The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Alan Dershowitz and Lara Bazelon

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

Alan Dershowitz and Lara Bazelon discuss Ahmaud Arbery, Kyle Rittenhouse and Larry David. Lara Bazelon is an author and Professor of Law. She is also the Director of the Criminal & Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice Clinics at University of San Francisco School of Law. Alan Dershowitz is a prolific author and was a professor at Harvard School of Law for fifty years. 

This is live from the table recording at New York's world-famous Comedy Cellar. Coming at you on Sirius XM 99 Raw Dog and the Laugh Button Podcast Network. Dan Aderman here with Nolan Dwarman, owner of the world-famous Comedy Cellar. Perrielle Ashenbrand is here, and I would remind Perrielle once again that we're happy to hear her thoughts. She is not authorized to change topics. Today, we have two very great guests that are coming. We have Lara Bazelon and Alan Dershowitz, both lawyers, both veterans of our podcast. But we have a few minutes prior to their arrival, Perry. So we might as well discuss Perry coming to Chicago for one night to watch me open for Louis C.K.

On Sunday night, I believe she came. Yeah. Made a trip all the way from New York to Chicago to see the show and then came right back. Perry, what were you thinking? I don't know. It's insane. I realized once I got on the plane, it was just a crazy idea, especially because it was the first time I was on a plane since COVID.

That's the reason. That's especially because that's why it was a crazy idea. It was crazy. Make any sense to you, Nicole? It was a crazy thing to do. It was really fun though. And I don't know, it seemed like a really, really fun opportunity to go to. So why not? Right. I wanted to see you perform and also see you perform here anytime you want. That's that. Yes. I only did 12 minutes and Mike Vecchione did 12 minutes and then Louis brought us home with an hour plus. But you stayed in the Trump Hotel, so that made it all worthwhile. Right, I'm now a fan of that. I'm a huge fan of that.

It was a beautiful hotel. I must say, we had drinks up on the 16th floor. They had a sky, whatever it is, they had an overlooking. Chicago's a cool city. It's really pretty. It's like, did you have a drink in the January 6th lounge? Can I tell you, the guy is a complete megalomaniac. I mean, it was just insane.

First of all, I did say that, you know, just give me a fluffy room and a nice hotel room and all my morals and ethics go right out the window. But everything has his name on it. Down to any hotel, because that's the name of the hotel. I think if you go to any hotel, the name of the hotel will be pretty much everywhere. No, they have M&M's. They don't have Trump M&M's. They have chocolate bars, have Hershey's, whatever.

They have a nice brand chocolate. They don't have Trump chocolate. I didn't know about the Trump chocolate bars. I that is. Well, that's, you know, and you could although I would imagine it's not the only hotel that has branded stuff like that. It's not. No, but you could, although I would imagine it's not the only hotel that has branded stuff like that. It's not.

No, but then this was like next level. And you could tell that like, it was so masculine. Like it was so like aggressive the way everything was like decorated. And then you could tell that a man had decided what was in, you know, it must be exhausting to go through life thinking about such nonsense.

There was like, so masculine, like, like, can't through life thinking about such nonsense. Like, so masculine. Like, can't you just go to the hotel? I'm being a little bit silly, but I actually mean it. There's like a thought pattern, which is like automatic to you now, which is just taking up so much. You know, you might find a cure for cancer if you could just stop thinking about this nonsense. You're taking up all your. You know, you might you might find a cure for cancer if you could just stop thinking about this nonsense. You're taking up your all your limited, all your limited.

No, I don't. But I mean, the limited bandwidth that you have, you're taking up on assessing the masculinity of the decor of the hotel. Yeah, you notice things like who's going to put a hair tie in like with like a shower curtain. Anybody? What are you talking about? I don't know what you mean. Like a hairband. That's masculine.

Well, what do girl, why do girls need to put their hair back like immediately in a pinch? So you think Donald Trump has authorized hair ties because I wouldn't put it past him. It's possible, by the way, Trump has nothing to do with the hotel. It's just his name.

I suppose so. But I don't know. There does seem to be a re I mean, that might be the most psychotic thing you ever said. Also, it made me look so smart because when I was saying about how like exhausting it is, everything you think about. And then you came back with who would put a hair tie. It's like it's like you could not have made my point more clearly. I don't I don't know that I don't I don't think it's an interesting

thing. I think you notice things. When is it Lara coming on? Because I did have one point I wanted to address regarding last week's show. I was to admit her. OK, admit it. We can discuss it next time. Hi, guys. How's it going? Hello, Lara. Bazelon is joining us. She is no stranger to this podcast.

I'm going to give you a brief introduction, Lara, if I may. She's a professor of law, director of the Criminal and Juvenile Justice and Racial Justice Clinic at the University of San Francisco School of Law. And she has a new book coming out next year, Ambitious Like a Mother. Why prioritizing your job is good for your kids. Harper Collins, 2022.

And that came from an op-ed she had written for The New York Times in June 2019. Welcome, Lara Bazelon, once again. Actually, maybe we should talk about your book before we talk about the loss of your new book. Do you want to talk about that? I mean, just really briefly, it's nice to see you all cozy together. Hi. Hi. We're seated last supper style such that we can all face the Zoom.

You can't turn it off. Last time you said you were going to come to New York and then you didn't, by the way. I know. I know. I still have to do that because my best friend had a baby and I am well overdue for my visit. And of course, visiting with all of you, most importantly. So tell us, this is an interesting topic to me because, you know, parenthood is actually my number one interest. Why prioritizing your job is good for your kids, once again, is the subtitle of the book, which I guess roughly explains the premise. Do you want the elevator speech?

Sure. Okay, I'll keep it short. So basically, when men prioritize their jobs, you know, sometimes they don't always put their kids first. I realize it's probably hard for some of you at the table to believe that. They're generally rewarded for that, and they're generally thought to be overall pretty great dads. We kind of stand up and applaud if they go to the grocery store or even survive a single playdate. But with ambitious women, when we prioritize our jobs, people think that we're really bad moms, that we're kind of monstrous, self-aggrandizing people, and we get a lot of crap. And so I'm trying to make the point

that being ambitious and being a good mother are not actually intention. They mutually reinforce each other because you can teach your kids important lessons about how to do good in the world, about how to help other people and how to support yourself. But what if you're ambitious, but you're not doing good in the world? Say you're an ambitious hedge fund. I don't know. I mean, maybe hedge fund people are good in the world, but you're ambitiously doing something that may not be so great. It's not ambition in great. It's not ambition

in general. It's ambition, positive ambition. I think that's right. I mean, I'm trying not to be too judgmental. I feel like, look, you could run a hedge fund, make millions of dollars, and then also start a charity or spend a ton of time in a soup kitchen and teach other lessons that are important that way. Or you could have decided that you wanted to go into finance because you grew up in poverty and you felt like it was really important to have savings. So I feel like you don't have to be a hero rescuing someone from a burning building. You can be ambitious in a career that we might think, well, that's really about making money and still, I think, be a role model. But I take your point. Can I make just two thoughts that came to me about it? Now, I was raised, I think, be a role model. But I take your point. Can I make just two thoughts that came to me about it?

Now, I was raised, I think I told you this one time, I was raised by a single dad and I had a stepmother for a while. And I would just say two things come to mind. First of all, I think if you have a parent who's not happy with themselves, that can be very bad. It rolls downhill. And I, and I experienced not with my

father, but I experienced that with a, with a stepmother for a while. And so absolutely a parent needs to, they need to, they need to be gratified in their own lives. I think to be, to be a good parent or a good friend, or just to be a good anything, you know, but, and also I would say, though, that. My father prioritized his career so much that I have intentionally not done that quite as much. So like everything, there's a sweet spot. Right. And how you find that sweet spot, I think, is really the what's complicated. But I know that as and I had a very, very loving father and I was never neglected. I wouldn't say I was neglected, but I do opt to stay home with my kids now because I remember what it was like when my father was always at work. But but could that be known? Yeah, because you have the option that maybe your father didn't have because he wasn't as financially secure as you are. No, he could have.

He did have to work hard, but he could have at times been home more. I don't know how to state it, but go ahead. Yeah. No, I have a couple of things to say to that because I feel like both of your points are really important. I think that, first of all, our norms around parenting have really changed. And I think you are an extremely ambitious person. You're able to be that way and stay home with your kids at times, right? I mean, I'm not intimately familiar with the details of your life, but I feel like you have a job such that you can work very hard and also be more present than your dad. And to some degree, that's about, it's 2021, it's not 19, whatever. And I kind of

feel that way too. I mean, I have similar feelings about my dad who I totally worshiped and also worked all the time. And I think the other point that you're talking about is a sweet spot. And I feel like that's maybe where you and I have some, some tension because I feel like that's what women are always being told that there's this perfect work-life balance. There's a sweet spot hanging out there. And if you just do it right, you'll find it. And I just don't believe that that exists. I feel like we live in a state of imbalance, kind of like the infinity symbol, that something's always going up and something's always going down. So you're right. It's bad if it's entirely out of whack, always one way. But I think expecting particularly women to think about their lives as being kind of like in perfect aqua poise really sets them up for failure.

Well, I'm not, I'm not limiting it to women at all. I see that this is somehow like a quasi feminist issue too. And I'm not, I'm not disparaging that, but like, I'm just saying just as parents, fathers, mothers, whoever, just from the point of view of the kid. Right. But the expectation for mothers is still wildly different than it is for fathers. I'm just speaking as the child who experienced it. Right. That's all. And I forgot the other point I was going to make, but. I hear you, Noam.

And, you know, I interviewed some kids who said very similar things to what you said. The last chapter is about the kids of ambitious mothers. Oh, I remember I was going to say, so we had a guest on a couple of times and she's become a pretty good friend of mine, Erica Komisar, who is a psychologist. And she wrote a book about this stuff. But her main thesis is that it's the first few years, three or four years, which she actually believes the mother should try to be home based on whatever data it purports to be a scientific book. I haven't read it.

But, and then she thinks after that, I think she'd probably begin to agree with you more and more, but I think she does feel that the mother has a unique role to play all things being equal in the first few years, whatever you might want to read her book. I don't know. Yeah, for sure. Or we could have her have Ryan. Okay. So the, anyway, I'm also, I just started reading, excuse me.

I just started reading your novel and it's gripping already. I have to, I've been so busy lately. I haven't had to like during COVID, I was like reading books, reading books, reading books. And I haven't been able to get into that routine again, but it's, it's great. Now I'll email you as soon as I, I haven't been able to get into that routine again, but it's great. Now, I'll email you as soon as I finish it. Thank you. So the one I want to talk about, the law. Yeah.

And more and more I'm thinking about, without getting into any individual one of these trials, I've just been more and more beginning to wonder whether it's possible or as likely to get a fair trial anymore as it once was, especially if the case in any way regards race. And I don't mean to go into more detail than that. Have you thought about that at all? I can give some little examples. Give me an example. Have you thought about that at all? Like, just like, I can give some little examples. Like, you know, like, well, first of all, the one main thing is that jurors just no longer have any reasonable expectation

that people won't know who they were and that they voted to acquit or to convict, whatever is the unpopular thing. And we're kidding ourselves if we think that that's not real. It's very, very, very real. And we haven't reacted to it in the system yet. And then like little things like when during the Chauvin trial, there's a juror wearing a T-shirt about the case prior to the thing.

It's like civil libertarians would have been up in arms about such a thing. But I think I sent this an email to you one time, but when people always had two causes they cared about, civil rights and criminal justice. But now when these,

if a case is a contradiction of both, used to be the civil liberties mattered more. And now it seems like everybody just forgets everything they ever felt about civil liberties. And they won't even make a peep about a juror wearing a T-shirt about a case. And he's deciding someone's fate. And there's many examples of this. And I said, well, it just seems like we're losing our way a little bit about basic civics and the

basic assumptions of the criminal justice system and what it means to really have a fair trial. So go ahead. I mean, I feel a lot of ways about this. I think about it all the time. More recently, I've actually felt better about the jury system, but I feel like we have to parcel it out. So you're talking about jurors can't really divorce their identities of the rest of their lives from a trial. But the truth is that most trials get almost zero attention, right? Very, very few trials you and I are ever going to hear about. So most jurors, they serve kind of in anonymity. I think the jurors that you're referring to who might feel pressure, they're the jurors where the media is on this case and they are under this very, very white hot spotlight.

And I feel like that's a different calculus. And that does tend to be something that worries me. But interestingly, I feel like in both the Rittenhouse verdict and in the Arbery verdict, I really felt like the jurors did a pretty good job of not giving into all of that and actually just really applying the law to the facts. And to me, at least, it seemed like they, in both of those very high profile cases where there was a lot of tension on them, I thought they did their out, why he was indicted at all. You hear a lot of people saying, well, if he were black, he would have been convicted, which I don't know. There's some truth to that. Probably there's some truth to that, but I think they overstated.

So, for instance, the guy who answered the door in a Breonna Taylor case, he shot the cops and he did not only was he not killed, he wasn't even charged. So we all, we know in just recent history, recent examples, but I think I will not pretend that there's no kind of racial effect on the outcomes there. However,

the opposite is also true. You wonder if, if Rittenhouse didn't have this video, would he have just been convicted? He was not given the benefit of the doubt that we believe that somebody should be given. There was no evidence against him. When they start bringing in narratives of all the times that black people have been treated this way, or it's black lives matter. In my opinion, my mind immediately says, well, I guess they don't have much evidence. Like why are you bringing in

all this narrative stuff? It's, it's all, it should be, you should be embarrassed to bring up lawyers. You hear them on TV. They should be embarrassed to bring up narratives because everything they were taught in law school is that you're not supposed to bring up narratives. That's exactly what the judge, you're not supposed to consider that. That's by definition prejudicial. You need evidence. You need specific evidence to this specific case. And so with Rittenhouse, it felt like a political prosecution.

In retrospect, it's hard to not consider it a political prosecution. And he got out by the skin of his teeth because he happened to have some pretty strong video evidence. That's disturbing. Okay, so you're bringing up a lot of different things. One issue that you're bringing up, and this is different. Yeah, it is. Bob and Weave. So you're talking now about prosecutors' decisions to

indict. So that's different than jurors being in the courtroom and being- I agree with you about the jurors. I agree. You're right. I think that both of those prosecutions really turned on the video evidence in completely different ways. So in Kyle Rittenhouse's case, the video evidence riled up the progressive part of the left so much that there was a tremendous amount of pressure to indict. And as you say, ironically, it was that same video that was essentially exculpatory for Kyle Rittenhouse. And that case makes me so uncomfortable as a progressive and a liberal because you want to be able to sort of be on on strongly on your safe team, the blue team, which really thinks that what he did was horrible and he should have been convicted. But the truth is we're talking about a 17 year old. We're talking about an extremely, extremely permissive

stand your ground law or gun. You know, this is about, this isn't really about the law and it's actually everybody involved from Kyle Rittenhouse to the three people, two of whom he murdered, one of, well, killed one of whom he, he maim whom he maimed, they were all white. And so the case is really complicated. I think it got incredibly distorted in the media. And I do think that the prosecution of Kyle Rittenhouse was somewhat politicized and it wasn't very well done. When you look at the Arbery case, there would have been no prosecution, but for this video, because if you look at the Arbery case, there would have been no prosecution but for this video, because if you look at what happened, he was murdered in February. They didn't even bring charges or consider going to a grand jury until months later. And that was when the video leaked.

So in Arbery's case, interestingly, the video was the reason why it was brought when two prosecutors declined to do it and the attorney general had to intervene. And the video was why they were convicted, because it was so damning. So it's interesting the role that the video played in those two different cases. And it's interesting how the prosecutions happened in those two different cases. I think you could argue maybe Kyle Rittenhouse shouldn't have been prosecuted. And maybe you can argue that the three men who were convicted of killing Ahmaud Arbery should have been, but would not have been, but for the video. And just a quick correction about

Breonna Taylor, her boyfriend actually didn't for the video. And just a quick correction about Breonna Taylor. Her boyfriend actually didn't answer the door. They broke the door down and he shot at them because he was afraid. So, and he was actually charged. It's just, there was an uproar about that. And then they ended up dismissing the charges against him. Yeah. Duly noted. I didn't mean to misstate it. But, but most, most important, you're absolutely right.

But the most important thing is though, that he wasn't killed, which everybody would say, well, if he was black, you know, Rittenhouse would have never survived. But which is I didn't realize he was charged. I guess they dropped the charges after. Yeah. Yeah. They initially charged her boyfriend and then they dropped the charges against him because there was just such a huge outcry about that case. Yeah. And as I said, I'm not here to pretend that the justice system and you, you know, this like the back of your hand, but I've never been here to pretend that the justice system is as fair to black people as is to white people. That's not my point at all. My point is that I guess is that sometimes you're not sure what people are trying to say. Are you saying that you would like the justice

system to be more fair? Or are you saying I want it to be equally unfair to white people because that would be equitable. That's kind of what they argue sometimes. Like you're saying, well, you know, if he were black, he'd be blah, blah, blah. I said, okay, well, what's your point? Are you saying that he should be treated just as unfairly as the black people are treated? That's, that is kind of what they're arguing sometimes. And it's, it's, it's disturbing to hear that because it's wrong. That should not be what they're arguing, especially from civil libertarian, liberal people. I think it's really hard to, when it comes to the question of punishment, because a lot of times when someone who's white is convicted and gets sentenced, there's this uproar, you know, why didn't they get an enormous amount of time? If the person

had been black, they would have gotten an enormous amount of time. But if you're opposed to the idea of mass incarceration and you're opposed to the idea that we shouldn't mete out sentences like that, like giving out lollipops at the bank, then you should be about that for everybody. Right. And I think that's what you're pointing to as what's making you uncomfortable in the conversation, that if you have a principle, it has to apply to everybody, even the people you hate and detest. There's other things about it where you could just imagine. So like in the, in the Chauvin case, I really try not to think about the race and all that. One thing that really bothered me about that case was that the Minnesota handbook had a picture basically identical to what happened to, to,

to Floyd and the cops were trained, um, that this was a non-lethal move. And you really couldn't talk about that, but it stays with me also. And that the medical evidence, no two experts agreed on the medical cause of death, but it just stayed with me and stayed with me. Like if this had just been an all white case or an all black case or a black cop who killed a white person, I think we would have heard people would have really focused more on the fact.

Wait a second. At some point here, this policeman was trained to do this hold and trained. It was nonlethal. And now he's in jail for the rest of his life as a murderer. And I'm not saying that he's innocent. I'm saying that this kind of conversation is almost off limits and was off limits. And I know I am jumping around because I have no particular point I want to make. It just haunts me.

It just feels to me wrong. There were real issues in that Shulman case. And similarly, in this written house, in this Arbery case, the cops enlisted this guy, McMichael. It's not talked about. The cops texted this guy,

McMichael, asked him to help out. But why did they do that? Isn't that not okay to begin with? Yeah, it's probably not okay, but just like in, in both cases, you know,

you have, you have, um, I divide the world up sometimes in my mind in very like simplistic ways, like in terms of people who are out to do evil and people who wound up in some way doing something that they're going to get punished for. This guy, McMichael, I don't know that much about the case. It doesn't seem to me like he set out to kill somebody.

There was there a lot of it. A lot of the stuff we hear is true. There was a series of robberies. Arbery had been there three times. I don't know. The jury didn't see it. And rightfully so. But if you've seen the video of Arbery, the last time he had a run in with the cops,

this was a guy at a central casting of a guy who like very, very, very dangerous looking, like five alarm fire if you saw him around your kids. And then also he was arrested, I think it was also not with a loaded gun at a basketball game. So in some sense, as a human, I'm like, well, you know what? They might've sensed in their neighborhood

that this guy was somebody to be worried about. Like, I'm not ready to say, oh, there's no way, just because they didn't know that, just because they didn't see, there's no way they could have sensed that this guy was a dangerous dude or something. You know, like, we deal with this all the time at the door in the cellar.

If Arbery, the Arbery that I saw on the video, you know, the one in the park where they came to him, he was in the parka with his pants down low. There's no way we would let somebody like that in white, black, doesn't matter in the cell. You say, oh, that guy looks, you know, dangerous. And now he's in this home on the street three times and they chase him. And the cops say, well, if he comes again, you know, talk to McMichael. And now this guy's in jail for murder for the rest of his life because this fluke that this guy ran at him and grabbed his gun.

Now, maybe that's the way it has to be. But then the other two people who were with them, and we could talk due to the felony murder rule, who really had no sense that anything like this was going to happen. Now they're in jail for murder for the rest of their lives or for a long, long time. And I feel like these racial narratives are are part of why this is being punished that way. And I feel like the old Civil Liberties Union would have been talking, at least talking about it. We don't even talk about it. But no, do you feel that the main culprit in the Arbery case was the fact

that they have these these citizens arrest laws? Oh, that's well, well, that's another thing. Just the fact that Georgia repealed this law in a high profile way in response to the Arbery case, in a certain sense of me, implies a kind of acknowledgement that this law was partly to blame. At least that's one possible interpretation of it. All these things make me uncomfortable in the sense of a guy being treated the same way that a guy would be if he woke up and said, give me your money, pal. Those two people are not the same moral actors to me. I'm not saying that our McMichael shouldn't be punished.

I want everybody, I think I wrote you, I want everybody to get what they deserve. Believe me, I'm not any friend of anybody who kills anybody or anything. I just remember the kind of discussions we used to have in law school about these tough cases and you don't hear them at all anymore. None of the tough facts are brought out.

I don't know. It's dismaying. Lara, he's even given you even more stuff to parse through than the last time. I don't think Lara thinks I'm crazy, by the way. You could say, but I'm thick skinned, but I don't think you think I'm crazy. Well, I mean, it's funny because you've kind of said like two different things since we've been talking. On the one hand, you're saying, lawyers shouldn't be telling these narratives. They shouldn't be telling these stories. It just should be evidence, evidence, evidence. But in both what you're talking about in terms of what you perceive to be flaws in the Chauvin trial and what you perceive to be flaws in the Arbery trial, you're telling

this narrative, you know, have created this narrative, a lot of which is based on things that were never in front of the jury and actually weren't known to the McMichaels or to Mr. Bryant. So, I mean, just to go with Floyd first, because we've been through this verdict, so I'm not going to, I mean, our disagreement, I think, about whether it was just is pretty much, I've taken my position that I think it's just, I think they applied the facts, the evidence. I think even if it's true that that hold is in the book, and I'll take your word for it, I doubt anywhere in that book, they tell you it's a really good idea to do it for nine minutes while the person is gasping for breath, crying out for their mother and telling you that they can't breathe. And I also think that he did have a vigorous defense. I feel like, again, the jury applied the facts to the law, right?

And then going, I mean, they almost actually do tell him it's okay to do it for nine minutes, but that's neither here nor there. I'm not saying there was an unjust verdict. I'm just saying these are all issues. Go ahead. So, but with Arbery, I mean, look, the McMichaels didn't know anything about any prior interactions he'd had, and they didn't actually know that he was the person that had been looky-looing in that house. And of course, as you know, from watching the surveillance, plenty of people had come and poked around in that house. He hadn't actually done anything illegal. Then when they decide to literally hunt him down, he's jogging down the street. I mean, that's all he's doing. He's not

in the house. They don't believe he's in the house. They have no immediate knowledge of him doing anything wrong, which they admit to the police. When the police say like, what did you think he was doing? They say, I don't know. I mean, they saw a black person in their neighborhood. They believe that burglars are happening. They were feeling unsafe. And the citizens arrest law gave them what they thought was kind of carte blanche to go grab their guns, get in their cars, box him in, chase him down and shoot him. And, you know, even the jury in that in that deep south courtroom wasn't buying that that was a lawful apprehension or or I guess that, that Travis

McMichael who pulled the trigger was acting in self-defense. I just don't think when you're saying, well, it doesn't mean that you can't sense that something's wrong or have a sixth sense. You can have a sixth sense, but you can't murder somebody based on it. No, I, I, I don't, I don't necessarily disagree with you. I know it's not in front of the jury. Um, so I guess I'm, I'm, I I guess I'm saying a bunch of things at once, kind of in a freeform way. I'm also talking about how the general public was talking about these issues. But as far as the jury was concerned, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

I just feel like... Go ahead. Introduce. Hello, Alan Dershowitz. Hi, how are you? Hi. I'm going to finish up my statement to Lara and then we're going to introduce you.

Who is Lara? Lara Bazelon, another legal eagle. Hey, I knew her grandfather and clerked for him. Wow. We go back a long time. I remember when Lara was born. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Let me just finish up. I just I worry about how all these factors, the subtle pressure on the jury, knowing that their names are going to come out, the pressure in the public, the pressure on the judge, how they how they if there's some just interplay between them all. It's and the fact that so and then the final thing is that it's great for Professor Dershowitz to come now. Well, we were playing six J.D.'s of separation. And this and this may be. I deserve more credit. A perfect example of it is that here you have these two other people convicted by the felony murder rule. And there's not a progressive to be found saying, hey, wait a minute. We've always opposed the felony murder rule. And there's not a progressive to be found saying,

hey, wait a minute, we've always opposed the felony murder rule. That's how a lot of... I have. I have been screaming about the felony murder rule since 1964. And I screamed about it in this case. Tell us about it. Okay, let me give him a proper introduction. I feel like that's my role on the show.

And I hate to... Your role is so much more than that. I know, but that's that's i feel like i really that's my role on the show and i hate to your role is so much more than that i know but that's what i do best alan dershowitz everybody no stranger to uh the american public or to this show professor emeritus at harvard university um and a writer of numerous books uh i mean he's giving stephen king a run for his money in terms of pages written. This guy comes up with a new book every couple of years. And his latest one is The Case for Vaccine Mandates. A lot of your books are The Case for.

And this is the latest in that group. Let's set the record straight. I've written eight books in the last three years. Wow. I have nothing to do with write books. Let me give you my 60-second analysis of the felony murder rule. So the felony murder rule starts in England when felonies were punished by death, all felonies. It really didn't matter if the person was convicted of a felony, he'd be hung, or if he was convicted of causing death in the course of the felony. He'd be hung. And when, of course, Britain abolished

the death penalty for non-lethal felonies, they abolished the felony murder rule, and they left it to the United States, kind of revenge against the revolution that we had in 1776. They left us with this absurd felony murder rule, which really means that a person could be sentenced to death for an accident. If you go into a bank and want to rob a bank, or if you're the outside person, and somebody in the bank drops the gun by accident, the gun goes off and kills somebody, even one of the co-defendants, the person in the car can be convicted under a combination of felony murder and conspiracy. I argued that case in the United States Supreme Court several years ago and saved somebody from the death penalty based on that case. So I have been

against the felony murder rule from the beginning of time. And I'm not going to change my views just because I don't like the defendants in a particular case or because I think that maybe even the result was just by some higher sense of moral justice. The rule of law still has to prevail. Can we just read the felony murder rule here? But it is the law. And if you follow the law, you follow the bad law as well as the good law. Yeah. Just for the people listening that may not know what the felony murder rule is,

if you are if someone is killed in the course of a felony and you are involved in that felony, that you're guilty of murder. Is that a decent summary of it? The person dies. The person has a heart attack in the middle of a felony. There are cases that say that the person could be charged with that. Or if one of the co-defendants is killed by a policeman's bullet, a case called Redline, the courts have said that the other co-defendant can be accused of killing his co-defendant by the bullet of the policeman shot at him. That's how far the felony murder rule goes. So let's let's zoom out. Maybe I can ask this whole question a little bit differently because Laura is finding like little legitimate contradictions of what I'm saying. But I kind of I kind of but, you know, before the show, I was thinking about this because usually I have like a very clear train of thought about what I want to talk about. But this time I intentionally wanted to keep it more free form because I think it's a it's a very big picture thing.

And there's a little bit of that, a little bit of this, some things, some things we have to look at from the juror's point of view. But some things I think are also OK to look at, given what we know that the jury didn't see and how it might have all fit together. But here's my question. If we were now living in a time where race was not a hypersensitive issue and jurors had a reasonable expectation of full anonymity and we didn't have scare quotes, cancel culture and all that. Do you think any of these last three cases would have come out differently in any way? The three cases, Professor Dershowitz, were the Chauvin trial, the Rittenhouse case and the Arbery case. I'll let Alan answer first. Well, Chauvin would have come out the same way.

Any civilized society would convict Chauvin of murder by every standard, putting his knee on the neck. That wasn't even a close case, I think, under the law. There's a question about whether the Court of Appeals might look at Maxine Waters and threats from outside and other things like- What about the juror wearing the t-shirt about his- Well, I mean, those kinds of issues might come up on appeal, Shepard versus Maxwell, whether it was all in all a fair trial. But the verdict in the case was based on the evidence and the evidence was justified. Rittenhouse could have come out either way. And I think that evidence suggests that there was a reasonable doubt. Nobody should make a hero of him. He shouldn't have been there. The law shouldn't allow a 17, 18 year old guy to have a semi-automatic gun.

And he went into a conflict situation where he shouldn't have gone in. But the law did allow the jury to say that you can't disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. This most recent case, I think the two defendants, the father and the son, this seemed to be a very strong case, even without the felony murder rule for conviction. But the third of the defendants, the guy who took the video, needed both the felony murder rule and the conspiracy rule to bring him into the murder conviction. And I think the court might take a second look at that. Having said that, I do think race matters. Race plays a role. We live in a society which is having a reckoning over race based largely on the Chauvin case. And don't be surprised

if that affects how we're going on. When I was growing up and when Laura's grandfather, David Bazelon, was growing up, we experienced McCarthyism. Everybody was afraid of communists. We saw them under our bed. We were worried about how we'd have to duck and hide when the communists bombed us. Khrushchev said, we will bury you. And that affected cases. If you were accused of being a communist, you were convicted and you couldn't get a decent lawyer. I think inevitably you're going to find factors outside of the courthouse that influence, but they shouldn't be emphasized and exaggerated by people like Maxine Waters, who is basically telling the jury in the Chauvin case, unless you convict the murder, there'll be riots in your neighborhood. And that's why the case should have been at a different venue at a different time. And there should have been and the jury should have been sequestered. So so then my question again is, if if this were not a hot racial case, might might he have gotten all those protections? But he still would have been convicted.

I know this is going to be sorry because I have to go get my kids. This is going to be my last, last response. And it's been so fun being with all of you. But I want to say a couple of things. I mean, I agree largely with what's been said. The one thing I will say with respect to people outside the courtroom who are involved in the case, really trying to inflame the community, that is very, very counterproductive. And it happened in the Arbery case too, where Mr. Bryan's lawyer did all kinds of things that even his co-defendants lawyer said were asinine. You know, he was saying that various people who had come down who were Black preachers shouldn't be in the courtroom. And he was talking about how it was a lynching. It's just, it's the jury didn't

hear that. And I'm glad. I think though, the basic point is correct, which is that if you look at these three cases, you look at the facts, you look at the law, the jury and all three, I personally think did their job. You can disagree with these laws. You can even hate these laws, whether it's the fact that a 17 year old is allowed to strap an AR-15 to his chest and roam the streets, whether it's that it's okay, as Professor Dershowitz was saying, to extend criminal liability so far that it doesn't matter whether you had the intent to kill or not, you can spend the rest of your life in prison. And we can debate that. But we have these laws, and we have those facts. And I think in those three cases, the jury did their job. I think you're absolutely right. And I was really looking forward to having a conversation with you. I know. I'm so sorry. I didn't even know you were going to be here. Periel didn't tell me.

And now I emailed you this morning. You did. Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't blame you. You told me this. I didn't know until just now. And so I'm, you know, so proud to be on the show with you. Your sister is doing a phenomenal job. Last time I saw your parents were at the opera before COVID. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a little bit of nostalgia. I was worried. It's been a wonderful time.

I was worried that Perrielle didn't tell you that you guys might be upset. But now that I see that you guys have warm feelings towards each other, we'd love to have you. Next time there's a hot legal topic, it would be my dream to have you both on again. Love to do it. Okay, well, have a wonderful rest of the show. I will dream to have you both on again. Love to do it. Okay. We'll have a wonderful rest of the show. I will see all of you soon.

Bye, Laura. Thank you. So, you know, Professor Dershowitz, you've been, I know people, a lot of people will disagree with me when I say this, but you were kind of, in my opinion, a profile encouraged the last four years because you didn't give a shit what anybody thought of you or said about you. You had your opinions and you stuck to them. And Lara is the same way.

I don't know if you realize she wrote a column in The Times about how Kamala Harris had fought to keep innocent people in prison. Yeah. Which was. We learned at the knee of the same person. Her grandfather was her grandfather, and her grandfather was my first judge who I clerked for. So it shouldn't be surprising. Talk about having courage, though. I've just written a new book, it'll be out soon, called The High Cost of Principle. How difficult it's been to fight for principle and stick by my guns at a time when everybody has to choose sides, how many friends I've lost,

how much of my status I've lost. You say I don't care. I don't care enough to change my behavior. Right. But I do care. It's had an impact on my family and my children and my grandchildren because America today is a divided country. And Republicans hate me because although I defend Trump against impeachment, I'm not in favor of Biden's impeachment. Democrats hate me because although I defend the Trump against impeachment, I'm not in favor of Biden's impeachment. Democrats hate me because although I'm not in favor of Biden's impeachment, I was not in favor of Trump's impeachment. So I just have to go on and do what I, what I think is the right thing to do and understand that I will have to pay a price for this. So you can read my next book.

What about the case for vaccine mandate? That was, that, that's, that just came out and then you got another book coming out? Yeah. Yeah. I've been writing a book every like three or four months now. They're short books. I have a publisher that puts them out very quickly. And so I've, since the end of 2019, this is my eighth book and I'm about it. And then I'm working on my next book already, which will be my 50th book called the state, which looks at the way in which we are moving away from reacting toward

preventing in the criminal justice system and medical system and technology system. So it's an overall look at the change in the way we look at how to prevent crises. So that'll be never. Can I ask you a somewhat personal question? You're in your early 80s now, correct? 83. Do you detect any, because I'm approaching 60 and I feel that I can't think as fluidly as I once did. Do you have any slowdown that you detect in yourself? Well, I'll tell you a story. So a week ago, six days ago, Thursday, I underwent surgery for my gallbladder and I had to have my gallbladder removed. And my doctor told me,

if you're 83 years old and you go into general anesthesia, you might have some cognitive loss for several months. So as soon as I woke up, literally I was in the emergency, I was in the recovery room. I decided to write an op-ed on Roe versus Wade and the oral. And I wrote it right in the recovery room and it came out fine. So I really realized that I hadn't had any cognitive loss. So I haven't felt any of that. You know, I'm a little older.

I don't walk as many miles as I used to. What about remembering names and dates and things like that? As good as you ever did? Old dates and old names. But if you introduced me to somebody right now, I would have to make a note. You know, I used to argue cases in the courts, including the Supreme Court, without any notes. I didn't want to be distracted. I wanted to look the judges right in the eye and be able to answer. So I never took a note with me. Now, when I argue a case, I have to take a little notebook, a little pad, and I have to write down at least one word of the question so I don't forget the question. So I think everybody my age, my wife is a PhD in neuropsychology. She assures me that 83-year-olds generally have problems with immediate recollection of names.

But I still remember all the Supreme Court cases, you know, from 1950, 1960. I even remember sometimes the pages that quotes are on who wrote it, but I do have some problems with immediate name recognition sometimes. That's fantastic. That's amazing. So the question I asked Lara a bit, do you see, do you think that given modern technology, social media, as well as all the political pressures, cancel culture, do you feel that trials in general are as fair as they ever were? Do you think we need to have any new rules to adjust to protect juries from all these pressures and to keep information out of them? Look, we've always had problems with juries. So look, we're the only country in the world, the only country in the history of the world,

Western democracy, that has ever elected prosecutors and elected judges. No other country in the world does that. It's unheard of. Why should the people have an impact on who gets prosecuted and who doesn't and how the judicial system works? And so, of course, the media, social media, have enormous impact. Say, today, we're beginning to hear the trial of Kim Potter, the woman who pulled out the wrong gun and shot this young man with a pistol and killed him rather than pulling out a taser. There's no way in a million years she would have been prosecuted if not for the pressures on the prosecutor, who has himself been accused of racism against white people. He was associated with Farrakhan and others, and he demanded that there be a trial. In fact, some people wanted it to be for murder, for making a mistake. So yeah, I think the social media, the public, the Maxine Waters of the world do have much too much of an

impact, and it has to stop. The public had a big impact during the 1920s when Black people were put on trial in the South, and if they were acquitted, they were lynched. And so, of course, they were going to be convicted. Things have probably gotten better over the years, but not good enough. We have to change some of our rules. We have to have more sequestered juries. We have to have much less prosecutorial input from the public. And I would like to see the abolition of elected prosecutors and elected judges. I think they should be appointed and confirmed like federal judges are and federal prosecutors are, but we're not there. And it used to be the ACLU that would probably be bellyaching about this stuff, but they're silent on this stuff now, correct? You mean the ACLU, the Anti-Civil Liberties Union?

Yes. Yeah. The ACLU is dead in the water. They are no longer an organization that supports civil liberties. They support left-wing politics. And if there's a conflict between their left-wing politics and civil liberties for all, they almost always opt. Now, once every five years, they represent a Nazi because that's easy. And they are able to show their supporters. Look, we defended a Nazi. We represented a Nazi. That shows how great we are and how good we are. It's not good enough.

They're dead in the water when it comes to colleges and universities today, where free speech is seriously endangered. Fortunately, there's another organization called FIRE, which does a very good job on college campuses. And there are a few people, very small number of people, who stand up today on college campuses. If I were teaching at Harvard today, 50 years today on college campuses. If I were teaching at Harvard today, 50 years I taught at Harvard, if I were teaching at Harvard today, I think there would be protests in my classroom. There would be efforts to try to get me fired and disciplined

just for expressing constitutionally acceptable views. And some of my colleagues basically did that during the Trump case. They, you know, instead of trying to answer my arguments, they just engaged in ad hominem attacks on me, distorted what I said in order to be popular with the students. You know, you can't be a great teacher if you try to win popularity contests with students. You have to be willing to stand up to students, stand up to everybody, and criticize every political correctness that we have. I got two more questions for you and then anything else. So because I took deep dives into the Chauvin case and the Arbery case at one time or another,

and on both cases, I found myself thinking, I don't know, I might see reasonable doubt here. But my question is this, is there a phenomenon that happens to defense attorneys that when you start taking a deep dive into a particular case, you lose perspective and you just start seeing reasonable doubt because you've lost perspective? If you're a mediocre criminal attorney, very good criminal attorney, it won't happen. You will have that instinct, but then you'll put it aside and say, I'm a professional. To make that mistake would be like making a mistake by a surgeon, going into the body

and saying, well, you know, I really don't think I want to really don't want to diagnose cancer here. That would be too bad. You can't let other forces impact your professional role, whether you be a surgeon, whether you be another kind of doctor, or whether you be a lawyer, you have to be completely, totally objective. You have to be the doctor reading the CAT scan and not allow your own personal desires to influence. That's why Jeffrey Toobin always gets it wrong on CNN. That's why Larry Tribe always gets it wrong, because they're not telling

the public what they think will happen. They not telling the public what they think will happen. They're telling the public what they think should happen. And they're confusing the is and the are. Well, I'm not going to bore you now, but sometime it would be my dream to have 15 minutes with you on the Chauvin case and tell you why I think it was, it was wrong. I would love to hear. Then maybe next time, if you're ever in New York,

but my next question is what about Roe versus Wade? I'm in to hear. Then maybe next time if you're ever in New York. But my next question is, what about Roe versus Wade? I'm in New York. We're not able to talk at the same time. I didn't hear what you said. I'm sorry. I said I'm in New York. So there's no excuse. Come down.

You want to come to the cellar one night? Well, maybe one of these days we'll do that. But Roe versus Wade, what I worry about is if it were to be overruled, it would stimulate a movement toward packing the court. And it could end up doing two terrible things overruling Roe versus Wade. Number one, denying a woman the right to choose what is, I believe, a constitutional right. And number two, hurting the Supreme Court, the integrity of the Supreme Court, the credibility of the Supreme Court, and moving politics toward court packing, which would destroy the Supreme Court as an institution. So I'm very worried about this case. You have a prediction? I have a prediction, but I'm not certain about it. But my prediction is that Roberts will persuade either Barrett or Kavanaugh to join him in upholding the Mississippi restriction on abortion without

reversing Roe versus Wade. That's my prediction. Maybe I'm guilty of hoping for that result. If you listen just to the argument, you would come out the other way and say, it's probably going to be either five to four or six to three in favor of overruling roe versus wade i hope not and and if it if it were to be overturned um how pessimistic are you uh about the number of states that would actually stand by their guns and outlaw abortion in all cases oh a lot a lot initially. But then the decision would hurt the Republican Party because abortion would become an election issue, a political issue, and the majority of Americans support a woman's right to choose. So I think over time,

it would help the Democrats and hurt the Republicans. I think Roe versus Wade pushed the Republican Party much more to the right, but it also helped the Republican Party against Democrats in some states. So we'll have an interesting dynamic over time. And Congress, of course, could pass a statute under the Commerce Clause giving women the right to choose nationally because the right of abortion transcends any state borders. Women, if they can't get an abortion in Texas and Mississippi, you know, we'll go to Georgia and we'll go to other places. And so the Interstate Commerce Clause may give justification for Congress enacting a right to choice law, but I don't know whether there are others to do that.

Do you think that as a matter of pure constitutional law, Roe v. Wade, what it did is it basically said the Constitution guarantees a woman's right to have an abortion within the first trimester. It read that into the Constitution. Do you think that's good law? No, I don't think it was good law. And I criticized it at the time. It was a good result.

I approved of the result, but I didn't approve of the reasoning or the process. But I don't approve of overruling it. If you've had a precedent for half a century that people have relied on, I don't think you just overrule it because there's a change of personnel. The Supreme Court operates on a principle of precedent. If we made a decision, we stick to it unless, but sometimes they don't. The case that everybody knows is Plessy versus Ferguson, which said you can have separate but equal, and then Brown versus Board of Ed said, no, you can't. Because the change of circumstances is number one, and number two, it expanded a right. It

didn't contract it. It's going to be hard- hard pressed to find a case where the Supreme Court overruled a long precedent that resulted in contracting an established right. Mostly it expands a right. Take, for example, gay marriage. Just a decade earlier, the Supreme Court had said, no, there's no, not only is there no right to gay marriage, there's no right for gay people to have sex with each other as consenting adults. And then they changed it, obviously, and expanded that right. I don't think the reverse would happen. I don't think, by the way, we're going to see a reversal of gay marriage for a very obvious reason. There's no countervailing argument on gay marriage. Nobody's business who gets married to each other, who has sex with each other. There's no countervailing consideration on abortion. On the other hand, if you believe in the right to life, there's a fetus that's a human being. And so there's a conflict between the rights of the mother and the rights of the fetus. And there's no such conflict in gay rights. I think the only justification for abolishing gay rights is bigotry. And I don't think bigotry should be given constitutional status, as George Washington said

when he wrote to the synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island during his presidency, to bigotry we will give no sanction. I tend to agree with you. I think the Republic, but going back to what you said before about the politics of it, I think a lot of Republicans are going to experience

a careful what you wish for moment if they were to overturn Roe versus Wade, especially in local. I don't believe that the dads and moms in Mississippi really want to see their daughters forced to have children. I think I think they're going to they're going to. It reminds me when the Republicans said they wanted to get rid of Obamacare until they actually had the opportunity to do it. And then they chickened out. And it's not only the right to whether they want them to have children, they want them to have abortions in back alleys and risk their lives. And that's what would happen to some poor women who didn't want to tell their parents about it, who now could get an abortion, who didn't want to travel to a different state, it would place the lives of many young women in danger. And I think that's why it would be. How many people do you think have the full courage of their convictions in the pro-life camp

that they would, in fact, if their daughter were raped, for example, say, no, you need to have this child? I think there are some. There's no doubt there are some, maybe even in court. I would bet you, without getting too personal, that there's at least one justice who, if her daughter got pregnant, she would say, have the daughter adopted, but have the baby, don't kill the baby. But that's a personal choice. And I actually admire that personal choice. It might be something I would recommend if I had a daughter who accidentally got pregnant. I'm not in favor of abortion. I'm certainly not in favor of late term abortion. I'm in favor of a right to abortion. And that's true of many of the things I support. I'm not in favor of much of the free speech that I defend. I'm not in favor of most of the criminals I defend. So I make a sharp distinction between my personal views and my constitutional views. All right, Professor

Dershowitz, do we want to talk briefly about the vaccine mandate? Oh, yes. Yes, please. Well, you wrote a book, The Case for Vaccine Mandates. Yeah. So my argument is that a vaccine mandate, and there are many of them, one would be mandating mask wearing, mandating social distancing, but conditioning, going into certain places, traveling in the air, et cetera, on getting a vaccination and ultimately compelling a vaccination with exceptions for medical conditions and perhaps religious objection. I think as a matter of constitutional law, a vaccine mandate as a last resort with exceptions would be and should be upheld by the Supreme Court. Now,

will it be upheld by the Supreme Court? Nobody knows. Nobody knows who the justices will be when the case comes up. But I think as a last resort to prevent the spread of disease, let me make my point clear. If tomorrow scientists were to develop a 100% safe and 100% effective cure for cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, I would not compel a single adult to take that, because that's their own life. But if they were to discover a drug that could prevent the spread of a lethal illness like COVID, that's a different story. And that goes back to John Stuart Mill. The government has the right not to tell you what to do to help yourself,

but it has the right to make you do things that are necessary to protect other members of the public. Analogously, then, would you be against, are you against seatbelt laws? So I have a whole chapter in the book on seatbelt laws. I call seatbelt laws the light pinky of the law, not the head of the law. You know, $25 fine, big deal. If you don't want to wear your seatbelt, you're not going to wear your seatbelt. It's not a big deal. It's just the government putting a little pressure on you not to be lazy. So I can support seatbelt laws, but it's much harder to support plunging an injection into your arm. To come full circle, I oppose the seatbelt laws because I thought it would be an excuse for

the cops to pull over Black people. And that has happened. It happened. Certainly that's happened not only in this country, but in other countries as well. And so you don't want to have laws that give the police too much discretion. But look what happened in the case that the Potter case, she pulled him over because there was a, what do you call one of those things, a deodorant hanging down from his mirror. I mean, if that wasn't an excuse, what is? I mean, so many hundreds of thousands of people have deodorants hanging down from their mirror. But, you know, driving while Black is a stoppable offense in many jurisdictions. And we don't want to give the police the authority to do that. Yeah. On the mandate, you're not talking about the OSHA

regulation. You mean an actual like Congress passing a mandate, correct? I'm against the, I think the Supreme Court will not uphold, probably will not uphold the Biden mandate because it's based on executive, not legislative authority. And already some courts have said that. And I predicted that on the day it came down, I wrote a column saying, even though I'm in favor of vaccine mandates as a last resort, it has to be done legislatively, not administratively. We're very, very pro-vaccine here, all of it, pro-all of it, pro-mask, all of it. But I fear that if Biden or the Democrats were to pass a vaccine mandate, we would see real violent civil disobedience now. It's gone crazy in the country. Well, the country has gone crazy. Look at Larry David. Larry David almost beat me up

in Chilmark. He was screaming at me and yelling at me. It's a guy I've known for years. I helped his daughter get into college. I helped him on his program as an informal consultant. We had dinner at my house. He used my gym in my basement. And he's screaming at me like he was going absolutely crazy, just because basically he believes I was on Trump's side, even though I voted against Trump twice. And all I did was defend his constitutional rights. But, you know, the country is going crazy and that probably has to be taken into account in any action that's made. Last question, and we'll let you go. Were you surprised that Trump because I predicted wrongly.

I think it's the only thing I really got wrong. I thought Trump would eventually concede the election after the November election. Were you surprised that he dug in and never conceded? Well, I was very critical and I refused to defend him on his second impeachment because I did not want to be associated in any way with claims that the election was not fair or was rigged. So I was very disappointed and I was a bit surprised. And many of the people around him, of course, abandoned him on that issue. The election was fair. And that's the end of that. If he had just I mean, he spent four years basically proving that all the historical people were wrong. And if he had conceded as a gentleman. Yeah.

He's not a gentleman. Correct. You're right. But if he had just from his own self-interest, if he just conceded properly, he'd be sitting quite pretty now. And now. I agree with that. He would have lost some of his base. Look, I also helped represent Al Gore in the 2000 election. And Al Gore, I think, conceded too easily. I think he should have fought a little bit harder. But he the country when he insisted that the election was rigged and that he was really the president.

All right. I don't want to take up any more of your time. Professor Dershowitz, if you're in New York, you really should come down. Well, he is in New York, but he's a busy guy. But let me sweeten the pot for you. We have roast chicken that will knock your socks off and half off for you, Mr. Professor Dershowitz. Well, it's a bargain. How could I avoid a bargain? So let's talk. Good. Thank you so much. It was nice to see you in sort of person finally. Thank you so much. Be well. Thanks again, Professor. Once again, Professor Alan Dershowitz, legendary constitutional professor, and his new book, The Case for Vaccine Mandates.

I guess it's available, I guess, on Amazon. He said I'm in New York, so there's no excuse. And then he seemed nonchalant. Yeah, he didn't, but I sweetened the pot with the roast chicken. We'll see what that does. There's only so much I can do. But he did seem like he said, well, he did. And then he kind of. So how do you analyze that? What do you think that meant? I think when you pushed him against the wall, for some reason, he did. And then he kind of. So how do you analyze that? What do you think that meant? I think when you pushed him against the wall, for some reason, he didn't he didn't lunge at the lunge at the opportunity to to come down here. But I can't.

I don't quite understand why. Amazing that he remembers the page number of. And yet and yet she has looked at the bottom line is, you know what I said, and yet And yet Parial has the temerity to think that Dershowitz doesn't know what he's talking about. I never said that. I also want to go, please, on record. And I will show it to you that I did email both of them. Yeah. No, I think that the other person was going to be there, but not till this morning. Yeah. Yeah. But still, only because you told me to though. But, but just

getting back to your point about Alan's memory, um, you know, we, we associate age with loss of memory and indeed probably I read somewhere 50% of people over 85 have, have dementia, but the truth is, is there's a lot of people, uh, you know, that, that keep their cognitive ability well into old age. If you, William Shatner, who's 90, I of people, you know, that that keep their cognitive ability well into old age. If you William Shatner, who's 90, I mean, did you see his interview after going into space? Yeah, I mean, he was right there. And the only thing he did say something that I thought was a little weird. He said, what is it like a mile to get to space, which I thought was weird. But then on the next interview I saw and then Jeff Bezos said, actually, it's 50 miles to outer

space. But the next interview, he said, yeah, outer space is like 50 miles. So he assimilated the new information and remembered it. And which which which struck me. So, you know, I mean, so don't worry, Noam. I think at the relatively young age of 60, you have at least ninety nine point five percent of your cognitive ability that you've ever had. And you might even have some wisdom to compensate whatever loss you've, you've suffered. Don't worry about what?

Don't worry about getting, but I mean, yes, there's people will have cognitive decline. Kissinger is a hundred. Is he a hundred? Literally. Yeah.

Can you, I think so. Can you, or 99, can you talk like Kissinger? Well, I'm not an impressionist, but I talk like Daniel Simon. So when I talk about Kissinger, I, I'm not an impressionist, but I think that that's I talk like Daniel

Simonson. I just to do it. By the way, Betty White's going to be 100 in January and we haven't heard or seen her. So I'm wondering what kind of shape she's in. Noam Chomsky just turned 93. I, you know, I would really like to sit down with one of these Dershowitz or Bazelon because I spent so much time learning about that Chauvin case and I really haven't seen certain arguments addressed that I really am curious to know what they would say. Look at how happy he is that they were on, Dan. And how much joy.

I'm sure Bazelon would be happy. Dershowitz did seem a little bit hesitant when you told him to come down. Again, I don't quite understand. I'll invite him. I'm just curious for my own If you throw in My own insecurity about my own thought process. If you throw in

Il Molino, that might push him over the edge. It's too noisy there. Bringing Il Molino. Yeah. That might push him over the edge. It's too noisy there. Bring Il Molino here. Oh, okay. I think he's fond of me. He usually gets back to me. See if you can erase it. We want to have a dinner for him. I think Noam gave me the only compliment he's ever given me in my life when I told him that I got Lara

and Professor Dershowitz on the show. And the compliment was? He wrote me back, you're the best. Okay, now I'm going to tell you something. Don't get mad. This is actually true. I sent that to the wrong person. And then I just let it stay.

But do you assume that she is the best? Or at least... No, that was good. She got that. That was not a door she was in. I was worried that they might be annoyed that they were on together

without knowing. But it's great that they like each other and had a warm feeling because then we could have a great and awesome panel. By the way, I'm a legal panel. That's what he wants. I mentioned six J.D.'s of separation, which I thought was very clever. I'm now going to Google six J.D.'s of separation to see if anybody has ever said that before.

Please hold. As you know, the Internet lets you know just how original your ideas are. I'm not saying it. No, as far as I know, I'm the only one who's ever come up with six JDs of separation. Yeah. Well,

when you, when you give a commencement address at a law school, that'll come in handy. Well, I'm sure I'll get a big glass with it, but I don't anticipate doing a commencement address at a law school. Are we finished or is there any other? I think we're finished.

Podcastacomedyseller.com. Please let us know. This episode was obviously more of a deep dive. We did try to keep it accessible to the general public. She's very sharp, Lara Bazelon, you know, because she was right about. I know where you're going. She picked up on subtle things that I was saying that were at least superficially appeared contradictory. But I don't know many people who would have.

She's very sharp. Well, like I said, podcast at comedyseller.com. Let us know. Today's episode was pretty, Nicole, what did you think as a layperson? Sleeping dance. I thought it was great. I thought it was super interesting.

For sure. It's cool to get that to comment. You're not just saying that, Nicole, are you? No, of course not. Please let us know because you're doing us no favors by lying to us. You're going to have to tell us when we've. You know what? Let's just let's just let's start something else.

Let's rate them from one to ten. Well, start with this one one that way we have it we'll have a I liked it but I'm wondering what the average raw dogger would think of it what what do you think Nicole one to ten the average raw dogger I think it I would say a nine I feel really good what about the episode with Frankie French I thought that was great too I think she's super interesting okay am I giving it a number too? yes give it a number but I think we can also infer that Dan didn't think it was so good but go ahead no I thought it was good but it was very different it was much more comedy centric

and I would think more accessible to the average comedy seller listener but yeah that too I'd say probably a nine I feel good about them both not just saying okay well you let us know when we have something what's like a one or like a three like what what we what are we weighing these again what was the worst one you remember um I probably blacked it out I honestly

don't know I feel like the ones where there's a lot of yelling tend to you know what about the Ray Allen one you're staying that one was Loved getting up and changing all the equipment. Other than that, no comments. Because Robert Kelly told me that he loved that Ray Allen podcast. It was like the greatest thing you ever listened to. And he remembered every single snippet of conversation

from it. You're kidding. No, he loved it. Why? He just thought it was so funny. But, you know, he's very close to it, so that might be, you know, he's very close to it. So that might be why. So podcast of comedy.com to let us know what you think. If you agree with Nicole that this was a nine or do you think it was a clunker? We don't know.

We can't read your mind. You have to let us know. Perry L. Ashton Brand's books on my knees. And the only wish I trust is my own available on Amazon. My book, Iris Bureau Before COVID, a novel. Delves into the world of stand-up comedy. And Neuroses, Amazon.com.

It is also, by the way, you can get on Kindle four sample chapters. Absolutely free. You don't have to commit a dime. And you can see if you like it. Come visit us at the Comedy Cellar. We have comedy seven nights a week. And we also have a room in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Rio Hotel. Thank you so much.

See you next time. Okay, and you're good at that.