The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Justice at Trial: Courtroom Battles and Groundbreaking Cases by James J. Brosnahan

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

Justice at Trial: Courtroom Battles and Groundbreaking Cases by James J. Brosnahan https://amzn.to/41QXIq5 Follow a trial lawyer’s career through the demanding, often controversial, and suspenseful world of jury trials, tension-filled appeals and the different worlds of courtrooms, jail cells, corporate boardrooms, and law firms. Each of the cases in the nineteen chapters were selected from a total of his 150 jury trials to reflect issues of current importance, including refugees on the Mexican border, gargantuan gender battles inside one of the largest corporations in the world, sexual taboos on national television, accusations of terrorism, government agents who cheat, innocent prisoners in our jails, the constitutional right to speak and print the truth, bringing law to a war zone, poverty and murder on Native American Reservations, current problems of hunger in America, and more.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready, strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from the chrisvossshow.com, the chrisvossshow.com. Welcome to the big show, my family and friends. We love you. We love all the people that have come by the show and spent some time with us today.

And we thank you for inviting us into your heads, your hearts, your homes, wherever that, your workplace, your cars, wherever the hell you're listening to the show. Maybe you're listening on the beach for all I know. You know, wherever you listen to the show, it's totally legal in all states. And I think it's legal around the world. We'll have to check some of the laws. But wherever Interpol doesn't have an arrest warrant out for the Chris Voss show, it is legal to listen to the Chris Voss show. I don't know what that means.

Anyway, guys, thanks for tuning in. We have an amazing author on the show. But in the meantime, educate your friends, family, and relatives because smarter people make it so you want to strangle them less. We all have those family members, don't we? Refer to the Chris Voss Show at YouTube.com, 4ChessChrisVoss, Goodreads.com, 4ChessChrisVoss, and LinkedIn.com, 4ChessChrisVoss. We're over there on the TikTok. Check out our new AI podcast and leadership podcast as well. He is the author of the amazing new book that's coming out july 15th 2023 justice at trial courtroom battles

and ground breaking cases it tells his life story of a journey as an attorney and of course his experience in life james j brasnahan is on the show with us today to talk about his amazing book and everything that went into it he is a member member of the California Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame, is a federal prosecutor and defense lawyer who's tried 150 trials. He was a senior partner at Morrison & Forster, a preeminent 1,000-lawyer international law firm based in San Francisco for 46 years. He has lectured internationally for the National Institute of Trial Adv for 46 years he has lectured internationally for the national institute of trial advocacy he has authored articles for the american constitutional blog law 360 the california historical society the daily journal the new york times bloomberg's law

and los angeles times he's appeared on national radio and television, including ABC, CNN, Fox News, Larry King. I love Larry King. Or I did. I still do. National Public Radio and PBS. And now he's finally reached the pinnacle of his career. He is on The Chris Foss Show. Welcome to the show.

How are you, James? I'm fine. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming, my friend. And give us a.com, wherever you want people to find you on the interwebs. It's jimjbrosnahan, B-R-O-S-N-A-H-A-N.com. There you go. And so, you know, you've lived a storied career here, James.

What motivated you to want to write this book from your words? I wanted to write a book that would give the readers a different view of lawyers. I think there are a lot of books about lawyers, but the excitement of trial particularly, I thought, was something I wanted to share with them. The suspense of trial and what lawyers do. I mean, there's a side of lawyers that I'm not sure is represented in the public image, and I've known a great many wonderful lawyers, good lawyers. I've known some bad ones too, of course, but I wanted to share that with people. There you go. And to kind of open up the scope of perception of lawyers are? Well, I think it varies. The concept of contribution and representing people and helping people isn't always part of what people think about lawyers. And a lot of

things contribute to that too. And there's very legitimate points of view about lawyers. But there's the whole world that I also saw of lawyers who contribute their whole lives to nonprofit work, for example, trying to protect children. That's a very common thing for lawyers to do. Doing pro bono, which is representing people that have no money. Homeless people. There are lawyers in San Francisco that I have met who specialize in representing homeless people. Now that contribution to the profession is enormous.

That's part of the book yeah is just how exciting these trials were at the as i wrote it in the book 150 plus trials yeah that's a lot i mean a lot of lawyers settle so you know it doesn't even go to trial. Well, I know I settled. I don't know. I'm guessing, Chris, thousands of cases. You know, 60 years is a long time. And when it's in the client interest. But I had a lot of cases where there was good reason to go to trial.

It might be a principle that the client believes in. It might be to establish a precedent. I argued in the Supreme Court a couple of times. There you go. That kind of thing. There you go. And so what began your journey in life? Give me a little bit of your origin story so we understand what made you want to become an attorney and go on this path. I saw the immediate trigger for that was Joseph McCarthy was a senator from Wisconsin, and he was after communists that very often didn't exist, but he made them into communists.

He was a terrible person. And a lawyer from Boston, from an old kind of, if I may say so, stuffy law firm, was appearing before him. And McCarthy was claiming that a young lawyer in this man's office was actually a communist because he was a member of the ACLU. And Welch leaned over the table on national television and he said to McCarthy straight away, do you have no shame? That was part of a turning point. I liked that idea.

And of course, then they loved Welch for that. He made a movie, I think, and people just loved him for it. And I like that idea, too. It was such a great call-out. We need that guy walking around nowadays going up to politicians going, Sir, have you no shame? But, yeah, I remember watching it on movies. Not on movies, but the actual film itself.

And I think Roy Cohn sitting next to him. Yes. And he, he just floors everybody with the comment where he says, have you no shame. And it was a turning point in the McCarthy hearings. So tell us about your road to becoming an attorney and some of your first cases.

Uh, well, I became an attorney because a very nice man gave me the money to go to the Harvard Law School. Oh, wow. And a man I'd never seen before, his name was Henry Cabot. And I don't know how familiar you are with Boston, but Cabot is an old name, goes back to the shipping interests and all of that. I never met the man. And I got introduced to him by my father

who worked in a place where Mr. Cabot was. And Mr. Cabot said, you know, I've done some checking. This is what you'll need for your first year and you'll be able to live in Cambridge and that'll help you. And here's the check.

Wow. Yeah. And I saw him that one time. I paid off the money, I want you to know. And I would write up letters, you know, I just tried to murder case and this and that. Great generosity. Wow. There was a funny thing that happened to me when I got to Harvard Law School. There was another student there standing next to me at a cocktail party and he said

what do you want to do? I said I want to be a trial lawyer. He said oh you came to the wrong law school for that. I was crushed. But I stayed and then my early cases were as a prosecutor. And this is hard to believe even by me now, but the first case I had was a first degree murder capital case. Wow.

I had been in the office two days. I never tried any kind of case. And the boss, we were very shorthanded he said there's a murder case on Monday will you try it I said yes and I thought how am I going to do that and the first tactical judgment I had to make was whether to ask for the death penalty now that I knew even that day that was all wrong, that I would have that kind of power without real oversight. Although the boss agreed with me,

the defendants were juveniles. They had murdered another member of the Apache tribe and it was on the Pima Reservation south of Phoenix. I tried the case and I got two convictions. I got first degree murder and second degree murder. Of course, at that point, Chris, I thought I really know what I'm doing. I didn't have a... Law school had not prepared me anyway for that.

Yeah. That's a heady case to take on as your first case. The tension, which I described in the book, was enormous. Yeah. It was almost in disbelief that it was happening. But we got the convictions, and one thing I knew, I really want to do a lot more of these trials. I love the action.

I really did all the way through my career. I loved being in a courtroom with a judge, a jury, opposing counsel, all of that. I loved it. Yeah. You know, we're a nation of laws, and I think a lot of people undervalue or don't understand the importance of law, the importance of the Constitution and the freedom it gives to people. You know, no one ever appreciates a lot of that until attorneys do. But a lot of people that don't practice law don't really appreciate it until they get in trouble or cross with the law or end up maybe in a civil case or something.

And then they realize that being able to call a jury of your peers and defend yourself in a court of law is a very important factor in American law. It's terribly important. You almost can't go into a courtroom, any courtroom, go to any courthouse and go into a courtroom where they're having a case or where they're handling pretrial matters and something and see the importance, as you just said, of those transactions. What is the sentence the person's going to get? Are they going to get, will they be able to keep the custody of their child i mean when

you start talking about that level of life-changing orders from judges you're you're it's a really serious situation it makes all the difference in the world and you've covered a gambit of uh different various cases uh that you've done in your career. Gender discrimination, freedom of the press, voting rights, refugees, sexual harassment, false imprisonment. As is put in your PR kit, mention any headline in the nightly news, and you have tried those cases. Even the Harvard legal giant Lawrence Tribe calls you the lion of law. That's got to be a great moniker to have put on there. Well, coming from him, he must have got excited, Chris.

I mean, really. But seriously, he has been and is, even right now especially, he still comments and writes articles. One of the great leaders of the legal profession. And I appreciated those kind thoughts, especially from him. You've written a lot of cool chapters on a lot of different cases. The FBI rigged the evidence as the title of one chapter. An innocent man walks out of jail 17 years later. How did you pick out of all the cases you've done as the ones you wanted to talk about in the book?

Yeah, it's important for the book. I tried to pick the ones that had current press interest. The Mexican border. I spent almost a year on and off and six months in trial in Tucson, Arizona. And it was all about refugees coming from Guatemala and El Salvador. I interviewed probably about 40 refugees, who they were, what their stories were. That's one of the reasons I wrote the book, because when political people, with all deference to them,

start talking about the invasion of people, as they are doing right now, they're missing an important point. The point of the trial was sanctuary. The religious people were trying to help these refugees, which is not only their religion, it's not international law and it's in our own asylum law so I learned a great deal about that and was quite moved by it yeah and I mean we're going through it right now, Title 42 I think expired today yeah exactly it's interesting that we refer to other human beings as an invasion,

like they're a species of insect or we devalue them in such a way. And this country was built on immigrants. My great-grandfather was an immigrant to this country. He came in the late 1800s from Germany. I wouldn't be here without them or be able to take advantage of the stuff that we are a melting pot of immigrants and it's always interesting to me how it's used that way and it's great that you tell stories in the book about uh a panacea of different uh experiences in different cases and stuff uh tease out a the book? Yeah. The other stories in the book, for example,

I prosecuted Casper Weinberger was finally pardoned by President Bush. But the story that's in the book that has never come out is that Weinberger's lawyer advised the court that he was going to call President Bush as the witness in the trial. Oh yeah and eight days after he advised him of that, Bush pardoned Weinberger. So it's quite a story and it includes how I felt going around Washington interviewing senators and people of that kind and it was all quite heady and interesting. And that's quite a case. And then you also argued before the Supreme Court. What is that like?

That's got to be... Well, I did. And, you know, you get, to put it mildly, you get nervous. I talk about how I felt the night before. And, you know, as a lawyer, I'd be in San Francisco and I'd casually criticize some justice on the Supreme Court, you know, if we're talking among lawyers and so forth. But once you're standing at the lectern and you're looking up at these nine people, it's quite an event. So the first case I had, I'll keep this short, but the first case I had was a constitutional case that involved privacy, but I knew they were pretty much against me,

and they were. They were against me seven to two. And then, see, I knew Bill Rehnquist in Phoenix. I started in Phoenix as a federal prosecutor, and so I argued before him, and then about five years later, as I describe in the book, I received a call because I had witnessed Rehnquist at a polling booth at a school in South Phoenix, and there were objections, excessive objections being made to people voting. It was a black and brown neighborhood in Phoenix, and they wanted me to testify because Rehnquist is up for chief justice. So I tell them the book, the story, and I said, well, you know, I don't know.

That was a long time ago. I don't know how he feels story, and I said, well, you know, I don't know. That was a long time ago. I don't know how he feels now. And they said, well, have you read his testimony? I said, no. And so I looked at it. He had denied involvement. And so I asked my partners, and they all thought I should testify. I went back to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the middle of Rehnquist's hearings and I testified and they kept me there for about

oh three or four hours I guess and but I held my own to put mildly. And so the point of this is that I got another case in the Supreme Court. Now, Rehnquist is the chief justice. He's sitting in the middle of the justices. And when I get up to argue, he just rose, turned around and disappeared behind the black curtains and I argued to the eight justices that were left and you have to read the book to see

the report but it was okay for my client let's put it that way what do you think people are going to come away? What do you think folks are going to learn from the book? Not only stories about your memoir and experience, but what do you think big picture they might come away with?

I think that justice is complicated. Where is it found? I think very often justice is found in trial courts, where I spent my 60 years. And I think there are specific examples of how the justice system works. I also think when each chapter starts, you really don't know what's going to happen, because I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what's going to happen.

Yeah. And so, yeah, I think there's a true crime aspect to it. I think there's a breadth to the book in the sense that I tried a number of patent cases. I tried a number of commercial cases of all kinds. So how does the system work? As you said a minute ago, the importance of the system in all manner of things is in this book. It took me three years to write it and of that 11 months was spent editing. And so I think it reads well, if I may say so. And they get a real idea of the justice system, courts, juries, for example. I have a story in there about a juror who,

I won't give away the punchline, but he had a very red face. And when the prosecutor said these defendants were selling liquor at a low price, and that violated regulation, he just had this funny look on his face, like, what's wrong with that? And so the story is in the book. Yeah. Do you think it'll be a great book for teach lessons to new attorneys? I very much do. And as the book progressed, I actually say that at the end,

that, you know, what difficulties I had when I was young, I had some that are in the book. But there may be young people out there and i would love to see frankly this book in their hands that the law is a good life certainly that's my view in some ways i was spoiled um and uh you know i was I was very lucky. You mentioned a couple of my awards and, you know, those are really nice unless I believe them. You know, if I believe them, it would be not good. But I was very, very fortunate that we need the legal profession. We need it right now as much as anything.

And we need the judges. They have to be fair. They have to sit up straight and do their job and not be biased and not be influenced by things outside of the case itself. It's a hard job to be a judge. My wife's a judge for four years, and my daughter's been a judge for about 10 years. Wow.

It's a hard job. Yeah. Do you want to comment? I'll leave it up to you on any thoughts about some of the SCOTUS scandals that have been going on lately and, I don't know what you think about that. Yeah, I'm saddened by the loss of prestige by the court because they need prestige to function. Yeah. They have to have that.

I'm hoping they will emerge. I think having lived under a code of ethics my whole life, I wish that the court would quickly adopt a code of ethics. Yeah. Um, there, there's some arguments against it, but,

uh, frankly, I'm not impressed with those arguments. Every, every judge below them is under a code is what you can do and what you can't do. And the appearance of impropriety for any judge is, is cancels out their ability to do the job. The people in the courtroom looking up at them

have to believe that they're going to try to do it, not politically, they're going to try to do it based on legal, maybe some morality comes into the decisions, but not religion particularly. So that saddens me that we're obviously the public is now a little less sure about them than they were. Yeah, they're rock bottom at how the public sees the court at any level. And you're right.

I mean, I always thought they operated with an ethical code mandate that was written down like other judges and other people. It's kind of been extraordinary to see, and I think we're kind of scratching the surface. But, you know, I mean, I guess it's one of those things that have to be addressed. What's interesting to me is we have three separate branches, and I think I understand why Justice Roberts didn't want to appear I guess is one of those things that have to be addressed. What's interesting to me is we have three separate branches. And I think I understand why Justice Roberts didn't want to appear before the House Committee or Senate Committee or whoever called him, you know,

because they're supposed to be a separation. But, you know, it always comes, it's like the police department, you know, who's watching the watchers sort of thing. And yeah, it's an important thing. If I could go back to my younger days, instead of starting companies, I would have gone and been an attorney because there's so much that you can do with the law.

And I've always found it interesting. And owning companies and building things, you know, I've had my share of shakedown lawsuits. We've had to sue people, Clark Bonney. I bet, for sure. Yeah, I mean, we've spent a lot of timeakedown lawsuits. We've had to sue people, collect money. You sure? Yeah. I mean, we've spent a lot of time in civil courts back and forth. And then I've defended my own speeding tickets in my BMWs that I might or may not have been speeding.

And one of the things we used to do with it is we would spend a lot of time appealing it and uh there's kind of a trick that you have that you have three years that sits on your driver's license but it doesn't appear there until you're convicted in trial so you peel the hell out of it for three years and then by the time it shows up so you know i learned the power of attorney uh law and uh i i love it it's a it's it's a really interesting thing. It's an important thing. And you're right. Once people do not believe in the rule of law that keeps us from being a medieval culture where we just have marauders running around, it's the thing that separates us from chaos. Every lawyer has the power of advice. And very often the client is vulnerable and dependent

on that advice. People think that CEOs and big corporate people and so forth, it's not emotional for them. On the contrary, I have represented a number of chief executive officers of large corporations. If they're going to lose their corporation, it's not in the book, but I represented a mining company. And if they lost that case, they'd lose their mind. M-I-N-E.

And so that's, you know, I had a funny reaction. I wrote this book. I look back over the whole 60 years and I was kind of saying to myself, how did I do that? I mean, the emotions of almost every case. Drug cases are very dull. I don't have a drug case in the book, although I tried some. They're very dull but other than that the issues are so meaningful to people uh even you know if you take for example your license

gonna be suspended okay you can't get to work or you have to drive illegally which a lot of people unfortunately do yeah you know there's one other thing being with this many people was and it did go back to my childhood it was very exciting for me to be out there and meet all kinds of people i represented people from the abjectly poor up to some of the most powerful corporate people in the corporate world. And I just enjoyed at some level meeting the different kinds of people that you can meet in the law. And that's one thing you talk about the young people in the book. I do encourage them to think about, you know, maybe they should be a lawyer.

Yeah. And we probably need more lawyers. Is it still a growing profession? I know a lot of these young Gen Z people, they just want to be TikTok influencers. So you know, hopefully there's people that are going to support the defense and rule of law in the future i think so there you go there you go well

it's it's a wonderful dream uh anything more you want to tease on out before we go uh no i think i think the book uh flows pretty well and and takes the reader into many different places. Hawaii, for example, New Mexico, different kinds of cases, how juries react. I think the reader gets a pretty good picture of the reality of trial law, certainly. And the last point that I would make is just this. picture of the reality of trial law, certainly. And the last point that I would make is just this. Recently, for example, a man was accused, he happened to be a lawyer, he was accused of murdering his wife

and his son. And next to him were two lawyers. And it is one of the things that comes across in the book. Why are they doing that? I mean, they could do wills. Why do trial lawyers take their time, make their living representing some people who are in such deep trouble. What is that?

What is that? And my answer to it is that trial lawyers are different than other people. We are, some of us are outsiders. And the medical and academic problems that I had as a kid is an example of that. We're in the process of being outsiders, but we want to help people. We want to try to save them from whatever it is,

but I do thank you for having me on your show. Thanks so much. And thank you for coming on. It's been an honor to have you and the insight that you've had there. And hopefully you'll inspire more people to understand law, to appreciate it and the value of it, and probably inspire some future great attorneys. I hope so. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jim, for being on the show.

Give us a.com so people can find you on the interwebs, please. JimJBrosnahan.com There you go. There you go. Order it up, folks. Wherever fine books are sold, you can pre-order it now. It's out July 15, 2023. You can be the first in your book club to read it.

Justice at Trial, Courtroom Battles and Groundbreaking Cases. Without the rule of law, folks, remember, we descend into a medieval marauding, gangs running around. It's the thing that has brought us to a modern society. So please support it and learn more about it. Read the Constitution, damn it, all of you. Go read the Constitution today. It's a good read.

It is a good read. And it's amazing how simplistic it was written and easy to understand. But then it's amazing how complex a legal tort system has been built upon it. But what a beautiful document. And if you run around saying that you're quoting the Constitution, make sure you've read it. I always love people that... I had a guy who made a comment once and he's like,

you know, we don't need the Constitution. We just need the Second Amendment. And I'm like, do you understand that without the Constitution, you don't have the amendments? It's built upon... You know, I had a 300-pound man. I was playing

poker in Las Vegas, which I believe you're familiar with. Yeah. And I had the Constitution in my pocket, and he got up from his seat. I thought he was going to punch me out or something. And he said, you got the Constitution? I said, yes, sir, I have the Constitution. He said, has he got the Second Amendment in there? I said, yes, sir, it does.

He says, good, all right. And he didn't ask about any of the other things that I'm sure he may have been very negative about. I mean, I hope it's in there. I don't know. It's interesting what people quote. You know, you hear these people, they're like, it's unconstitutional. I'm like, have you read the Constitution?

Because it's what you're quoting, you know, whatever their political rap is. Anyway, thank you very much, Jim, for coming on the show. Thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortuness Chris Foss, youtube.com, Fortuness Chris Foss, and linkedin.com, Fortuness Chris Foss. See us over there on TikTok, too. We're trying to be cool.

Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.