The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.1 Why People Are Freaking Out About David Dobrik, Heartbreaking Wrongful Imprisonment, & More

Starting point is 00:00:00 Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you're having a fantastic Friday. Welcome back to the Philip DeFranco Show And if you're new here on Fridays, we do something a little bit different. On Fridays I try to cover more viewer requested stories from the week sometimes for better and worse But with that said, let's just jump into it The first thing we're gonna talk about today is a requested story that involves David Dobrik and David Dobrik Of course one of the biggest creators on this and many other platforms The main point he ended up being at the center of a story this week, at the center of a controversy this week because of something he said on his podcast.

Starting point is 00:00:27 One of the most retweeted and liked clips that called him out was this one reading, David Dobrik, not you, not you, I, the white privilege jumped out. And it included this clip. I don't care. I don't really care for politics because I don't really know much about it. But I know that, you know,

Starting point is 00:00:41 Trump isn't doing the best thing for people like me. Right. But like, I have fucking really good friends from back home and from people that I met out here that are fucking full-blown Trump supporters. Yeah. I don't ever. It never bothers me for one second. Who gives a fuck?

Starting point is 00:00:59 It's all about your worldview, too. Yeah, it's like chill. Take a fucking eat. I hate that. I hate when people get mad at shit like that. Like calm down, take a breather, like just fucking live your life. Yeah. In some background slash context so you understand that in case you're unfamiliar with David Dobrik, he is a Slovakian born dreamer. He's technically a DACA kid. Right, he was an undocumented immigrant who entered the United States before he was 16, before 2007.

Starting point is 00:01:21 So that's what Dobrik's referencing at the beginning of the clip as far as not the best for people like me this Isn't the first time he's talked about things like this near the end of 2017 he tweeted out I paid four hundred thousand dollars in taxes last year and all I got was a free trip back to Slovakia Hashtag defend DACA and also I'm sorry to say I cannot attend VidCon Australia as of yesterday Trump has taken away all my travel privileges hashtag defend DACA So because of Dobrik's current situation the the things he's said in the past, you had some people saying that he was a hypocrite. You had that same Twitter user from before tweeting,

Starting point is 00:01:48 how you gonna say you're cool with people who supports the same man who was trying to tear your family and families like yours apart? You as an undocumented immigrant should be against that. A mess. Which I will say, I think that user has two conflicting arguments, right? In his initial tweet he's talking about white privilege,

Starting point is 00:02:01 but then in his follow up he's like, you're an undocumented immigrant that could get kicked out right usually the thinking behind someone saying Hey, you have white privilege because someone says you know I don't care about politics that they're in the majority They're not in a vulnerable position So they're privileged to not have to care whereas the other argument is you're in this vulnerable position And you have a massive audience so you should be speaking out against it And it should be a big deal to you what I'll say is well I do personally understand people's frustrations when anyone's like, I don't really care about politics, right?

Starting point is 00:02:25 And they minimize people having very large reactions to a lot of unprecedented situations right now. I personally think that this clip that blew up, it's really not that deep. I have friends here and any of the places that I ever called home that are never Trumpers and full-blown Trump supporters. And regarding any and all of those people, I just understand that there are gonna be places where we just massively disagree. And if anything, I think based on those conversations, I learn where people are coming from, and I also, it's just a constant reminder that the people that have different opinions than you,

Starting point is 00:02:53 they're not automatically evil. Different worldviews, different ideals, different trust systems, but at the end of the day, human. That said, hey, I talk about a lot of different kinds of news, politics is one of them. I think that it is very important. Right, I mean, people live and die based off of what happens in our political system.

Starting point is 00:03:07 Right, whether someone can live in this country or they have to go somewhere else, even if they've never really known another life. Whether people have access to healthcare, firearms, just the economy in general, and the economy tanks, a lot of other horrible stuff happens in everyday people's lives. Also go to even more polarizing issues,

Starting point is 00:03:21 pro-life versus pro-choice. I think a lot of people on both sides there would say, the politics there are incredibly important. I mean, if we bring up immigration, hell, I mean, just in the past few days, there were reports that the Health and Human Services have documents that say thousands of migrant children were sexually abused in US custody.

Starting point is 00:03:34 I understand why people get worked up. That said, if you're angry because David Dobrik's not politically charged and leading a march, then I don't know what to tell you. I'm sure David is a sweetheart of a person, but if you're going to him because you think that he should be guiding people politically, I imagine we don't see eye to eye.

Starting point is 00:03:50 But that said, that's my personal quick viewpoint of the story that was recommended. And then I pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts around it? Big deal, no deal, hypocrite or not, minimizing or not. And really, I'd just love to hear any and all thoughts. And then let's talk about trolling. I feel like a teacher.

Starting point is 00:04:04 In class, we need to talk about something serious. No, but we did actually have trolling in the news thanks to Captain Marvel and Rotten Tomatoes. So reportedly, even though Captain Marvel isn't coming out until March 8th, the audience reviews on Rotten Tomatoes for the movie were just getting slammed. And yet a lot of people claiming not to be interested.

Starting point is 00:04:20 Some of the comments that people were picking up on included, Oh boy, first off, this will be worse than The Last Jedi. I'm calling it now. Critics will love it. Audience hate it. Another writing, Why Marvel decided to cast a very vocal racist and sexist aimed at white males, I'll never know. If Robert Downey Jr. started saying that he didn't care about the opinions of 40-year-old white chicks, and he doesn't want to be interviewed by a white woman as it's not inclusive enough, people would lose their minds. And if you're unfamiliar with what they're referencing there, Brie Larson had an interview where she said, quote, with you, the film critic Valerie Complex, and a few other women of color, it sounded like across the board they weren't getting the same opportunities as others." And adding, when I talked to the facilities that weren't providing it, they all had different excuses. But main point, a lot of the negative stuff that was popping up, it was kind of of the same mindset of,

Starting point is 00:05:13 we hate Hollywood BS, SJW BS. And in fact, it got to such a point that Rotten Tomatoes has now changed their policy. In a post writing, We are disabling the comment function prior to a movie's release date. Unfortunately, we have seen an uptick in non-constructive input, sometimes bordering on trolling, which we believe is a disservice to our general readership. We have decided that turning off this feature for now is the best course of action. Don't worry though, fans will still get to have their say. Once a movie is released, audiences can leave a user rating and comments as they always have. And also adding, We will no longer show the Want to See percentage score for a movie during its pre-release period.

Starting point is 00:05:45 Why, you might ask? We've found that the want to see percentage score is oftentimes confused with the audience score percentage number. Right, people who have actually watched the movie, or at least say they've watched the movie after release, rather than the pre-expectation numbers. But also, really looking at this story, I don't know how big of a deal this is. One, it seems like the main change is that people have to hold off on their trolling. Right, you just gotta wait for that movie to release and then get to your clickety-clackin'. But also it's hard to see if this would have a massive effect on the movie.

Starting point is 00:06:12 And the reason I say that is there have been other high-profile movies that have been targeted in similar ways in the past. Notably, The Last Jedi and Black Panther, and those movies made so much money. Black Panther became the highest-gring solo superhero movie of all time, and The Last Jedi was the highest grossing movie of 2017. So I think it would be a hard point to argue that The Want to See has any sort of meaningful effect on box office. So really I think it's just going to change

Starting point is 00:06:35 the timing and placement of people sounding off about some of these movies. But yeah, I mean this isn't something new and it's not gonna be the end of it. People will always, whether you call it trolling or it is trolling or whatever way, get their feelings out there into the world regarding any sort of issue. But with that said, of course, I do want to pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts around this? Personally,

Starting point is 00:06:52 I don't give a damn about what anyone thinks about the movies, good or bad. I'm just excited personally that we're getting Captain Marvel and then the next month we're getting Endgame. I'm so ready to be emotionally torn apart. And then let's talk about the news we saw out of San Francisco this week. If you didn't see, San Francisco officials announced on Monday that they are going to be dismissing 9,362 marijuana convictions dating all the way back to 1975. So what this means is that it makes San Francisco the first city in the United States to clear all eligible marijuana convictions. The announcement came from San Francisco's District Attorney, George Gascon, and it comes a little over two years after California passed Proposition 64. And Prop 64, as you might remember, was approved by the voters back in 2016.

Starting point is 00:07:30 It legalized recreational marijuana in California for people 21 and older, and it also allowed for people that were convicted of marijuana possession to petition to have their convictions expunged. And along with that, people could also petition to have marijuana-related crimes reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor, and the expungements also include marijuana convictions that are tied to other crimes.

Starting point is 00:07:46 So after Prop 64 passed, San Francisco became the first county to announce that it would clear old marijuana convictions, and so for about a year now, the DA's office in San Francisco has been going through old marijuana cases that were eligible for dismissal. And with that, they found about 1,200 cases to clear on their own, but when that process proved to be too time-consuming,

Starting point is 00:08:01 they teamed up with a nonprofit called Code for America, and they use open-source technology to improve up with a non-profit called Code for America, and they use open source technology to improve government efficiency. Then what followed was Code for America used a computer algorithm it created called Clear My Record, which sorts through marijuana convictions and determined which were eligible for expungement under Prop 64.

Starting point is 00:08:15 And according to a Medium article written by Code for America, the Clear My Record technology can automatically and securely evaluate eligibility for convictions by reading and interpreting conviction data. And adding, it can evaluate eligibility for thousands of convictions in just a few minutes. And that program also automatically fills out the required paperwork that can be turned into the court

Starting point is 00:08:32 for processing these cases. Now people could request expungements themselves, even before the DA and Code for America took on the project. But before the city began to look for people who were eligible, only 23 people had actually petitioned the city to do something about their convictions. And the reason for that was simple. It was a pretty tedious task.

Starting point is 00:08:47 As Gascon explained, you have to hire an attorney, you have to petition the court, you have to come for a hearing. It's a very expensive and very cumbersome process. And the reality is that the majority of the people that were punished and were the ones that suffered in this war on marijuana, war on drugs nationally, were people that can ill afford to pay an attorney.

Starting point is 00:09:03 And as far as why it's important that people actually do this, I mean the DA's office noted that people who have marijuana convictions on their records often have trouble finding employment. Along with that, they can face barriers when trying to get access to education, housing, loans, and public assistance.

Starting point is 00:09:15 And along with this, Gascon also noted that there were racial disparities in marijuana arrests in that city. And in fact, a study done by the ACLU in 2013 found that in San Francisco, African Americans were more than four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white people. And in a press briefing, Gascon said,

Starting point is 00:09:29 "'Take San Francisco, for instance. "'Our African American population is under 5%. "'But if you look at our convictions for marijuana offenses, "'33% of people we convicted were African American, "'27% were Latino.'" And so because of all of these factors, the city decided to take a proactive approach to clear past convictions themselves

Starting point is 00:09:43 to help people who they say needed the most relief. So now that all that has to be done is for the courts to actually process the request, what does that mean for the rest of the country? Well, San Francisco's actions have actually prompted several other cities to follow their lead and many believe that both the expungements and the technology used by Code for America will have a positive spillover effect. Code for America intends on expanding its pilot program to other California counties and it's already set a goal of clearing 250,000 eligible convictions nationwide by 2019. And specifically in California,

Starting point is 00:10:09 other counties, including Los Angeles, are considering similar efforts. And that could be massive because the LA County DA's office estimates that there have been 40,000 felony marijuana convictions since 1993. However, remember, it's not all convictions, and right now prosecutors haven't said how many of those cases could be eligible.

Starting point is 00:10:24 And then as far as efforts outside of California, you have things like in Missouri, lawmakers are considering a bill that would expunge convictions for medical marijuana patients, which is legal in the state. Also in New Jersey, residents can actually have their convictions expunged, but like in San Francisco, the process is reportedly challenging. And then finally in New York, the governor has proposed legalizing recreational marijuana use and officials are exploring the possibility of expunging or sealing conviction records. And in the most unsurprising part of this story I think all of these are good steps. I personally think that marijuana has ridiculously been villainized for a very very long time I have been an advocate for a decriminalization and legalization for a very long time and if you have people being held back because they have a record for a non-violent marijuana offense that is ridiculous and given how clunky and expensive really anything

Starting point is 00:11:06 involving the government can be, I love seeing a government actually trying to help the people out there. But that said, that's a story, that's my personal takeaway, and I pass the question off to you. What are your thoughts around this? And then let's talk about the news around Craig Coley, who spent 39 years in prison for a double murder

Starting point is 00:11:20 committed back in 1978, but was recently found innocent and granted clemency in 2017. Coley was accused of raping 24-year-old Rhonda Wick and then killing her and her four-year-old son. The investigation had led to Coley as he and Wick were dating and had recently broken up prior to her murder. Wick's neighbors reported hearing

Starting point is 00:11:36 banging the morning of the attack, and one neighbor even claimed to have seen Coley's truck through a window and also reported that someone with medium-length hair drove away in it. During the investigation, police searched Coley's home. They found a bloodstained towel as well as a child's t-shirt. They believed that the towel had Wick's blood and the shirt was used to smother her son. And with all of this, he was immediately arrested as a suspect and then charged with the

Starting point is 00:11:56 killings, with the prosecution even filing a notice that it would be seeking the death penalty. And while the first trial resulted in a hung jury, Coley was tried again in 1980 and this time he was convicted for the murders. And there he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, Coley has maintained his innocence this entire time, even appealing his case and petitioning for a writ of habeas corpus,

Starting point is 00:12:15 which allows a person to report unlawful detention or imprisonment. But ultimately he was getting nowhere. But Coley wasn't alone. You had Simi Valley Police Detective Mike Bender who examined Coley's file and became convinced of his innocence. He also brought Coley's case

Starting point is 00:12:27 to various law enforcement agencies, but to no avail. But as far as what Bender saw, Bender noticed that Coley had an alibi for all but 20 or 30 minutes on the morning that the crime was committed, which in his opinion wasn't enough time to commit the murders. Along with that, Bender also found evidence

Starting point is 00:12:40 that other legitimate suspects were let go by police who focused their investigation on Coley. And then in 2013, with Bender's help, Coley submitted a petition to California Governor Jerry Brown for clemency on the basis of factual innocence. And that petition, in part, claimed that a Simi Valley Police Department detective destroyed biological evidence that could have exonerated Coley.

Starting point is 00:12:57 And then in 2015, Governor Brown requested the Board of Parole hearings to investigate the case. And in that investigation, multiple law enforcement officers said they believed Coley was innocent and that the detective who originally was in charge of the investigation, quote, "'mishandled the investigation' or framed Mr. Coley." So this led the Simi Valley Police Department,

Starting point is 00:13:14 along with the Ventura County District Attorney's Office, to open an investigation into Coley's case. And during the investigation, they luckily found biological samples from the case in a private lab, despite the court ordering that they be destroyed after Coley had used all of his appeals. Advanced forensic analyses were conducted on the samples, the kind that were not available

Starting point is 00:13:30 at the time of Coley's trial. And those forensics showed that the sperm and saliva from the sheet that Wick's body was found on did not contain Coley's DNA. Instead, it had the DNA of another person. Additionally, the blood and semen stains on the child's shirt recovered from Coley's apartment were also tested and did not have any of Coley's DNA. Although those tests did show Wick's son's DNA on the shirt along with the sperm of several individuals,

Starting point is 00:13:49 but none of which were Coley. Investigators even went to the apartment from which the neighbor claimed to have seen Coley's truck and determined that there was no way she could have correctly identified him or his truck at 5.30 a.m. Stating that lighting conditions made it difficult to see details on vehicles

Starting point is 00:14:02 and it made it even harder to see inside them. And then on November 20th, 2017, we saw a news release from the police department and the DA's office asserting Coley's innocence and claiming that the real murderer had not been brought to justice. Along with that, they also wrote a letter explaining their findings to California Governor Jerry Brown,

Starting point is 00:14:16 who officially pardoned Coley two days later. And that pardon reads, "'Mr. Coley had no criminal history "'before being arrested for these crimes, "'and he has been a model inmate for nearly four decades. In prison he has avoided gangs and violence. Instead he has dedicated himself to religion. The grace with which Mr. Coley has endured this lengthy and unjust incarceration is extraordinary.

Starting point is 00:14:34 But that was 2017, why are we talking about this now? Well, because the story is not over. Back in February of 2018, Coley was awarded over 1.9 million dollars by the Victim Compensation Board of the state of California. Essentially what that was is $140 per day for the 13,991 days he was incarcerated. However, Coley subsequently filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking damages from the city of Simi Valley. Which brings us to last Saturday

Starting point is 00:14:56 when Simi Valley city manager Eric Levitt announced the $21 million settlement. Which, according to Levitt, could have meant exposure of up to $ million dollars in a worst-case scenario If it went to full litigation However of the 21 million the city will pay 4.9 million with the rest to be paid by insurance and other sources and according to this statement on the city of Simi Valley's website That quotes the Los Angeles Times. Mr. Coley's 39 years was the longest prison term overturned in California following his release

Starting point is 00:15:21 He was awarded the largest payout ever from the victims compensation governmentensation Government Claim Board which said it unequivocally accepts that Coley is actually innocent of the murders. And in response to all of this Coley, who is now 71 stated, And ultimately that is where we are with the story. It's, it's, it's hard to call this a happy ending. Right, money's money and I hope that he can use this money in some way to add to his life. But that time is priceless. All of that opportunity stripped from this man. There's no making that up.

Starting point is 00:15:54 Time is the most valuable thing that we have. And of course, it's stories like this that make you think of the death penalty because as we mentioned, initially prosecutors were seeking the death penalty. And if that had happened, instead of us talking about a wrongful imprisonment that everyone's trying to make right,

Starting point is 00:16:06 we're talking about a dead man. Meanwhile, whoever did this, potentially just still out there somewhere, if they didn't get caught doing something else. No one's been charged with this, but if I did end on, if you can even call it, a positive note, I do want to say that Mike Bender deserves so, so, so much credit. I mean, usually when we're talking about cases like this, it's organizations like the Innocence Project that are involved, keeping it alive, trying to move it. But this was kept on everyone's radar thanks to one detective. Without him, it's very likely Coley just remains in prison.

Starting point is 00:16:32 Man, that's where this story ends for now. And the questions that I want to pass off to you, one, what are your thoughts regarding the payouts around wrongful imprisonment? And also two, if you're willing to share, what are your thoughts regarding the death penalty? And if you are one way or the other, does this story, you know, really confirm what you're thinking? Or do you think that it's an outlier? It doesn't really affect any and all thoughts. And that's where we're going to end today's show. And remember, if you like this video, you like jumping into it with us on the daily, let us know. Hit that like button. If you're new here, definitely be sure to subscribe, ring that bell to turn on notifications. Which on that note, if you did miss either of the last two videos you wanna catch up, you can click or tap right there to watch those. But with that said, of course, as always, my name's Philip DeFranco, you've just been filled in, I love yo faces, and I'll see you Monday.

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The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.1 Why People Are Freaking Out About David Dobrik, Heartbreaking Wrongful Imprisonment, & More

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