Unheard: True Crime in Their Own Words - When Prosecutors Break the Rules: Who Holds Them Accountable? | Iris Eytan

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

Who holds the prosecutor accountable?Prosecutors are some of the most powerful people in our criminal justice system. They decide what charges to bring, what plea deals to offer and what evidence to put before a jury. But what happens when a prosecutor breaks the rules — or when the pursuit of a conviction comes at the expense of a defendant's constitutional rights?On this episode of UNHEARD, I sit down with Iris Eytan, a former Deputy State Public Defender and criminal defense attorney who spent nearly 30 years inside the criminal justice system.Iris has represented thousands of defendants and was part of Barry Morphew's defense team in a murder prosecution that became a national story and raised serious questions about prosecutorial conduct.Today, Iris is the Founder and CEO of Protect Ethical Prosecutors (PEP), a nonpartisan watchdog organization advocating for ethical prosecution and accountability when prosecutors engage in misconduct.We get into just how much power prosecutors actually have, why holding them accountable can be so difficult, prosecutorial immunity, wrongful convictions, the Morphew case, and what Iris believes needs to change.This isn't a conversation about being anti-prosecutor. It's a conversation about what accountability should look like when the people entrusted with enforcing the law are accused of breaking the rules themselves.🎙️ UNHEARD: True Crime in Their Own WordsGuest: Iris EytanABOUT PROTECT ETHICAL PROSECUTORS:PEP is working to document prosecutorial misconduct and advocate for greater accountability within the criminal justice system.Learn more, support their work, or find their social channels at:protectethicalprosecutors.orgSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When we talk about the criminal justice system, we spend a lot of time talking about defendants, judges, juries, and police, but we don't spend nearly enough time talking about the enormous amount of power prosecutors have. They decide what charges to bring, what plea deals to offer, and in many cases, whether someone's life is about to change forever. So what happens when that power is abused, and who holds a prosecutor accountable when it is? Well, my guest today has spent nearly 30 years seeing that system from the inside. Iris Eden is a former deputy state public defender and longtime criminal defense attorney who is represented thousands of defendants, including Barry Morfew. His murder case drew national attention and ultimately raised serious questions about the conduct of the prosecution. Iris eventually stepped away from practicing law and founded Protect Ethical Prosecutors, an organization focused on prosecutorial

accountability. Today we're talking about how much power prosecutors really have, what happens when that power goes unchecked, and why holding the people entrusted with the forcing the law accountable can be so incredibly difficult. Iris, welcome to unheard. Iris, thank you so much for joining us today. if you want to tell the audience a little about who you are, kind of what you do, and then we'll just jump into things. Sure. So my name is Iris Eton. I'm currently the CEO and founder of a nonprofit called Protect Ethical Prosecutors. I've been a criminal defense lawyer and civil rights lawyer for 30 years. And as a result of my experiences in the civil rights and criminal defense arenas, I quit the practice of law in order to hold prosecutors accountable and really educate the public and reform the system. So I think that's a great, an amazing thing that you're doing because obviously we've all,

if they're listening to this show, we've all seen stories where we kind of question attorneys, prosecutors, what they've done, what they haven't done. What kind of things, you know, have you seen or what kind of actions do you take to make sure that prosecutors remain ethical? you know, how do you hold them accountable when they're not? And right now I'm kind of, I don't want not to go into a political thing with this because I'm not trying to. But on my mind, I'm thinking about Ken Paxton right now in Texas who just let his friend who was abusing a boy for years get away with basically a third or I think 90 day sentence once all was said and done. Like to me that doesn't seem ethical.

I mean, you're asking it's, how do I hold prosecutors accountable? So let me start with this. prosecutors are not held accountable. And that's one of the major problems in the criminal legal system right now, is that they're the only court actor, the only lawyer in the United States, and the only professional that cannot be held accountable. Prosecutors have what people know as, well, they don't know it, but it's called absolute immunity.

Now you're hearing more and more about immunity in, I think, in the news and the media, but I can explain it as this. They're the only professional that cannot be sued when they commit misconduct, when they hide evidence, when they drag on a case and cause harmed victims because maybe the case gets dismissed as a result of their misconduct. and then the victims are left with a case that they're never going to get justice on. And also when they send innocent people to prison for decades, and it's found out that they've actually hid evidence of their innocence, they can't be held responsible or accountable. They never, they don't get, they get their hands slapped. But it's pretty, the research is fairly on point that of the,

massive amounts of exonerations, which are people who are convicted wrongly and then later found out to be innocent, of the prosecutors that have committed and caused those exonerations, less than 2% of them have been held accountable in any way, meaning that maybe they lost their job, maybe they lost their bar license, but it's such a scant amount of prosecutors, and they're really above the law. They have a lot of power, and they don't have any responsibility for the laws that they break. So how do we change that? Well, that's a good question. So 50 years ago to this year, exactly, the United States Supreme Court had a case before it. And it was a case called Imbler v. Pactman. And so you probably know this,

but that means that there was a person by the name of Imbler and his name was Paul Imbler, and he sued a guy named Pactman, who was a district attorney in Los Angeles 50 years ago. Paul Imbler was sent to prison and on death row for a period of 14 years for a murder that he didn't commit. DA Pactman hid evidence of his innocence and he was eventually exonerated and released from prison. He sued the DA for the damage. that was caused. You couldn't see his kids all this time, right? He was on death row. He lost his family. He lost his job. He lost everything. And he sued the prosecutor. Never was there a law that said you

couldn't sue a prosecutor. But the United States Supreme Court, they do what they sometimes do. They created a law. And they said, you know what? We see that, you know, prosecutors maybe intentionally and knowingly hid this evidence. It's pretty clear that this guy shouldn't have been sent to prison, that Mr. Imbler shouldn't have been sent to prison and death row. But, you know, there's other ways to deal with prosecutors than to sue them. And we don't want them worried about lawsuits. So, you know, let's, you know, we understand that doctors can be sued and every other lawyer can be sued and businesses can be sued. But we don't want to make prosecutors be sued because we know that they'll either be criminally prosecuted for breaking the law, or they could always lose their

law license when they do things like hiding, intentionally hiding evidence of innocence. So 50 years ago, the Supreme Court made that decision. And since then, there's been a bar for people to be able to sue prosecutors. And because of that, prosecutors have literally gotten away with breaking the law in many high profile, low profile cases causing all these wrongful convictions. And so how to change it is to change the law, to make law state by state that says that prosecutors should not be absolutely immune when they intentionally or knowingly or recklessly violate people's constitutional rights and hide evidence and put on false evidence, things like that. And so that is what we're aiming to do.

And it's really hard because no one's ever tried to do it before in the history of the United States. It's never happened. And there's a reason for that. And the reason for that is that prosecutors are extremely powerful. And they sit inside the legislators of every state. And they talk to the legislators and basically, you know, hint to them saying, if you dare, you know, lift this amazing shield that we have, that no one else has in the entire country, we might say some things about you like you're soft on crime or, you know, maybe you shouldn't

be reelected again. And so they really put a lot of fear into these legislators to cause them to not want to get involved. So if we can't pass laws because prosecutors are a barrier to that, and they're the only ones really against this, by the way, lifting their shield. then the way to do it is go to the ballot and have the people answer. And we did a poll. We had a very neutral pollster conduct a poll with Coloradans only. And of the results came out that 83% of Coloradans, regardless of their party, whether they were Republican or Democrat, because this is really a nonpartisan issue, holding people accountable, holding government officials accountable. is not a partisan issue.

And it was clear in this poll that 83% believe that prosecutors should not be above the law and that people should be able to file a claim to ask a court and a jury to maybe find damages in their favor if prosecutors violate their constitutional rights. So that's how to do it. That's how to change it. And we're trying to. Yeah, I fully support this. I didn't know that they, I guess I never really thought about it.

I think most people probably hadn't thought about it. Exactly. But, you know, I covered a lot of stories. I know I mentioned Ken Paxton a little while ago, but then, you know, what I tell to, what I try to explain to people when we talk about stories and you see, you know, somebody who got a pretty easy plea deal. The way that I explained it to them is, you know,

the way probably, like, why, you know, why would the lawyers not want to do more? Well, they just want to win. And a 90-day plea deal for Child Predator, that's still a win. And look how many cases I won this year. I won this one because it's still. a win. You're admitting guilt or no low. And then you go to prison, you get your community

service. That's still a win. And that's all they care about. And I had no idea it went that deep. And in fact, I'll let you know this. So, because I guess this kind of goes in that same sort of situation. Yeah. I got so tired of seeing deals like what I'm talking about that back in October, and we're up to almost, I think, 330,000 signatures, maybe more. I started a petitioned in easy plea deals for those who harm kids because I see it every single day. And I'm waiting until after midterms to see where the dust settles before we start trying to really kind of push it towards lawmakers. But it's kind of the same thing because these prosecutors let these people off with little to nothing. And then they go back out these people and they

reoffend. And in my opinion, that's on the prosecution's hands that's on the judge's hands who allow it. And none of them are ever held accountable. Well, let me, yeah, let me let me, kind of, I guess, workshop what you just said. Yes. The reason why they commit misconduct is because they want to win at all costs. That's how they succeed, right, in life. And a lot of the times the unethical prosecutors, because of course I don't think all prosecutors are unethical. But I think a few bad apples spoiled a bunch, especially the ones at the top. The ones at the top that are unethical, what do you think they're training and teaching their deputies

are underneath them, obviously the same. And what they're teaching, the unethical prosecutors are teaching is, look, the ends justify the means. Get the conviction. Get the conviction. Get the conviction. Forget about the standards that you're held to by the American Bar Association to uphold your ethical obligations, right?

To victims, to the accused, to the public. And forget about that because what becomes important. is the win. And what you see happening with these repeat offenders, as you call them, I call them prosecutors that have repeatedly committed misconduct is they become the elected DAs. Once they were just a deputy prosecutor, then they become the elected. And then what happens? They might become the attorney general. They might become the governor. And they're on a stepping stone to having even more power than they already have. So what happens when a prosecutor gives an easy plea bill? What's going, what's going on behind the scenes? So first of all, I have seen many cases where, and we call,

you know, trial lawyers in the, in the criminal defense arena, see, you know, kind of a converse problem. We call it the trial penalty. I don't know if you've heard of that concept or so it's, but enlightly. So, so it's when, you know, we, we know that only really 2% of cases that are charged actually end up going to trial in the United States, right? It's a very, very, very slim amount. And so it's only those cases that you really get a true view about what the prosecutor has evidence of, what they've done, what they haven't done. and of course, you know, how they worked with law enforcement to get to that point. So it's the 98% of all charged cases are really opaque. We don't really know what's going on because we're not, we're not allowed to understand that information as members of the public, right?

If you're able to watch it on TV, usually no cameras are allowed until a trial. maybe the first court appearance, that's it when you are arraigned. That's the first court appearance. And then the trial. In between, cameras are not permitted in the courtroom. So you never really know what's going on, what the discovery or the police reports say. Victims aren't even allowed to know. They're not given the file, right?

They're not the discovery, the police reports are not public information. You can't get it. So you don't really know what's going on in a case. You might see what's being filed, but each party might file, but you don't actually know the truth, right? So you only know the truth in 2% of the cases. And what's going on in the other 98% that you were talking about? The 98% where you're seeing these what you call easy plea deals. Well, it's when a prosecutor says to a defendant and their lawyer, you know what?

You're facing life in prison on this case. and if and here's the deal we know we've maybe not done the best investigation we know that we don't have all the evidence tied up and what i see happening not a 98% of the cases but what i see in these high profile cases happening is prosecutors hiding evidence that maybe might not show that the accused is guilty or as guilty as they want them to be and so instead they just cut these deals. And they say, instead of me basically handing over all the evidence, I'm going to cut you a deal so you don't go to trial and I don't have to give you my whole file. You're never going to see it if you take this deal. And the person ends up maybe taking a 10-year deal to put

prison instead of going to trial where they might have been able to win. So Justin, when you see some of these deals where someone gets five years when the maximum sentence was lifetime, that's a case where you should maybe do some kind of head scratching and say, what did the prosecution have that maybe might have not have shown that the person was actually guilty? Because you really think that prosecutors are just letting true predators off? They're not. Trust me, they're not.

It's the opposite that's happening. They are putting people that are most likely not, you know, guilty in prison. Right now we're looking at nearly a hundred thousand people in our prisons are presumed to be innocent. A hundred. That's more people in all the prison in Britain combined. Okay. So it I see it as as the op when I see a plea deal like a sweetheart deal like that, I think the prosecution has done something to commit misconduct that they don't want to be found out about that maybe the judge knows about, by the way, and probably the defense lawyer knows about, but the prosecutor doesn't want you to know about it. And if they take that case to trial,

you're going to find out about it. So I don't think that these soft plea deals, it necessarily mean, and I think the soft plea deals also show that the prosecutors are abusing their power when they're filing cases. A lot of the time, you know, there's someone steals a bike. And next thing you know, they're charged with 10 felony charges, right? Like manipulating evidence, hiding evidence. It's not just the bike anymore. Conspiracy to commit theft of the bike.

And so they do that to coerce the person to take a deal. Because if they, of course, if they went to trial, who knows? If they would be found guilty of all of these crimes and have consecutive sentences attached to it. So, you know, this is the deal. Prosecutors have the ultimate power. Judges don't. No matter what, whatever you think, they don't have power. They want it. They get offended when I say this, but, you know, they don't. Prosecutors decide who, when, where, what, and how to charge somebody with a crime. That's it. Judges have no power over that. Judges can barely even dismiss a case if they want to. They have very little power to do that. And the only times judges ever dismiss

cases is if a prosecutor over and over and over again has committed misconduct in front of them. Otherwise, they don't dismiss it. I mean, you look at the Broadway 6 case recently. That was an ICE protesting case in New York that federal prosecutors took that case to the grand jury, which is a whole another like bag of worms, right? It's a very secret process. Defense lawyers aren't allowed in there. Prosecutors are allowed to bring any evidence they want in there. There's no judge in the grand jury room. It's just the prosecutors, the investigators, and the grand jurors. In that case, the prosecutor is chumming it up with the jurors, threatening the jurors, talking to them on the side, giving them information that was completely inadmissible. And thank you.

that information was found out later. It's rare that you ever find out a prosecutor is doing those things. And so all of those indictments were thrown out because a prosecutor committed misconduct. That's on the highest stage, by the way. Huge, you know, cameras are on this case with the eyes protesting in New York and federal prosecutors. And this is when prosecutors usually commit the most misconduct is when the stakes are the highest, right? Because they want to get. get that conviction. And because nothing really ever happens to prosecutors, I mean, that prosecutor got fired, but she didn't lose her law license and she can't be sued. And so why would prosecutors stop committing misconduct on these whole profiling? Why would they stop? Nothing happens to them.

That's it. Right? So these eyes protesters, I don't know who they are and I'm not friends with them, but look, I know that they're regular people. They were, you know, I think that some of them were professionals. They were not committing any violence. They were just arrested off the street from what I read. I, like I said, I don't have any. I don't have any. But, but so here they are charged with massive felonies in a federal case. Can you imagine what that does to their records, to their financial records, to their housing, to their children, to their jobs? And, and, and how did you explain to me? I was actually innocent. No, I'm really innocent. I didn't do anything. They were coming after. So can you imagine the rest of their life?

Their rest of their life, they're going to have to explain to people that they really were innocent and that they were wrongly accused and wrongly, you know, indicted. They'll never get through it. And this has been the story of Justin, I think, you know, at least five to ten of my most high profile cases I had in criminal defense before I quit. This is the story of it. And it's it's sickening and it's saddening and it's it, you know, for me to quit. my career, something I was really good at, really. I can tell that you were good at it. I can tell. Look, I mean, look, I didn't go into be, I didn't go into practice law to be a badass trial

lawyer. That, that, I never took a trial class my entire law school career. I went to help people who had mental illness. That's it to make sure that they were provided the right treatment when they were in mental health institutions or in jails and prisons. That was it. Just make sure that they don't they don't keep continuing to be invisible and that they're not you know they're not abused by the system makers you know that like kind of want to keep them quiet that was it that was that was that was that was all I was there to do and then little by little the more experience I got and the more the deeper I became and aware of what was happening in the criminal justice system and the legal system. I saw that the terror that was happening by unethical prosecutors because they just

get away with this. I mean, and I'm not alone, even though this is the first real effort that's ever been made to eliminate absolute immunity for prosecutors to commit misconduct. The team of people that are with us in protect ethical prosecutors, they're some of the smartest and most intelligent and experienced lawyers and scholars in the world. You know, two of our board members on protect ethical prosecutors work at Williams and Connolly, a very well-known law firm. And they represented former Senator, former Senator Ted Stevens, who was wrongly convicted and later exonerated because federal prosecutors, went after him for political reasons.

And that's a very well-studied, wrongful accusation and exoneration. And these lawyers who also represented some of the Duke lacrosse players who were wrongly accused of rape. And so, you know, I have the top ethical scholar in the world, Ellen Yaroshevsky, who talks about, you know,

the problem of prosecutors not being held accountable when they commit misconduct. And a former governor for Alabama, Don Siegelman, and then numerous exoneries, Jabar Collins, Renee Lynch, Corey Wise of the, you know, of the Central Park Five, who are standing up and saying, we're in this coalition together to change this law. So this will stop happening.

And, you know, few statistics, okay? if we know that less than 2% of prosecutors of the exonerations have received any type of discipline, you have to ask, okay, well, how many years did these people spend in prison that were truly innocent? And it's 12.4 years. If you extract the number of people that are black, it's 50 years. Okay? This is, this is like what we call racial injustice and bias in our country. It is sickening. And it's horrible because I'll tell you, I can't sleep. People ask me how I sleep at night, you know, after representing people who are accused of crimes. And I say, I don't, I, I can't sleep at night thinking about these people who are innocent in our prisons because prosecutors have abused their power and they're not held accountable. It is sickening. The numbers are standing. sickening and gross and it's so sad and it's so easy to change it's so easy to change it's not and the only people that are saying not us are our prosecutors don't take it away that's it

no one else is saying you shouldn't be held accountable was there a moment i mean obviously this was something that was building but what was the moment that you saw that made you finally snap i guess for lack of that word be like i'm not doing private practice anymore this is where i'm going to this is where i'm going to move my life towards this is my goal what was that pivotal moment for you I represented Barry Morfew, who was charged with murder, and it was one of the most high-profile cases in Colorado to date. And it was in 2020, his wife went missing. And they investigated only him. And in 2021, they charged him with murder.

He's now being re-indicted as a result of the fact that on my work on the case, the prosecutors, after a year were forced to dismiss the charges because they committed such egregious misconduct that the judge struck all their expert witnesses from the pending trial that was nine days away. And because they didn't tell the truth in the affidavit, they signed asking the judge to hold Barry Morpheu without a bond. They didn't produce the truth about the DNA that pointed to actually alternate suspects. The case was a whodunit. Was it Barry or did somebody abduct her?

And it turns out that they didn't want to tell the judge about the evidence that they had that might have pointed away from Barry and two alternate suspects in the case. And so after a series of, I would call errors and ethical faux pause and misconduct, the judge said, I'm done. I can't take this anymore. on this high profile case, I'm not going to let you call your experts on on, on, on, on, you know, phone, on cell phone data. I'm not going to call your expert on your sniffing dog. I'm not going to call you your expert on tranquilizers.

I'm not going to let you call your experts on certain types of DNA. And so the prosecutors then decided, and we didn't know this at the time, they decided to secretly investigate the judge on the case because they, They thought, you know what? It's not that we did anything wrong. They texted each other, which we have the text now.

The text messages say, he doesn't like us. He must, he's coming after us. Let's get him. So they investigated him on these false theories and hunches that he must be ruling in Barry Morphew's favor because he must be a secret domestic violence offender. So they went to his ex-wife and asked her if she suffered domestic abuse by the judge and whether the judge had ever talked to her about the Barrymorefew case. They followed him and his son, his young son and his former wife and son, whether

the playground trying to get information investigating this judge that he must be biased. It's not that they did anything wrong or they're committing ethical violations. It must be that the judge is just biased. They didn't get anything from their investigation and they were forced to, they couldn't get rid of the judge, which is their goal. And instead they had to dismiss the case. And it was the day that they dismissed the case that I quit. That was it.

I couldn't believe that I had watched them go after a human being who had two children who he loves a lot on Barry Morphew's two kids and the loss and the missing of their of their wife and mother and this is how they treated a criminal case regardless of Barry Morphew's guilt or innocence it doesn't matter you you don't break the rules in a criminal case they're telling everybody else not to break the rules and they charge them but when it comes to them everything's on the table and so it was at that point I realized that I couldn't come back into a courtroom until the system was fixed because I believe that if prosecutors have a deterrent, and that means that if they know they can be sued, that they may be intentionally and knowingly will not commit misconduct and it will reduce the number

of errors happening in the courtroom, I will be able to go into courtroom knowing that probably prosecutors aren't lying anymore because they are scared of something that the rest of us always have to kind of want like of course all of us are always know that we're always being held accountable Justin I'm sure you don't defame people because you don't want to be sued sure don't right well they don't have to worry about that and I have been actually so you have been right and it doesn't feel very good right I mean I won but yeah I mean that feels good but of course of course Of course. Of course. And it doesn't, it doesn't feel very good. But like the fact that, you know, you're stripping people of that ability to file a claim against a prosecutor is wrong. And that's what keeps them with this ability to, you know, really have Teflon, you know, a Teflon nature to do whatever they want. And to watch the patterns. And so when I quit, I spent a year and a half really, you know, working with Attorney Regulation Council in Colorado. And the DA got disbarred.

It's the first DA in Colorado history ever to be disbarred for case misconduct because she was unethical the first time. And let me tell you something. That was not the first time. A prosecutor had committed egregious unethical conduct in Colorado courtroom. Okay. But it took me that long and that much hard work and for me to quit my job in order to focus and to work with attorney regulation in order to succeed and showing that it can happen.

You can disbar an unethical prosecutor. But by the way, when I asked the attorney general's office to criminally prosecute her, did they? No. No. No. No. No. Even though she broke the law.

What's really frustrating to me, and I'm sure to you as well, is that you, people assume going and especially if you have no knowledge of the law or this your first time, you know, dealing with it, that the prosecutor's there to be, you know, to help the victims. That's what they're supposed to do. You hope that they get into this. And again, like you said, a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch. And I'll even go out and say that you don't hear about the good ones because those don't make news. So you only ones you hear about are the bad ones.

But then you hear these stories where, you know, victims, there was recently a case in Oklahoma where the prosecutors have gone up. It was a, the kid's name is Jesse Mac Butler. I did a lot around that situation. And basically he's raped two girls, was very violent, threatened to kill them. And he was going to be tried as an adult. And then they ended up giving him like 100 hours of community service.

That's it. And he walks. And they sit there, you know, they go through, you know, the victim's families are trying to go through like, you know, Marcy's law and trying to, you know, do a bunch of different things to get this done. And basically the prosecutors sit there and berate

the victims the entire time and they're looking out for this kid who by the way he's and i don't i'm sure i know i don't have to tell you this he strangled these girls one of them to the point that he strangled her until she passed out then decided he wanted to record it so he had he could just look at it later woke her up strangled her again police found this evidence on his phone this was not like he deleted it they found it this is this is there that's somebody who is going to kill someone one day not it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when and these prosecutors sit there and make these victims who are 16 years old. Well, look.

Out to be the bad guys. Justin, I mean, look, you know, there's a, you know, a very well-known case, Michael Morton, who, right, in Texas. And then, and then look at the Central Park Five. Both of those, the actual perpetrator, went on to commit more crimes because they, they had their, they, that prosecutors clean their hands. They clean their hands.

Ken Anderson was a prosecutor in Texas. Oh, guess what? Michael Morton is guilty. murdering his wife. In the meantime, the actual killer of Michael Morton's wife went on to commit more crimes while Michael Morton's sitting in prison taking the fall because Ken Anderson was like, I just got this notch under my belt. Same thing with the Central Park Five. The only reason why those five were eventually exonerated was because the actual rapist, the actual rapist, in that case, was in the same prison as Corey Wise.

And he said, I met you in a prison. It's something like this. I don't, I don't want to be exact, but it's something like this. This is how Corey tells the story, is that he's in the prison. It's like eight years later. And this guy comes up to him and says, let me tell you something. I met you in a prison seven years ago when you were like a kid. You were 16 years old.

He went to adult prison and he was 16. And I met you and you let me change the channel on the, on the radio so that we could hear it and rap instead of what you were listening to. And you were really nice to me. And now it's eight years later and you still look like you're the nice guy. And I'm going to tell you something. I'm the guy. I'm the guy that raped. You shouldn't be here.

I'm already here for life because pretty much I've done it again. And so you shouldn't do. They tested the DNA. Guess what? It was him. So, you know, this guy went on to commit more rapes. And they, and that prosecutor in that case, guess what?

I got five guys for this. I got five guys. I'm looking real good. And so what you're saying is troubling, right? Because it happens. The survivors of these crimes, they're the ones that suffer. Not just the accused, right? not just the wrongly accused to go to prison,

but the ones who think that their case is solved. And there's a few cases right now where the survivors are joining with the exonerese and suing the police because you cancel the prosecutors. So they're suing the police for what they caused. Yeah. And the other thing, too, going off that is that's not justice for the victims either. You putting the wrong person in prison, that's not justice for anybody.

No, they don't feel good about it. Not a single victim has felt good about this. You know, and prosecutors like to cover it up. That's why they never want to apologize when they've wrongly convicted. I mean, look, look at this case in the United States Supreme Court just this last year, Richard Glossop. Do you know this case out of Oklahoma? Sounds familiar. Refresh me.

Okay. So it was a death penalty conviction. Richard Glossop was in prison more than 25 years. He had, I think, five last meals because he's about to be executed five times, right? And finally, the case gets up to another execution is about to come around the corner. And the United States Supreme Court looks at this case one more time and they say, oh, boy, we're going to have to reverse this conviction after 25 years. Why?

because the prosecutor on the case 25 years ago hid the fact that the primary snitch witness, which is always a problem, stitch witness, but that the primary snitch witness actually lied when he was on the witness stand, the prosecutor knew it, knew he was lying and let him lie and let this guy get convicted over his statements, okay? So this United States Supreme Court, by the way, the one we have right now that's like not so favorable towards people that are accused of crimes. They're the ones that reversed Richard Glossips conviction, okay? So because of the prosecutor, not for any other reason. The prosecutor is now a law professor at the Oklahoma Law School teaching law students how to be prosecutors.

That's what she's doing now. When the Attorney General of Oklahoma was asked in a press conference, look, you can, You're the one that kind of wrote an opinion to the United States Supreme Court saying, you know what, you should kind of reverse this guy's conviction. The attorney general wrote this, said, you should reverse his conviction. I don't think it was salient. I don't think it was okay. It's not so good.

Our prosecutor lied. You know, okay? What happened when this attorney general after the conviction was reversed? What did he do? He was asked, are you? you going to do anything about this Connie Smotherman, the prosecutor, 25 years of those now teaching at the law school? He said, it's been 25 years too long. Now, it's been too long. I'm not going to do anything. Well, are you going to retry Richard Glossop or are you going to release him knowing that he didn't commit this?

And somebody else probably did. Oh, no, I'm going to retry him. So now he's wasting resources. And victims, can you imagine how the victims must feel about this? The victims are going crazy. But you don't, you have a prosecutor's now completely flip-clothed. And who are the victims to trust? They can't trust the prosecutors anymore. The same prosecutors that said reverse the conviction are saying, wait, trust us. We want to retry this guy. So it is, you know, what they've done is they devalued the legal system. And what I want to do is, hold the unethical prosecutors accountable. So the ethical prosecutors will rise to the top and protect the system and protect the public. And so victims can once again trust prosecutors. So the victims can say, okay, if they cut a deal with this person, it must be for good reason. Or if they let this person go,

it must be for good reason. Or when they got this conviction, it must be because they really had the right evidence and they didn't lie. That's what needs to change. And I'll go even a little bit further for people who maybe haven't connected because not only with this case that you're talking about right now, are they going to retry them? So 25 years is not too long to retry a case, but it is too long to try somebody over it. And let's let her keep teaching a whole generation of students how to be unethical practicing law. But then with the victims, when you have cases that have living victims, not only are you going to then bring them back into it, which is going to reopen all of those

wounds and retramatize them. But now you have them for, we call it maybe almost like a pseudo-survivor's guilt because like, oh, man, now this guy had to do 25 years. We know he didn't do it, but now he had to do 25 years. And we got to go through, do this whole thing again. And now that's going to cost him another attorney or he'll get a, you know, a PD. And by the way, and by the way, Justin, who's going to believe the prosecutor at that point that he's got the right guy?

You know what I mean? I mean, it's like, okay, wait, you told us it was that guy before. You told us it was Michael Morton before. You told us it was Richard Glossop before. You told us it was Corey Wise and the other guys before. Now we're supposed to believe you, right? And so you don't see, that's why you don't see prosecutors apologizing. What they usually do is they're like, well, maybe Richard Glossop did it with somebody else.

Maybe Corey Wise and the other four did it with the real person that did it. And they try to make these like asinine connections that don't exist because they have to cover up for their failures and their mistakes that they made. You don't see them saying me a culpa. And you know why? Because they can't be sued. That's why we have a problem in this country with over-accarcerating people. And that's because prosecutors are not held accountable. That's what's going on.

It's as simple as that. And I agree that that needs to change. So, you know, then it becomes, like you said, we have to change the law. So how do you change the law when you have these guys in lawmakers's ears? And, you know, let me, let's be real. And this is also a bipartisan issue. Maybe a lot of lawmakers aren't overly ethical either. And so how do you make that change?

How does that change occur? Like, the people. It seems like you're finding a very. The ballot. The ballot. Look, I mean, let me just say something too, which is very, very. enriching to me as I go through this is that, you know, in the beginning, people said you need to have prosecutors that are going to support you. And I'm like, there's no way. There's going to be a single prosecutor that's going to agree. But you know what? In the last couple months, through the attorney general debates in Colorado, because there's an election for attorney general coming up. We've posed this question. in numerous forums.

And I'll tell you that many of the candidates have said they will support eliminating immunity. So it is very powerful. One of them is an elected DA right now. And he says he will support it for knowing an intentional misconduct. Of course, there's going to be criteria and they're going to want to make sure the devil's and the details all day. But like, that's a lot more than what we heard before, right? So, you know, I think that the people will see that ethical prosecutors feel like this is protection from them too.

Because they can fire process. Don't you think that ethical prosecutors will be happy about this because I'll say, great, now I know I'm not working with people who are, you know, not telling the truth. And so if I'm trying a case with somebody, I don't, I'm not going to be fearful that I'm going to be sued too. because now I know that we're not going to be hiring people anymore that are committing misconduct because they're going to get fired when they get found out, right? So I think it's going to protect the system as a whole. But the people at a ballot, they can only be influenced so much, right? You don't have prosecutors and legislators.

People have a right to vote. And when we tested this with a poll asking people, if you saw the question on the ballot, do you think you should be able to sue a prosecutor when they commit misconduct that looks like intentional or knowing hiding evidence of innocence, for example, the answer 83% was yes. So what it's going to take, though, is money because in order to get on the ballot, it costs a lot of money. Now, we have a great coalition of lawyers and Frank Quatron is an angel investor with us, And he was wrong. He's on, you know, he's from, you know, he's from, you know, he's from, you know, he's in, you know, venture capitalist. And, you know, so he backs this and supports us 100%. But it's going to take money because who knows what their campaign will be. Who knows a prosecutor? I can just see prosecutors putting, you know, I don't even want to give them ideas. Trust me. But so far prosecutors, their opposition is things like, well, I don't want to lose my house over this. Now, how does that make you feel, Justin, that a prosecutor is in the, in the

face of a case, like, let me give you one. Let me give you one. Colorado, 26, April 28th, 26, Deb Nichols was found to have had her convictions wrongly entered 18 years ago. She's been in prison for 18 years for arson and murder of her three children. Okay, house fire, husband and her both convicted. 18 years later, what's found out? Oh, the prosecutors in the case who are now elected DAs, the prosecutors in the case hid the state's arson experts' opinions that it wasn't arson, that it was an accident. And they put these two people in prison. A judge found that that was

wholly egregious and overturned the convictions of dead Nichols. Her husband will come next. And so what you have now is this case sitting in Colorado history as not because this is not a cop thing. This is a purely lawyer prosecutor thing. And nothing will happen. to them. And we tested that question with the public. Do you think that she should have a claim? Forget about money. Don't talk about the money for a second. About the 18 years she lost and grieving her children in prison. Her three children she lost. Call it being called a murderer for 18 years. And all the question is, should she be able to file a lawsuit? You know, prosecutors, they depend on juries every day, Justin, right? They go in front of the jury and say, we want you to execute so-and-so.

We want you to hold this person responsible for committing this. They trust the jury system every day, but they're what they're saying to everybody is Deb Nichols. Deb Nichols can't, we don't want to trust a jury when she wants to sue us. That's a dip. We don't, the jury shouldn't be trusted. No, that shouldn't be left up to a jury. That's wrong. That's wrong that she shouldn't get that. She's not going to get a penny because she can't sue cops who are, they can be sued, but she can't sue a prosecutor. It's sickening.

I mean, it really is. It's disgusting. Yeah. And, yeah. So people have to go to the ballot box and do this. And I think that the first thing is people knowing that this is an issue because, again, I feel pretty deep in this world. And I didn't know that this was an issue.

Like, I'm sitting here like, you know, like, holy cow. I'm sitting here thinking, too, like maybe I need to do. maybe we need to add another petition, like instead of me just doing that one to like this and add it, and if I do decide to do that, I'll let you know, and then we'll drop it in the show notes. But let me ask you this, because maybe I misunderstood something

or you can walk me through it. If 50 years ago, the Supreme Court of the United States said prosecutors can't be sued, then are states able to change that on a state-by-state level if at the federal level they said they can't be done? So good question. So that's called common law, where a judge, you know, makes a law, and it's just followed by every other state.

And so if you try to, you can, you can file a claim against a prosecutor right now because there's no law that says you can't. But what happens is the opposition, the prosecutor, will file a motion to dismiss with the court saying, there's this case called Imler v. Pacman, and every single court just goes, you're right. The Supreme Court said you can't do it. However, there's not been laws enacted saying you cannot sue a prosecutor, right? And if there have been laws in certain states, in Colorado, there's not a law. It's just people just rely on this Supreme Court case. So you can enact laws that are constitutional, that this Imbler v. Pactman case can never, it's not going to override it.

You'll circumvent it, basically. That's right. It's just like the death penalty in state. That's what we've done with the death penalty. That's what's been done with abortion, right? So states have enacted laws in order to work around what the Supreme Court has made decisions about where there's no federal law or there's no state law. So I mean, I'm just again just absolutely astounded by this. I had no idea the numbers were so big.

No one knows. And you know what? That's why I'm here talking to you. That's why. I'm glad you're here. Well, thank you for having me. And thank you because this is the. the whole movement that and the momentum that we're trying to get mass understanding.

And we're not, you know, we're not on social media and I'm not on these podcasts to make money. It's just, you know, this is to get to educate as many people as possible because trust me, we're going to need the votes and we're going to need the petition signed and we're going to need money, you know, in order to run the campaign. But this isn't like some personal interest or vendetta or vengeance I have. This is about making the system honest. And this is my duty.

I have done this practice law for 30 years. And I don't feel like I can, I, this was my calling. I have to do this. And, and I feel like enough people, if I can't believe how many people don't know. Like you don't know. And it's not, it's not that this is just no one talks about it because prosecutors have done a really good job at hiding this information. It is probably the most hidden, like, it's hard to grasp how much misconduct happens because cases are pled out and you never know what's going on behind the scenes. Cases are dismissed. And usually when cases are dismissed, they're sealed or they're expunged.

So you can't ever find out what happened in the case. So it is so hard to get the data. But we are getting data in Colorado by lawyers and people who are saying, it's fine. Here's the information. You can use it. And we have gotten some really just, it should be shocked. Child abuse cases. Look, Justin, there is a case that felony child abuse case. And I don't know if the woman was guilty or innocent.

I don't know. I don't know anything about the case. All I know is the case is in the middle of a jury trial. And the prosecutor on the case had hidden evidence that was favorable to her. and the judge issued this order, and we have a transcript to this prosecutor in Denver, Denver, like a metropolitan area and said, you know, this isn't the first time you've done this. You keep doing this on cases, and I don't know what's going to reach you. And so I'll tell you right, the judge dismissed the case.

And so who does, I mean, does that benefit the victims in this case? Does that benefit the grandparents? Look, I don't know if she's innocent or guilty, but I'm just saying, justice wasn't served because there was no trial. No jury got to answer that question. And I feel like it's not fair to this woman. Yeah, her case got dismissed. Great. But you know what? She's going to go through the rest of her life with people thinking that she committed murder, right? Because they're going to say, oh, you won because of a technicality. Well, I'd like to know. I'd like a jury to be able to say whether or not some, you know, she, she should, and then this is, so this is wrong. And that's,

prosecutor, by the way, Justin, that was the first of four cases in 2025 that got dismissed because of his misconduct. And nothing has happened to him. And by the way, that same guy, 2020, 2020 was the case that I had with him where a judge found that he had hid favorable evidence against my client accused of murder. The judge granted sanctions against him and almost dismiss the case, thank God not because I wanted to try it. And my client was acquitted and rightfully found not guilty of murder. And I went to this prosecutor's boss who's still prosecuting a full felony load in Denver, Colorado. And what did the boss tell me? You know what, Iris? He gets lots of convictions. Okay, great. You're not going to do anything about it. And I went to the bar and asked

them to do something about him. I said, I filed a complaint and they said to me, you know what, Iris, did he admit what he did was intentional? And I said, I don't even know that you need to, you think any prosecutors can admit what they did was intentional? He hid the opinion of the lead homicide detective and the crime lab person who said it wasn't a homicide. You think that he needs to say it was intentional? Look at his acts. Look what the judge said. No, in Iris, he's going to get off and then you know what he's going to do he's going to run around with the piece of paper saying you see you're allowed to do this you're allowed to do it you're fine look i got you're allowed to do it unless you admit it you're allowed to do it and so that's this is this guy still carries on today

this prosecutor and he teaches he's a lead he's a lead prosecutor teaches other prosecutors it's insane and i'll say this for the listeners too so so because i think that so i have listeners from all over the world. But for my American listeners, I think that most of us can all agree that we support the Constitution of the United States, which grants you the right to a fair trial. And I'm going to go out and just say this part of it, too, you're not getting a fair trial if there's a prosecutor hiding evidence, withholding evidence, you know, making sure that things are seen or not seen the way they want to. That's not a fair trial. That directly, and that's where I get frustrated too, because that directly cons, that you can have a Supreme

court law saying one thing, that's fine, but that directly contradicts the Constitution. It does. It directly contradicts the Constitution. And look, what they thought was fair 50 years ago, we know is not the case now, right? So catch up to the current era. And it's time now. You know, we've seen enough damage being caused by prosecutors and the abuse of their power. And look, the Constitution requires prosecutors because people maybe not in the United States don't know, because I'll tell you right now, many other countries, most countries, allow you to sue prosecutors. This problem isn't evident in other countries. This is a very unique, you know, kind of carve out in the United States has. But something that people don't sometimes understand, too, is that prosecutors have an obligation to go get all the evidence and information that relates to the case and turn it over to the defense lawyers.

because defense lawyers don't have that power, right? We don't have the FBI at our fingertips. We don't have the state investigators at our fingertips. We don't have the city cops at our fingertips. We can't just go talk to witnesses. We can't subpoena people. We don't have warrant powers. We don't have powers to get anything.

They control, you know, really all the evidence in a case. You know, I think of a criminal defense lawyer going to talk to a cop saying, hey, can I talk to you about, you know, what you've found in this arrest? You think a cop's going to talk to me? No, they don't talk to me. So you have to rely on their investigation and what they obtain in order for them, and they're obligated by law to continue to give you all the information in the case. So when they, when you don't get it, it's because they didn't give it to you.

Right? So you can't say like, well, why did the criminal defense lawyer just go out and get it? because you can't, right? Most of the stuff is locked up in prosecutors' hidden files and their emails and their text messages that they write with other witnesses, with cops, and they hide it. And not they. I'm saying unethical prosecutors hide it.

So they violate the Constitution. And they have a special ethical rule that not any other lawyer has in the United States. And it's Rule 3.8. It's called special responsibilities of prosecutors. It's amazing. And they have a special rule because their power is so obscenely high that no other lawyer has this special responsibility to ensure a fairness, to make sure they turn over evidence, to make sure that they prosecute the guilty and they don't prosecute the innocent. It's line by line the rules that lay out to make sure they don't tell the public in, you know, podcasts and in a newscasts, things about a case.

that aren't public, right? They're to make sure that they hold tight their ethics. And so when they violate those ethics, that's when the Constitution is usually being violated because they're usually in line, but nothing happens to them. So that's what a lot of people don't understand is how much, really, how much power they have

and control they have. This next question I might sound like a conspiracy nut, and if I do, you can be like, you're insane, don't say this. But I'm just sitting here thinking, you know, in America, because you're talking about, you know, other countries don't have this issue. Well, most other countries with their prison systems, at least European countries, their focus is on rehabilitation. I mean, you look at like a Danish prison or a Norwegian prison and you look at ours.

It's very different. We have, I mean, it's well known. We have for-profit prisons. Do you feel like there's any link? Do you see where I'm going with this? Oh, I do. And I agree. And I don't think it's a conspiracy.

I think, look, I think that, you know, yes, prosecutors, they benefit by, uh, prisons, right? They benefit by prisons growing. They benefit because they get jobs, right? And prison systems, who do you think supports, you know, sentencing laws and increasing mandated sentences? That's prisons. And who do you think in the legislator that's saying we need to increase sentences? Prosecutors, right? So they work hand in hand. We have a problem with mass incarceration in this country as we all, as I think everybody knows. Absolutely. And who is to, it's private prisons and it's prosecutors.

That's, that is, those are the two people that are inside, the two parties, organizations that are inside legislators all over the country, trying to get more money and trying to get more increased sentencing instead of rehabilitation. Like, let's find ways to get people out. I mean, that, I'm looking at these laws. second chance laws that are starting to read benefits in the United States, where people who have been in prison before they were 20 years old, and now they're 60 and 65 years old and costing a lot of money for taxpayers, right, like $30,000 to $60,000 per year plus medical expenses.

And there's now a call to say, why do we take a look at these people who are 60 years old who've been in prison for 40 years or more? Why do we look at if they've, like, done anything good? if they've caused problems in the prison, if they've gotten their college degree, maybe if we learn another language, if they're helping other prisoners, if they're edg- why don't we take a look and see

if we might be able to get them out of prison? Why do we that? You should see what prosecutors are fighting that tooth and nail. We just saw that in L.A. with the Menendez brothers. Exactly. Just saw that.

Just saw that. What a highlight. And look, I'm not, you know, murder's not great. we all know they killed their parents, right? But were there mitigating factors? Well, yeah. Yes.

There were. I am supportive of them getting out. That's my stance. Me too. So, you know, and I've done, there's actually an interview that I did. I need to redo it because there was an echo in it. But with Anna Maria Baralt, who is their, the first cousin and spokesperson, I did an interview with Mark Garragos.

We talked about it. And, yeah, you know, but you look at what they did. and they've started prisons at the entire state, they've started programs in prisons at the entire state of California have adopted, but then, and then you had, Gascon was willing to get him out.

And then as soon as Nathan Hockman, it's like Nathan Hockman is taking it personally. Exactly. And that's, he has taken it personally. And I think there's so much about political prosecution. You know, that was ICE, right? That's, you know, Menendez brothers' political prosecution.

I've had cases that, um, that, um, I know people have been prosecuted because of political positions of the prosecutors and what they wanted to get as results of the prosecution. That's just, that's just like a, you know, a very, you know, a normative story in the United States, unfortunately. And that's because prosecutors have such immense power. Look at Hoffman. I mean, how could he have rolled back all that work and all the mitigating evidence that came out during the Menendez hearings, you know, to parole them early? I mean, it's just insane.

It's insane. He didn't win. I mean, the judge still resentenced them. And I mean, and nobody gets out on their first, very few people, especially murder with high profiles. They got on their first role hearing. But, you know, yeah, he fought that tooth and nail. And then I'm like sitting here watching him with like, and I know it's been very hush, hush, but like with Nick Reiner, which that's under his belt too.

And it's like he's not saying anything. No, he's not saying anything. Right. It's very, it's very, it's interesting how you take. He has these two high, very high profile cases. One, he's, he's very much every time Menendez is mentioned, he has. and he has to say something, but Ryan are not so much. So it's, but I feel like that's a really good example because he has fought tooth and nail to keep the,

keep the brothers in prison. He has, it is. That's a really good example. I mean, it's, and it's like the unequal treatment, right, of people. You see, like, people who have committed just as bad and have gotten out earlier. And, and it is, it's, it's the decision-making power, the full discretion, the full ability. there's no, they don't have a boss, right? Prosecutors don't have bosses.

The elected prosecutor, they're the, I mean, you can vote them out. You can recall them, but that's it. What kind of checks and balances that? Most people don't pay attention. They're going to just vote for either the incumbent or who their party that they like this. When you get outside of your big, your big players, you know, the federal elections, president, senators, congressmen, even then, you know, people. And slogans work.

And slogans work. slogans where I got I'm going to get the bad guys I'm going to clean up the streets I'm at oh there's you know the last election it was there's a rise in homicides not true totally not true especially in LA and places like Colorado where you know I I I know for fact it's not true and but like they use they can decide to pick what statistic they want to use right and manipulate that's right and manipulate it and then get votes and and and then and then you know very Morphew was, you know, class example of a political, you know, prosecutor. You know, she said she was going to, you know, saw all these cold cases and started before he was even charged while she was involved in investigating the case, went on a podcast called profiling evil. Because, you know, because that, because that's so neutral, you know, going on a podcast called profiling evil, talking about Barry Morfew. He, she hadn't even charged him yet, was just investigating it, talking about his case, talking about, the case itself and saying like, hey, look, you know, I got elected, you know, because I'm going to,

I'm going to solve cold cases. In the meantime, her election would, you know, rose on the back of, and, you know, no offense to people who like Trump, but, you know, was on that wave of people who really were in favor of Trump at the time and who really loved Lauren Bobert, you know, our House representative out of Colorado, who's, you know, fairly conservative and a little bit, you know, unwieldy. And, you know, Linda Stanley and Lauren Bobert were, you know, seen in one of their political campaigns together holding AR-15s crossing them with a, you know, United States flag behind them. So, you know, this is, they love that. They love that, right? I mean, so it is, you know, it's, it's not, it's not unusual for political prosecutions to take

place for continuing a malicious prosecution as a result of wanting to have political cover and for keeping voters. And, you know, I just say, just do what's right. Enough. I mean, put ethics, you know, and standards above winning. That's what you do. That's how you keep the public trust. Simple. We do it all the time, Justin. I know that I can be held accountable. So do you. So I don't even think, I don't even think twice about lying or hiding something or not telling the truth. I don't even think twice about it because I know that I'm going to be held accountable. So I think the only people that need to be worried about any law changing are the prosecutors that are unethical. So when I hear prosecutors say to me, oh, Iris, we're going to have a hard time hiring people now.

Why? Oh, well. Exactly. Exactly. Right. Right. So you're worried that people who are scared to get hired because they can be sued, why do they go to law school? Every lawyer can be sued. I can be sued. I don't get it. I don't get it.

Yeah. If you can't hire people, then that seems like maybe you have more ethical people coming out of law school who want to do their job. I'm with you on that. I just don't. It's like the people who say, well, you know, if the Epstein files get released, it's going to take a lot of people down. Okay. And. Okay. Right. Right. Exactly. So we have to, so it's going to take some time and it's going to take effort.

And so that or we just like rush to judgment and we close the files and we hide it so no one can see. Is that what we should do with the Epstein files? Really? That's what they want to do with the FD files. And they're thinking about the political outcomes rather than the victims. Well, I mean, well, look, and I'm not trying to go down this rabbit hole politically speaking. No, no, it's a big one.

It's a big one. But like, look at like, Tom. Massey, for example. He's one of, and Nancy Mace, these are, these are two like old school Republicans that that stood there, have supported Trump in the past, but then also spoke up against the Epstein files and transparency with it. Lauren Bobert did too, even Lauren Bobert, like I saw that one interview with her. And I don't know what she saw that day, but you could see on her face, it was bad. And, and so you have these people doing this. And then they lose their support of the party. they lose support from the president.

And now both Mace and Massey are losing their seats. So now, you know, so that's kind of where the ramifications are. And politicians have one job and that's to get reelected. So that's where it kind of becomes into a problem. And that goes back to, you know, aside from the ballot, what can listeners, what can, what can my audience do right now to help you in this fight? I think with, and I, and I know this sounds trite, but the bigger the voice that PEP has, the more power we're going to have raising money and telling the story to more people.

So this is what I say. And I know it, but it's so small, but it's honestly, follow us on Instagram and prosecutor misconduct. Follow us on LinkedIn. Those two things and grow our following and support. So these stories are getting out there and people are understanding what kind of problem this is. So when we need to raise major money, then it's understood that people support this, right? So that's one, that's one really small thing that they can do right now. But this is going to, this is, this is, I'm telling you, this is one of the biggest things that will happen in the history of the criminal legal system is just in even one state.

And we want to try this in Colorado first because we've already eliminated qualified immunity for police officers. So they don't have immunity and why is it the prosecutors have absolute immunity? So it makes sense that there should be equal. And so that would be the first place we want to do it. And so the more support that we can get, that's the best thing. Because it's not going to change unless we do it in one state first. And I think once we pull one leg off this three-footed stool, it's going to fall over. And I think it's going to happen where people are going to see this is the right way.

and this is going to help fix the system. It's going to take time, but it's going to help fix the system. So that's, I know it sounds like it's really not that helpful, but it is helpful. It is. So what's your Instagram handle? It is at end prosecutor misconduct. It also can be found from the name of the organization, protect ethical prosecutors. And growing that is, will be a massive,

help to us and reaching more people. And then the second thing I was going to say, and I know this kind of sounds also trite, but it's talk to people about it. Just to ask people, did you know you can't sue a cross- at all? You don't know, you don't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. And I feel pretty deep in this world and I didn't know. Yeah, which I'm so thankful for you right now.

So I think that's if you get people to talk about it at their dinner tables and, you know, when they're walking down the street and they're getting their coffee, You know, you can't sue a prosecutor. You know, if this happens to somebody and they're, you know, the other survivor of a case or a wrongly accused, no one can sue a prosecutor when they've intentionally or knowingly done something that that's been sanctioned is okay. People are like, what?

You can't? No. Here, this is, this is an organization that's talking about it. And, you know, our website is getting overhauled. It's good, but it's getting overhauled. It's going to make it, I think, a little bit more easy to absorb. of the information that we're trying to get out there. But I think those things talking about it and following us are huge and letting,

you know, getting the word out so that people like you, you can get the word out. That's big. And I have a couple of other creator friends that I can reach out to too. And I'll offer you this too on the platform. And this is totally up to you. If there is, if there are real life examples of people who want to share their story, whether they're survivors or victims, people who are wrongly, you know, convicted. and then exonerated and they went through this.

And you want me to platform them, make the introduction, we'll platform them. We'll let them share their story in real time. I'm good with that because those types of stories, you know, the primary purpose of this podcast when I made it, I don't know if you know the story behind. I don't think you probably do. Tell me.

No, I'd love to hear it if you tell me. Yeah, so I actually, with becoming a social media content creator, that was never something I was really going for in my life. It was completely accidental. This whole platform started off with me talking about narcissistic toxic family content. Well, you may remember a case a few years ago. Girl named Gabby Petito went missing in Wyoming. Okay.

So my wife at the time was like, you should start talking about this. It was right after the Moab, Utah case came out. Right, right, right. The body cam footage, I was like, oh, the way Brian Laundry's mannerisms, the way he speaks, or he gaslights. It's just like my, this fan. My mom. I like my mom. So I was like,

I'll be start covering it. Well, next thing I know I have 250,000 followers. And then it keeps kind of growing from there and ends up becoming a full-time thing. Well, fast forward to last, about middle part last year.

There's a Gabi Petito documentary that comes out. And I'm talking to Nikki Schmidt. That's Gabby's mom. And she's kind of very nicely. She's so appreciative of what Netflix does by putting this out there. But she's also venting a little bit because Netflix,

so she said they record each of the parents for like eight hours each. and they use very little of their story. And any of the new stuff out there, and it was focused primarily on, you know, Gabby's friend Rose, which Rose is great and she deserves a platform because she was drug through the mud through all of this as well. But basically she wanted a place that she could be able to share the story more.

And so I was like, well, what if we created a platform? That's why it's called Unheard True Crime in Their Own Words, because like I told before we started, I don't edit this because I want the stories out there the way that you all, the guests want it shared. And so it's the same thing with this. It's, you know, if you have people that are wanting to share their story and give a bigger voice, I'll give them a platform. To share that story because this is all really about advocacy and awareness.

You know, sometimes we'll have people on here that don't necessarily fit directly into that box neatly. They might have an interesting story. But ultimately, that's what this is about. It's for advocacy and awareness. And obviously what you're doing fits very strongly into that box. Oh, I'm so thank you because I will take you up on that offer. I do. And it works for everyone because then we give them more stories and then, you know,

it helps me with guests. We get the stories out there and it helps them get their stories. It helps you with your cause. I mean, I want to amplify them. And I, and look, Justin, I don't have time to, you know, times of the essence. And I don't have time to start my own podcast. Okay. I don't.

You would be great, though, just so you know. Thank you. would be great. Thank you. But I don't, but, but I, but that's not, but you get it. I wanted, I, well, I need the most direct. If, if I can work with you to amplify this message, that's, that's what I want. I don't, I don't, I don't want a stage. I want the stage to be eliminating immunity, right? So if I can, you have your help in doing that. You have me to have my own, okay, maybe one day on my own podcast. Maybe when we get this law passed, then I'll have, have a blueprint and I'll be able to say this is how you do it.

Yeah. And I'm all for helping advocate that change because I think that it needs to be done. And, you know, for, you know, I'll, I'll share this story. You know, you want to share, okay, my listeners probably don't know this story. And I'm going to kind of wrap myself out a little bit on something. So when I was in college, I may or may not have keyed a car over a parking spot. And I'm the only person that could get caught doing that, by the way. And my punishment for keying a car, it was $300 of damage.

I paid for it. I apologized and paid for it well before we ever went to court. Judge gave me 10 days for keying a car, $300 worth of damage. Although I didn't have to do the days consecutively. I got to check in and check out. Wow, lucky you. Lucky me. But to me that punishment, but the biggest push wasn't, I say the judge, it was the DA.

Of course it was. Who was pushing it. And here's the thing. The DA already didn't like me because I had seen him before. And I made him look really stupid. So I got a ticket for laying drag. I had an RX7 at the time, which was a pretty fast car. And I got a ticket for laying drag.

And I went to court. And I told him I didn't, I mean, I did lay drag just so you know. But I told him I didn't because it was an $800 ticket. Now everyone knows. Yeah. Well, I mean, but I think. that statute of limitations is up because this was like 2002. But so I think I'm okay.

But I did it. And so I tore the car up so much. I was able to provide receipts for like drive shaft, transmission, clutch, all that stuff. Showed that to the judge. And then this DA says to me, well, where you lay drag? What's there? And I told him, I was like, well, there's like a bookstore and this, that and the other.

He said, well, isn't there a field there where at the end of the semester you sell books back? And I said, yeah. He's like, well, couldn't some dirt have gone on to the road? and he's trying really hard and that caused you to spin your tire. And well, yeah, that's possible. He's like, well, there you go. That's how you lay drag. And I said, well, no, sir.

When your tire spin on dirt, they don't make any noise. And then he asked where I was from and I told him, which was a fairly affluent area. And he's like, well, I can't imagine you have much experience with dirt roads. I said, well, actually, my old address is X if you'd like to look it up. It was a, it's on a dirt road. And the judge is laughing, dismisses the case. And I'll say this too. The judge asked me, it was the same DA in both cases.

cases. That's odd. The judge asked you, yeah, which is weird. It's a very small town. Oh, that's. And, yeah, so very small town. And the judge asked me what my major was. And I said, well, it's international business. He says it needs to be pre-law. You should have been a lawyer. I never, I never. I should have been a lawyer, but I didn't. And now I do this. But yeah, so it was tried probably doing better now because you're affecting more people. Well, yeah, and that's kind of the thing. I want to make a difference. But yeah, that, that's my, that's my story on that. But the prosecutor was trying. very hard to push me into, I don't know what he ultimately wanted, probably a big fine.

But then when it came down to the other case, the criminal case, which I shouldn't have done, you know, I'm apologetic or that that was me not thinking straight and being angry over something stupid and not controlling my emotions. Sounds like you were a kid. Sounds like you must have. I was like 19. Okay. No prefrontal cortex.

Oh, no. And I'm male. And I'm ADHD with no impulse, especially back then no impulse control. So the DA was really wanted to do something. but like, you know, 10 days was not whatever. It was, it was ridiculous. 10 days, a little extreme, little extreme. Even the CEO, in fact, I'll say this to the CEO actually let me not told me,

he's like, look, he's like, just leave. He was like, you don't have to do the last couple, because it was the last weekend I go to check. And he goes, you don't belong here. He's like, just leave. He's like, oh, we'll ride up. You're good. So anyways.

But my point is, is that I've had this experience with DAs too that are like, and I'm thinking the whole time we're talking about this. and you're talking about metropolitan areas, like Denver going through this, and we know that, like, Nathan Hockman is L.A., and I mean, that's DAs, but like, in small towns, it's really bad. It's really, really bad.

Really bad. And I really hadn't thought about that story in quite some time until we're trying to talk about. They're like, wait a minute, I kind of was a victim of one of these people, not to the extreme that some of your other people were, but you were, you know. Well, come on, 10 days in jail for keying a car,

give me a break. $300 in damage that I paid for. not court ordered. I did it on my own. So, I mean, anyways, should I have been punished?

Yeah, I should have been punished, but I don't know. 10 days in jail? I know people who've like, assaulted people and they don't get 10 days in jail. I know. It's stupid.

Yeah. Property crime. Not, I mean, come on. Come on. Yeah. So,

so, but thank God that happened because here you are. Yeah. I still have gone pre-law, but you know, that's okay. That's okay. Yeah, too late now. But anyways, I think what you're doing is fantastic. You know, we can definitely drop links to the organization, to your socials and the comments for people.

And if I do a petition, which I'll talk to you about that offline, I love it. I'll drop that as well. If you want to do it, I'll make one. I can talk to the people at change.org. They'll support it and help promote it out because they love, they love me over there. and so we'll just go ahead and do that. I'll put an email into them today. Because I think a lot of people get behind this.

And I think that, you know, like Iris said, if you guys didn't know about this, shared this episode with one person or just even have the casual conversation, like, hey, did you know this? Because the more people who know, the more, you know, people can start asking candidates, hey, where's your stance on this?

Exactly. And because this affects, you don't know when it could be you or your family that's in this position. Nobody ever expects to wind up in front of a judge. So you don't know. Exactly. And every single person that is being elected should be asked this question.

Every attorney general DA's governors should be asked this question. Should prosecutors be absolutely immune? Yeah. And I think obviously the answer should be no. And when they say, and when they say yes, you say, oh, really? So they should be above the law. Okay, explain that. And that should be a worry.

That should be a concern. And that should be a viral clip for anybody who does say it. That's right. And we have some clips on our on our Instagram of prosecutors answering that question. It's great. It's great. It's very hard. I mean, I'm telling you, it's not, it's just we're, you know, the momentum is really helping

and understanding that these questions have to be asked. but they have never been asked before. So this is the time. So I think that's important. Yeah, you're doing amazing. You're, I think you found your calling. You're doing amazing work.

This is incredible. So I feel, I feel very like charged up to, to kind of get some more stuff out. We'll do some shorts on this as well. And, yeah, people need to be well aware of this. Thank you.

Let's end, let's end prosecutor immunity. Yeah, I agree. So before we close out today, because I know I've kept you a little longer than we had anticipated, which is, which is great. I think it's been a great conversation.

Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you want to share or that people should know before we do close out? I don't think so. I think we've covered so much ground. And I appreciate the time and your attention and interest and support. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thank you for joining me today. Thank you for allowing, you know, me to platform you to share this because this is incredible.

And for everybody else who's listening, thank you all for tuning in and we'll see you next week. The views and opinions expressed in this episode are solely those of the individuals speaking and do not necessarily reflect those of the host. Unheard is intended to provide a platform for personal stories and lived experiences, not to establish facts, determine guilt, innocence, or provide legal, medical, or professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to conduct their own research and form their own conclusions. Thank you for listening to Unheard.