is the prosecutors. The prosecutors have all the power in the criminal justice system. This is an example I give my clients. I'll just give you right now. If you get a speeding ticket and I go amend it so it doesn't get reported to insurance,

they amend it to, let's say, a defective muffler, all right? But no one goes out and checks to see if you got a muffler. I got an electric car. I don't even have a muffler. It's a fiction, okay? But what's going on there? The prosecutor chargeeth and the prosecutor can takeeth away. prosecutor can do whatever they want within reason.

Now, that's the deal-making part. Another part of it is, in Missouri as an example, if you rob a bank with a gun, that's like an a felony, okay, 10 to 30-year-life. As an add-on, if the prosecutor wants to, and they usually do, they'll charge armed criminal action. Armed criminal action is a flat three in prison. You could be Jesus himself, and you're doing flat three, there's no probation or parole until you do it three years, and that's now consecutive to.

If they charge that, you're not eligible for probation. So if you go to trial and lose, you're automatically going to prison. There's nothing the judge can do about it. There's nothing anybody can do about it. That charging decision alone impacts the deal, impacts the leverage, impacts how much it's going to cost you, impacts potentially whether you're going to be in jail and a higher bond or independency of a case. All of those things wrapped up into it. And so the question of the deal is, I mean, most of the case, you're going to be in jail.

cases resolved by agreement, like 90% of cases resolved by agreement. That's not just for me. That's like for the entire country. And the reason that is is because the prosecutors have that type of leverage. Now, deals vary, certainly, but that could also be how attorneys are approaching it potentially. How much of a pain in the ass the attorneys are going to be? If they know that you're an attorney that's willing to go to trial, if they know your attorney that's willing to discover your client's story and share that story, so the person is not just like a number, it's not just someone in a chain gang going into a jury box waiting for their case to be called. I think if you have that reputation and you care and people know about it and you're willing to

throw down, I don't fear anybody in a courtroom. Now, on the street, I mean, I'd be hiding behind, you know, a fifth grade, you know, cheerleading group or something to protect me because I can't deal with. I just never have been able to. But the courtroom dude, I'll throw down with anybody. That, I think, is if people understand that and they're willing to deal. But it's not the threat of that. I want to be clear. It's not like I walk in. And at this point, I don't believe every prosecutor's lying. I don't believe every police officer's lying. I think most clients, the evidence is there, frankly. I think it's a question of having that as part of your, part of what's in your kind of your quiver, if you will. You have that ability if you need to, but you're also reasonable. You get it because of the other part of it, it's not so much the deal making where, again, like some prosecutor knows me, they're going to give me a special deal. If that were to happen, it's extremely rare. It's really, knowing that what I'm telling them,

There's truth to it because I'm not going to bullshit them. That, I think, carries a lot more weight than who I play golf with because I don't play golf or who I hang out with. I don't really hang out with anybody anymore. I mean, family. I hang out with friends from our child's school. But it's really more about that. Do you have the passion or are you willing to throw down? And when you say something to someone, are you speaking the truth or at least enough that it's willing to take the time for them, the prosecutor, to go out and see if it's true?

Do you think most prosecutors are afraid or not necessarily afraid but are hesitant to go to trial? They'd rather just plead out and maybe we'll give a better deal to a client to avoid that trial. Like you look at some of these cases. A great example is I'll read on the news, say a sex offense case. They'll get two or three years in prison as a plea deal. It comes to think with the judge of giving that same sentence if they were proven guilty, you know, after at a trial. I think, so again, I'm speaking, having watched a number of prosecutors, but never been one. All right.

I think prosecutors face some of the same problems that the defense attorneys handle, particularly public defenders, they've got too many cases. The other thing prosecutors deal with, I never fully appreciate it until now is, is defense attorneys be like, I'm going to trial, going to trial, going to trial. Prosecutors will gear up for like two trials, and then people will continue it, like that Monday of trial. So they're constantly over whatever. I think that what goes into certain cases for the prosecutor is not so much that. I don't find that to be accurate. But I think prosecutors are taking into account what they believe victims want or don't want. So the sex offense, I deal with a lot of sex offense cases.

And prosecutors a lot of times do not want to put the victims through that. I use the word victim. They're calling victims through that. And I think that's another kind of point to it. The other also is that the cases are never, it's a very rare occasion where cases are open and shut cases. It's just not like that. People think, well, you're either guilty or not guilty. Well, what's really going on is a number of factors are coming into it, memory, biological evidence, you know, reputation potentially.

All of these factors come and have kind of collide in the criminal justice system. And a lot of times it's not really clear. You wish it would be. you wish it would be something where it's like, dude, I mean, we don't even need it. Jury, we just have, it's just so clear right here. It's very, ever, ever, ever is it like that? It's not like that. And the reason is is we're dealing with human beings and human emotions and human lives.

And human beings are complicated. We just are. And so when human beings get together and fight and argue and stuff like that, the idea of deciding who's right and wrong with all of us coming in with different attitudes, different life experiences, different ways of looking at the world, It's hard to come to a conclusion. And so the fact that people do come to inclusion in the jury, it's a testament to our criminal justice system. It's got a lot of flaws, but I haven't come up with a better one yet to how to deal with people when they fight, how to figure it out from a societal perspective. How do you feel about representing sex offenses? It's funny. So Sabrina, I was talking to Sabrina Morgan, who was a client of mine. She said I could say that on the air. She goes, all right, whatever you do, don't talk about sex offenders. She goes, don't talk about sex offenders. So, okay, a few things about sex offenders, because people are like, oh, David, it's the worst thing ever. And again, I want to be clear not representing the act and representing the individual. But here's a downside, a few downsides about othering those particular individuals.

First of all, people look for sex offenders out there as like some type of quasi-modo type figure. Like you'd be able to look out there and see somebody and be like, oh, that's a sex offender. The problem with that is is most sex offenders, almost all of them, aren't some other person out there, person jumping out of the bushes, although I've handled that. It's the people you know. It's family and friends. So if you're looking for Quasimodo, if you're looking for the guy that looks like a sex offender, then you'll miss behaviors of people that are around you and your family that are the sex offenders. So that's a problem number one of doing it. The second thing is, a lot of sex offenders I've worked with have been abused themselves.

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Whether you testify, and that's really tough. Now, when someone's charged with, say, a sex offense, is there ever a time where, say, the cops may have got it wrong? Because when, in specific, these types of cases, it's blast all over the Internet. Right. That's one of those cases where everyone's are automatically saying you're guilty. and it's hard to even ever come back from that, even if you were to be found innocent. So in those cases, what do you think about that? Well, so I've had cases where, so child porn's a big one.

And it used to be, in my opinion, that after going through a number of these cases for so long, you used to have to really want to find child porn to find child porn. Now, what I've had to deal with, a number of clients on different social media platforms, you click on links, that click on links, that click on links, and you kind of slide into it a little easier. Now, that creates a problem. So then what happens, and I've had a few of these cases, where your door gets kicked in at 6 in the morning

because something got uploaded to some online memory storage place, like OneDrive or Dropbox, something like that, and they have an algorithm they run through to determine something, and then a search warrant's applied for, and they kick in your door, and I've had it where they don't find anything on the devices. So I've absolutely have had it. had that. And that is, that is a tough thing. I'll tell you even tougher, though, if you have an

individual, by the way, and this is something I found out, and again, this is in mitigation, this isn't a guilt or innocence. If you have somebody who has like a predilection or some desire for someone underage and they have children of their own, did you know if they go to get help for that? The person they go to get help from has to report them, mandatory reporter. So you can't we don't have anything set up where people, it's like you have to get caught to get treatment. So if someone gets caught and they're good for it, at least in my work, I'll send them for treatment right away, right away. Because I know down the road, in most cases, that person is going to have to plead. And if they're plead, I want to be able to show the judge that we've already started the treatment.

But for those individuals that haven't necessarily committed a crime, but they're inching towards it, you got to get, I mean, there's no place to go. You'll get a mandatory reporter saying they'll report you. they'll start the investigation and it's a tough. That's a tough deal. And I know people are like, oh, I don't have any sympathy for those individuals. Well, I guess that's part of a problem where we're always trying to maybe stratify human behavior and we're trying to somehow dehumanize. It goes back to what I talked about the very beginning.

We dehumanize people in the system from the very beginning. The question is, how can I bring back that humanity for people and what do I do with them? How do I get them there? And part of that is accepting, again, I want to be clear, I don't accept the behavior and be like, well, dude, sorry about that. No worries. You know, go work at the amusement park now. It's not like that.

At the same time, you've got to be really clear. Once you start going down that road to dehumanization, that's going to take you to some bad places. When you care as much about your clients and cases as you do, is it hard to break away from it once that, you know, trial and conviction, maybe even appeal is over. How do you move on to the next one? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, I joke with people. You know, you go to like a Royals game in Kansas City or Chiefs. I'm from Kansas City. And they do like first responders day and they do like flyovers and stuff like that.

I'm waiting for one of those like criminal defense attorney days, you know, or like, you know, stand now as we fly over for criminal defense attorneys. The reality is I'm not a first responder for the most part. And I certainly appreciate those individuals, the police, the fire, ambulance, to see things so I don't have to see them. which I greatly appreciate. But I'm like a second responder, which is to say that whatever the stress that the defendant or the person that's just been arrested or they're looking into them,

whatever stress they have, the family has, then once they're charged and getting them out and then going through a horrific process, that does stay with you, man. And that's really tough. I wish sometimes I could care and then just go home. And be like, well, that's it for that.

You know, just kind of like, you know, and that's, I'm done. But you can't do that. And that's more difficult. And finding ways to deal with that in a healthy way, that's tough. I think a lot of attorneys drink when they're younger. I certainly did. But at some point, you're like, well, that's not doing anything.

So you have to find other outlets. How many cases do you handle at a time as a public defender compared to, say, a paid attorney where you might be working just a couple or going to trial with one at a time? Right. I would say when I left the public defenders in 07, I maybe had 60 cases, the problem. was they were all like a felonies. They're all murder ones, which I didn't do death penalty, but they're all non-death penalty life without. They were all horrific sex crimes. They were all like higher level felonies. And they're all in custody. So in custody adds a, a extra burden because they make it a major pain in the ass to go for in custody. You can't just like

show up, open the door and be like, hey, I'm here. And they're like, great, there's your client one and then we'll have client two ready. Like, dude, I mean, it's just, it's a time suck to go there. that created a lot of stress. Now, thank God, most of my clients are out of custody. And I've got clients all the way from like misdemeanor assault. The guy's out of custody. He's not going to do time if he's found guilty. It's going to go on for a bit all the way up to murder one. So it's not just the number of cases. The number of cases may be the same. It's the level of cases. As you get better in the public defender's office, your reward is getting the worst cases ever. One of the last cases I had, I still remember my guy's in prison. And this DNA technology had kind of gotten a lot

better. So I don't know if they threw money at doing a bunch of old kids. So let's say my guy's in prison. And I'm going to not make up the year, but it's not going to be exact. Let's say it's 2005. And I just still, I still remember the police report because they don't have audio and video at that point. They're like, I asked, I approached suspect in prison and he met with me. This is the detective. And, and I said, you ever seen this person? and they show a person on the best day of their life. Like they went to like a sure shot studio at the mall or something. You ever seen this person? No.

You sure? No, uh, never seen this person. You ever been to this park? Nope. Mm-mm. Never been to this park? Never seen this person? Never been to this park? No. You ever had sex with this person? Nope. So let me ask you this. Why is your DNA found in her body in this park? And then the report describes the detectives, the report describes the suspect's my eventual client's head falling into his chest. And he had two of those.

And I just won two. So that was one of my last cases. That made it, that was significantly stressful. Obviously, didn't have a defense there. We went for reasonable doubt. We hung it on the first trial. But that's the type of stuff you kind of rose up to that we became a public defender. Do you remember that first experience of walking into a jailer,

to visit a client because you're someone that grew up never seeing the inside of that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do remember it. What I remember at Jackson County Attention Center, and they still have it, by the way, because I do have clients there still, is the clanging of the doors. So you go up in the elevator to, let's say, the fifth floor. So they would do, at the time, fifth floor was like the kind of the guys that had been down before that were back again. Fourth floor was, I forgot, maybe the fourth floor was the Young Box. I forgot. They called that. the third floor, I forgot. Anyway, you go up, you exit the elevator. There's some intercom system up there with a camera. You press a button. You're like, pro visit. And they're like,

ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma, ma. And then you just sit there and wait. And I'll see here, the door clangs open. You walk into this dead space. And then the door has to close. And then you walk into this little kind of picnic table bolted down to the thing area. I remember that experience just being so raw. Like, there's nothing. It's just, it's just raw. like there's no frills, nothing. I found that to be, I found that to be exciting, frankly, at the time. So now why did you leave the public defender's office? So I was getting all those type of cases, right?

And I had hit the ceiling. I wouldn't go any farther. I think I left the public defender's office after six or seven years, making as much as I was when I either by starting salary at the firm, when I had left nine or ten years, whatever before that. So there was the salary issue. There was all my cases were high level, that type of stuff. And I was going to, I found someone we were going to get married.

And finally, I didn't feel like I could help anymore. So the individuals that have like multiple bodies on them, they deserve a representation. I did represent them. But there's some individuals, frankly, that maybe they shouldn't be out. They just shouldn't. And not that they're bad people. I don't necessarily believe that. But for safety of society, their own safety, they're just going to have to be locked up.

and I think that's something that kind of weighed on me a little bit as well. So where do you end up going? So I'm at a firm, we're Shobbs and Maraccan in Kansas City, and we do criminal defense boutique firm. We do everything from little city stuff all the way up to federal cases. And the type of case I do now, not surprisingly, or maybe who knew, but the accounting and finance and tax all of a sudden came back into life, right? I can tell you I was never asked a tax question in the bowels of the Jackson County Detention Center.

And I don't know if people knew what an LLM tax was at that point, you know, or being able to read a balance sheet or income statement. Although I did have actually one case that I had to. But now it comes into place. I do a lot of white-collar crime. I still do street crime, but it's less. So I'll do drug conspiracy stuff, but it's less. It's mostly professionals, their kids, families, whatever, to get into trouble. and usually it's like a one-off. The public defender's office, the other thing you got was,

if your client came back for a second go-round, your reward was you got them. You know what I mean? And so you're fighting for this person, and I want to be clear, I would not make a good consiglieri, okay? I'm not there. I'm not there. If you want to go do what you want to do in the world, that's on you. I'm not going to sit here and judge you, but I'm not going to be telling you where the line's at. You know what I mean? Like for right now, I'm just, I'm just, I'm supposed, somewhat risk averse. If you can go and say, David, where's the line? I'm saying, dude, your problem is, you're looking for the line. You shouldn't even mean anywhere near the line. So I'm not that type of, I'm not that type of lawyer. So the individuals I have now,

usually their kind of line overstepping is a one-time thing. And usually it's by, I wouldn't say initially accident, but certainly something came over them. Something happened, something in their life. Whatever it is, they've done something. And this is probably going to be the last time. What's the biggest difference for you switching from the public defenders to the private sector? So when you take money out of the equation, it's certainly freeing in the public defender's office. If I came to you because I was your lawyer at public defender's office, we didn't have to talk about money. There's no issue there. I'm all in 100%. The public defender's office is going to support you on hiring DNA experts. I had one from Canada come in one time. Whatever it is. Now money makes it a little bit of a deal.

difference. Actually, I'm rephrase that. Money can make a lot of a bit of a difference. That discussion, having to bill my time, those are the biggest differences. Because I guess the ideal situation would be, I don't have to build my time. I can still make money to support a family, and I could pick my clients. That would be great, but you don't always have that situation. But still to this day, it's not like caring went away. So if you come to me and I believe in you, and it's clear to me that you're being taken advantage of, it's clear to me you're being wronged. And you don't. don't have the money, I'm probably still in. I just can't break that part. And there are people in my office that I work with that just drives them nuts. But that's still part of me. But I can't

survive on that. I can't call up the electric company and be like, dude, I'm doing a solid for someone today. I hope you could let me skip on this month's bill. They're not going to, they'll be like, David, that's awesome, but we're not going to let you do that. So you got to make money. And that's a big difference. That's a big difference because you got to get paid up front. The other thing is, I will say this. One of the hardest things to do is collect after you've gotten the result. You know, there's no leverage really anymore. And that's been tough. It's been tough to learn how to do that. It's been tough to, a client comes to me and I want a certain amount of money up front and they have a little bit less than that. Do I take that to get it in the door knowing I'm going to suffer down the

road? That's been difficult. Who do you think is easier to work for, the client with no money or the client that has all the money in the world. I would say, for me, it's the client I can connect to. If I can connect to you as a human being, and usually I'm pretty good at, there only been a few I haven't been able to, then that doesn't really matter. I've had some pain in the ass clients with no money, and I've had some super pain in the ass clients with a whole bunch of money. I guess on par, maybe money can factor in because they think they can buy sometimes, but usually not. Usually it's if I can connect to you and create a relationship, we understand each other, you're willing to listen to me. That's where the difference is. Ideally, you're going to be a good

client. You're going to listen to what I have to say. We're going to create a connection and you've got more money than God. Unfortunately, a lot of times that's sometimes can be inversely proportional, right? But that's just part of the business. When a fraud case comes in, you said you represent a lot of these white collar ones. What's your initial kind of thought process, especially as someone that came from representing people that weren't living those types of lifestyles as some of these fraud cases. So fraud cases are kind of wild in that oftentimes it's a, it's, there's an ongoing course of conduct.

And what I find in this, those situations, what makes it more difficult is, let me, let me compare that real quick to the, we're talking about with public defenders. Usually for street crime, people know it's wrong. They know what's wrong in the moment they do it. They knew it was wrong right before they did it, when they did it, right after they did it. Everyone knows it. There's no question.

Sometimes with white collar stuff, what I've noticed is when people are doing something, a lot of times individuals I represent, they started out doing something legitimate. And something happened along the way, either maybe they felt they weren't being treated fairly by the business on an embezzlement case, or maybe they saw an opportunity someone else was doing something. And they start creeping towards this line. And then they crossed the line and then they go way past the line. And what I find more difficult in those cases is helping or trying to understand where clients, when they came to that line and crossed it, when did they know that what was going on was illegal? There's some white-collar cases where it's

obvious. The whole thing's a fraud. But there's other cases that individuals start moving towards a situation where it's unclear maybe in the law or there's a gray area in the law. And they're looking to the law as a kind of a Bible, if you will, of human behavior. The law is not that way. The law, for me, at least, is the floor of human behavior. It's not the ideal we're supposed to strive for. Just because there's a law that says you can't do it, doesn't mean that right on the edge of that, it's okay. I don't think that's, for me, that's not, I don't believe that's right. I think the issue is more for those individuals when they start taking advantage maybe of people and then maybe they start justifying that, and then that gets into their head and then they start living.

a certain lifestyle. And then it starts with little incremental points in time that accumulate over a long period of time. You give an example, embezzlement cases, white-collar fraud cases. If you ask someone, how much do you think they took? It's always like one-tenth. When they tell me, you know, I took $10,000. Then I get all the discovery in the records. I'm like, holy shit. You know what I mean? It's just because they don't, they're not thinking about it like that. in my mind, I don't believe that. I've seen it enough times. And I think that's hard.

When did you know that what you were doing was wrong? Sometimes at the beginning, but a lot of times it's somewhere in the middle, and it's finding that point in time. Because after that, when you're on notice, like way on notice, and you are actively looking the other way at a minimum, that's when I think that that's that point in time.

Do you ever look at someone, say, like, the embezzlement cases, and you're like, how did the person they were taking from not even realized that this was going on for X amount of time? So one of the issues in those cases is and why they can be so difficult is they rely on trust.

At the end of the day, I mean, I showed up here. I'd never been here before. I trusted you'd be here. You know what I mean? Like, I trusted Matt. Your producer would show up and do whatever he did and everyone here. And so our society works, for the most part, based on trust.

Just we don't have time to horse around with, I can't sit there and investigate every single action, everything you've told me. And so I think there's a presumption of trust, particularly with individuals and businesses. And so with that presumption of trust, when people buy into that, then when things come up that don't, that seem off a little bit, you will bring that information back into your bias, if you will. And you'll create a story in your mind to justify whatever you just saw. even though what you just saw is obvious, right? You're like, well, of course they're screwing you over or whatever. But what happens is you start trying to justify in your own mind to kind of, first of all, maybe not admit you were wrong in who you trusted, but also because we just have a trust bias, I think.

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What's your Rav for? I think takes people a lot longer to kind of figure out. Would you say there's more of these white collar cases where they get caught midway through and they already have a bunch of money or assets? Or is it cases where they're exposed at the tail end of it and their bank? bankrupt and have nothing? Most of the cases I see, it's there, it's at the end and they are bankrupt anyway. I have yet to meet the person, and they may exist, but maybe they got away with it,

who was able to accumulate just a ton of money on just an overtly criminal act, and they're living on an island somewhere or they're, I don't know, I don't know what, I mean, maybe it happens or maybe not. Most of the people that I represent that are in that situation where it's overtly, it's, you know, wrong act, the money's gone. It came in and left. They just don't, they're not keeping track of it. They don't know. It's not like they're paying taxes on it, usually. So no one's keeping track of this money. So I would say a lot of times it's all gone. It's all gone. Now, there are individuals that are called more of the gray area. Maybe they're trying to take advantage of a certain law, like a tax law or some other type of law where the money can

accumulate significantly, and that's when we have to fight like a forfeiture action. So when the money's gone, how do they pay to represent you? Yeah, how do they pay you? So that's when parents come in, I think, when parents come in sometimes. That certainly helps. Family, friends come in. Sometimes there may be money around. I don't know where it comes from left over.

We presumably come from a lawful source. But yeah, that's difficult. I have had clients coming in there. I don't have any money. It's all gone. Well, I mean, I can't. whatever. I will say surprisingly, miraculously, although it's not required in the feds, at the state level, if someone's arrested and has to bond out, money will appear. I just, like it, I don't know, it just kind of manifests itself from the ground somewhere. I don't know what happens. Yeah, I was looking at it. I read about some of these, like the white collar cases and they're still able to afford, like, say, the big high profile attorney. Right. Now, are there forfeiture cases where, say, the courts or the prosecutors will go after the law firm if they were paid? So I have heard of that.

We don't, fortunately haven't dealt with that. The stuff that I've dealt with on the, that type of, I haven't done a lot of the conspiracy cases. I've had the drug conspiracy cases were either appointed the federal level or I think like a parent generally or a friend paid for them. So I've never had it where someone's brought in a bag of money that smelled like dirt. You know what I mean? I just haven't, I haven't had that. I've had people bringing a bag of money before, but it didn't smell like dirt. And we tell them if they're going to give us that much cash.

we're going to go to the bank and we're going to tell the bank who gave it to us. Like we don't play, we don't play games like that. We just don't play, no, we don't play games like that. So I think they have to issue a form to the client and that's fine. So we don't play with that. But yeah, I don't, sometimes I don't, I do wonder about that. But in the white collar crime, so what happens is as you move up in the white collar world, not like individually move up, but as you move into more complex cases,

the civil cases, the kind of civil fraud and criminal fraud kind of become one and they kind of move out. And so in some cases, you don't know if it's a civil violation or if it's a criminal violation. In those cases, it seems like that there's a much more of a hesitation to seize funds. Now, how hard is it as an attorney to look at some of these, say, bank records and actually add up what the losses are? I know like the FBI and the IRS will do that, but I'm sure you're doing your part to make sure that those match what, you know, so that they're, you know, so There's no discrepancies. Yeah, yeah.

So we hire experts for that. We have forensic account and experts. I'll tell you, the harder one, then the money thing is somewhat easier because here's the thing about white collar crime. The white collar crime is there's evidence of it. Everything is done unless there's cash transactions. Everything has a bank record.

Everything has a deposit slip. Everything has a tax form. Everything has a financial statement. They submitted to the bank. Maybe they're saying fraudulent. It's just all out there. And so that stuff can be generally added up. The harder stuff I've had to deal with is on the drug.

stuff. That has been really tough to deal with. And I know one of the things Sabrina asked me to bring up was ghost dope, which just drives me nuts. Yeah, tell everyone about what that is. Ghost dope. All right. So most drug crimes, well, let me rephrase that. All drug crimes I've ever seen at the federal level are charged at a conspiracy where it's a group of individuals that conspire to distribute drugs, essentially. And what's amazing about it is a lot of times they don't have to know each other. So I don't know what. I've read books on conspiracy. I still can't tell you what it is. I think it matches up with, I like to study Buddhist philosophy and like we're all connected.

And I think it's like that because it's like I don't know what's not a conspiracy anymore. We're all in a conspiracy essentially from a federal criminal level, which is part of the problem. But let's say I get caught under drug conspiracy. Well, the way the federal system is set up with the federal sentencing guidelines, essentially every case that's brought up. It doesn't matter if you're some major politician in D.C. or somebody, and no one knows about. Every case, the federal level, starts with a sentencing guidelines. And it's a chart. And the chart is along the top x-axis, your criminal history, and on the y-axis going down on offense levels, and then you kind of put your, pardon me, I'm sorry, I keep in the

microphone, you keep putting your hand like this. And where you meet, that's your presumptive sentence. It's not presumptive. It used to be mandatory, but it's the starting point. Okay. those levels are based upon, depending on the case, kind of the harm potentially caused. There's a number of ways to say it. In financial cases, it's based on loss. And by the way, just to be clear, loss can be what you actually took or what you wanted to take. So it could be like the actual loss or the intended loss. So I had a case one time where a client was accused of stealing secrets from some business.

and they stole something, but it wasn't those secrets. It was like fake secrets. And I think the loss was like $100 trillion billion because it wasn't what they actually took, which was the word zero, is what they thought they took. All right. So in drugs, it's weight. It's just weight. But unlike state cases where drug cases are based upon what you're usually they're found with, at the federal level of conspiracy, it's based on, for the most part, what people said you had. So the other factor I want to point in and I'll talk about the ghost dope is this.

There are essentially two ways to get your score lower, your sentence lower the federal system. One way is to plead guilty. You get three levels off for doing that. That's worth, let's say, two years. The other way is called a 5K, and a 5K is cooperating. 5K is the section, 5K1.1 is the section of the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. And it reads, upon motion of the government, and then it goes on, a bunch of stuff. But what it says is, is that if the government likes what you have to say, they can file a motion. And that motion can lower the sentence to whatever anyone says it is. The judge can do whatever they want for the most part. In addition, it's so powerful, there's a

corresponding section in the statute that for mandatory minimum cases, they can file the same motion or similar motion and go underneath the mandatory minimums. All right. So what does that mean? That means in conspiracy drug cases, everyone runs to talk and plead guilty. It's just set up that way. People are like, oh, I don't want to talk. I don't want snitches get stitches. Well, that makes for a great t-shirt, but that's bullshit because it's all made up of that at the federal system. All right.

So let's say, I want to come in and talk. So I come in and say, all right, the people like, what do you got? What do you know about Ian? I'm like, well, I was at Ian's house. I don't know, probably once a month for 12 months. Probably I knew him for about a year. And every time I was over there, there'd be on this glass table, there'd be some meth. Well, how much meth do you think it was?

Well, dude, I didn't have a scale or anything. I'm going to estimate, well, what do you think of this approximately? I don't know. I bet you a kilo. All right. So you saw him once a month, and did you have a kilo there every time? Yep. So that's one month times 12.

That's 12 kilos. I just put on you to get me a lower sentence. That's ghost dope. I remember I had one, an agent who I became kind of friends with because we worked. I had a client that was cooperating. And I called him up one time, and I'm like, dude, I got a problem. I don't know what to do with it. I'm like, I opened my trunk and I got 20 keys of ghost open there and I don't know what to do with it.

Do I like, can I destroy it? What do I do with it? And he took him a sec to understand. I was just talking about air. You know, it's nothing. But that is, in my opinion, it can be a major problem in our system because it's based on individuals that are likely we're getting high that aren't great historians that you're trusting to come up with amounts that there's no proof. Now, the problem is that the clients that are being named by the. individuals, they know them, and they are involved usually. The problem I had was the amounts,

the amounts that are being attributed to them. That's ghost dope. And that becomes really tricky because you're going through reports from the government trying to compute how much is going to be attributed to your client. So when you plead guilty, if you plead guilty in the federal system or you're found guilty by trial, the next thing you do is you do a pre-sentence report. And then the probation officer gets to go through all the discovery and try to add up what they think the amount is either on a loss figure or on a drug figure. Remember, those are going to be the driving factors in your sentence. So it's hard to figure out because sometimes you can't tell who they're talking about. Sometimes it's been blacked out. Sometimes it's, are they talking about the same person?

And if they are, are they talking about the same amounts? I had a client one time who, uh, they, they found bags, uh, plastic bags, multiple plastic bags, and they found a significant amount of drugs near those plastic bags. Well, they took and laid out plastic bag on a... I still remember the picture, plastic bag on the floor of this warehouse. And there were a million plastic bags. And they said, well, each one of those plastic bags,

that probably holds, you know, two kilos. I mean, now, it turns out my guy, like, triple bagged, whatever he was using. I mean, I remember joking at the time. I was lucky my guy wasn't arrested at, like, like, a grocery store in, like, the saran wrap aisle because it would have been a trillion pound. I mean, they were just attributing all this stuff to it.

That's where I find the most difficulty. Now, do you find that juries are more willing or less willing to convict on, say, a ghost dope case? My experience has been generally on drug. Well, I've never had a ghost dope case. I've never had a ghost dope case go to trial. I would say the problem in those cases with drug conspiracies is you would have to get up on the stand and say, I don't know who Ian is. Well, you can't.

That's a lie because you're going to know the person most likely. So then what am I saying? I was already in his house. I was just using. I wasn't selling. So then you're trying to divide up an amount that is difficult. Where the ghost up comes in on the federal is more so after you're found guilty, the question is what's your sentence going to be.

And because of relevant conduct and because sometimes in plea agreements, they're allowed to bring in those extra things. So it's not so much a jury trial. It's more for sentencing. So in those cases, are they always attaching it to, say, controlled by? or something that actually ties them to the actual act of selling drugs? I have, yes, generally speaking. Yes, although in some cases I think I've seen where I don't recall if they've recovered any.

Maybe they've recovered somewhere along in the conspiracy, but again, not everyone needs to know the other person in the conspiracy, which makes it kind of mind-num, because you don't know we're all in a conspiracy together. Yeah, I met a ton of guys in prison that they were on these huge RICO or huge conspiracy cases, and they're on the bottom of the totem pole and they'll take a plea deal for a year or two years, max. I had a guy, I remember one time, and his friend was a relative of the kingpin.

And on the weekends, they would buy cocaine. It was just for the weekends. But because my guy called the kingpin a number of times over maybe a year or two, he got dragged into it. And he was just buying, like, user amounts of cocaine. But he got dragged into a conspiracy. So it was a federal indictment for, I think it was, I remember it was measured in grams,

which at the federal level, I've never done with fentanyl at the federal level yet, but cocaine in grams is not, that's unheard of. It's never in grams. It's like kilograms, multiple kilograms. So I remember that happening. And that can be, that can be really tough because you're getting sucked into something that's way bigger. You just happen to be around at the time. So then it becomes you're being found guilty or at least being held to account for who you associate with.

And that can be a little bit more, I don't know. that's a little bit more difficult to justify. Something we're talking about off-camera is how they're going or using rap lyrics to convict or even charge individuals. Yeah, so a friend of mine, Professor Jack Lerner at UCI, he did, he along with someone else whose name I forget, did, I think it was called rap on trial. And essentially what was, the question is when someone raps about something, whatever it may be, it could be a crime, if actually true or not.

And then that person is charged as a defendant, can those, words then be used against him as an admission, which is kind of a wild concept to me. I haven't seen it in Kansas City where I've worked, but I know Professor Lerner has in different places. And this idea, I think Atlanta, you and I talked about Atlanta, and that idea that, you know, this kind of art would be used. And apparently, in reading through some of Professor Lerner stuff, and Jack, he's a friend of my grow up with him, but it's not necessarily doing that in other genres. So there's a race element to it as well. Because there are other genres of crime where the singers are talking about criminal activity in the words of their lyrics, but they're not bringing those back to

suggest that those individuals did the crime. So what are some new interesting changes in the criminal justice system that have come forth, kind of like the rap lyric situation because of, say, social media or technology that's different now these are compared to when you started? I would say, well, I don't know about to terms of technology. Or maybe not even social media, but just in general as terms come on.

So here's the big thing that I've experienced in Jackson County, which I think is going to take on a significant role is mediation in criminal cases. I found that to be miraculous. Now, mediation's been going on in civil cases forever. So civil cases is where two people are fighting over money, essentially.

It doesn't matter. It'd be Apple versus IBM. It could be you versus me in a car wreck over money. And what's come through that system is mediation. So you and I'll hire a mediator, and we'll go to their office, most likely. Sometimes, a lot of times a retired judge, and they'll come in and talk to you, and they'll figure out what it is you really want. Now, you'll have your attorney there with you, they'll come into me and find out what I really want, and they'll reach an agreement, and it avoids the court system. That is happening in the criminal justice system, and it's happening in Kansas City in particular, and which I really appreciate. And what that allows us to

in those situations is, is first of all, a lot of times my clients want to talk. They just want to talk. They want someone to listen. I'm like, dude, I'm here. I'm listening. They're like, no, no, no. I want a judge to listen. I want a prosecutor to listen. I want someone other than the person I'm paying to listen to me. And I'm like, that's great. Let's do mediation. So mediation, a judge comes in and sits down and they get to hear your story. And they get to hear your story. And then they get to hear the judge then gets to kind of a pine, if you will, retire judge. judge is not on the case, gets to a pine as to what they think, what it's worth, potentially, what do you need to resolve it? And a lot of times the judge may say the same thing I've been saying, but because they're saying it differently. Then they get to go to the victim. I think the last one I've had, I had maybe a murder case that was mediated. They get to go to the victim's family. The victim's family also wants to be heard. Victim's family shows up to 10,000 court dates. They don't know what the hell's going on. They're sitting in the back of the court

along with 50 other people because there's 20 million people on the docket. And I get up there as a criminal defense hearing and continue the case and they don't know what the hell is going on. And then I leave and they don't wondering what's going on. They want to be heard too. And a lot of times that can be cathartic. So now they have a retired judge coming into hearing from them. And sometimes that's really important.

Sometimes they have heard the only the story that the state or the feds have put out. We go back to that dehumanization. And I'm not saying that's an intentional dehumanization always. It could just be a function of a system. I don't know. But they hear that story. And now, and during mediation, they hear the other part of the story. When I get all the time, he never called me up to apologize. He never said he was sorry. But you know why? Because I told him not to talk anymore. That's why. I wasn't going to write a letter. I'm sorry for doing what I did. I mean, I can't have that. I just can't. In mediation,

it's all subject to negotiations essentially cannot be used otherwise. So it gives them an opportunity to talk. And I found that that has been really, really successful. So how does this affect the case? Does the mediation, like, records then go to the prosecutor? No, the prosecutor's there with the victim, victim's family. I'm there with my client, family members, and the retired judge usually or a current judge in Jackson County, their judges that do it, they try to bring a resolution. And if they can bring a resolution to the case, then we can go over and resolve the case in front of the trial judge. Is that like a plea deal?

Okay, so you're agreeing to a plea deal that appeases both the victims, if there are any, and the, I guess, the defendant. Absolutely. And just remember, what's going into that? I talked about the prosecutor having all the power. But the other thing is it stresses people out to just to infinite degrees as my clients. They're living, they might as well be sentenced to jail from the very beginning of the case because of the stress and the anxiety they're going through during the year or the year and a half that's going on. they may be out, but they're not out mentally. They're locked up mentally. You know what I mean? They just are. And so there's just a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, a lot of pressure, all of those things that go into it. The stress of going before a jury and 12 people you don't know, right? And then we talk about other factors, maybe from disenfranchised communities. I mean, I'm just, and those are real, by the way, the race thing is real. I've seen it. I'm coming at you from, you know, white guy, upper middle class, whatever. I've seen it. I'm just telling you, it's certainly part of it baked into the the system to a certain extent. And so to avoid all of those things, to avoid the cost, to avoid

risk, to avoid all of those things, people generally find it to their advantage to have a known quantity. What am I going to get? How do I resolve this right now? People want to do that. And like I said before, a lot of times the evidence is there to prove them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It doesn't mean they will be found guilty, but it means there's a good chance. Take all those factors into account. Victims, victims, families going through the same thing. Whether they're victims or crimes or not, they feel their victims. They want certainty too, usually. They want some punishment, but sometimes that can be mitigated.

And so in mediation, you come through and you... Real value shows up in reliability. You don't have to second guess. Like a set of Firestone all-season tires. They're designed to deliver confidence-inspiring wet-weather traction and a quieter ride, no matter the road, season after season. Firestone All-Seasen tires. ability you can count on, just like people count on you.

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that cause itchy allergy eyes. And the winner, by knockout, is Hatterday. Paraday. Bring it on. You can resolve it a lot of times, and it's, it doesn't work in all cases, but I've seen it work in a number of cases. Now, could this be effective before even the warrant sign for someone's arrest? Like, say there's a victim that comes forward to report it,

and it's mediated before it gets into the news, before the door's kicked in at, you know, in the morning, before all of that stuff happens, I feel like that would be a very cost-effective strategy. I feel like you just read, like, my Christmas list. You know what I mean? Like, like, the amount of suffering and pain in the criminal justice system that happens that's unneeded.

And I realize, don't commit the criminal act. I get it. I don't want to hear any comments about that. I'm talking about after that's happened. So I'll give me a great example on that. And I think it goes to your point. You know, I'll get a guy arrested. It could be a DUI.

It could be a federal child porn sting. It could be anything. It could be a million different things. They'll take him into custody for 24 hours. He'll talk or not. talk, whatever, and they'll PFI them, pending, they'll release them pending for their investigation. They'll come to me, I'll help get them on the right track, hopefully, get back into school, what it is, maybe get treatment if it's a drug issue, get treatment, if a sex offender, whatever it may be.

A year later, they're doing great, all right? And now someone comes knocking, or they don't come knocking, and they just come in, right? They serve the arrest warrant, and it destroys, or maybe they pull them over on the side of the road, and they've got a kid in the car, they're a kid in the car. and it's just horrifically destructive. If the reality is if on the front end, if we could resolve it that way, that would be wonderful.

Even minor things people don't even think about. When they arrest my guy for marijuana, and not so much anymore, in Missouri, it's legal now, but in Kansas still is legal. I forgot the fee. It's like a $400 fee that they tack on the end to tell us what we already know it was. Just sniff the bag, dude.

You don't need to go test it in a lab. somewhere. Don't go through that extra expense, that extra time, that extra delay. If some people want to resolve it now, resolve it now, I think that would be great. At the federal level, less so at the state level, sometimes what will happen is the federal agents will approach someone and the people know, oh crap, something's coming down. But there's no arrest yet. Maybe a grand jury is going, but they haven't issued an indictment. If they come early, we try to get in front of it. Sometimes we can get the discovery early before any case is filed. And we can then, if If it's a case that needs to be resolved by agreement, we can do so beforehand.

And it saves an infinite amount of anguish. There's no kicking indoors. We walk in through the front of the courthouse, not through the back and chains. My guy gets out on a bond right away. There's no issue about they're seeking detention and stuff like that. That would be an awesome way to handle a lot of these things. And I don't know why that is. You know, I'll tell a lot of prosecutors, so if someone comes in, they're release

pending further investigation at the state level. I'll call the police. I'll call the detective. I'll be like, dude, here's my email, my phone number. I'll have my guy self-srendered in 24 hours. You don't have to go get him. Officer safety, you know, particularly if it's a traffic cop that's going to stop someone, they don't know the guy's got a warrant until they pull them over.

We can bypass all of that stuff. I've been paid. I'm on the case, whatever. Call me. I'll turn them in. They don't call me or they forget or whatever. It drives me nuts because it makes no sense. The idea I had, I think I was joking with your producer in the back was, just to make it easy

for me because they always want to issue these arrest warrants on Friday, I'm going to start a new special deal where you can come into my office, okay? I'll show you the criminal statutes. You pick the one you want to do. We'll schedule the dates you're going to do it. I'll go ahead and work with the cop as to win the warrant, the prosecutor when the warrant's going to go out, and we'll do it around my schedule now instead of this craziness because there's a lot of things that happen again, the criminal justice system that don't need to happen. These arrest warrants are one of them. If you PFI somebody, if you've arrested them and released them, they know something's coming. It's not like there's a surprise anymore. So why do we have to go send, you know,

10 guys and 10 squad cars out to someone's house to arrest them when they know it's coming down the pike a year later, particularly if they already have a lawyer. It's a waste, a humongous waste of resources. But do you think that's part of the tactics of the prosecution of the case, just like, you know, making these detention centers without bail pretty miserable, you know, it encourages to get a plea deal. That same effect of, you know, your house is raided, You're trotted along into the station, all of that. I think it's when I've approached some police officers, and I've represented police officers too, by the way,

when I've approached some police officers, the impression I get is, first of all, some of these guys are gung-ho, and they want to be the ones to put the cuffs on. That's number one, kind of cowboys. That's a problem. Two, I think it's a free search warrant. So I did a ride-along.

This was 20 years ago. I did a ride-along with the police. This is what I was thinking about being a public defender. I don't think that, I don't know if they'll let me do ride-alongs anymore, but I did ride-along one time. And it's somewhere in that metropolitan area. I'm not going to say which city.

And I remember we were doing a ride-along, and there's a guy on the corner, and the officer knew who he was and knew he had a warrant. So we pulled up alongside of him. And the officer gets out and searches him. He didn't find anything. And he got back in the car. And I'm like, dude, why didn't you,

you know he has a warrant? why didn't you arrest him? Well, because if you release him without clearing the warrant, you can search him whenever you want to. Right? Because you know he's got a warrant out. So if you stop, you arrest him, you search him, he's got something on him. You're arresting because of the warrant. You happen to find a search incident to arrest. You find whatever he's not supposed to have on him. I think with these search warrant, not when they go serve these arrest warrant sometimes, it's a little bit of a freebie. It's a little bit of a freebie search warrant. maybe they're going to find something else when they go into rest.

And I think some of those guys like to do a little shock and awe. Do you think warrants are given out too easily, even just for searches? And when you're going through the discovery process? I think it's a, I don't know, I don't know if it's too easy. What I would say is, I don't know what the counterbalancing is to it. Like the checks and balances? Well, the court's going to look at it and probable cause. cause is what you need for a search warrant. It's a horrifically low standard. What it means is

there's a set of facts that if true would establish that this person committed a crime and evidence of the crime is there. And you've got a police officer, detective signing off saying it's true, that's it. If they hit the magic words, that's it. What I don't see and what I wish I could see more of is the downside or the other side of it, the pain to the, the problem. The pain to the physical pain to the individuals, to their families, to things like that, to the structural damage to the house and things like that that that aren't compensated for. I've had people's cars hit when they run the small little tanks up into the yards and stuff like that, when they're playing a little too much warrior with it. You know what I mean? There's a,

there's a cost there. There's an emotional cost, a mental health cost, and I don't think that's taken into account. I don't know the best way of doing that, but I think that would lessen a lot of the search warrant. For the most part, the search warrants I've seen, there's probable cause, but it's a really, really low standard. And if they get it wrong, I don't know what, there's no real penalty to it. Yeah, who pays for that?

Say you're staying at your mom's house. You're the defendant. You're staying at your mom's house. They trashed the front yard, the door gets kicked in. Who's responsible for that? I've only ever known it to be mom. Ever. That's it. I don't, I've never known anybody else to pay for it. I don't think there is anybody else to

pay for it. If there is, someone tell me. I don't know. what that is. And that lack of that countervailing, I think can be a little bit, a little bit disheartening. Sometimes in this prosecutorial discretion, what I would wish for would be that there has to be a price to pay. And I don't mean it in a punishment sort of way, but I mean in a changing behavior sort of way. If, let's say a prosecutor takes me to trial because the deal is awful, my guy wants to go, whatever it may be, and let's say I prevail. We walk out of their arm and arm. I'm doing cartwheels. he's doing car wheels or whatever. That guy will never be compensated for my fee.

That guy will never be compensated for the stress and the strain and the emotional anguish that him and his family have gone through. If the prosecutor gets it wrong, there's no downside, particularly if it's a defendant that has no name. It's just a faceless defendant. It's one thing if you go after some big politician or you go after like a movie star and you get it wrong, you're going to suffer there probably. maybe an election six years down the road.

But if you go after a faceless person and you get it wrong, there's no countervailing pressure to think through to make sure that when you file a case, when you sign off on a search warrant, when you sign off on an arrest warrant, when you fail to call the defense attorney to let them know there's an arrest warrant out so that person can self-surrender

so the person doesn't lose his car to the tow lot, doesn't lose his job, maybe he doesn't lose his kid, can plan for going into custody for a bit, can get money to get money to get, for a bond. When you fail to do that, that's a problem. Those are hidden costs, not necessarily hidden because my clients deal with them, but they're costs that aren't taken into account. I think that's a major issue. Why do you think state courts are quicker to utilize, say, deferred prosecution or accelerated, you know, rehabilitation in these systems than the feds are?

Because the feds have that option, but it's very rare. Theoretical. Yeah. I have heard, by the way, at Western District, there is a drug court, I believe. I would say in the state level and the city level, I have found prosecutors that I've worked with much more willing to hear and understand about restorative justice, rehabilitation, giving people a second chance. The federal system, from my standpoint, looking at the sentencing guidelines, although it's hopefully changing in the right direction, is just much more punitive. Rehabilitation doesn't seem to be as much of a goal, at least on the sentencing side. Some of these sentences are out of sight. hey, they're out of sight, on ghost dope even. And so I think at the state level, there's a desire because those individuals are closer to the ground, they're closer to the police department, they're closer to the individuals,

the voters, right? These guys have to be elected. I think, and they're arresting and prosecuting people within their own community, potentially, that there's more of a desire to say, all right, how do we make this better? How do we help these individuals not return as defendants? The federal system, I don't think that. I think it's just more. punitive. That's part of the problem. Now we were talking about costs. How much do you think it costs the state and the feds to bring someone to trial? Well, I think from a murder case, I mean, it certainly depends if there's DNA, if they have to bring a medical examiner and experts and things like that. Then you have to count the cost of the judge, cost the prosecutor, the cost of

how much is it for 60 people to sit there or 75 people to sit there for a day to potentially get chosen and then 12 people to sit there for a week or two in there. I bet it's over $500,000 to a million dollars. Then there's lost tax revenue. There's lost, there's just an infinite loss. And then what's the value, the pain to people? I don't know. I mean, it's easily over $500,000 or million dollars. And then the cost of incarceration once they go in, it's an infinite cost. That's crazy. It is, it is crazy. But that's potentially why most cases are resolved by agreement. that may part of it be taken into account. I don't know the answer. It is a wild idea how much we spend to prosecute and incarcerate rather than focusing on and spending money to prevent the person

ever entering the system to be prosecuted and arrested. That the idea, and you know what's also fascinating about that, the prosecutor's offices I've dealt with that have really tried on restorative of justice, they really tried on giving people a second chance, which I really appreciate, I have to wonder in the back of my mind, why is that the prosecutor's office is doing that? It's really not their job. I certainly appreciate them doing that. But shouldn't that happen beforehand? Shouldn't that happen before anybody ever gets to the prosecutor's office?

Right? Because ideally, someone wouldn't enter into the criminal justice system. And a lot of what I see is, listen, it's a partner of mine, JR that I work with, said this. We're all product of our experiences. And that's true. When you come to my office, I want to know why you're serious. here. I want to know about you personally. Where were you born? Where were you raised? How were you raised? Your parents, lifestyle, whatever it is. I want to know how you got here. And while individual

choice, certainly we're responsible for our own actions is part of the equation. There is a tremendous part of us that's the result of things that were beyond our control. And that's part of my job. The fact that I was a tax lawyer, right, I had to take those tests. My dad, you know, my dad didn't take those tests. I had to take those tests. My grandfather didn't take those tests when he was alive. I had to take those tests. The fact that I was or became a tax lawyer, the fact that I'm a lawyer right now, part of that is how I was raised. Part of that is a part of an influence. That works a number of different ways. Positive, I guess, if you want to say, being a lawyer's positive, which I think it is. And also negative, too, if you're going to maybe go in a direction that I think most people wish you didn't.

Are you seeing a decline in actual prison time being a sentence? Or is it the, that's the same as it's been. I think we're moving past that super punishment phase, and I think we're moving more towards kind of restorative justice, rehabilitative phase. So I think we're seeing more people taking into account circumstances. Again, most of the time, the evidence that's before me, I can play games with the evidence a little bit

and reasonable doubt as a potential defense. But what I find more moving is, all right, here's a guy, and this was on his worst day ever. And yeah, did he screw up? up, yeah. But now let's talk about the result. What if I have a guy that could come forward, admit what he did was wrong, get into a program to help to make sure he doesn't do that again, and he gets diversion where it's dismissed at the end. We all benefit from that, dude. He stays out. He works. He pays taxes. He's with his family. He gets to come and leave life after that with nothing

on his record, and if he ever screws up again, then hammer him. It's that second chance part. And I find that, I find that certainly at the state level, certainly, and also at the federal level, the guidelines were mandatory. And now they're, I call them presumptive. They're not really presumptive, but there's certainly a starting point from it. We saw the crack cocaine disparity at the federal level. That's been shrunk, certainly, considerably. I don't think it's not all, it's not down to equal, but I think we're seeing more of that. This over-incarceration I think doesn't work. You know, in the federal guidelines, federal sentencing, there's a specific deterrence and general deterrence. Specific deterrence is if I send you to something, you're not going to

do this again. And general deterrence is, if I send you to something, then other people see that and they won't do it. And my argument back on that is, I should be out of business by now. You know what I mean? Like, we've all, everyone's been sentenced for everything at this point. There shouldn't be a need for me. But of course there is. So I'm not sure that works. I do like this idea of looking at the criminal justice system when people behave in ways they shouldn't or ways we wish they wouldn't, viewing that is all of our problem, not just the individual actor problem. It absolutely are choices that people make, volitional choices that people make that get themselves in trouble. But there's a greater responsibility. I think we all bear in this. And if we start to view it in that way, I think we'll

probably come up with better solutions that'll wind up helping us all. If you could share one lesson that you've taken away from your career so far with the audience, what would that be? I would say this. Look to your left and look to your right, whoever that person is. That person is capable of the worst things I've ever seen and the best things I've ever seen. And view everyone like that. I think that to me is the most important part. Everyone has within us that innate value and focus on that.

Again, we're not excusing the behavior and we're not trying to justify the behavior and you still need to punish for the behavior. But when you're going to go in and do that, start with that. as everyone having that inherent value that doesn't rise or fall based on the level of offense or the criminal history or whatever. And if you start with that, I think we'll start to see hopefully some more positive changes in the criminal justice system. Well, David, I appreciate you coming on the show today. Dude, thanks for making me famous. This was awesome. I really appreciate. Hey, and I got to say a shout out. Thank you to Sabrina Morgan, client who introduced me. And was a guest on the show. And was a guest on the show. She's been awesome. So thank you so much.

Yeah, thank you again. Appreciate it.