Registry Matters

Listen to RM116: Hypocrisy: Rod Blagojevich Becomes Enlightened

Andy 0:00
Recording live from fyp Studios, east and west, transmitting across the internet. This is Episode 116 of registry matters. Saturday night again, Larry, how are you? I don’t know how your weather was but it’s awfully bright outside for my for being Saturday night.

Larry 0:29
It’s very bright outside and I’m thinking maybe it might not even be Saturday, but I’m not sure.

Andy 0:34
Wait a minute. What day is it?

Unknown Speaker 0:37
I’m thinking it might be thinking it may be Sunday.

Andy 0:40
Oh, crap. You’re right. Sunday afternoon. Well, we’re a day late and $1 short, I think is how that expression goes.

Larry 0:46
How are you? Fantastic. I’m ready for a spectacular episode of registry matters.

Andy 0:52
I really like doing the podcast, just saying. I think we should do it every day. You You want to start doing a Daily podcast. Let’s do it. Wow. Hey, you know we have a gigantic amount of content to cover. It’s all over the map. And I would like to begin with a voicemail. It’s a two parter. Our super patron Mike at a Florida has got a comment. And then he’s also got a question for you. So put your ears on Larry and let me know what you think.

Unknown Speaker 1:21
Hey guys, this is Mike from down in Central Florida, one of your long term patrons want to take a minute, leave a message and tell you guys how much I really appreciate the podcast. production value of it has gone up exponentially. It sounds amazing these days. appreciate the work that you put into it organization of the whole thing that really sounds professional and adds a lot of credibility to this movement. And also had a little comment for Larry. I really appreciate the way that you put the real life expectations of these things that that are happening in the different circuit courts, and none of us need any false hope. And I like the way you give it to us exactly the way it is and no fluff. And that’s what we need. We need to know what’s going on in a language that we can understand. So I really appreciate that about how Larry, you know, break it down for us, and explain it to us. And it’s not something that’s given anybody false hope we exactly know what’s going on and can set a real expectation for that. So I appreciate that. And lastly, I do have a question for Larry. I’m wondering that with the changes that are going on in the future, and I know you can’t predict the future, but the things like what’s happening in Michigan and some of the lawsuits that are going on and other places like New Mexico and I know there’s a big one in Florida once these things started to change, for example, if things loosen up and lacks on certain register, so Michigan, for example, do you think if the senate legislate some new registry, they will make a provision to keep people from other states, you know, from flooding into that area to try to, you know, avoid the registry, which I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same thing if I was close enough to it. But anyway, do you think they’ll do something like that? Or do you think they’ll just, you know, let it go. I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t try to make some sort of provision. But that’s my question. Great podcast. You guys are awesome. Keep up the good work.

Andy 3:34
Thank you for that, Mike. And hey, I appreciate those comments about or compliments about the production quality because I’m all about making it sound

Larry 3:42
awesome. You are. I try. We appreciate that. That was very, very nice comment. I will be sending a check to Mike.

Andy 3:54
What about them about doing something along the way? Well, let’s first address the the part about like I mean, you know, Larry, you you do have a tendency to not really sugarcoat it and tell us from your from all of your hundreds of years of experience with legislators, including all the way back to Greece. But like you don’t you look at it from just not from a legal point of view, but also from a political point of view.

Unknown Speaker 4:18
I do indeed. And I think that, that he’s really understanding what’s going on here that there is a trend and like, for example, we’re going to, we’re going to have a column from syndicated columnist Diane diamond pop up here later. And for her to take the position that she took that it’s time to reduce the bloated registries. I do see a trend from all this litigation where lawmakers are beginning to have the opportunity to feel some protection, which is what they need. They need protection from the angry mob. They need judge Persky, you remember that? You remember the angry mob? That’s right. Yes. They Court rulings, the cumulative effect of the court rulings will be able to lawmakers will be able to say, I wish I could, but we can’t. Now whether or not they truly wish they could, that’s only something you will know from a personal relationship from them. But they feel the need to say that they wish they could because they’ve got the angry mob staring at them saying, why don’t you and that that’s the position that they’re in. And as I try to say over and over again, it’s kind of like his be versus the way it should be. I don’t, I don’t the people that hold offices, by and large, do not, do not decide public opinion. They can contribute to public opinion. In some ways. If you have a really charismatic leader who’s really persuasive. They can possibly move public opinion. But public opinion usually is the other way around. The people we elect are responding to public opinion. They’re not creating public opinion. I know we’re going to get some comments that disagree with that. But, but when they go out and grandstand and they give a press conference, that something ought to be done about something, it’s because public opinion, they’re sensing, but their finger in the wind as for public opinion is, and they’re not making that public opinion. they’ve they’ve learned this public opinion from door knocking, from community functions, from emails from phone calls, and they’ve heard this from the people that they’re representing that have communicated with them. This is what they believe their constituents want. And what are they supposed to do in a representative Republic? Are they supposed to flip the middle finger and say, well, don’t really care what you want?

Andy 6:38
We did vote them to represent us and if we want something that makes no sense is ineffective. That that’s irrelevant, isn’t it?

Larry 6:47
Well, if they’re radically if we don’t like what we’re getting, we would change who we’re electing.

Andy 6:52
Well, I know what I mean it from from from the side of like, like the angry mob, so to speak the angry mob. Once these registrations Regardless of whether they’re effective or not, it makes them feel better. And the representative has done what they’ve requested that person to do him or her. So it’s what we got. Right?

Larry 7:10
That is correct. That’s what we says what we’ve got. And the public opinion, in my view, and I have a lot of years of experience. I believe that public opinion drives, they don’t believe this other way around. I do not believe that lawmakers make public opinion. The fact of the matter is, if you look at it, the major issues of the day, what changed, same sex marriage was it was the lawmakers or was that public opinion,

Andy 7:36
is just a groundswell of support in a reasonably short period of time that changed and forced the hand.

Larry 7:43
And that and in fact, some of the people that held political office particular on the conservative side did everything they could to keep public opinion from running today. They they went to court, and they fought all the way to the US Supreme Court on that issue, but public opinion ultimately prevailed public opinion will prevail over Every single issue and a representative Republic, if that public opinion is heard loud enough, where we no longer want to be the incarceration capital of the world, we will no longer be the incarceration of capital of the world, because public opinion will demand that we stopped doing it. And the representatives and senators will respond accordingly. It will take some time, it will be painful that people will not want to give up their cushy jobs that work in the prison corrections industrial complex, but we could move in another direction. But to the second component of his question, I would I would be very surprised if Michigan didn’t try to figure out a way to close the flood gate because the way it looks to me and this is a good chance to plug the normal and action which is a week from Monday night, March 2. We’re going to have a segment on a three hour narshall and Action Program on segments going to be devoted to Michigan and we’re going to have Miriam outcome and who’s the ACLU attorney, one of the primary movers of this case, we’re going to have We’re going to have her on. But But I would be very surprised if they didn’t try to close the floodgate. Because the way I read the decision, there’s nothing that would prevent a person who has a conviction, a conduct that occurred prior to 2011. from going to Michigan, and saying I don’t have to register anymore, assuming that they don’t enact a new modified version of registration. And they’re not going to want that. They’re just not going to be able to tolerate that politically. They get the border and states will be the first of a few few left at a border state, that’d be the first place you’d want to go to. So the people Michigan are not going to want sex offenders from other states got me there, I I don’t make that rule. I’m just telling you, that’s the way that the population of Michigan is going to look at that. And they’re going to put enormous pressure on their representatives to not let that happen.

Andy 9:49
And so they could put some sort of wording in there. If you’ve been convicted of a crime in another state, then you’re going to register here.

Larry 9:56
Well, then they probably be a little more creative than that. They would probably, they would probably come up with something along the lines of if, if you’re disappointed this ruling, that would probably try to put in statute, this ruling will will apply to anyone who was residing in Michigan and had an obligation to register at Michigan at that time, because then they could, or they could credibly credibly argued that it’s not ex post facto, because you don’t benefit from the ruling you weren’t here. And now, that would that doesn’t mean that you couldn’t bring another case and say, well, there’s an equal protection issue here. And I’m not saying that you couldn’t bring another viable cause of action. But that doesn’t close the door to the lawmakers trying to do what they can to keep the floodgate from opening. And that’s what I would expect that they would do to try to come up with something that would that would, that would close what they could see as a potential floodgate. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s 10s of thousands or the solder in 60. It doesn’t matter because that the people I think we’ve gone back to the Nebraska case. situation where where that they passed a law a decade ago where you could drop off a kid, if you didn’t want to take care of that. And if you’re a prosecution that they were become a safe haven, because they love kids so much that they wanted to provide people an opportunity to, to get that child to help so you could drop a kid off at a hospital or at at a safe haven. No questions asked him when the kids started being dropped off. There were some a little bit older than important, so cute and cuddly. They were like problem problem kids that were teenage adolescent

Unknown Speaker 11:37
like little cute puppies.

Larry 11:39
And when they when they when they had a handful of kids that were dropped off his adolescence. All of a sudden they did a quick repeal of that because Nebraska didn’t feel like they could become the haven for everybody who had a problem child that they couldn’t care for. Oh, well, we’ll just drive across them. drop them off over here in Omaha that’s a good place to get rid of them and We don’t have any potential liability for the kid anymore. And they repealed that. If you’re not going to let cuddly kids be dropped off in your state, who, most by most accounts, most people like children. If you’re going to close that floodgate, it only stands to reason if I applied my political experience looking back on history, that you’re not going to let people on the sex offender registry come cascading into your state. That’s why the way I would expect it to go down.

Unknown Speaker 12:31
And even,

Andy 12:33
you know, this all went over my head, because I’m not quite so smart. But Larry is under the impression and nothing against Larry, Larry is under the opinion that, like there’s not going to be a way for the legislature to finagle their way around this and try and enact something new. I that’s my interpretation of the conversation that went down over the last couple weeks.

Larry 12:55
I don’t I don’t share his

Andy 12:58
Yeah, no, I get isn’t that Sort of like, you know, super short characterization characterization of what he was saying.

Larry 13:04
But it did it did sound like that, but says you, but if

Andy 13:08
you don’t share that, and I don’t and I don’t, I don’t question either one of you because you both are incredibly, incredibly smart. And I just I don’t know where I can even stand I certainly side with you from the logic and rationale side, but I can’t really contest is because he’s wickedly smart too.

Larry 13:24
Well, it would seem like to me that if you looked at Smith versus Doe, and you had a registry like that, that passed constitutional muster, that’s not what Michigan has currently. But Michigan, all previous challenges to Michigan’s registry had had had failed because until 2006 and 2011, when they added those provisions, it was viewed as a civil regulatory scheme. So I don’t know why the world what would make it impossible to peel off, you would have to, you would have to draft a new registry and you would have to, you would have to do some work at it because apparently, if you just struct the words of the 2006 11. Members, you would have nothing but jibberish. He would have to you’d have to draft a new law. But I don’t know what would preclude them from doing that. I can’t figure out what would preclude them from passing a new law and making a very benign registry which would would, which would make the constitutional challenge. The all registries are not a constitution. I don’t know how many times I’ve said that on the podcast, to two plus years. The mere act of registering someone in and of itself is not unconstitutional.

Andy 14:30
We could conceivably, you know, maybe word for word I don’t know if that works today, but the 2003 Alaska registry like somebody could put that in place and it has I Your words are, I believe disabilities and restraints, it doesn’t impose anything significant. by just having to go visit the Popo annually and and do whatever they were doing. Like, that’s not that big a deal if they don’t add all the restrictions and all the other garbage on top of it like it would be moderately inconvenient, but I don’t think it would be much More than that. Well,

Larry 15:02
I would say that if you look at New York, I know we’ve got listening on right now that there was an immense amount of resources few years ago put into challenging New York’s registry where you have to go in like every three years, right to have have a picture made and you get mail in the mail and forms and the the, the case was, was being was being appealed. And Professor Carpenter from California, I forget which law school she’s at, but she contacted marcil. And we jointly looked at the case and Professor Carpenter saw the same thing I did, is that that appeal was not likely to succeed because there wasn’t enough disabilities or restraints. The mere fact that you have to mail in a form is not punishment. and and the the, the appeal was unsuccessful. The challenge was unsuccessful. And in fact, New York went back after I think they’ve extended their registry at least once, maybe twice, because After the first 10 years originally you were going to get off after 10 years. And they went back and said, Well, we want you to be on another 10 years. What as long as it was a civil regulatory scheme, they were able to extend the period, an additional 10 years, it’s quite obvious that you can have a registry that is unconstitutional. I do not advocate for them, nor does marcil. But you could do it. The question to what we’re having the discussion about is whether or not it can constitutionally be done. The question we’re not discussing is whether it should be done. Yeah. If you want to discuss that it shouldn’t be done. There’s no there’s there’s no debate about that. When people pay their debt to society, they should be free to go on with their life and they shouldn’t have any accountability until they break the law. Again, I can’t make it any clearer than that. But that’s not what we’re discussing. We’re discussing why the Michigan could enact a constitutional registry. Yes, they could.

Andy 16:55
But it wouldn’t be popular by the people.

Larry 16:57
Well, it would be more popular than having nothing at all. they’re faced with having to enact a less draconian registry or let these people go. Then they have the political coverage. They can say, you know, the one for that damn federal judiciary, you know, thank God we got President Trump putting good law and order justices on. But if it weren’t for these lifetime appointees are accountable to nobody, we would have a tougher registry, but this is the best we can do. And we wish we could do more. That’s what they will likely do, is they’ll blame the courts and say, This is all we can do. And then they’ll probably test the boundaries and try to do more than what they should do. And there could be additional challenges forthcoming.

Andy 17:37
I do understand now that we beat that dead horse. We should move on to cover some articles of the day.

Larry 17:43
But we only got 2020 we’ve only got 27 articles in here.

Andy 17:46
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry, I miscounted. So this first one comes from the New York Times opinion section let Bernie Madoff and many more out of prison. Bernie Madoff is a pretty poopy person in my personal opinion he actually started his little his, his whole situation came down like right when I was first entering into the system, and being of similar religious heritage and culture and all that stuff, it was really crappy the way that he embezzled Ponzi scheme, just unhold kajillions of dollars and not really a very popular person, in my opinion. But he is now ancient, he’s almost your age, and he’s got like stage 75 kidney failure, and we are going to spend a bunch of money trying to keep him alive so we can serve as much of a prison sentence as we can possibly muster while he continues to deteriorate in prison, and he has petitioned, I think, under the first step act to have some level of compassionate release, and I don’t think it’s going to go through

Larry 18:50
those, those petitions rarely do the provision exist to let people out and both states March. It’s a most I don’t know, that’d be a fact. I know many states have such a provision and their law. But it becomes very difficult to actually. Can you imagine the uproar that would happen? This, this individual was responsible for bilking a lot of investors out of an awful lot of money. And I know it’s only money, but money that that could play an important role in their, their financial security for health care for their children. And he, he was, he was a sad character. And the anger has not subsided even after all these years in prison because the very little restitution was had by the people who were victimized, and they want him to suffer. And they want him to die in prison. And that’s difficult to overcome. It really is. So I would expect I would agree with you i would not expect him to be released.

Andy 19:53
The they say that he has he’s entering the final stages of kidney disease and has less than 18 months to live He milked 17 billion from investors. And the part that bothered me the most, I suppose, is that there were philanthropies that had money invested through his funding efforts, whatever investment strategies, and he was reporting like 20% kind of things per year and these things then just like evaporated, they were crushed, because the money was never really there. Anyway, I know that we’re not talking about the crime that he did. I just wanted to highlight those things. And but yeah, he will, if you were going to spend for this guy to to be in prison versus the damage done. I mean, never accounts for it. But like our only purpose for leaving him there is to just like, stick the screws in him and say, You’re being punished more and more and more.

Larry 20:46
That is That is correct. But if you look at the article, the bureau presidents denied his petition as it does 94% of those, yeah, filed by incarcerated people under that provision. And, again, I wish it wasn’t 94% but the reality is That the mob won’t tolerate the releases and the political pressure is applied to a few issue. Dare release on one. And we’re going to get into some pardons and commutations later but there’s usually a lot of political pressure applied and and i would imagine that the old presidents and there’s just no way that they can let this guy out. It would require executive it would require executive intervention, someone who actually has the, the, the cover, the President could could intervene and and and it would be okay but for a bureaucrat to do this. I just don’t see it happen.

Andy 21:36
coming over from lex 18, and that we have a couple like collateral articles that go with it to about Marcy’s law. This is a measure that passing almost all across the country. These are either bills being introduced or these are actual constitutional amendments that are giving victims more rights to know about the person that committed their crime against them. To that they know when they’re being released, I think they even have a stake at the table of whether the person is released or not. And it took me a very long time to even like digest this, Larry and understand this that as far as when you see the docket, whatever the term is, it says the state versus john smith, whatever that person’s name is, but it is not the victim versus the person that perpetrated the alleged perpetrator of the crime. So the victim is a cog in the wheel, their piece of evidence, their testimony, they are physical evidence, why would you then bring them to the forefront to be like a, what’s the word and advisor in the whole process of letting someone out of prison after they’ve done their 510 20 years, whatever that time is?

Larry 22:46
Well, you wouldn’t if you were, if you were reacting rationally, but what’s happening is an irrational debate that’s being driven by the victim industrial complex, and it is had has become a complex a very, very Lots of money. A lot of a lot of effort has been put into creating these advocates for victims rights. And we’ve kind of lost sight of the crime is against the people. It’s not against the person. And I think people I think I got ugly email about this when I said about this the people who made the rules of an organized society, and it’s us, we the people who decided for those boundaries are and an order so that we don’t have people’s eyeballs being extracted, and we don’t have we don’t have vigilante justice being administered. We we developed an orderly system that’s supposed to be somewhat neutral and objective in terms of widest proportional punishment, and what is proper for balancing the needs of an early society. While the victims are not happy with that, they feel like that when you come home and property crime or if it’s a if it’s a violent crime against you as a person Your emotion takes over which is what the system is designed to keep from entering into it. Because you’re angry at the person and rightfully so. But the victims should not be anything more than a witness at the table. They should not decide whether you get harsh sentence or not. I don’t think that I agree with with with asking the victim, what’s that appropriate sentence? It cuts both ways. I know sometimes the victim wants a lesser sentence than what the state would be. That’s a rarity, but it does happen. But I do not believe that that is proper for if the state’s want to offer a plea agreement that is probation and the victim says no. When a prosecutor says Well, I would have offered probation but but the victim wouldn’t have any part of it. probation may be the appropriate remedy for that. So I’m I’m greatly concentrated over all this stuff, or we’re trying in the Constitution. requirements that victim speed given a role that’s not properly theirs, and they’re not properly equipped. nor should they be making these decisions.

Andy 25:03
I suppose if you went to your local Applebee’s and you demanded to be part of the cooking process, we should just elect you to be Master Chef over your dinner at Applebee’s because you said you wanted to be because you’re an eater at the restaurant, therefore, you’re an expert on the cooking of it.

Larry 25:21
While I guess that’s a, that’s a somewhat of an example.

Andy 25:25
may not be the bestest one, but it’s the bestest one that I could come up with. As we are speaking. We had a couple of articles from courthouse news and the courier journal all talking about the measure. And you know, it’s funny when I was reading one of the articles I want to say that North Carolina already has victims rights in their constitution. So this gives them rights are in their constitution.

Larry 25:48
Well, it’s scary to me, but I’m on the defense side of this so it worries me When, when, when, when we when we did the careful balance. It was created. our justice system is being continuously eroded where there is no balance. And we’re going to hear we’re going to hear a former governor and a clip here shortly say that, that he didn’t realize that surprised. He didn’t realize it, but he didn’t realize how bad the system and we’re, we’re still headed in the wrong direction these things are moving us in the wrong direction, not the right direction.

Andy 26:23
And some of the other articles were talking about how this breaks down due process. Can you delve into what the problem on the due process side is of this?

Larry 26:32
Well, the particulars are Marcy’s log varies according to what they’re proposing and each each situation but But due due process, due process is being continuously eroded by by victims because what the one thing that bothers me the most is that they are demanding to be entitled to be believed, as if something that they say is magically so and they’re entitled. And they are demanding not to be confronted by By strict and aggressive questioning, about their motives about why they’re making the accusations, all that erodes due process. And then when when when you look at it on the backside of it, after you’ve paid your debt to society, and you’re ready to be released. Well, guess what? We have to notify the victims. We have to ask them what what they would think about if you were to be released, you’ve been in prison for seven and a half years now you’ve been a model prisoner, but the victim state to be at the table really.

Andy 27:34
They’re a bunch of like video clips where they show some dudes talking some woman you know, here, here’s the the person that spent 10 years in prison for you know, assaulting you whatever, and the woman’s like, freaking out scared to death, which is totally legit. But I’m assuming we could make some kind of law that after the, I know you’re gonna say after the person has finished their sentence, they shouldn’t have any disability restraints. But while they’re under some kind of supervision, I’m assuming the judge could say You can’t be in proximity of this person, person which is immediately breaking some kind of rule, regulation, whatever, that they are in the wrong place, and they could then go back inside the box.

Larry 28:13
But people, people that are imprisoned magically don’t become nice people just by mere fact of being in prison. If they did, we would have the safest country that could be ever be imagined. Because we incarcerate so many of our people, they would magically become nice, of course, people in prison who have been put there for doing bad things sometimes continue to succeed in doing bad things while they’re in prison. Is that that’s, that’s obvious, but we have laws against that. So if the person serves their debt to society, and they really are released from prison, and they, they commence a pattern of stalking, or harassing a prior victim, we can do what we do with other people. We can intervene again, right?

Andy 28:55
Yeah, yeah, even post if the person says hey, this person is stalking I saw him watching me here, there’s cars parked outside there, then you’ve then broken another law, you go in front of the judge and you have some prior history, then they’re going to put the hammer down on you harder, I would assume.

Larry 29:13
Well, of course, there’s the extreme case where a person who had not been rehabilitated what come out of prison and not only stop, but actually do an act of violence. And then the person, the person who said, Well, if I had they not been early released, they would not have been able to do and you’re absolutely correct. If we never release a person, we will keep their recidivism rate down to absolute zero, we can I can assure you that their their free world recidivism rate would be zero. I can’t tell you about the recidivism rate inside behind the walls but there, we could do that. But the question for society is, is that the wisest use of our resources to incarcerate a person at definitely, who might do something at some point in the future, after they’ve been punished appropriately. And that is just not the country I want to live and where we incarcerate people for what they might do. we incarcerate people for what they do do,

Andy 30:08
I do understand, we are going to move over to an article that you put in here like 10 minutes ago always throw me curveballs Larry, but is from the Albuquerque journal. And this is a column by a syndicated column by Diane diamond. And she is all about our bloated sex offender registry and shutting that whole thing down and saying it’s time to reform them and, like reduce their, the number of people that they have on them and so forth.

Larry 30:39
I thought it was a great column. I put it in because the she really piggybacked off of the the Michigan decision. And she talked about the Judge Robert Cleveland, which we spent a lot of time on last week and the week before, and she she indicates that the registries have become blood And she points out many of the problems of the current versions of registration and achieve them points out some of the people down the registry that you wouldn’t imagine like she said in 2002, a woman in Georgia was convicted of a sexual offense for allowing her 15 year old daughter to have sex on their home. You know that she’s when you hear the sex offender registry you the average citizen thinks of something very vile, a person who’s done something very, very hands. So she illuminates that the registry, teenage boys caught up with high school girls, she’s got that on there. And and it’s, it’s, it’s an illumination. Again, this helps the politician have cover because Diane diamonds is carried in a whole lot of newspapers across the country. And a lot of elected officials are reading this so that didn’t even know anything about the Michigan case. They don’t know about the Michigan case. They know about the existence of the registry. And they can say well, you know, everybody knows this because I mean, it was an was the journal yesterday. And she did use some terms that we don’t like thrown around predator, a pedophile, but all it all is a fantastic column. So I would encourage people to read it if they haven’t already seen it in their local newspaper.

Andy 32:13
You can certainly find that in our show notes.

Unknown Speaker 32:15
You imagine being shackled to a gurney during delivery because they’re concerned about you escaping. That’s a barbaric practice that should be banned.

Andy 32:23
So this next article comes from Palmetto politics, the post and career and this is from Charleston, South Carolina. South Carolina lawmakers considered measure to end shackling pregnant inmates. This one bothers me. So very bad. I can’t imagine a woman who’s eleventy five months pregnant with this frickin arrow hanging a bowling ball hanging out from her tummy. And she’s like broken or water and screaming in agony and they’re gonna be like, Nope, sorry, we got to put the irons on you so you don’t run away or don’t hurt anybody why you’re popping out the baby. I’m baffled by this. Practice. It really bothers me.

Larry 33:02
It bothers me indeed, and laws are being passed have been passed and are being passed to prohibit this. And it’s sad that we have to pass a law because up to inhumane officers, they would order such a thing. And I know they say I’ve just followed my department’s policy, all prisoners, if I take a prisoner of the hospital, I have to, I mean, the department requires that. So they get to pass the buck and say, Well, if it weren’t department policy, I wouldn’t be doing it. But this is what I’m obligated to do. But South Carolina’s credit, apparently, the State Department of Corrections has long since abandoned this. They’ve got a policy against that it says that this is just something that’s being done because of local correctional facilities are not under state control. But why would you need a law? I mean, really, why would you have To have a law to encourage you not to do this, isn’t it the humane thing to do?

Andy 34:07
Isn’t that almost where this all falls down is that when left to the discretion of the individual, that they don’t know what is appropriate, necessarily. So now you have to give them further guidance. This seems almost like the nanny state that everyone rails against where we would like local control over these things. Oh, wait, somebody has f that up beyond all measure. So we need to put in a law so that there’s no confusion about them having their own local discretion?

Larry 34:33
Well, I guess that’s the way I would look at it, that local discretion is not always the best, but I just don’t understand what kind of human being would want to do that. I know, right?

Andy 34:45
I’m sure there was some psycho woman doing this and forgive me, I’m not trying to attack women, but there’s some crazy woman out there. Whether she is intense, like she is actually born bad, or in the fit of all of the stress and trauma of having a baby That she got some violent and scratch someone or actually tried to escape. I don’t know and I’m sure that there is an example out there of someone doing something terrible while dropping a kid off, but doesn’t seem like anywhere near any level of majority any level of like a statistically significant number of people would be trying to do heinous things while they’re dropping it off. Well,

Larry 35:24
again, I’m of course there’s always that saber toothed Tiger that were or someone there’s a phenomenal superhuman, since I have not been pregnant I can’t attest to what it does the body what it does the energy level, you know that stuff. But I’m guessing from what i’ve little, I do know that that all the coordination of all your muscles would be necessary to help deliver that baby and having a person shackled and chained and it was seemed like that would interfere with the movements that you would need to exert maximum participation in the delivery. But I just don’t see the face that

Andy 36:02
you have such political words, always cracks me.

Larry 36:05
I don’t, I don’t know how a human being could sit there and watch a woman shackled, trying to give birth and be proud of themselves. At the very minimum, you’d go back to your Sheriff and say, boss, I’m telling you, I did this today, I’m not going to do this. Again, this is a ridiculous policy, you need to abolish it. Every inmate that we take to hospital setting doesn’t need to be shackled. And we need to have officer discretion on this weight needs to be you know, grow a little bit to it between your legs, and go ahead and tell them this is wrong.

Andy 36:40
But then then the share says, hey, you’re going to shackle everyone when you go to go do your job. And that like when you take someone to the hospital, you’re going to shackle them, I don’t care if they’re missing limbs shackle the missing limbs together.

Larry 36:55
And and you say well, that’s nice one that’s appreciate your input, but I’m going to My way and then have the courage if you’re a good officer, as far as I know, there’s a great officer shortages around the country. I hear departments are begging for officers for lateral transfers. So tell your sheriff, I’m not going to do it, and that I will be glad for you to terminate me because I just can’t do an inhumane thing like this. Sorry, not gonna happen.

Andy 37:22
very bizarre to me. Let’s move over to a quickie from the Dallas news, Larry, Look, man, the prison system or the jail system in Dallas County is going to lose 3 million in revenue because the commissioner approved a new contract on Tuesday with security and they’re going to drop the cost of a phone call from 360 for a 15 minute call. It will only cost 18 cents. And this has got to be like making everyone’s hackles go up because like, well, we’re going to lose 3 million bucks a year. Where are we now going to get the money to run you know, to offset the expenses of having a jail? Ice like so. If this is jail, I believe, then these people have a presumption of innocence. So why are we putting the screws to them to keep in touch with family talk to their employers, I, I don’t get this. This seems to be something that the city and the county and the state should bear the burden of providing a modicum of normalcy while you’re being detained.

Larry 38:22
But you’re missing an important part of the equation. The companies that provide these phone systems are wanting to make as much money as they can. And one of the temptations that they’ve offered for for being allowed access to provide the phone service is a cut of the action. And it’s very tempting for jail administrators and for prison administrators to turn down you’re looking for ways. Again, as I’ve said on this podcast many times when you run for public office, when you find a person says I’ll tell you what, I’m old Do y’all liked me? I’ma see if I can get a whole lot more money pump. Our correctional system. When you find when you could play me a clip like that somebody sent me one, we’ll put it on the podcast as quickly as possible because it doesn’t sell with all the competing competing things that the government’s need to fund that people won’t find it, although they hate the government, but they want these things funded. And so this is a this is a two and a half million dollar buddy revenue stream that’s going to evaporate. And the county is going to have to look for another source of that revenue, or they’re going to have to divert fighting for something else. But the article identifies their 70% of the people are pre trial in Dallas County Jail. It is that’s typical of what you’d expect. And the rest of them are serving sentences that are either waiting transport to jail state facility or they’re serving a misdemeanor level sentence or they’re never going to be transferred. But they’re gonna serve it out in the county jail. But regardless of whether they’re serving time or whether they’re pre trial, I don’t think we should exploit them for how much did it say per phone call?

Andy 39:58
It was three, six Which to me is like super affordable down to 18 cents. I you know, I I’ve experienced that with I guess, you know, we could say that these are in state calls, but I don’t know if that’s true or not, but my experience was 25 bucks for 15 minutes. So 360 would be a huge like, wow, that’s cheap but 18 cents I was down the phone all frickin day.

Larry 40:21
So, but But yeah, this is this is this is good news for the inmates. So Dallas County Jail.

Andy 40:28
Definitely that. Um, so yeah, I just wanted to bounce there real quick. The next article that we have is from w f. y. i, Indianapolis growing number of people question electronic monitoring system. I think, Larry, because we have all this amazing technology that we could almost shut down prison and jail and put some sort of digital device around someone and send them all home, and we’re just done with it.

Larry 40:55
Well, if we could do that, that would be fantastic. But that’s not the real Lt. electronic monitoring tends to be electronic monitoring tends to expand the universe of people who are under correctional control. And it tends to be an augmentation of standard probation supervision, which is largely taken the relic of the past because there’s what you’ve learned to supervise people start taking a tally of who’s under electronic monitoring, you’ll find a significant number of people that are under probation supervision are being electronically monitored. So but we’re not diverting very many people for prison with the use of electronic technology. It’s It’s It’s addition, an additional group of offenders that were breaking in particular with the pre trial side. Everybody pre trial is now under electronic monitoring, really, they’re presumed innocent, but

Andy 41:46
doesn’t the technology do a better job than your own recognizance?

Larry 41:51
Well, it depends on what a better job means. If it if it means prying into the person’s life and knowing every detail of what they’re doing. And restricting their mobility, yes, it would absolutely do better than that. But if the pre trial is merely for the purpose of assuring the participation and the process, then it does a horrible job because it puts so many barriers around the person that they shouldn’t be. They’re still innocent. Remember?

Andy 42:17
I thought we were guilty until proven innocent in this country. Well,

Larry 42:20
we’re moving that direction. But why shouldn’t you be able to leave Houghton county when your free trial? Why would you why why would that Barry avail you? You’re innocent. Remember, why would you have a curfew? Why would you have a drinking restriction that you can’t go to bars and stuff, your free trial, remember?

Andy 42:38
Do you think that this impacts different classes of people, be it race, ethnicities, economic backgrounds, does it does it impact them in a disproportionate way?

Larry 42:49
It does, it does because in most instances of the cost associated with it, and the people who are least able to afford it end up with some sort of violation, or they don’t have the option for pretrial release because I can’t pay for that fancy monitor.

Andy 43:02
So it does you can go home if you can pay us the hundred dollars a month for you to have the ankle monitor on.

Larry 43:08
Yeah which is usually more than that but if you can pay the fee for this thing you could you could you could be out of jail free trial.

Andy 43:14
And as we experienced at the at the meeting in Georgia several months ago there was a guy there I totally didn’t even realize he was on an ankle monitor so he had to sit near he had to sit near an outlet so he charges a little ankle bracelet. And what does it what do you think that that does for you having your to continue your employment if you have to sit there and outlet to charge your little box?

Larry 43:38
Well, it does. It does that it limits people’s mobility for employment because they have so many hours before they have to get to a charger and if you’re doing field work you you don’t really have a charger really available. And so it creates all sorts of issues with employment and and and it certainly interferes with your personal life. Perfect people feel that liberty to go the gym and workout and right to take a take a dip in the pool or anything like that with a with a smug result. Definitely that definitely

Andy 44:40
Let’s see what Are we here we have an article from the intercept. This is a couple articles that we have bound together says will Tennessee kill a man who saved lives on death row. my reading of this is this guy, his name Nicholas Sutton. And regardless of the crime that he committed, I’m not even trying to go down that path. He if he was sentenced to death row, then I’m going to assume he did something pretty severe. But his time in prison, it looks like he had decided to turn his life around. He was helping other people like almost being like a ward. Is that the right word? I’m looking for someone that helps people with medical challenges. There’s a guy with cerebral palsy he would like carry him to visitation so he could see his family. And anyway, so what did we decide to do with this guy?

Unknown Speaker 45:43
Well, unfortunately, he was executed.

Andy 45:46
Alright, and this is coming out of what state this is Nashville. So this is Tennessee is where this happened. Yeah. Apparently ran on a platform of prisoner form.

Larry 45:57
That is correct. And he’s a born again, Christian.

Andy 45:59
Oh, Alright then and born again Christian, I’m thinking that we would have some sort of idea of forgiveness and so forth.

Larry 46:09
Well, I can’t speak much for born again Christians, but I can tell you that that when I’ve tried to have them square that those but discussed it with, they go to the eye for eye tooth for tooth they tell me that somewhere in the Bible there’s the eye for an eye that he did his thing so therefore this is his eye, an eye for tooth for tooth, and and they square that up with with the forgiveness. But this governor Billy did deny clemency bid the Supreme Court which the Supreme Court never, hardly ever intervenes on a death penalty case anymore. So he was he was in fact executed but it says he saved a life or a prison guard. So suddens Sutton is credited with saving the lives of multiple correctional officers according to the clemency application. The defense lawyer Kevin sharp said to the governor in January, one of these officers, Tony Eden says sudden say saved his life during the present right 1985 group of inmates, five inmates armed with knives and other weapons surrounded me and attempted to take me hostage, Nick and another inmate confronted them physically remove me from the situation and escorted me to safety of the of the trap gate and other building. So, it it seems like that those things would have been considered.

Unknown Speaker 47:21
He had been in prison for like almost 40 years.

Larry 47:24
Yes. And I would dare say that his age and he would say was 58. So he was probably on the criminality. And nobody was talking about let him loose. That wasn’t right there. We’re talking about a computation from death by lethal injection, I think is the way they did it. Or whatever method I think he chose. Maybe he chose another method that better that he he It was about commuting him so he would die in prison. Those were the options. No one was talking about letting him go teach Sunday school in the free world.

Andy 47:58
So America has the best And most compassionate judicial system on the planet. So

Larry 48:05
yes we do but apparently at the toward the bottom of the article and CNN it says some of his victims wanted one his life spared. Charles Mater remembers going camping with a while it’s too much to read but the people can read the article. But but apparently the paycheck is the electric chair. But there were some victims who want this life spare. And I’m

Andy 48:26
wondering, just to take the Marcy’s lawn, the that that approach, do you think that they would then consider someone trying to be compassionate to the person that committed their crime? You look for those,

Unknown Speaker 48:41
oddly enough, it doesn’t work that way.

Andy 48:44
as often. So it only works in the negative?

Larry 48:47
Yes, it’s oddly enough when when when when the when the victim comes in wanting extreme leniency. They said well, they have to send a message to deterrence to deter others and this is you know, we appreciate your bye But seldom does does the does the lineage shake come down?

Unknown Speaker 49:04
If that sounds like five paccar sealer? It does indeed.

Andy 49:10
So from the Marshall project, Mississippi prisons, no one’s safe, not even the guards. I gotta think that this is a on the heels of the parchment thing where the riot broke out. I don’t think prisoners guards are safe pretty much at any prison to be honest with you. The it is incredibly plausible that when a girl guard walks in, that the 80 people in the room would just jump on. And that’s the end of that story. Then they’d have keys and so forth and potentially other things that they could then gain access to it and you could have a riot and do pretty big damage Quickly, quickly. You’re correct. The former secretary of corrections for our state, reg Mark Intel was fond of testifying

Larry 50:01
white, white was asked to testify, but when he was asked to testify and legislative hearings, he was fond of reminding legislators that, that the inmates consent to being controlled. And one the one way, one way that you keep order is you treat them with with fairness, and with consistency. And they have to believe that that that they’re receiving fair treatment. And at any given time, it makes can take over the asylum if they want to. how long they would be in control of it depends on number of factors that that the oxycodone institution can respond, and what what their what what their internal processes are in terms of retaking the present but at any given time. It makes can take control of a house a unit or Yes, a part of a facility they chose to.

Andy 50:51
Right and then you just sort of wait them out and that’s why they’re like vents in the ceiling to where they can drop in tear gas canisters, etc. It seems like you know, I don’t think any Nobody’s gonna like mass, open up the doors and let 3000 people out of a big prison at that seems that that would be a hard test to achieve.

Larry 51:08
So, but in Mississippi that’s a predictor acute because of the number of 10 prisoners that have been murdered or died by suicide since Christmas, which is not that long ago. And you know that there’s their system is in chaos. If you look at the chart on the staffing, they

Andy 51:26
I was just about to go there.

Larry 51:27
Now the Miss Mississippi vacancy rate is alarmingly high. But of course, if you don’t pay anybody anything, it’s not the type of job that has has a lot of attraction to it, particularly strong economy.

Andy 51:39
Should these people want to go and donate their time to prisons to try and mentor these young individuals and potentially not so young and try and have them come out of there? better equipped individually, they should go there on their own time and be compassionate that way.

Unknown Speaker 51:55
Well, wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t that be fantastic.

Larry 52:01
Well, let’s, let’s let’s look at look at the salaries on this of the admits, you know, the starting salary for guards and Mississippi is $25,000 and offices and the profit run presence or 23,000 other states that don’t have the acute problems pay more as much as 58,000 in Massachusetts. And so if you if you’ve got if you got Mississippi paying half, I mean, what are you going to get for $23,000? Not a whole lot.

Andy 52:34
Yeah, that’s like 12 or 13 bucks an hour. So, okay,

Larry 52:37
but but yes, the Mississippi presidents are going to explode at some point.

Unknown Speaker 52:43
So long r n.

Andy 52:45
Oh, yeah. Yeah, certainly. But Miss, they have 50% vacancy. That’s insane.

Larry 52:51
So, which which would mean that you would have a lot of officers pulling double shifts. Yes. Which would, which would, which would also which would also Break down their, their, their performance level if you’re working, if you’re working double shifts repeatedly, you can’t be at your best because you’re exhausted.

Andy 53:08
Also seems like that would be a ripe opportunity for guards to make a few extra bucks by bringing contraband

Unknown Speaker 53:15
but that’s exactly what they’re having that spiral those phones and all the Contra bands getting in this ticket presence. But if you look on that chart, Alabama has an even higher vacancy rate.

Andy 53:23
Yes. Doesn’t really surprise me that almost everything is in the south. Just doesn’t really surprise me. Well, yeah, look at the states but highest vacancy rate Alabama, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and they were right up there number 520 4% vacancy. Mm hmm. Do you think there could be I always point this out you always like thumped me for saying it. Is there a Team Red Team Blue issue here against the the the state controlled level? You know, not federal but first state control Team Red Team Blue. It looks like Team Red has the high vacancies. Generally

Larry 53:56
well? Well, I don’t see the team’s the way you see I must say more in terms of conservative versus liberal. Now that that properly translates mostly these days to Team Red Team Blue, but there was a time my age. I remember when there wasn’t, there wasn’t such a polarization between the parties, you had liberal republicans and you had Democrats, the South tends to be very conservative. So therefore, I’m looking at the conservative ADL etiology. That’s the problem when it comes to this particular issue to conservatives do not want to spend any money on prisons, and they want to extort as much as I can from the inmates to help offset the cost of incarceration and they they want to incarcerate as many people as I can, because they’re big on punishment. I don’t see it as a Team Red Team Blue, I see it as conservative versus liberal. Now the conservatives eventually sometimes come to their senses when they finally drop the cost of corrections so high that it begins to offset and consume projects. They would rather be spending money, they will eventually say, Well, I guess we’re just we’re gonna have to get somebody to continue Control prison cost. But it that comes usually after they reach these alarming situations like you have in Mississippi, what you have an Alabama and you have all over the South.

Andy 55:11
I do see Team Red Team Blue, just a shorthand for conservative versus progressive policies.

Larry 55:17
So well, I’m dreaming for the day when will actually won’t have so much polarization that that that conservatives will be welcoming the Democratic Party, which are not right now. And liberals will be welcome in the Republican Party, as they are not currently. But they used to be. Back in the Civil Rights state. We have a lot of moderate liberal republicans I could I could just rattle off a plethora of them of people who were who were liberal and still like to this very day, you’ll be talking to someone like Sandy up in Connecticut, and she’ll say the republicans did this. I said, Remember, you guys, the republican party in Connecticut was a lot more liberal. You had governor Lowell weicker, Senator Lowell weicker, Senator Lowell weicker was a very liberal Republican, you would senator Lowell weicker would never get elected as a Polycom today that’s how much the parties have changed.

Andy 56:03
I do understand Yeah, there’s and then there’s nobody in the middle there’s no like you were just describing left leaning right people in right leaning left people. There’s nobody in the middle. Everyone is so far stuck against the walls on both sides. It’s it’s a very disturbing place that we are.

Larry 56:18
So in fact, Ronald Reagan picked a liberal republican named Richard Schleicher to be his vice presidential nominee 1976 when he was trying to unseat president forward for the nomination. And so but but contrast trying to find a liberal republican today, they’re very hard to find.

Andy 56:37
Definitely that, shall we go talk about did he get did he get a sentence actually, did he get he got exonerated, correct, or just released? How did that go down? I got commuted. So I believe this is President Trump commuted Mr. Burgoyne which was an amazing name that is by the way,

Unknown Speaker 56:55
that is a fantastic name. It is

Unknown Speaker 56:58
for you to come back and call Mars is a farce.

Unknown Speaker 57:05
It’s a terrible way to treat a guest on your show.

Andy 57:08
And you sent me a clip from anderson cooper from CNN and I know everyone’s going to hate me, you know, hate us for playing something from CNN because that’s like the king of fake news. But here’s Anderson Cooper challenging Mr. Blagojevich. Rod Blagojevich on his exoneration track record, I guess it’s the best way to put that

Unknown Speaker 57:26
maybe you’ll join me in the fight to reform our criminal justice system.

Unknown Speaker 57:32
Over sentencing blacks and Latinos, right. I learned that when I was there, okay. What what sad is that you hadn’t actually learned that when you mattered when you actually were the governor, you work. You talked about working for the criminal justice reform. There’s a lot of people in Chicago, there’s a lot of people in Illinois, who actually like spit up when you say that, because when you were actually in power, and when you were actually governor and you could have helped thousands of people with clemency cases, you blew it off. The governor after you inherited a huge backlog, nearly Thousand clemency petitions that you failed to review. In fact, you were sued by by you were sued as governor by Cabrini green legal aid to try and pressure you to actually pay attention to clemency cases, instead of extorting people for money and campaign contributions. So it’s a little ironic and frankly a little sad and pathetic and hypocritical. You talking about, you know, commuting, getting you get a commutation of a sentence, which is within the President’s right. But you would know what a whole hell of a lot of other people who are hoping you might give them clemency when you actually matter.

Unknown Speaker 58:35
So actually,

Unknown Speaker 58:37
I’m there wasn’t a margin. It was a statement. I’d be happy to work with people on criminal justice reform,

Unknown Speaker 58:42
but I wouldn’t work with you.

Unknown Speaker 58:44
Okay, can I answer that question? Okay. I like to dress that. Look, when you’ve been put where I was, and you have all the time that I was given to think and look back on some of the things you might have done different. That’s certainly an area that you talked about that I certainly will wish I would have done more. And there’s no question about that. Fair enough. My biggest regret. I didn’t know how corrupt the criminal justice system was until it did it to me. And that was a wake up call.

Andy 59:11
I have to think that a person that is vying for the executive position, the top office of a state would have people advising him on how shitty prison actually is that he would go, oh my god, I didn’t realize how bad it was until I was in there. Yet he had all the power in the world to make them less shitty. The governor of Georgia, I believe it was the 80s or 90s. He took out all of the recreational facilities pretty much out of prison and just said, Hey, you guys are just going to hang out here and cold warehouses. They have an immense amount of control over how the system would be. And these would be the enlightened folks over how that system is and here he is. Gonna then go, Oh, whoops, I didn’t know until I was there that is really bothersome.

Larry 1:00:06
I’m not quite as harsh as you are. I think it’s very plausible that he could corrections again is not high priority for, for executives around the country. When you’re running for governor, you. Anybody can send a clip that says, If you like my governor, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. We’re going to have the best corrections facilities, it just it just isn’t. There’s so many things that state governments do, that actually are very appealing to voters. But making life better for prisoners is not very appealing to voters, making prisons, but anything that we talked about doing to reform presence is going to cost money. And people like to talk about it’s going to save money. Ultimately it might save money if we reduce the cost of the population in prisons by half. If we if we if we bought bottles facilities. But if we start giving people more training and education that cost money to run those programs while they’re in prison, if we start mentor-ship programs, those things cost money, if we start providing more reentry services and and and and financial aid to help people reintegrate that costs money, money with all this stuff is not free. And you’re, again, you’re competing with all the other things that are popular with government. So a candidate running for governor is not going to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what’s wrong with the prison system. That candidate is going to deal with presidents as minimal as they have to, to get by, which is what Rod did during his tenure. He put it out of sight out of mind and hope that there weren’t any any large scale riots and and we do the minimum we have to do. But I think I think the bigger question that I would like to see here is the president. As Anderson pointed out, the President has the right to do that. That is every challenge on presidents pardons have been turned back on tell people that’s an absolute. The president can pardon and commute. The question is, is the President serious about criminal justice reform? I think that’s a legitimate question. We look at the track record of his of his his executive clemency. There certainly has been a lot of high profile people of his hundred 17 or so that we’ve heard a lot about including Arpaio. And we hear possibilities that he might pardon stone or do something on that case,

Andy:
Manafort or Flynn.

Larry: But we what we what we don’t hear from the press and i and i find it extremely disappointing. He did sign the water down first step back and Jared Kushner helped push that to the finish line over conservative opposition led by Senator Tom Cotton and Arkansas and and so we end up with a much neutered first step back. Hey did sign that to his credit, but Mr. President, what Are you going to do about the directives that your department of justice gave out to seek the maximum level of criminal charges against people to charge for the maximum possible crime? Are you going to resend that, Mr. President? Are you going to resend the policy that says to seek all the habitual enhancements that you can? Are you going to resend those policies? Are you going to really be serious about criminal justice reform? Or is this window dressing? I think those are legitimate questions about this. And then in terms of your executive clemency, President Carter used his executive clemency to, to to, to over 200,000 people. Now 200,000 were draft evades who had left the United States to go to Canada. And then he did thousands more. I don’t know the exact totals, but he but he took an immense amount of political heat and criticism, which that could have been a factor in his not being reelected. So Mr. President, you’re very popular right now. Mr. President. Let’s open up these gates and let’s get a lot of these people. Pull out of prison who have served more than enough time. And let’s start using that executive clemency while you still have the popularity to do it. Don’t do like governor Blagojevich did don’t ignore everybody, unless reverse somebody’s misguided policies that your attorney general has ordered the Department of Justice to seek. That’s what I’d like to see.

Andy 1:04:20
I hear you and I’m getting comments in the chat that you need to tweet at him. Larry. need to step up on Twitter and go have a battle with the president who has we almost have the same number of Twitter followers as he does? He has 50 something million so we’re like, right there in second place?

Unknown Speaker 1:04:38
Where 48 million right?

Andy 1:04:40
It’s somewhere it’s just shy of that actually just shy. Okay. Um, you could actually audibly hear Mr. Cooper in that whole clip. He was like getting worked up to where he was not able to communicate in a very smooth fashion. He was starting to stutter and stammer he was totally getting worked up while he was talking to Mr. Blue boy that he was

Larry 1:04:59
indeed And I think that’s the ultimate of hypocrisy for, for the governor to former governor to benefit from executive action. And then the article points out above the article that we were not to spend a lot of time on, but he was totally tone deaf to anybody who was suffering until it became him. And that’s often the problem in this entire movement that we’re facing is most of us we’re all in favor of all this stuff that we’re now against because it impacted us correct?

Andy 1:05:31
Well, I you know, I’m not gonna sit there and say that it wasn’t me. I was certainly that way too. I do recall me specifically I was driving when I was in the military we were driving across the country and I we passed by something It must have been in Texas but it could have been in like some one of those neighboring states and I saw a literal chain gang going on with people like shackled and they were like, like holding crops or something like that. I was like, right on man. bread and water, make them work. That was me 15 years ago, I guess, 20 years, 20 years or 25 years ago.

Larry 1:06:04
Well, and then when I put you on the chain, how did you feel about it?

Andy 1:06:08
I had a little bit different of an opinion of it at that point, because Georgia is a little bit warm, and summer times are uncomfortable.

Larry 1:06:17
I see. All right. Well, I can’t wait. I can’t wait for what’s coming next that we have that we have not done Justice Scalia in a long time for several episodes. And I just want people to know that, that we pick clips from from him that we think will help understand the role of the federal government, the state government separation of powers what the constitution can do for us. And we get so many questions about something particular in terms of the Facebook and the social media about why isn’t an unconstitutional so I’m hoping that this clip after I dissect it will help explain that beautiful,

Andy 1:06:59
beautiful setup here. Go.

Unknown Speaker 1:07:00
But does equal protection mean that you have to have unisex toilets? I mean that no question you have to get a this is your quote, Mr. Justice in

Unknown Speaker 1:07:13
California. Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue was whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlawed discrimination by sex, hey, we have things called legislators and they enact things called laws. So why doesn’t the 14th amendment then cover women, the the 14th amendment

Unknown Speaker 1:07:44
senator does does not apply to private discrimination. It applies. I was speaking of title seven and laws that prohibit private discrimination. The 14th Amendment says nothing about private discrimination Only discrimination by government.

Andy 1:08:03
This goes to questions that we’ve received all of the time. That’s like, why can’t I be on Facebook? And I thought like we could go talk about packing him for a brief moment that said that some someone so can. North Carolina had a prohibition on all people being on social media. And that is the example that he is describing it that is the state restricting you from using the platform, not the platform restricting you from the platform.

Larry 1:08:28
That is That is correct. And that’s why I thought this clip was ideal for helping. Perfect explain that we have. We have question after question about discrimination and what the Constitution protects. And the constitution wasn’t thinking, the founding framers weren’t thinking so much in terms of discrimination, and abuses by individuals against other individuals. They were thinking about limitations on the power of what government could do. And so when when you look at Brown versus Board of Education, that was the government But there was running two separate school systems. And it was the government who was giving the African American children an inferior education and calling it equal. Therefore, the government was stopped from doing that, and Brown versus Board of Education. But when you have when you have private discrimination, then you need statutory law. And you have, like there was a time when people could discriminate in terms of housing before we had the Fair Housing Act. But as Scalia said, we have legislators and they pass things called laws. So if you find a discrimination objectionable, and it’s not the government doing it, then you need to pass something called a law. You did too. We we have fair housing. We have the Americans with Disabilities Act as a statute. That’s not in the constitution anywhere. You don’t have an ADA clause in the US Constitution. You have Americans with Disabilities Act. You have the Voting Rights Act, but you don’t If you if you adhere to the conservative doctrine about the limitations of government, you would not want the constitution to provide a broader interpretation of the protections there. If you don’t like what Facebook is doing or not doing, then we need to pass a statutory law that says that social media as defined by whatever and I’m not an expert on social media shall not prohibit users from using this. This mechanism of communication, if they reach a certain segment of the population, which would be defined, and then we would have something that would protect people. But it seems like a lot of our people want to invent a right that’s not in the Constitution, to prohibit discrimination, to say that they have the right to use a platform that they don’t own, which would be the same as going into the doctor today. Sunday morning. I should have gone into local synagogue knocked and said you cannot have a message Like to deliver and I have a right to do that. I have something to say, give me your microphone. Let me speak by PC, I have no right to their microphone is their microphone. It’s their platform.

Andy 1:11:11
I would point out that if you were there on Sunday, there probably wasn’t anybody there.

Larry 1:11:14
There probably wouldn’t be in that particular but but in terms of the process, there would be a whole lot of people there this morning, but you have no right to go in and demand to use their communications, their platform, you have the right to speak, but you don’t have the right to be hurt. You can speak all you want to and in the arena that you control, but you can’t demand to have someone else provide you their platform for your message.

Unknown Speaker 1:11:40
Absolutely.

Andy 1:11:42
Absolutely. Um, I don’t think I have anything else that I can say about that one. He’s pretty hope. I hope that helps. Yeah, I just wonder, let’s see what how do I how do I want to work this. I he seems incredibly rational in the way that he was. Words these things that if we want to change, and I think we were talking about this pre show, if we wanted to change to mandate, I guess that that Facebook etc would allow our people, then we can enact laws with our representatives that says Facebook you can’t discriminate. And so my question to you by extension is, I know that we have places that have presence restrictions, but generally speaking, you are allowed to go to a McDonald’s, I think McDonald’s can prevent you from going into their establishment for for their own personal reasons. What do we we don’t have a guarantee that you go to Walmart or any of these things because they’re they’re public. It’s there. They’re privately held companies using the the public space. But could they say that you can’t go visit the the Washington Monument DC because that’s public property. And there’s where it gets is that I said, a comparison?

Larry 1:12:55
That’s where it gets a little dicey here. And that’s an area of case law that needs to develop In terms of the government, prohibiting people who have paid taxes to support the services from accessing the services is a different question than what McDonald’s does. But say McDonald’s falls out of the public accommodations. We’ve passed laws, statutory laws, in terms of public accommodations to stop the discrimination and housing, hotel rooms reading. And people like Lester Maddox, who used to at one time would not serve blacks in his restaurant in the pic Rick in Atlanta. But wait. What’s so funny about the tick, Rick?

Unknown Speaker 1:13:33
Hang on, man, I gotta play this right now.

Andy 1:13:40
hypocrisy. So what was the name of this restaurant? To pick Rick? All right, go on. Sorry.

Larry 1:13:48
Well, in response to people like less romantics, there’s been statutes put on the books that when you are when you’re accommodating the public, that you cannot discriminate on the base of The prohibitive factor is that I can’t recite all of them. But you could possibly do that with with social media, you’d have to define what the limitations are in terms of the discrimination that could be employed. But even even with those combinations, restaurants are allowed to have standards in terms of attire, and who they will serve. If you’re intoxicated, I can still tell people, we won’t serve you. But it’s not on the basis of race. You can’t tell somebody but we won’t serve you because we don’t serve your path. But you can tell a person you’re intoxicated, and we do not serve your kind. And you’re right. Ah,

Andy 1:14:34
yeah, that so we could make similar parallels to a McDonald’s using the roads that were built by taxpayer dollars. Obviously, people aren’t going to go to McDonald’s. If it’s in the middle of the desert, somewhere there were there’s no road access. So the internet itself would be the public access infrastructure for you to get to Facebook. I think I mean, they do call it the internet superhighway, whatever the digital superhighway so that seems To make a fair comparison, so then how does Facebook get away with discriminating against a certain class of people? Not in the same way, in contrast to how McDonald’s cannot do it?

Larry 1:15:11
Well, but a few reasons. One is there hasn’t been a law passed that says they can’t like there has for McDonald’s. And today, there hasn’t been a legal challenge, we first have to pass the statutory law that says, you cannot deny this accommodation to everybody, like we did with to keep people like less dramatics from saying, I won’t serve blacks. So we have to pass the law. And then we have to do some litigation. And even if we don’t pass a law, we have to do some litigation and put forth some creative theories about how this this is publicly. I’m not anywhere near sophisticated enough to explain how much internet is publicly paid for. I don’t know enough about how we got to where we are with the internet to know how much of it was was paid for by the public. But there could be arguments made it’s just litigation that hasn’t happened.

Andy 1:16:00
Yeah, I think a lot of it is privately paid for, but I think a ton of it is publicly at least designed and paid for as well. But still you have just don’t know even if it were public, if it if privately paid for. It’s a conglomeration of a bunch of companies that have built it. And are you saying, are we then saying that all of them agreed to block these people from that place?

Larry 1:16:22
Well, they were put under pressure from the government. So let’s be clear, the Facebook initially wanted to have open access to everyone. But the the public outcry resulted in government pressure to close the network to to, to these individuals. So we in a sense, we do have government interference already.

Unknown Speaker 1:16:41
I can agree with that. I can understand where you’re going with that.

Larry 1:16:44
Yes. Well, it’s it’s an undeveloped area of litigation. I would like to see more litigation. Again, it gets back to what I said last week, when we lost half our listeners when I said, funding is the biggest thing that stands in the way of more litigation. Yeah. When when I said hey, you know, rather than just giving up Boys, we’ve got to give out of dollars. And our dollars will allow allow more litigation to ensue. It’s very, very expensive. And it takes a long time. Look at this Michigan case, it’s been dragging on for how many years now?

Unknown Speaker 1:17:13
Four ish or something in two and a half or something million dollars.

Larry 1:17:17
So it’s, it’s, it’s the absence of money that causes lots of things that should be challenged not to be challenged. So everyone go donate money to your nearest whatever, ACLU darcel, affiliate, whatever that is, go donate all of the money. That way we can make all of the challenges because attorneys generally don’t work for free. Last I checked, but maybe some of them do. Maybe some of them are willing to do something that’s a pro bono ish thing. They do a lot of pro bono work for free. But these are long drawn out things. It’s one thing to help on a on an issue that’s going to be able to be resolved quickly. You can draft a letter, you can make a call to someone at a governmental agency, you can try to break a log jam. But you’re talking about litigation that drags on for years and devours your private That’s a whole different. It’s a whole different equation. I guess it would be example to rebuilding a fleet of vehicles for somebody versus helping a lady who’s who’s, who’s got a broken fan belt or what he called it the serpentine belt. It did not to do many mechanics would object to given the older lady the serpentine belt if she couldn’t pay for it and putting it on for but they wouldn’t want to do a fleet of vehicles that would take them for the next five years to rehab all those vehicles. That’s the that’s the analogy.

Andy 1:18:28
Did you see the movie? Erin Brockovich? I did Yes. Oh, whoa, whoa, hang on. Wait a minute. I need to take a minute. You have seen a movie?

Unknown Speaker 1:18:38
I saw that movie. Yes.

Andy 1:18:40
Wow. Okay, well, I’m just bringing this up because it was a super small law firm that then eventually went to bat and took on the big company. And how much of that time and energy of that little firm was devoured by trying to sue the big company, because it was a it was a great movie regardless, but that’s a Anyway, I’ve just wanted to bring up That comparison, so go watch that movie to get something along those lines of the comparison. Good. Good movie. Yes. Wow, you’ve seen a movie. I’m stunned. You know, a person in chat from New York who has a very British accent sent me this article is from the Daily Mail at the co.uk and a married mother of two teacher 33. avoid jail time after pleading guilty to having sex with two students age 16 and 18. Don’t want to cover the crime. I want to cover the punishment. She is receiving five years of probation and a 20 $500 fine for each crime. So she’s getting 10 probation and $5,000 in fines. Oh, she’s also going to give up her teaching license Larry. I’m pretty sure if we would have reversed the roles make it a 30 something year old male teacher and some later teen and middle teen females. For students. This person would be going to jail for for ever. And this would be shunned and admonished and all That for all of the days to come. But somehow I don’t think that’s fair. Not that she’s getting a arsons but just not a fair since compared to reversing the genders

Larry 1:20:10
i would i would agree there there does tend to be more tolerance for if it’s the other way around I think you’re seeing some prosecutors take a different view and and that and they’re going after a more significant sentences against the women. I don’t think going after more harsh sentences I guess the weapon is the answer. I think probably coming to our senses on the guys is the answer. You know, if if these people were old enough, like one of these one of these boys as a team Well, that’s the age of consent and every state in this country and us and and there are a few exceptions where actually if they have an authoritative role over them that is still unlawful, but I struggle with with with these things where were we losing a teaching licenses? Yes. They clearly can’t resist the temptation of being around the young students, but putting them in a correctional setting or a criminal conviction. I think it’s just a little too much. Yeah.

Andy 1:21:15
Yeah, a certain certainly. And, you know, the I can come up with all kinds of like, unethical, you know, poor decision, but I’m not I still struggle with like the criminal part. So if she was 33, and the student was 18, I understand the the, the hierarchy there, the authority thing being immoral, unethical, but still, deeply, deeply struggle with it. That is actually criminal. Maybe like even the 16 year old probably is past the age of consent, depending on the state and most states

Larry 1:21:47
except for the authority relationship. Theoretically, when

Andy 1:21:52
it’s already criminal, like I really like that’s so hard for me to swallow that it’s criminal.

Larry 1:21:58
Well, it adds a dimension to it. And again, I don’t know that we should throw the book at these people. But clearly, if you misuse your authority that when I was in property management, I had an awful lot of authority that I could misuse if I chose to, but that reflects who you are in terms of if you don’t respect your tenants enough to give them notice that you’re going to come in, that doesn’t translate into a crime per se. It translates to a creepy person who shouldn’t be in property management. On the other hand, if you put stinky when the apartments bacon if you put sneaky cameras and observe the person that does translate to criminality, so so I don’t know that everything that just because something’s creepy should be a big criminal. That’s that’s the point I’m trying to make is that, that maybe this this teacher, all she’s losing her license might have been sufficient punishment.

Andy 1:22:48
Certainly, you certainly have eliminated the challenge of you know, the temptation, mostly of the temptation of her being in a room full of fresh young men that she can quote unquote prey upon. I mean, it certainly removes that. from that situation, I mean, that’s all that they’re really trying to do, I guess.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:04
So, but we just have to punish, we have to send this message.

Andy 1:23:09
Right. All right, then we’re going to move over quickly to an article that is actually sourced from narcis. org narshall condemns Southern Baptist Convention as a Christian. And here’s my little quick synopsis here that’s going on. So there’s a there’s a church in Texas, that has hired a pastor who is one of our people, and the Southern Baptist Convention has voted to expel the church, the ranch land heights Baptist Church of Midland, employing  Reverend Philip Rutledge as its pastor. Why is this such a big deal? Can’t they pick and choose who they want in their convention?

Larry 1:23:50
Well, I’m never professed to be an expert on the governor. So Southern Baptist Convention but what I do understand about it is they proclaim that they are That they are about. They have they have their doctrinal teachings that if you’re a Southern Baptists, you, you believe in this, but then they delegate everything in terms of in terms of the administration of the congregation to the local control. And unlike the Methodist Church, United Methodist Church, where the the Bishop of the conference with assign your pastor, the Southern Baptist Convention, the congregation issues a song called for its pastor and for its personnel. And I find it odd that, that that, although they proclaim they believe in local autonomy, that they’re going to expel this church from the convention for doing exactly what they proclaim, that they believe in, which is autonomy. They, they called a person to be their minister who has fallen short of the glory of God. And they have forgiven him which is part of their doctrinal teachings. And this person is, is apparently by all accounts doing a decent job or good job and the Southern Baptist can be And has all of a sudden done about face and decided that they will just since I can’t exert any control over the local congregations decision to call him they’ll just kick kick them out of that they won’t be a Southern Baptist affiliated church anymore isn’t that is that that that fits into that hypocrisy doesn’t it?

Andy 1:25:17
I think that this with the hypocrisy these they say that the all the church the congregation they all know about it and they support him being the the dude in charge of things I don’t I don’t quite understand why they would then try to kick the person kick the whole church out that doesn’t that does seem like hypocrisy in the biggest of ways.

Larry 1:25:37
It does indeed it’s gotten it’s gotten quite a few comments on an arsenal website from people I haven’t read them all but it’s only 46 well that’s a high for for articles that we post when I get that many comments that’s that’s on the high side.

Andy 1:25:51
So I’m I’m looking through some of them and like somebody says they were kicked out. It’s not just Baptist churches that are problem. You know, the list goes on where people are saying things about them being kicked out of their church as well. But that’s another that’s another subject. That’s

Larry 1:26:06
not the point we’re making with this. Of course, we’re we’re making the point of the Southern Baptist bake proclaim their belief in independent local control. It’s like a person who goes out and campaigns about big, big about preventing sexual exploitation of children then come to find out that their phone is loaded with child porn. That’s the point we’re making. We’re not we’re not making the point that there’s that the churches don’t do bad things to people who fallen short. But the Southern Baptists claim that they believe in autonomy. That’s the point we’re making.

Andy 1:26:41
Absolutely. Well, there you go more than hypocrisy. Ha and how let’s see, how did we decide we’re going to spell it? So hypocrisy is hypo Krissy. So how do we spell hash power? cracy

Unknown Speaker 1:26:51
I don’t know how to spell that. We’d have to ask somebody from Georgia. How about we start with h i i i ha pop See? So there you go Hi policy

Unknown Speaker 1:27:04
people or something

Andy 1:27:05
right, it’s right up your alley. Larry, the final article that we have tonight is Indiana bill could result in kids being sent to jail. to jail younger and for more crimes. This from the South Bend Tribune. I guess it is the state of Indiana, I believe.

Something isn’t that were booted users from that is correct.

Hey, how about that I actually know a thing or two. This is a how like, when they were 12, I think is it did we get any lower than 12? It’s It’s disgusting. We’re gonna put 12 year olds in like adult people prison. Is that what this is?

Larry 1:27:43
I didn’t read the bill. I was I found it so revolting. Just a story. But senator Aaron Hutchison republican of Salem, but allow Of course to send his children as young as 12 to the Department of correction, and expands a list of crimes that could could send a child to jail to include attempt to commit murder rape, kidnapping, armed robbery The bill also increases maximum sentence to juveniles. And I’m just wondering what’s going on in Indiana? Where where’s the public opposition this past overwhelmingly at least one house of the legislature according to the story of what we’re trying to find the count but they had the vote told and there was it was an overwhelming This is some of your famous bipartisanship at work.

Andy 1:28:25
My favorite my famous bipartisanship was blamed me for bipartisanship

Larry 1:28:30
when you always tout the benefits of bipartisanship Can I get a new people? Yep, you people do that?

Andy 1:28:38
We people hang out. I got one for you here to learn you people.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:45
Who said that again?

Andy 1:28:46
That’s Eisenhower.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:49
Oh, yeah. You people this already give.

Andy 1:28:51
I can do that. I can play it again.

Unknown Speaker 1:28:54
You people.

Andy 1:28:56
That’s the earliest clip that we can find. So we need to get that attributed to the First person to use the expression you people.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:02
Yeah, that was

Unknown Speaker 1:29:03
1967. Okay.

Andy 1:29:06
You barely barely time to actually have recordings of things.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:10
Yeah, that’s amazing that they have a recording device at 1967.

Andy 1:29:14
So we got people that are going to be like playing doctor with their neighbor and whatnot, and we’re gonna like go put them in prison and the registry at the age of 12 ish or something like that.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:24
Well, apparently, if you’re a hooser, yes.

Andy 1:29:26
Wow. That is that’s that’s pretty impressive. Is this a race to the bottom line? Is this a race to see which can be the shittiest state?

Unknown Speaker 1:29:34
I remember that was said during the Obama administration. And nobody liked that terminology. But yes, this is definitely a race to the bottom.

Andy 1:29:42
And so then the next state over to Indiana is going to then go Uh huh. Well, they’ve got 12 year olds. We’re going to go for elevens.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:49
Well, I can’t even I can’t.

Unknown Speaker 1:29:54
All right, then.

Andy 1:29:55
Well, with that, Larry, I think we should. We should shut this mF down.

Larry 1:29:59
Well, not only That back to that Scalia clip that we played before we shut down. What the for those who who will not actually watch it. That was senator dianne feinstein from California. That was speaking and and the late Justice Scalia, but the quote that that Feinstein read have was one we’ve actually played on this podcast. Was that right? That Yeah, the that have legislators and people, people, they like things called law laws. We’ve actually played that on this podcast. But for just putting context that was that was Scalia educating Feinstein about the constitution doesn’t protect and prevent private discrimination. We need laws to do that. The founders were protected from government action, not private action.

Andy 1:30:45
I do understand and that, Larry, seriously that is. It’s not hard to separate out but it’s hard to separate out. It’s hard to make the distinction between what the state is doing versus what a local individual business owner whatever doing?

Unknown Speaker 1:31:01
Well, we’re gonna have to try harder.

Andy 1:31:03
Larry, what is the way to find the podcast? If someone is interested in finding, listening, subscribing, all that stuff, where do they go?

Larry 1:31:11
Well, there’s a number of ways, but the best way to do it is to go to registry matters.co. You can find all kinds of good stuff about us.

Andy 1:31:20
All the navigation links are there for you to to find phone numbers, email links, etc. How about if someone wants to send a phone call message? And just like our super patron Mike did, where do they go for that?

Larry 1:31:31
Yeah, say save the phone line for another couple of weeks 7472 to 74477? And how about sending us an email message? Where would they go for that? That would go to registry matters cast@gmail.com

Andy 1:31:48
and we love all of our patrons very much. But if you would like to become a patron and support all of our efforts in doing this podcast every week and all of the super incredible knowledge that Larry bestows upon us with the Great generosity, where do they go to do that?

Larry 1:32:02
That would be patreon.com slash registry matters. And if you don’t remember the slash, just search on Patreon and you’ll see a look for registry matters. And it’ll take you right to us.

Andy 1:32:12
That is perfect. You can find us on Twitter at registry matters. Also, you can find us at YouTube. You can search for our podcast on all of the platforms, whether that’s pocket casts, or iTunes or Google podcasts, all the places search for registry matters and you will find us there. Larry, I don’t have anything else. Do you have anything else before we go?

Larry 1:32:33
I think we’ve done a great job.