The Wolf Of All Streets - Rethinking Criminal Justice with Eliza Orlins, Manhattan DA Candidate

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Eliza Orlins has spent over a decade serving the citizens of New York City as a public defender. Now she is taking her fight to the political arena, running for the position of Manhattan DA. Her goal is to fundamentally alter a rigged system that serves the powerful and elite and punishes the poor and disenfranchised. The job has only been held by white men - upon her election she would be the first female to hold the position. Scott Melker and Eliza Orlins further discuss what it's like to run for office, competing on Survivor, her plans as district attorney, career prosecutors, lock em’ up culture, defeating the boys club, broken windows policing, the price of a prisoner, accepting cryptocurrency in her campaign, campaign finance reform, getting arrested on an empty subway and more. --- VOYAGER This episode is brought to you by Voyager, your new favorite crypto broker. Trade crypto fast and commission-free the easy way. Earn up to 9.5% interest on top coins with no lockups and no limits. Download the Voyager app and use code “SCOTT25” to get $25 in free Bitcoin when you create your account. --- ELECTRONEUM Electroneum, has gained widespread adoption providing a mobile-first payment solution to the world's unbanked, attracting more than 4M users worldwide in less than three years. They have since launched a new freelance marketplace, AnyTask.com, which is providing thousands of freelancers the opportunity to sell their services to buyers globally, without the need of a bank account. Learn more at Electroneum.com. --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe.This podcast is presented by BlockWorks Group. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworksgroup.io

I'd like to thank my sponsors, Voyager and Electroneum, for making this episode possible. Stay tuned for more info on them later. What is up, everybody? I am Scott Melker, and this is the Wolf of Wall Street's podcast. Today's guest is a Manhattan public defender running for the district attorney position that's up for grabs in 2021. With a passion to fix a broken criminal justice system, Eliza has decided to take the most direct form of political action and fix the system herself from the inside. In addition to a successful career in public service, her resume includes two very impressive performances on American reality TV.

It is my goal to better understand the glaring issues with the criminal justice system, how she plans to represent her district, what inspires her to defend those that need it most, and maybe to get a few tips on how I can land a role on reality TV. Eliza Orleans, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much. Oh, it's so great to be here. So before we get into the questions, once again, everyone, you're listening to the Wolf of Wall Street's podcast, where twice a week I talk to your favorite personalities from the worlds of Bitcoin, finance, trading, art, music, sports, and of course, politics. The show is powered by Blockworks Group, a media company with over 20 podcasts in their network. You can check them out at blockworksgroup.io.

And you can check out everything me on my website at thewolfofallstreets.io. That includes this podcast, plenty of educational content, newsletter, and everything else. So now that we're done with that, Eliza, I just got off the phone with Jeff Probst and he told me he wants you back on Survivor.

What do you say? You know, the timing's not great. Yeah, you can't go just, you know, off to an island for a month or two and forget about everything again. Not while I'm running for office. But yeah, it's funny that having been on reality TV show, like when I was 21 years old, I thought that that would preclude me from ever running for office. You know, I thought that I was making a decision between ever being a candidate for political office and going on a reality TV show when I went on Survivor, you know, over a decade and a half ago. And now here we are, like the world has changed a lot. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't think that people hold candidates as accountable for the, I won't say mistakes, but for what they do in their youth. I mean, if I ever wanted to

run for office, I would have to delete every social media I've ever had for the last 20 years, certainly, but that's not on my radar for now. But it sounds like actually maybe you always had aspirations of public service. If you were already thinking about this, what you were on Survivor in 2004 or something? Yep, exactly. You know, it wasn't that I ever thought I would run for office, but my dad ran for Congress when I was nine, and I got really engaged in politics from a super young age. So I always kind of had that passion for thinking about these issues and political campaigning and being engaged, but I never really anticipated running myself. So what was the path? I mean, obviously, you touched on you were 21 years old, you went on reality TV, which was like living the dream,

especially back then, man. I graduated college in 1999. My best friend was on Road Rules in 1997. It was like the biggest celebrity on the planet. us. Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure. That was the really early days. Exactly. That's like really very OG reality TV. And Survivor also. Survivor started in, I think, 2000. And I watched the first season.

I was in high school. And I was like, oh, I love this. Like, I loved everything about it, like the competition and having to, like, build a society together and, like, oh, I love this. Like I loved everything about it, like the competition and having to like build a society together and like coexist. And and but yet still vote people off, but then get those people to vote for you to win at the end. And so everything about the show really appealed to me and it just seemed like such a challenge. And so watching the first season, I told my mom, I was like, oh, I'm going to be on that show. I'm going to be on that show one day. And she was like, of course you are, sweetheart.

And now she tells people, be careful what you tell your kids because they believe you. Yeah, exactly. Well, it's good training for politics, certainly being on a show like Survivor, I would say. So that was 21 years old. Large gap between then and now. What have you been doing? Well, so the only thing I ever wanted to do was be a public defender. It was the reason I went to law school. It was the only job I applied for. And it was what I thought I would do with my entire life. I really had a passion for helping people and fighting against injustice. And it's so funny, in your introduction of me, you said our broken criminal justice system. And there are so many people who categorize it that way. But what I tell them is like, the system is actually not broken. It's working exactly as designed. The

problem is the system is rigged. It's disenfranchising the very people it was designed to disenfranchise, which is black and brown people, LGBTQIA folks, people with disabilities, you know, those who are just everyday working Americans, people who are not powerful and not well-connected. So it's not broken at all. It's exactly what it was supposed to be, which is actually just a much more like unfortunate, negative, and sort of depressing way to have to think about it, right? Right. But it's like, I think it's an important distinction to make because to say that the system is broken and that I want to fix it, that indicates that at some point it was working in a way that did not just continue to disenfranchise already marginalized people. Wow. So then I'm going to

jump right in and ask, because if you talk to people about Bitcoin, many people say the same thing about the financial system or the system as a whole, that it's rigged and that Bitcoin is either a silent protest or it's a mean stopped out of that system. And I read, obviously, I believe in Forbes, well done, that you are accepting Bitcoin for donations to your campaign. Yes, I am. And I think it's really important that people recognize that there are so many folks who maybe feel disenfranchised by our systems or who feel disaffected or politically disengaged who want to participate in political elections potentially, but really just haven't found a candidate who believes in these principles of inclusion and innovation. And that's what the kind of campaign we're running. So I kind of,

you know, connected with some Bitcoin folks, and we talked about how to do this in such a way that I can now accept cryptocurrency. And it's a pretty interesting path to be taking, but I do think it really makes for such an inclusive campaign, but also one that's like future looking. I mean, I obviously agree. I would say that probably everybody else listening agrees. But now, so you said that you've had to talk to people about how that would actually look. And I find it's interesting because it's so difficult in this country to transact or use Bitcoin without,

you know, tremendous red tape and trying to figure out what the legalities are and what your tax implications would be and all those things. Can you talk about at least just superficially what some of the challenges actually specifically were for saying, yes, I'm going to do this? Well, you know, New York State has not made an official ruling on whether or not state candidates can accept cryptocurrency. So we are following the model of what the FEC requires. And we've actually gone above and beyond that. We're using identity verification where people have to upload a driver's license or passport because you have to be a green card holder or U.S. citizen in order to donate to a political campaign. And so, we are, you know, going above and beyond what would be required in terms of compliance so that we are successful and are able

to do this. But it, you know, of course, there's some complication with regards to it because it's just something that not that many people are out there doing. Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting. I always love to ask people when they're running for office. Another one of my best friends is the state attorney in Hillsborough County in Tampa. So I've seen sort of the process. He was just reelected last week. I've seen the fundraising process. You're probably for campaign finance reform, I'm assuming, at least to some degree in politics as a whole, but you know, let's say you wanted to give to, if you had wanted to donate to Joe Biden in the primary, an individual donor can give up to $2,800. Right. In my race for the primary, an individual donor can give up to $35,000.

I mean, that's a massive amount of money. So the incumbent and other people potentially can call 10 friends and say, oh, I need you to max out to me and raise $350,000. It's just another way in which they maintain the status quo that the powerful remain in power. And I'm a career public defender. So I'm doing this on donations that are $1, $3, $5, $25. But we're raising money from thousands and thousands of donors. So we've built like a really big grassroots movement. But the fact of the matter is you need money to run for office. And so that's what we're up against. That's so interesting. For the first time, though, in the last decade, I would say we've seen that grassroots fundraising be effective. I mean, thoughts on Bernie Sanders aside, you know, everybody obviously has mixed views on it or how his role is within the Democratic Party and what they may or may not have done to him.

But the guy raised millions and millions of dollars from absolutely giving 10 bucks. Absolutely. You know, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have shown that grassroots movements are extremely powerful. Okay. So you've spent decades. Has it been decades as a public defender? How long have you been a public defender now? I started in 2009. So don't age me that much. You've spent just over a decade as a public defender. How has that affected your life view? Are there specific cases that stand out that are just so glaringly upsetting or that any person on either side of the aisle

would look at it and say, this is just wrong, right? This isn't a political issue. Look at this case. Look at these things I've seen. This is why it needs to change. For sure. And I think, you know, this is over a decade of stories of human beings, of thousands of people. I've represented over 3,000 people charged with crimes who couldn't afford to hire an attorney. And every single one of their stories is heart-wrenching in some way. But I think a story that I often tell just because it's something that is so uncontroversial and it's just something that people are sometimes shocked by, but really, it's so ordinary in terms of what I would see on a day-to-day basis as a

public defender and why I became so just angry and heartbroken and frustrated with the system. And it's actually a case, a client I represented my very first year as a public defender. I will call him John for the purposes of the story. And he was an assistant manager at a Gristiti's in lower Manhattan. He'd worked at the same grocery store for over 25 years, made his way up to assistant manager. And one night he was closing up the store and he bought two bags of groceries with his employee discount, locked up for the night, walked over to the A train to head up town to go home. And he got on the subway, uncrowded. You know, it's almost midnight. He puts his bags on the seats next to him and prepares for his journey.

At the 125th Street stop, two uniformed NYPD officers get on the train. They grab John's groceries, dump them to the ground, and place John in handcuffs and take him to jail for the night for the crime of occupying multiple seats on a transit facility. On an empty train. Taking up two seats on an empty train. At the first stop in Harlem. Yep. Yep. And, you know, I mean, it's the color of his skin, the neighborhood in which he lives, like the reasons why he gets arrested. I mean, how many times have you been on a subway in New York and seen someone taking up two seats on the train? And how often have you seen them get arrested for that? And

it's just the, you know, seeing people over and over get jailed and bullied for as little as taking up two seats on the subway just kind of exacerbated this heartbreak and anger and frustration with the system. And it's kind of why I made this decision to run. And that's not like a black swan event. This is every day, right? Every day. Every day. It's not of why I made this decision to run. And that's not like a black swan event. This is every day, right? Every day. Every day. It's not an anomaly.

And so for someone like John, what are the implications of that? Obviously, he spends a night in jail. Now it's got a permanent record. Is this something he can lose his job? I mean, can he not get a driver's license? What are the longer-term implications of something like that? Well, so for, you know, this is the huge problem is like people see this false choice. We've been sold this false choice between public safety and incarceration.

But the fact of the matter is we don't make our cities safer by locking people up. And in fact, when you lock someone up for whether it be three months, three weeks, or even just three days, that person becomes exponentially more likely to reoffend or get rearrested. And it makes sense, right? Because if you think about it, that person misses work for three days, they lose their job. Then they can't afford to pay their rent, so they lose their home. If they're a single parent, they lose their kids to foster care. And then maybe they're saddled with a criminal record for the rest of their home. If they're a single parent, they lose their kids to foster care. And then maybe they're saddled with a criminal record for the rest of their lives. They can't get employment. They can't get student loans. They can't get housing.

And so all of a sudden, we've upended someone's entire life for what? A lot of times it's for things like minor low-level drug possession, for jumping a turnstile, for things that are crimes of poverty or substance use disorder or mental health issues. The Department of Corrections is providing more mental health services than any other institution in New York City. It's an outrage. It's so crazy. It's so crazy. I once read a long paper on, I mean, there are obviously a lot of examples like that in and outside of New York state, but one of the most glaring that I read about is the, I guess the abuse of taking away people's driver's license for offenses that have nothing to do with driving.

And when you see the statistics, as you just mentioned on what happens when you take someone's driver's license, like someone gets caught with a small bag of weed and you take away their driver's license because it has nothing. And then they can't go to work and then they can't drive their kids to school. And it's like this endless regress of problems that causes them to be back in the system all for some petty offense. Exactly. And then we wonder why our recidivism rates are so high. Well, we've done nothing to help a person with whatever issue they're facing. All we've done is criminalize them and then turn them into someone who has no job, has no home, has no means of supporting their families. So the scary question, I guess, going back to what you talked about at the beginning, my instinct was to say the system's broken.

But if the system was broken, everyone agrees that's absurd, right? There's no person who would look at that rationally and be like, yeah, this guy deserves to go to jail for putting his groceries on his seat, but nobody's fixed it. Right. So there has to be a reason. Right. Right. And I think that, you know, the way that we see this, like the people who are committing crimes on a very large scale are the people who are not being held accountable. It's people who are extremely powerful and well-connected. I are not being held accountable. It's people who are extremely powerful and well-connected. I mean, we see it. It's not really a coincidence because you look at who's been running the system and then you look at who gets the breaks from the

system. And it's the powerful protecting one another and yet prosecuting and policing and surveilling and incarcerating people from low-income communities, people of color, people who are already, you know, marginalized and disenfranchised. So, it's really like what we see is deliberate. It's working as designed. And so, I think, you know, having someone in the DA's office who really has seen this from the other side as a public defender and who wants to make these changes is so critical. Can you talk about the job of the DA? I mean, for anyone who's listening and has no idea what you're actually running for, what does that job look like? What are the responsibilities and what change can you affect in that position?

Yeah. So I often say that people don't even, so many people don't even realize they elect their DA. So it's the most important elected official that you probably don't know. And that's because the DA makes all decisions with regards to our criminal legal system. You know, who to prosecute, what crimes to charge, whether or not someone gets bail set, whether someone has the opportunity for treatment, or what sentences get sought. And it's just, you know, they have an impact on millions of people's lives. Because if you think about the fact that each individual person who's coming before the court is someone's mother or father or spouse or sibling or child, it makes it so much more real as opposed to the way in which the current DA operates, which is to just dehumanize people on every level. I mean, they call them by their case number. They call them

felons, criminals, inmates, prisoners. It's just so dehumanizing. And so, you know, meanwhile, I've stood next to thousands of people and I've seen the humanity in each and every person. I've realized that so many of them are facing issues that need to be addressed that don't get solved by just locking people up. And so I think this is why it will be such a real transformational change for me to be Manhattan District Attorney. So you're coming from the path of public defender. What was the path of the existing district attorney or other district attorneys? It seems like it makes sense for it to be a public defender because as you said, they're not a number. You've stood next to every one of these people. You've seen them cry. You've

heard every one of their stories. You probably know the names of a lot of their children. You actually get to know them as people. So what other path do people take to district attorney? Well, usually people are prosecutors and then they prosecutors, and then they're prosecutors, and then they're prosecutors. So people grow up in prosecutor offices, and then they become elected district attorneys. It's only been very recently that we've seen kind of a breakthrough of people who are not career prosecutors becoming the elected DA. We're seeing it, we saw it in Philadelphia with Larry Krasner. And now a public defender got elected in San Francisco, Chesa Boudin. And we're really seeing across the board,

people ready for this true reform in terms of our criminal legal system. Why is an election like this politicized? And why is it, I guess, partisan, if it seems like it should be a role that has no politics? Well, it's interesting. You know, I guess, when you say partisan, like that, I think of as being, oh, like, you know, Republican versus Democrat. But here in Manhattan, we tend to elect Democrats. We have, you know, more than, I think, about eight times the number of registered Democrats as Republicans. And so this is a Democratic primary that I'm running in. And what I try to tell people is like, just because you live in a blue state or a blue city, it doesn't mean that the work is done. It doesn't mean that you don't need to be politically engaged. Like not all Democrats are created equal.

And I have a ton of bipartisan support, actually. I have people who are lifelong Republicans who are donating to and supporting my campaign because I think that criminal justice reform is something that everyone can get on board with. I mean, it makes sense fiscally, for example. If you think about the fact that the taxpayers are the people who are being charged for this. So the district attorney stands up every day in court and says, on behalf of the people of the state of New York. So they are acting in your name if you're a taxpayer.

And then they're using your money to incarcerate people. It costs $975 a night to put someone on Rikers Island. And that is, I mean, that's- So the four seasons. I was going to say, you could put someone up in a really nice hotel. You could pay for housing for them for a month. You could pay for potentially way more. It's like, if you think about the way in which that money could be used, I mean, we're spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year per individual person that we are locking up. And then that person is recidivating because we're doing nothing to help get them back on their feet, or we're doing nothing to address

the substance use disorder they're facing or the mental health issues they're facing. And so it's really like this system of injustice. I don't even like calling it a justice system because it's so unjust, it's cruel, it's inhumane. And we're not doing anything to make our city safer, to elevate all people, to figure out how to address the needs of the human beings who live here. And so it's like a big change that I'm trying to bring. So that begs the question, where does that $995 a night go? You know, corrections officers to, I mean, we have a whole prison industrial complex. If you think about the, you know, even people say, oh, we should abolish for-profit prisons, but

for-profit prisons, that's not even, that doesn't even address the issue. That's such a small percentage. I think it's like 8% of national incarceration is in private prisons. It's this whole prison industrial complex where people are profiting off of the incarceration of human beings. And it should be the opposite. These same tools that are being used to lock people up, all this money should be used to help people. And we need a DA who understands that and who wants to make those changes. And I think that really what we've seen and the data kind of bears this out is that reducing our incarcerated population and public safety goes hand in hand. And as the number of people who are locked up has decreased, then crime has also decreased. I mean, so logical, but I guess there's people

who don't want to say you would think so. It sounds like from what you're saying that we've talked somewhat extensively about the issues facing the, you know, the at risk populations, the poor people and of various races. That's half the problem, as you're saying. The other half is that the real criminals, the white collar criminals, or the people who can afford to beat the system are not being prosecuted, right? Exactly, exactly. And, you know, it's so when you really think about the fact that I have clients who routinely get prosecuted for things like stealing a pint of ice cream from CVS or stealing a Snickers bar from CVS. These are things that are worth $2 to $5. And yet there are people out there who are committing wage theft to the tune of tens of

millions, hundreds of millions of dollars and stealing from their employees. And those are not the people who are getting prosecuted. That is not justice. We're not putting the resources into prosecuting people that will actually help our communities and keep people safer. The same people who are being stolen from are the people who have no power because they can't. Oh, my landlord is skimming off my... I mean, my employer is skimming off my paycheck. What do I do? Well, I have no power. They're going to threaten to fire me. I have no... And the same goes for landlords. I mean, there are landlords out there who are being extortive, who are hurting their tenants. And those are not the people who are being prosecuted. Right. Those are great examples.

We hear all the time in my community, the Bitcoin community. I mean, not a single banker went to jail for the global recession, right? That's true. Actually, the only prosecution that was brought, and that was by Cy Vance, the Manhattan District Attorney, was against a bank that he thought of as just being a low-hanging fruit. I'll bring this criminal prosecution against Abacus Bank and the family. I mean, a Chinese family who was running this family bank who had, you know, no one had defaulted. I mean, it was just a completely outrageous targeted prosecution and didn't go after any

of the big banks, didn't go after anyone who really was perpetrating harm, and yet made this family spend $10 million of their own money to defend themselves and finally, thankfully, got acquitted. But it was just this, I mean, it was a pretty racist prosecution as well. I mean, that was just a whole horrible thing. I don't know if you've seen the documentary on it. I have. Is that the current, that's the current district attorney? That is. That's the one, one in the same, Cy Vance. How long has he been in the position? He'll have been there for 12 years.

How long do you think that someone should be in a position like this? I mean, I guess it's against your better interest to say not too long if you, you know, but. Well, I think, I mean, I think it certainly takes time to see real change, but the problem is in my lifetime, there have only been two people who've held the position. Cy Vance will have been there for 12 years. His predecessor, Robert Morgenthau, was there for 36 years. And four white men have held the position in the last century. And only ever white men have held the position. So no woman has ever been Manhattan District Attorney. I will be the first. And I think that it's really important to have someone who comes from a different

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In the next few months, they're also adding more in-app purchases, including local food and supplies, paid TV, gaming, gift cards, and much more. If you'd like to learn more, head on over to electronium.com. That's E-L-E-C-T-R-O-N-E-U-M.com. Seems very un-New York-like to never have had a minority or a woman in a position like that. I mean, obviously, it's par for the course for the country. I mean, we just saw, obviously, Kamala Harris become vice president, and she knocked off like seven boxes at once for things that had never happened in the vice presidency. But people think of New York City as, as you said, I mean, it's very democratic, it's very liberal. So why haven't we seen that trickle down to, you know, to positions like the district attorney, all boys club. Yeah, it has been, it really has been. And it's been,

it's been really hard to break through. I think that, you know, it's having these, these very powerful people who have had powerful families who've, you know, come up through, I mean, Cy Van senior was secretary of state under Jimmy Carter. So he came from, you know, this came from a very powerful dad. And I think it's very interesting to see how people are talking about changing those things to electing people who have come from, you know, really being on the front lines of fighting injustice. And instead of just perpetuating this culture of like, lock them up, throw away the key when it comes to poor people and people of color, and yet protect the rich and powerful. You know, Cy Vance is also the person who didn't prosecute Harvey Weinstein for six years, despite having recorded evidence of him having committed sexual assault. He argued for leniency for Jeffrey Epstein. He didn't prosecute the Trumps for their shady real estate dealings. gave a sweetheart deal to Dr. Robert Haddon, the Columbia University doctor who sexually assaulted a number of his, well, it turns out probably hundreds of his pregnant patients, including

Andrew Yang's wife, Evelyn. And this is just someone who has just had the priorities completely wrong for our criminal legal system and has really squandered credibility and undermined the integrity and trust in that office. What were the arguments for those decisions? I mean, it's so ridiculous. It's so irrational. I mean, it seems indefensible, rationally. So how did he defend it? You know, he has made a series of statements either, oh, well, with the Jeffrey Epstein thing, somebody else made that decision. He didn't know that they were arguing for leniency, which is, you know, I think unlikely and yeah, a lot of, you know, disavowing responsibility.

So how do we keep communities safer? You know, obviously, you know, the recidivism increases, you send them to jail, it's this endless cycle of more violence, more crime. You know, these, how do we reinstill trust in the system, make communities safer? You know, is that possible? Is it already so broken? It just said, very disillusioning to hear these stories, obviously. I know, I know. I know. But I actually, listen, somebody the other day called me.

They were like, Eliza, you are a relentless optimist. And I think that that's such a good description because I don't think that optimism comes naturally. I don't think I'm like Pollyanna about anything. But I do think I wake up every day and I am filled with hope that we can make these changes, which is what enables me to just continue fighting every single day to see these changes happen, because I do think it's possible. It's totally possible. Like we can think about things like decriminalizing poverty, stop prosecute things that are crimes of poverty, you know, stop prosecuting things that are crimes of substance use disorder, make sure people have the treatment that they need, the help that they need, the resources that they need. We can end cash bail so people aren't sitting in jail based on a crime that they haven't even been convicted of. I mean, we say that you are innocent until proven guilty in this country. And that is only true if you can afford to buy

your freedom. The majority of people who are sitting in our jails right now are people who are there, not yet convicted of a crime, just accused of a crime, but they can't afford to pay their bail. And so they sit in jail and wait to fight their case. But we know that when people sit in jail, they lose their homes, jobs, children, they have worse outcomes on their cases. Sometimes they just take pleas in order to get out. And that's just, you know, it just it's terrible. And we can end cash bail. We can decriminalize, you know, we can decriminalize drug possession.

We've seen across we are seeing across the country. I mean, Election Day was a huge you know what? It was a huge win for it was a huge win for for criminal justice reform. It was a win for drugs like we're seeing ballot initiatives pass where people are so in favor of these things. They recognize that we should not just be incarcerating people for these issues. And in fact, that drug use decreases, that overdose deaths decrease, that all of these things are happening. And this is just the way of the future. And so if this doesn't happen legislatively, it can still happen if we elect DAs who are committed to not prosecuting those offenses. And so these are the things that we can do. And also we can

hold those accountable who are perpetrating real harms. And I think accountability is not just all you know the people that we talked about the landlords and bosses and and you know powerful people committing sexual assault it's also holding the police accountable and I talk a bit more about that yeah we have seen the real issues with regards to the police that have really come to the forefront this year, like been put in the spotlight. And I mean, these are things that I've been shouting about for over a decade, but really everyone is starting to recognize what a huge problem this is. And this is because they've just operated with a culture of complete impunity. They have not been held accountable and they know they will not be held accountable because of the people who sit in these district attorney offices. And so having someone who is committed to holding the police accountable and not just for the abuses we see on the street, the brutalization and harassment and assaults, but also for this culture of like false arrests and perjury that as a public defender, I saw. I mean,

police officers coming in, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? I do. And then getting on the stand or getting before a grand jury and lying under oath. And there's no accountability for that. And so the Manhattan District Attorney has been complicit in allowing these cops to continue doing what they've always done. And so the Manhattan district attorney has been complicit in allowing these cops to continue doing what they've always done. And that needs to end. So it would be the DA's office that would decide whether to prosecute or how strongly to prosecute police officers brought up on. Wow. So that, I mean, that's a huge, and even in all of the materials I did on background, I never really read about that part of it. And that maybe that's a hard thing to discuss. But that seems like an absolutely massive responsibility, because that would be a huge institutional change, but also extremely daring on the part of a DA to attempt to change that. No, you're not kidding. And I think daring is a good word because I think that there is so much fear when it comes to that because the police are so powerful

and they've operated in this way and they've shown such a massive amount of hostility to even the most minor of reforms or accountability that the idea of having a DA who is truly going to be fearless in prosecuting them and holding them accountable is something that would be a huge, huge, huge change. It's a good thing you've been on TV because this sounds like the makings of any TV show that has ever existed about cops and lawyers, like, you know, law and order in real life for any of these. But I mean, it's very brave, I think, to try to take on that system, because you know how much pushback you'll get, I'm sure threats and all kinds of all the trappings that they come with that. It's interesting, you know, my family is from New York City. On both sides, they were immigrants from Eastern Europe. And so I would always visit my great grandparents in the 80s when it was really like the height of the crack boom and, you know, East Village guys with machine guns. Like, I literally remember this stuff as kids because my parents would take us sort of to see it because

they were very liberal and they, you know, and they had grown up in New York City and they wanted to show it to us. So then you had sort of the Giuliani era, right, where he quote unquote cleaned up the city, cleaned up Times Square, got the paint off the trains. But it seems like a lot of that, what people viewed as cleanup has probably led to these abusive policies now. Is that accurate? Yeah. I mean, certainly a lot of the, quote, cleanup has really been what we think of as like broken windows policing. And that being that we have truly criminalized, you know, people for existing. That's how we came to arrest people like my client, John, who we talked about earlier, for taking up two seats on the train.

Because, oh, if someone's taking up two seats on the train, there's someone who is going to commit a robbery down the road. And that's just not true. The data has really not borne that out. It's just a complete falsehood that, oh, someone who's taking up two seats on the train or jumping a turnstile is going to go on to commit robberies or assaults or rapes or murders later down the road. It's simply not true. And in fact, what we know is that 95% of all violent crime is committed by like, you know, 5% of people. And so, you know, we should be focusing resources on addressing, you know, those serious crimes, but it shouldn't be at the expense of just locking up and millions of people over the years who are just trying to live their

lives and survive. Sounds like the movie Minority Report, where they tell in advance who's going to commit a crime and arrest you before you do it. With the precogs. Yeah, it's crazy. I love that movie. Yeah. But it's not reality. But that's what it sounds like.

If you get them now, then they won't be able to commit a worse crime later. And I think a lot of it, at least in my recollection, was also about like, we're just going to put homeless people in jail so that people don't see homeless people on the street. Like, we cleaned it up. They're not here. Right. But again, these are not people who are being locked up for any real length of time, even if we're locking them up. And so the fact that they're just being released again and again,

and it's costing people more money to do that than it would to say, focus that money on beds for people. I mean, right now, it's so difficult. They have this unit called the Alternative to Incarceration Unit. And Cy Vance did a huge press conference and press release and, oh, look at us, we created this unit that is the alternative to incarceration unit. And we're going to give people the treatment they need. But it's really just in name only because what happens is it's the rare case that you can actually get into the ATI unit. It's like you have to go through this whole process, jump through a million hoops, do

a million interviews, provide every medical record the person's ever had, all these things. And then at the end, the DA's office is like, no, this person isn't worthy of treatment. Treatment should be the default, not the anomaly. It should be like, we need to see people getting the help and treatment that they need. Because if someone is having an issue with mental health, the idea that locking them up is going to help that in any way is, I mean, it's absurd. If someone's having a substance use disorder issue or they're facing real addiction, the idea that locking them up is going to address that is just completely false. And so we're just cycling people through and not giving them the opportunity that they need when, you know, it's window dressing

and it's superficial mercy. It's not actual. We need fundamental change and we need these real programs. We need investment into communities. We need investment to treatment programs. We need enough beds that the people who are eligible for treatment can all get the treatment they need. How far up the chain does this pattern go? I mean, it starts with the DA, obviously, mayor, governor. I mean, in my lifetime, it's been all older white guys, right? Yes. Pretty much. In my lifetime, it's been all like, oh, yeah, older, older white guys, right? Yeah, I mean, is this like, where does de Blasio fall into this sort of like system of protecting, you know, the wealthy and, and somewhat abusing the poor population? Oh, I mean, he is certainly a major player in it.

And he's been completely complicit. He's failed to hold his NYPD accountable. He's, you know, really failed the people experiencing homelessness in this city. He's, I mean, it's, he's been a real huge player in this. And so, you know, on the ballot in 2021 as well, will be a new mayor. I mean, he, I mean, his incompetence with COVID, I think, was glaringly on display for the entire world to see. It's funny, my friend who was on road rules in the 1990s, his sister's husband, so his brother-in-law, is running for mayor, Zach Eskoll. Oh, that's so exciting. Yeah. The same, just really a small, small circle there, but the same person, his brother is running for mayor, his brother-in-law, for many of the same reasons. So I've already kind of heard the pitch and I've heard the story, which is, you know, it's just very interesting.

It's just hard to imagine that that's New York City when it's supposed to be so, you know, protective of these populations. I know. It's hard to believe a lot of people think that New York, oh, New York, it's liberal and blue city and a blue state and everything must be fine. And it's not. It's really not when you look closely. And in the crypto community in New York, you can argue that the United States is the most difficult country to be a crypto advocate in. And by far, whittle that down to New York being the most difficult state with the most regulation and really in the way of progress in this space. Yeah. And I think that having somebody like me in the race who embraces the crypto community and I'm running for such an important position, I think bodes really well for the community at large and the future of politics and cryptocurrency.

I hope so. I'm hoping I saw that Biden tapped, I believe, Gary Gensler's name, but who teaches basically cryptocurrency and blockchain at MIT to be this sort of Wall Street overlord for his office. So that was really, really encouraging if something like that happens, because obviously the present administration, for however much longer that is, you know, pretty much came out and said, we don't like Bitcoin, right? Right, right. I think that, you know, it's so interesting to talk to people about cryptocurrency because it's not something I necessarily knew very much about. And this, you know, all the, all the people who kind of are, have certain views of it are, are the same people who probably had those views of the internet back in, you know, the, in the early nineties, they were like, oh, the internet, it's terrible.

It's used for child porn and this and that. Like, they don't get it. And it's like, it's just like such a failure of imagination to see what a future could look like that really is a bridge that engages different parts of society and makes people feel included. I agree. She touched on drugs, obviously, which is like sort of the elephant in the room, I would say, for probably every district attorney everywhere and every politician. And we are seeing this sort of wave of legalization, even now, like, you know, mushrooms, like a syllabus in Oregon and things. It's getting beyond just medical marijuana and it's happening fast. So obviously, legalization leads to less crime related to it because it's just no longer illegal. What always blew my mind is like, even if you're against all the social reasons to legalize it, just no longer illegal. What always blew my mind is like, even

if you're against all the social reasons to legalize it, why don't governments legalize it just so they can collect taxes and make money? Exactly. Exactly. But I also think that, you know, the war on drugs has been so unsuccessful because what it really has come down to has been, it's not a war on drugs, it's a war on people. And it's been predominantly a war on black and brown people. And we have just seen how ineffective it's been. And, you know, shifting the focus to public health, and thinking about what it would mean to really decriminalize all drugs the way that Oregon is going to do and like, that we've seen happen abroad in places like Portugal. And the way in which that changes the entire society and really just makes life better for everyone is so amazing. And I'm really hopeful that people will say, okay, this not only focuses

on public health and helping people, but it also removes one of the most common justifications for law enforcement to harass, arrest, prosecute, incarcerate, and deport people. It'll just be really revolutionary change across the board. And it's so encouraging to see people really coming around to that. I've also represented clients who've had PTSD and who've gone through all the traditional channels of treatment, whether it be over-the-counter medications or prescription medications or therapy. And I've seen how ineffective it is. And so the idea that now we are using certain drugs to treat PTSD, and the results have been incredible, is really also very heartening. Yeah, guess what? Smoking weed really works for some people. I don't see why that would be an issue. I'm obviously for decriminalizing, legalizing drugs in general. And I wonder,

if we saw that wave across the country, how much that would affect these, you know, police reforms that we need to see, if it would demilitarize the police, if it would, you know, eliminate these, just their targeting of minorities. I think that some of that's just sort of deeply ingrained. But to me, drugs is the single thing that would potentially change it the most. Yeah, no, I mean, I completely agree. But I also think there's, it's, it should go even farther. I mean, if we think about like, also decriminalizing sex work, for example, you know, the way in which we've criminalized sex work has been something that has really just punished human beings for existing. And has, you know,

sex work is work, first of all. And then there are people who are being targeted. I mean, in New York, we have a law that's called loitering for the purpose of prostitution. And it has commonly been referred to as the walking while trans ban, because trans women of color are traditionally prosecuted by this. This is like the new stop and frisk. I mean, literally, they can't even walk out of their home. They can't walk down the street without being arrested for loitering for the purpose of prostitution. Because they look like prostitutes?

Is that the justification? I mean, because there's no evidence. Yeah, the vice squad just stops them, harasses them, you know, is awful. And then uses things like, you know, searches them. And because they had condoms in their purse, oh, well, that's going things like, you know, searches them. And because they had condoms in their purse, oh, well, that's going to be now used as evidence against you. I mean, it is, it's, it's just sickening. And so, you know, there are bill, there's a bill right now

that's pending and hopefully will happen soon to repeal that law. But I mean, the fact that anyone's been prosecuted for that is just, I mean, it's abhorrent. When I was in high school, I grew up in Florida and we had this thing called ledge where high school students from all over the state would go up to Tallahassee and you would legislate on bills. You would basically pretend to be Congress. And my bill when I was a senior was to legalize prostitution. When I was a senior in high school, my parents thought I was nuts. Everybody thought I was insane. You were just way ahead of your time, isn't it? You were. I walked out in front of the entire Florida Congress and all these kids, very Republican,

and I proposed a bill that I had spent months on on legalizing prostitution. I love it. I love it. And my biggest paper in college was about legalizing marijuana. And my father actually used to lecture at the University of Florida on legalizing marijuana and the benefits. Yeah. I mean, I'm squarely in your camp is what I guess it would be. It would be fair to say here, but it's really just, I mean, it's so crazy.

So we've talked about quite a few things, obviously, that you would change. Are there any other glaring changes that you would make, things that you want to focus on? Well, so I think that because of the way the system has always operated, there is so much that we need to right the wrongs of. So, you know, I think that it's so important to talk about creating a case review unit that not only addresses all of the wrongful convictions that have happened in the past, but also reviews some of the sentences that people are facing. We no longer have the death penalty here in New York, but we've sentenced people to death by incarceration. And recidivism rates for people over a certain age are virtually zero. And we could release

our aging prison population. And these are people who have already been held accountable. They've served their time. But we need to, I think, really address not only wrongful convictions, but also these really excessive sentences and the convictions because of the way in which the DA's office has gotten some of these convictions. So I think that that's also incredibly important. What is the process now for evaluating the potential for a wrongful conviction? Because obviously there's thousands of people sitting in jail who are innocent. Absolutely, there are. And right now the process is, well, it's incredibly opaque the way in which they operate. They don't really release the data

as to those cases. And they've exonerated virtually no one since Vance has been in office. And I think there are so many people, even at the most conservative estimates, data scientists say that approximately most conservative conservative 5% of people are innocent, who've been convicted, who are sitting in prisons. And so that is hundreds of thousands of people. And that's, I mean, it's just wild. I mean, there are people who are sitting there with life without parole sentences. You know, there are people who have de facto life sentences, who have all these criminal charges. We have people who were sentenced as teenagers, as children, who are spending the rest of their lives in jail or prison because of something they did in their youth. I mean, the way in which we've prosecuted children as adults is awful. I mean, I think we know that children's brains continue to develop until they're about 25 years old and research supports their enhanced capacity for growth and

rehabilitation. And yet in New York, up until very recently, we were like one of the last states to prosecute 16-year-olds, 15-year-olds as adults in criminal court and given punishments to them that preclude the opportunity for redemption. It was almost unfair to call me an adult at 25, my maturity level. But you think back, all of us did so many stupid things as kids, even if they were harmless, jumping this fence and running, you know, like just in any of those things, if we were in the wrong, if we were, I guess of the wrong color or in the wrong city could have chased us the rest of our lives.

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I mean, I have so many friends who made mistakes when they were young, but we're given the benefit of the doubt because of their, you know, who their parents were, the color of their skin or the neighborhood that they were in or the way in which their family handled it. You know, the cops weren't over policing their neighborhoods. And so they were able to address it within their school or within their family. And meanwhile, you know, in black and brown communities, cops are in school every day. So school disciplinary issues that should be addressed within the school are instead addressed by the police and people are arrested. Yeah, it makes no sense. I went, when I went to the university of Pennsylvania,

we always used to joke that because UPenn had its own police force that was part of the Philadelphia police department and their sole job was to protect the students from the community, you know, for better or for worse. But I mean, that was it was very clear that like a student would get away with anything. But anyone who walked on campus that wasn't a student better watch out, basically. And this is in the late 90s in West Philadelphia. So, yeah, I guess it's par for the course. So how do people contribute, support you? Where do we find you and track your race? Yeah, well, you know, we're ramping up as to the fact that now,

thank God the presidential election is over. So we are now like, aside from Georgia, the next most important race in the country. And so my website is ElizaOrlins.com, E-L-I-Z-A-O-R-L-I-N-S.com. And I'm Eliza Orlins on Twitter, E-Orlins on Instagram. And you can go to blockchain.elizaorlins.com to contribute in crypto. There you go. I'm going to do that. Just I want to know, was it better being on Survivor or The Amazing Race? And which one did you like better? They are both miserable in different ways. I wouldn't call either of them like fun in the classic sense of the word. I think, you know, Survivor is like sustained misery where like, you know, the minute Jeff Probst says, all right,

ready, go, you're just on. And 24 hours a day, the cameras are on you. You're just suffering. You're constantly paranoid. Oh, are those people over there talking? Are those people over there talking? How are we going to eat today? It's just a constant, but it's maybe like operating here. An Amazing Race, it's like, okay, this leg starts, ready, go. And it's like misery, misery, misery. And then it's like, you get on a flight and they turn off the cameras and you're like, okay, I'm on a 12-hour flight to Tokyo. Like, what now? And everyone's like, I don't know, go to sleep. And I'm like, go to sleep, but we're in the middle of the amazing race. And they're like, yeah, but nothing's going to happen. We have 12 hours on an airplane, like go to sleep and go ask the flight attendant if you can have

extra food. And I was like, ah, this is so weird. You're just like off. So it's like the back and forth is like a, it's like very miserable and then like pause and then very miserable. And it's kind of like more of an up and down. Has like the notoriety from those shows helped more in your career? Cause you touched on at the beginning, you were like, ah, never going to run for office. I guess everybody's seen me. And the other question I always love to ask people who are on reality TV, I think I asked Chris Bukowski who introduced us. Did they portray the real you on TV or is it like a caricature? You know, I mean, reality TV editing is reality TV editing for a reason. I mean, they need to be able to tell a story. They want people to be engaged. So they certainly do take bits and pieces to make you into a character. But ultimately, those were the things that you said and the things that you did. And they have hundreds of hours of

footage for every, what, 42-minute episode. So it's only going to be a portion of the actual events. But I think that being on reality TV, listen, it enabled me to have a national platform, which I've always used to advocate against injustice and speak out for the things that matter. And so I think people who followed me for the reality TV stayed for the rage against injustice. But it also prepared me for a lot of the internet hate that I... You're good at trolls. Exactly. I've been getting trolled on the internet for over a decade and a half. So I am well accustomed to the threats in my DMs. Every day of my life. I read my DMs on Twitter as a joke, like on video, like once a week, just to show people how kind of insane it is. And I'm sure yours are even worse if you've

been doing it for that long. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. I really appreciate it. I respect that you're fighting the good fight and that you're willing to take on these systems because I know it's not easy. Well, thanks for having me. And thanks for talking about these things because it really matters. This is how we're going to make this change. Awesome. Thank you again.

And we'll catch up with you next June. Yes, definitely. Hopefully when you have a different title. Exactly.