Tony Mantor: Why Not Me ? - Judge David Fleisher: When Judges Choose Compassion Over Punishment?

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Send us a text Judge David Fleischer, who presides over Harris County Criminal Court in Houston, Texas, shares his groundbreaking approaches to criminal justice reform with a focus on mental health and autism awareness. • Reforming the bail system to prevent wealth-based discrimination in courts • Dropping conviction rates from 60% to 25% through bail reform implementation • Creating court environments where defendants with mental health issues receive compassion and understanding • Livestreaming court proceedings to increase transparency and public education • Showing patience when working with defendants who have autism or mental health challenges • Treating every defendant as a whole person deserving of both accountability and support • Balancing public safety concerns with the need for rehabilitation and intervention • Understanding how untreated mental health issues often lead to criminal behavior • Providing resources to help defendants address underlying issues rather than just punishing them • Demonstrating how transparency in courtrooms creates positive ripple effects throughout communities Tell everyone everywhere about Why Not Me? The World, the conversations we're having and the inspiration our guests give to everyone everywhere that you are not alone in this world.   https://tonymantor.com https://Facebook.com/tonymantor https://instagram.com/tonymantor https://twitter.com/tonymantor https://youtube.com/tonymantormusic intro/outro music bed written by T. Wild Why Not Me the World music published by Mantor Music (BMI) The content on Why Not Me: Embracing Autism amd Mental Health Worldwide, including discussions on mental health, autism, and related topics, is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not reflect those of the podcast, its hosts, or affiliates.Why Not Me is not a medical or mental health professional and does not endorse or verify the accuracy, efficacy, safety of any treatments, programs, or advice discussed.Listeners should consult qualified healthcare professionals, such as licensed therapists, psychologists, or physicians, before making decisions about mental health or autism- related care.Reliance on this podcast's contents is at the listener's own risk. Why Not Me is not liable for any outcomes, financial or otherwise, resulting from actions taken based on the information provided. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Why Not Me The World Podcast, hosted by Tony Mayator. Broadcasting from Music City, USA, Nashville, Tennessee. Join us as our guests tell us their stories. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry. Real life people who will inspire and show that you are not alone in this world. hopefully you gain more awareness, acceptance, and a better understanding for autism around the world. Hi, I'm Tony Mantor. Welcome to Why Not Me the World, Humanity Over Handcuffs, the Silent Crisis Special Event. Joining us today is the Honorable Judge David Fleischer, who currently presides over Harris County Criminal Court No. 5 in Houston, Texas.

His focus is on reforming the court and ensuring all defenders receive fair. and equal treatment. We are honored to have him join us today. Thanks for coming on. And can you tell us a little bit about what you do? I'm happy to be here. You know, anytime we can spread awareness, I think it's a great thing. The business that I'm in, it goes hand in hand with mental health. The struggles to get a grip of mental health, because I think it really, a lot of behavior can potentially and unfortunately turn criminal if mental health goes unchecked. And I don't know how many people realize that. I think it's very difficult to realize, you know, hey, I'm bipolar. I would imagine that a lot of people don't see it. They don't recognize it. And it takes

something catastrophic for them to finally realize, hey, I might really need to talk to someone. I might really need medication. And sometimes it's too late. What we do here is we really, and what I'm doing is really trying to get to the heart of the issue to figure out what's going on with everyone. and to help them. And, you know, we want everybody to leave better than they came. So as a judge, you have two different points of view. Of course, you've got the prosecutor that's trying to get his point across. Then you have the defense attorney that's trying to get his point of view across. One tries to paint it as the worst thing in the world. The other tries to paint a picture that it's not as bad as it looks. So being the judge, you have to commit at some

point to making a decision, what goes into your process after everything is said and done to making that decision so that it can be hopefully good for everyone? Common sense, right? Yeah, that sounds good. Let me get a couple things, bring a couple things to the forefront here that I think it's important that not a lot of people realize. Okay. Number one, I'm a judge of one of the misdemeanor courts here in Harris County, which is Houston. In our court, we only deal with misdemeanors class A and class B where they're punishable by up to six months in jail and or a year in jail. I have 16 of my brethren. So there's 16 of us here in Harris County. You have to realize that Houston is a humongous city from one part to the other. It takes three

hours, right? It's absolutely just enormous. So there's a lot of people here, what, three million, four million people. So there's a lot of things going on at all times. One of the biggest things things that we do is probable cause. So initially, someone gets arrested. They have their first court date. That's when we, a lot of times, will do probable cause where we determine if there's enough to go forward. We as judges, we call balls and strikes. To be fair, you don't lean to one side. You don't lean to the other side. We are given a set of circumstances. We look at what the law is, and we go forward from there. In our experience here, we've had great ADA. they're not out for blood.

It's not like that. Now, sometimes it may seem like that, but understand they're advocating their position and reasonable minds can differ. You know, how a defense lawyer may see something, it may necessarily as someone else see something. And so that's why we kind of like horse blinders, take a middle of the road approach,

the common sense result, and look whether there's probable cause to go forward or not. Sometimes there is, sometimes there's not. But one of the most important factors that play here that I don't know if you guys know about it, but we, along with our brethren here in 2018, really changed the landscape of criminal justice because of bail reform. I don't know if you're familiar with bail reform, but what that is is that back in the old days and how it's been since the beginning of time, if you got arrested, you went to jail. And the only way you got out of jail is if you bonded out. Not everybody has that kind of money. So in 16, a lady filed a lawsuit.

A federal lawsuit says, hey, man, it's not fair what's going on. So what happened was a lady gets arrested for a suspended license case. She ends up going to jail. Her bond gets set, if I remember correctly, $2,500, which is you would pay 10% traditionally, which is $250, you get out and you go fight the case. Not everybody has that kind of money. So what they would do is they would sit in jail. They would plead guilty, and they would sit there.

just to get out, they would plead guilty. Whether you know you're innocent or not, even if you can't make that, they charge you with an assault or a DWI or whatever may be. Who's going to sit there in their right mind for four months waiting for evidence to come in? No one's going to do that. It's easier to plead guilty and get out. Who cares about the consequences? Yeah, that's a tough situation.

So how did you get that changed? So when we got elected, me and my brother in 18, you know, the judges before us fought bail reform. I don't know why. Maybe it's the fact that, you know, you're used to a system in place. You know, and people fear change. But I don't know. But when we came in, we said, hey, we agree with bail reform. Bail reform is good from a misdemeanor standpoint. I don't know about felonies, but misdemeanor, because the idea is when you're in jail, it affects this. It affects this. I don't know if you've ever been to jail. And I don't want you to say yes or no. But it is such an awful place. It can play with your mind. It can play with your psyche. It can make you develop anxiety, mental health problems, and you lose your house, your apartment, cars.

Now, what we've done is we've completely, like, just turned around a system that's been in place for 150 years on its head. Now, when you get arrested for nonviolent offenses, and of course, there's exceptions to the rule, but by and large, a lot of people are given a personal recognizance bond, a PR bond, to get out to fight the case. The idea is, is that it shouldn't be a wealth-based criminal justice system, how it's been. What you have now are people being able to be on the outside, fighting their case, so they don't have to plead guilty to get out. The conviction rate has dropped from a 60%—I mean, to mind this, a 60% conviction rate in 2016 now to around a 25, 23 to 25% conviction rate. That's staggering. Yes, that's pretty amazing. It helps people in everyday life from not losing their jobs, their mental health, keeping families, rise possessions.

And so now we see a lot of people coming back with other issues at play. And so what we do now is we try to get down to, okay, you're here. Why? How do we help you so you don't come back? Because we want to close the revolving door of criminal justice. So you don't just keep coming back because I can't tell you the amount of people. that come with 20, 30 convictions and they would prefer to live on the street than me finding you housing. It's really staggering. So that's now the mission. You know, we've done a 180 with with regard

to bail reform. Now that we've instituted this program, what's next? Next on the list is mental health, getting down to how we help every single person that comes to the criminal justice system. And that's where we are now, I think. It's difficult because one more point is what makes it so difficult is, I want to help you, but you don't want to help me helping you. How do we go forward? So true. There's definitely a staggering amount of people that get caught up in the legal system. One of the things that I hear very consistently is that if you haven't been in a court, you just don't realize how overwhelming it can be. Truly.

That comes from people that, quote, live the normal life. Now you add autism or any other mental health. situation that can affect how they act or react, it can turn something that's just stressful into something that's insurmountable. So how do we help those people that really need the help? You know, I think one of the major other issues that we have is we were really limited with the resources that we have as well to be able to help. Many times it's addiction issues. Many times it's just not getting the proper medication. And when you do that, it really, really helps. My philosophy is, you know, I have four kids at home, right? And then I have another

2000 at work. Every person that comes through, I treat like they're my own child. You know, if you do well, you know, we hug you. We congratulate you. Hey, great job because positive reinforcement has really such a, it's so great. Hey, you mess up. You're going to get it as well. We give everybody the expectation of, hey, you know, this is what the expectation is when you come here. If you need help, we will give you help. All you have to do is ask. But unfortunately, the problem is sometimes they just won't accept it, no matter how much. And I don't know how to go forward. You've got, let's say you have an autistic person that comes in front of you. They're wired differently in the way they think, the way they process things. Some will come across

that they don't have any empathy about things that they've done when they really do. It's just that they don't understand because to them, if you cut your finger, what's the problem? You cut your finger. You know, so how do you, how do we help people like that that don't understand the system? They can't really afford, you know, they're going to have to go with a public defender, you know, which, which I'm not saying anything bad about public defenders, but, but they just sometimes don't have the time to learn about the, the, the, the, affliction that that that person they're defending might have. And then they've got the ADA that's trying to prosecute. How do we go about helping those people so that we can get more

empathy towards the person that's really not violent, but they just need help? I will tell you, I've had quite a number of autistic, in my opinion. I never know because when I'm facing someone in front of me, I don't have information that they may be autistic. At times you can tell. You know when you're talking to someone. When I have someone that I think is either special needs, needs a little bit more care, what I do is I shower them with even more love. I swear to you, I take more time, show a lot more compassion to get them to try to trust me. Because that's what I want. I want you to open up to me. I want to see what makes you tick. I want to be able to look into you to see how I can help you, whether it's get you into a sober living facility. You know, we have a mental health

docket here that we help a lot of people with as well, and whether it's getting them into a mental health docket. But what's really sad is that if you look around courts around the country, a lot of people don't see it because you don't get to really see the inner workings of how a court works and that's why we do what we do. Complete and utter transparency so that you get to see what goes on because I think it's imperative for the public to get access to see how courts work, how we do what we do and why we do we do so that you get a better understanding of what we do, how difficult it may be at sometimes and how you may be able to help us as well. When we get autistic, when we get persons with either mental health issues, we shower them with love,

We shower them with help so that they can open up and accept what we're trying to give. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Yeah, that's all you can do. Now, as a judge, you're always trying to show that you're impartial. Sure. Now, how do you get it across to the ADA and, of course, the defense, that you're showing compassion because they may be autistic or have some other issues, yet you're being fair with the judgment that you give? So when I get someone in front of me, we look at what the initial charge is.

Sometimes it may be a criminal trespass. Sometimes it may be a criminal mischief. Sometimes it may be a DWI, an assault. A lot of times I can tell the person by how they're acting in court, what happened with the case, and what kind of bond conditions to put on them. That's how we help. By really looking at the person who they are, crafting conditions that, specifically help them. And so what we're doing is not only am I helping the defense,

but I'm also helping the DAs as well so that they know we are number one protecting the public, making sure that we put enough conditions if they need conditions so that they won't commit new offenses. Because what we don't want is we don't want you to, while you're on bond, to pick up another case. We don't want you to endanger our public. So I'm not necessarily being fair to one side or to the other side. What I'm doing is I'm trying to harmoniously protect the public and also help everybody that's coming through. You're the third judge that I've spoken to. The others have the same philosophy as you. They want to get them through the system.

They don't want to see them come back again. Because if they get them help from the outside, then chances are they won't come back. I'm sure there are many other judges around the country that feel exactly the same way you do. Unfortunately, for every one that wants change, there are many out there that want to keep the system status quo. How do we get them to change their outlook so ultimately we can get the legal system? It's the person. It's the person, you know. I mean, there's a couple things at play, I think. one is is what happens to a person who sees too much or course of many, many years. Perhaps they become jaded.

They become desensitized, right? That's what happens when you watch all on the TV, the murder, violence, you get it. You become desensitized. It can happen with judges as well. And that's why you need either, you know, term limits or that's why you have elections, right? It's the will of the people. Unfortunately, the problem is that most people, you know, statistically just don't vote. At the end of the day, the way that you really keep a judge in check is through the election process,

because it's the will of the people that should command the vote, right? It's there, and they're the ones who should be the driving force as to whether a judge is in place or a judge is not in place. If a judge, like you said, has too much meanness, so to speak, it needs to come out, right? How do you do that? That's a great question. I don't know. Now, there's an oversight committee on judges, correct? Of course.

Is there any way that the oversight committee, the judges, the other people that might be involved, could sit in a room and talk it all out? You know, theoretically what would happen is someone would have to file a complaint. Okay. Right. And that's, you know, just like anything in life. You know, when you have people who are upset either at a lawyer, at a judge, at something, there's always a bar, a state bar that can either, you know, you file a complaint. plane. That's one way, so to speak, right? But I think ultimately at the end of the day, an election is just that. Here, we recently had an election a couple months ago, and a lot of the judges that were here are not here anymore. It was the driving force of the will of the people. So I think

that's one of the things that keeps judges in check. But that's a very big problem where, you know, a lot of judges become desensitized and they either take it for granted. They don't see the human or the person that's in front of you because you can really change someone's life because judges really have so much power. Yeah, that's so true. Now, when it comes to elections, does it get to the point where they just get put in? If you have enough name recognition, if I was Elvis and I ran for something, you know, but by and large, it's usually not like that. There's very, very few, especially on the, on a judiciary where they become such a name recognition that it's futile to run against them. Most of those are either in Senate or in Congress, not in local judges.

Yeah, that makes sense. Let's say you're running for a judgeship. You put it out there that you're trying to help people. You're not the hanging judge like they see on TV. So many people, if they don't know autism or special needs or mental health, they'll see something, not understand it, and say, put them in jail and throw away the key, which is not the right thing to do. They have to understand that in the real world of the legal system, it's not like the movies or TV. How do you get that across to them? So hopefully, they

understand more about what you do. It happens all the time. It really does. And the only way is through education and to somehow get it out there that, hey, this is what's going on. This is the reality of the situation. But far, far too many times, you know, a lot of judges get a bad rap, you know, when it's certainly, it's just not true. And it's very, very difficult. And a lot of judges get it because of it. It happens all the time. We have certain things we can say. We have certain things we can't say. I can't come back and say something. We're not allowed to, you know. So there's certain things we can, we can't, and we just have to basically take. Yeah, that's tough, especially where people don't really understand how the legal system actually works.

How do we educate them and get them at least headed in the right direction so they can see how the judicial system works and then follow it and hopefully get a better attitude for it moving forward? That's exactly what we're doing now. My I livestream is exactly what we're doing now. you get a perspective of exactly what's going on. It's complete transparency. You are looking what happens every single day in our court.

You get to see the good. You get to see the bad. It is such an educational tool because all too often we get so many people that are just misunderstood. And that's when we step in and just try to help. Yeah. I'm so glad that you brought up live streaming. that brings up a couple of questions. When did you start it? Why did you start it? And how has it changed the perception either positive or negative in what you're doing with it? If you remember back in

times of COVID, there were no courts. There were no basic open courts because everybody was homebound. Believe it or not, criminality never ended. People continued to get arrested. Things continue to happen. So courts have to stay open. They have to continue. We were closed. How do you get? Because it's still an open forum. Courts have to stay open. They have to be an open forum so that anybody has access to it that wants to have access to it. So what we did was we began live streaming. What I did was, and what we all did, what we were required to do was to use Zoom as an avenue to be able to communicate with the lawyers. And we would live stream the Zoom proceedings so that the entire world could see. You can go to our court now, go to my web page, click on the live

stream, and you can watch. And I've been doing it since we were required to back in 2020. Now, four years later, I continue to do it. It kind of somehow just someone started watching and it just kind of ballooned out of there. The great thing about it is, is that it provides number one transparency. Number two, it's a great educational tool like I've been saying. However, the bad part is not everybody likes to be on it, right? So they take issue with being thrust into it. And it's the court process. I'm sorry, when you get in trouble, this is what happens. There's consequence to behavior. You have to learn it. Nowadays, anonymity is just gone, right? In every aspect of life, I would hope that it would possibly be a great deterrent as well,

especially for those who you're professional and you're out there, think before you act, think before you speak. There is a humongous consequence now. What kind of results have you seen come from this? You started it because you had to. Now you're keeping it going. And of course there are people out there that love it and there are people out there that hate it. Sure. How have you seen a change or have you seen it change the dynamic within your courtroom since you started doing this? It doesn't change the dynamic in the courtroom. What I've found, and I'll tell you that, I get a lot of comments and people that reach out to me that say, hey, thank you for doing what

you're doing. Because of you, I have reached out to a long lost brother. We've had people that have told us that they've stopped harming themselves. They've checked into rehab because they see how other people go through things. They empathize with them. They see what good can come from it. And so they, in turn, do the same thing. I promise you, I can't tell you how many people have.

reached out to us in such a positive way that it has impacted them seeking mental health treatment, prevention from suicide, really seeking drug treatment. I mean, I can give you letter after letter, email after email. But of course, there's always a negative as well, right, to people who don't like it. And there's like, there's going to be that with every aspect of life. I think it's just great because I never thought of it from that angle that showing this that other people could use it is a tool to show their son or daughter or relative that, hey, look, this is what this person's going through. You're doing the same thing, and you can't use your ADHD or whatever as an excuse. I've had teachers that have reached out to us that they show it to their classroom.

And so I've had other teachers that say, hey, can you come and speak to our class? So it's from that aspect that I think that it's really just a great resource and an educational tool, because now our young children and our young adults, they don't think before acting, God knows that. I was 17 and 18 too, right? But when you see what happens and when you see the consequence, right? Well, this has been great. So, of course, now, this podcast is about autism and mental health and all that. What would you like to say regarding your courtroom and the mental health and autism that you think that people listening to would benefit from hearing.

One of the biggest problems in life, and I think that this can really play in everything, is patience. If people had more patience in every aspect of life, we would just be a better, overall, better world. Patients, whether you are being a judge, you're judging, whether you are a district attorney, whether you're on probation and dealing with someone, whether you are talking to someone who has autism and mental health issue and you're trying to get through to them and you're not getting through and you become so agitated that everybody explodes. Just patience has such a virtue. It's a very

difficult trait to have, to practice. And if everybody did and just took a second to reflect, I really think it would help in every aspect of life, especially when we're talking about mental health. It's not hard. I mean, I'm sorry, it's very difficult dealing with participating in speaking to someone who may have mental health issues or autism. It's not easy. And if you don't have patience, it's even going to be more difficult. Not only are you going to be frustrated, but the other person is going to be double frustrated because think about them. They're trying to get to you, and they have an issue trying to express themselves. Autism is a very tricky thing, but if you have patience and you show compassion and love toward that person, once they start to trust you, they'll

open up and hopefully you will learn how to deal with the autism and how to best communicate and perhaps help them. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's great. Many people have forgotten the definition of the word patience. This is one analogy that I give quite a bit. I was pulled over quite a while ago and I had an officer come up to me extremely arrogant just, hey man, why did you do that? Why did you run that stop sign? I knew I stopped. Okay, maybe I stopped for a second. I didn't stop for three seconds. So I looked at the officer. I said, you know, I'm sorry, man. I'm an idiot. I just truly, I'm sorry, and I'll do better next time. He let me go. If I would have been aggressive to him, what would have happened? If you practice that in everyday life with mental health,

with autism, when they're trying to combat it to you and you really shower them with love and empathy, I mean, this guy's a limit. So that's what we do in our court. And actually, in all of our courts here, right? Not just me, our entire brother. And I think that hopefully we'll make a change, because that's what we try to do, you know, just try to make everyone better when they leave. Yeah, that's a great model. And hopefully many people around the country catch on to that. I don't know. You know, it's one person at a time, one step at a time. And, you know, I'm not going to be here for long. But I hope that we can touch as many lives as you have with your podcast. I mean, you've done it in hundreds of thousands. Me, I'm just one at a time. But, you know, that's all it takes.

That's right, one at a time. You know, when you prevent that one person from committing a criminal act, you're winning. Well, I really appreciate you coming on. This has been great information. Thank you for having me. I'm always willing to help if you ever want to chat. I'm around. Anytime I can help, if you ever want, just I'm happy to join you, you know?

That's fantastic. I really appreciate it. Thanks again. Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to listen to our show today. We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you. If you know anyone that would like to tell us their story, send them to tonymentor.com, contact, then they can give us their information so one day they may be a guest on our show. One more thing we ask, tell everyone, everywhere, about why not me, the world,

the conversations we're having, and the inspiration our guests give to everyone, everywhere, that you are not alone in this world.