Listen to RM125: Preservation of Our Constitutionally Promised Liberties
Andy 0:00
Registry Matters is an independent production. The opinions and ideas here are that of the hosts and do not reflect the opinions of any other organization. If you have a problem with these thoughts, fyp. Recording live from FYP Studios, east and west, transmitting across the internet. This is Episode 125 of Registry Matters. Larry, we’re catching up to your age, almost kind of sorta, aren’t we?
Larry 0:24
you’ve got a ways to go yet, but you I think we do about another 75 we’ll be there.
Andy 0:30
Wow. But you’ll have another birthday by then too, I would imagine.
Larry 0:34
Yeah, but I’m just shy of 200 years old
Andy 0:37
Oh, really? Oh, I didn’t realize that we actually had a number that we could put on it. That’s amazing.
Larry 0:42
Yeah, well, I calculated it, right, cuz I served in the Lincoln administration. So if I did that, that was, I might be, yeah I think 200 would do it.
Andy 0:55
I have a voicemail and it’s going to give us a perfect segue into the surprise for the night. I’m going to play a voicemail message real quick
Christian (Voicemail) 1:05
Andy, Larry, Christian up here in Minnesota, Minnesota Four a lovely show this evening, April 19. You forgot one big person Jesse Ventura was on the WWF. And he became governor of Minnesota. And Phoenixville, it’s actually called Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. And the third thing more of a suggestion. What if you guys went to every state and had every affiliation to NARSOL on your show? Starting of course with Minnesota Four which is obvious, cause of me, Larry, I mean, come on. Anyway. Great show. Thank you guys. And fyp.
Andy 1:44
Christian has put his finger on kind of what I’ve been sort of hinting at doing for a while of having, you know, maybe it’s monthly and we sort of rotate around to different advocates doesn’t have to be a NARSOL affiliate. And this evening, we have Brendan joining us from Georgia. He is the president of the, should I name it Brendan? We haven’t officially announced it yet.
Brendan 2:07
Sure yeah, now it’s got a website. Let’s do it.
Andy 2:20
So RSOL Georgia has been renamed into Restore Georgia, Incorporated? Is that what we’re going with?
Brendan 2:17
the official legal name is the Restore Georgia Coalition, Inc. because somebody is squatting on Georgia. We’re going to fix that whenever that expires, though, you know this, this show talks a lot about law and I’m getting way more involved in law than I ever thought I would and never knew that you could squat on a name with the Secretary of State. But that’s neither here nor there. We’re going to make progress as Restore Georgia.
Andy 2:42
Very good. And so anyway, so you’re our guest for the night and thank you so very much for joining us. Brendan. So tell us, do you want to tell us about some other organizations that you do work for which are focused on… give you the spotlight for a minute?
Brendan 2:55
Here? Yeah, in Georgia, I am involved with several organizations. One of them is The National Incarceration Association so when we’re talking about the phone calls that they’re placing to their families, that’s where the NIA comes in. We are about the families, getting the families of the loved ones that are incarcerated the resources they need, whether you get your glasses prescription or your medication on the inside of the family member would call the NIA. We would act as kind of an ombudsman. I do a lot of advocacy work at the Capitol in Georgia for the NIA. So I’m going against some outrageous things that impact the families of those who are incarcerated. Of course, you mentioned at the beginning about Restore Georgia that is specifically for the registry. We’re trying to make rational laws here in Georgia and fix some of the irrational laws in Georgia around the registry. That website is restoregeorgia.org
Andy 3:52
And, Larry, you have anything to go on before we go on.
Larry 3:57
Well, hello, Christian, and he’s been a longtime supporter and we’ve talked about Jesse before Perhaps he’s missed the episode, but we talked about his governorship and how he’s, since his governorship is going off the deep, going in to this conspiracy stuff. But yes, Jesse was proud of himself that while he was governor of Minnesota, he did not raise any taxes. And so that was his proud, as I recall, moment was that he left office without signing or agreeing to any increase of taxation.
Andy 4:30
Ah, and what are we going to do?
Larry 4:34
Well, we’re going to do a program that’s filled tonight with all sorts of articles about COVID-19 and about Supreme Court decisions. We’re going to talk about so many things that that I don’t know how we’re going to jam pack this in a four hour podcast.
Andy 4:49
It won’t be that long. I promise. I promise, I promise. Because first off right off the bat, we have an article from Highland County Press that the juvenile court lost right to send serious youth offender to Adult prison. This isn’t COVID related.
Larry 5:02
It is not. And I think it’s a great decision. There’ll be people out there that will say he got away with it, but he didn’t get away with it. He was punished in the juvenile system. And Ohio, perhaps like some other states, after you go through the juvenile system, if you don’t avail yourself of rehabilitation, they can sentence you a second time as an adult. We had a case recently here, that rarely happens here, but we had a case like that, and due to a clerical error and previous court precedent that his birthday is recognized at 12:01am. They missed filing their transfer of him to adult court by a day. So therefore, his adult sentence was set aside.
Andy 5:49
They missed it by how many, how much?
Larry 5:52
A day.
Andy 5:55
I bet you someone’s a little pissed off about that one.
Larry 5:56
Well, I’m sure they are but the Supreme Court of Ohio has Spoken, and there is no appeal from that. There’s not a constitutional issue that can be taken up on cert to the US Supreme Court, the only thing you could do, but best not allow the Supreme Court to reconsider. But this case is over.
Andy 6:13
That’s it. That’s the end of that story, huh?
Larry 6:15
Well, it’s I mean, that they will target him for, or he’ll be one of those that’d be arrested for your famous felony jaywalking. I mean, they’ll be they’ll be looking to get him back in the clutches of the system, but until they can get him in the clutches, this case is over. Oh,
Andy 6:31
is that is that uh, how did they miss it by a day?
Larry 6:35
they didn’t file the paperwork.
Andy 6:40
They didn’t see it coming down the pike?
Larry 6:42
Well no they did, they just didn’t file the paperwork with the clerk of the court. I mean, the order was issued, it just wasn’t filed. So they just missed filing. But it’s one of those nuances. I mean, these things are important. We have deadlines for reasons.
Andy 6:54
Oh, almost like a statute of limitations.
Larry 6:57
Well, I guess you could call it that. Yeah. He needed to be transferred prior to his 21st birthday and he wasn’t. Your 21st birthday, If you’re in the conservative mindset, the statute is clear, it doesn’t say 21st birthday plus a few hours give or take for you know for cushion. it said 21st birthday, that didn’t happen go ahead Brendan.
Brendan 7:19
The devil’s in the details here, I mean it works for you and against you. That’s why attorneys get paid the big bucks to look at these type of things. And they just found one here that squeaked by but this happens all the time when you’re talking about the legal system and pushing papers and stuff through they’ve got so many cases and trying to keep track unless you had a DA that was really paying attention and really wanted out to get this guy. It’s no wonder it slipped through the cracks like this but it could work for you or against you and in this case it worked for him.
Andy 7:49
I actually want to say that the thing that we have coming up with the 17 months that it’s the same almost seems like the same thing of that working against you where you he spent 17 extra months in prison.
Larry 8:00
Yep, he did because he wasn’t eligible for any relief utilizing the mechanism that he tried to get to get compensation. We’ll talk about that one later. But yeah, this one worked out well for this person.
Andy 8:12
And so is he because he was a juvenile, Does he have registry obligations? Is there anything? Or is he just sort of like out of the system now?
Larry 8:21
Not sure if he has a registry obligation or not. But in Ohio I believe he probably would, because they have to be AWA compliant, substantially you have to register juvenile offenders, at least for the aggravated universal offenses. And he may in fact have a registration obligation but not having the prison sentence. I tell you I know some people said I’d rather be in prison. I wonder if the people that say that would still say that today.
Andy 8:46
Yeah, I know I there’s not really much of anything that would make me say Oh, yeah, I’d rather be there.
Larry 8:52
I heard that people said well being on the registry is so horrible and the Sex Offender supervision is so horrible. I wonder if anyone is saying that today? Brendan, have you of anyone saying that they’d rather stay in prison today?
Brendan 9:06
If there’s lack of resources, yeah, people are saying, you know, I’ve got it better here. If you talk to people in prison, they’re saying, Yeah, you know, this I can’t survive on the streets. This is this is where I need to be. I have actually heard that, surprisingly.
Larry 9:19
But I’m talking about in view of COVID-19. In view of the current circumstances as it exists right now, I betting a lot of people who have said that have changed their mind.
Brendan 9:27
I think so because you cannot move you cannot leave, you can’t get six feet away from anybody. You can’t barely get six inches away from people.
Larry 9:37
Well, that’s my point. I’m betting people who thought that they would rather be in prison, I bet at this point, they have rethought that.
Brendan 9:42
Of course.
Andy 9:44
And then we’ll quickly move over to an article from Forbes that is: lack of direction from Bureau of Prisons showing in federal court. This one is also pretty complicated to me Larry. I wrote a note on the previous one that says this is confusing as hell but this one is also they seemed to have one policy on one way, like the right hand and left hand don’t know what’s going on.
Larry 10:05
I don’t, I don’t think it’s as complicated as it, I mean, I guess I’ve gotten soft in old age, but I’m giving people some benefit of the doubt for unprecedent and unchartered territory. We’re trying to do things that haven’t been done before. I mean, in my life, I don’t remember I’m trying to empty prisons, reduce populations simply because of some medical issues. I mean, it may have happened, but I don’t recollect it. So it’s like the stimulus program that they threw together and I’m hearing all this criticism. I mean, today on the radio, they’re saying that dead people are getting checks, well, of course, dead people are getting checks. Why wouldn’t dead people get checks? If you’re using 2018 tax returns? if they died after they filed their 2018 return, they likely didn’t file a 2019 return, would you concede that?
Andy 10:52
Sure.
Larry 10:54
And therefore, therefore, if you’re trying to pump money out quickly, and you’re using 2018 returns, and being that people do die in the course of two years, it would be totally ridiculously absurd to think that dead people wouldn’t get refunds, of course, they’re gonna get refunds. Now, I mean, hopefully we recover the money. But the same thing is going on here. You’ve got a crisis, unprecedented. And you’re trying to figure out how to get people out of custody without having a massive public backlash about it. So everybody wants to see why… the bureau presidents doesn’t want to take any unnecessary chances. So it’s not in any great rush even though the Attorney General cleared them to make provisions to get people out of prison. And, and the courts have some latitude limited latitude that they can that they can let people out. And it’s really just, I would think it’s more of a new processes, due processes being developed on the fly. And no one wants to be the Fall Guy if this goes wrong. And I think the bureaucratic inertia is more of the problem. But Brendan, I’m sure you have a different take?
Brendan 11:58
what this has kind of shown is that Nothing happens overnight and even let’s say a judge orders something to happen. Like let’s say a judge orders your release. That doesn’t mean you get released at that very second. I mean, there’s been cases where you can go for first appearance and the judge orders you released on your own recognizance, and you sit in jail for another 24 to 36 hours waiting on the outbound process waiting to get released. The Case in point in this article is Michael Cohen and Michael Cohen was slated for release got a judge’s order, what a week and a half ago? I just looked him up on the inmate locator. He’s still in Oatsville. So he has not been released yet, even though a judge has ordered it. So they’re taking their time and making sure that everything is safe. And you’ve also got victim notification. A lot of times you have to notify a victim before you release someone. And here in Georgia, there’s a 90 day period where you have to notify that victim and what we have asked for in Georgia is for the board of pardons and parole to suspend that 90 day requirement. They have 90 days to notify the victim and get response before they release someone and we may not have 90 days.
Larry 13:05
a lot of people will die in 90 days.
Andy 13:08
I’ve heard podcast with economists and they’ve compared this to I guess what was it? ‘03 stimulus? Larry, when did the $300 come out?
Larry 13:21
I’m thinking it was ‘06 not ‘03 I think the economy was pretty solid in ’03, but I’m not sure on that. But I think um, I think it was ’06.
Andy 13:29
and then even in the in the crisis with around ’08 or ‘09 with the shovel ready programs like they I’ve heard that the lessons learned was to move fast and break stuff to use a Facebook term, but to get as much money out as possible and be damned making mistakes because we need to get that stuff out there for people as quickly as possible. So yeah, I mean, you would certainly have people getting it that potentially don’t deserve it, but err on the side of giving out money to keep people alive and keep the economy sort of in a pause state instead of saying eff you. Sorry. We’re gonna make sure that the only people that get money are the ones that filed. And deserve it. like, I don’t know, that’s the way that I’ve heard it described, at least from an economist’s point of view that
Brendan 14:08
This shows how bad the data is how bad the data that we’re keeping is, if dead people are getting checks. I’ve heard this is kind of scary, though. I’ve heard you know, our number that we keep using one in three Americans has a criminal record, that includes dead people. I mean, we have not pruned the GCIC or the NCIC to roll dead people off of that registry. So, you know, we don’t know exactly how many people have a criminal record. We know how many records there are in the system. But are all of those alive? We don’t know.
Larry 14:39
Well, on the on the dead people, though, What point Andy is making is that it would be an extra step and, not being an expert on what our database limits are, Typically, governmental computer systems tend to be outdated. And whether or not all the state’s vital records that record deaths, Social Security Administration is probably the most up to date of all of the records in terms of people who die but people receive Social Security benefits. dead people receive Social Security benefits all the time. Nothing sinister happens they notify them but it’s too late to suppress the payment and they’re too far into the to the cycle, too close to the next payment. Sometimes the person who’s responsible for the deceased’s accounts doesn’t get around to notifying, the funeral home drops the ball, a number of things happen. So this is going to happen. But what we think we learned in ’08, ‘09 was that the that the economy would have recovered faster had there been more stimulus sooner. That is something the Republicans griped about the whole time that the slowness of the economy the anemic recovery as they called it. now they get the benefit that they can they can pour the money out there a whole lot faster and to their credit, They are putting money, this is the fastest any stimulus has been distributed to the American people but in the process, If you want it done fast, don’t criticize them for the fact that some people will get it that probably shouldn’t have gotten it. we’ll try to recover that money later. But you can’t have it both ways. You can’t have it extremely efficient and error free.
Andy 16:11
It’s also got to be a rounding error for a lot of people, too. For the number of people that would get it that weren’t supposed to get it.
Larry 16:15
Well, but but that, like I say most of that money will hopefully come back. If a dead person receives a check. Financial institutions are pretty good about not cashing checks unless, unless the customer is alive. So it’s gonna present a challenge, but it’s those people that are always looking to criticize. that’s been really bothering me throughout this crisis is that that no matter what you do, there’s a segment of people that are always wanting to criticize. They could have done it better. They had greater ideas, better ideas, but but I think the administration is doing some good things. I think this stimulus, although I wish they would have talked about paying for it at some point. How we’re going to pay down these trillions of dollars that we’re borrowing now, but I think this stimulus is the right thing to do. I just hope that the conservatives who voted against President Obama’s relatively anemic $787 billion stimulus, I hope they will remember, the next time we have a democratic president, we have an economic crisis, that they said that no price was too great to bear. And when they were willing to spend trillions, I hope they’ll be just as supportive next time around when the person occupying 1600 is not of their party. I doubt they will, but I hope they are.
Andy 17:35
We could have somebody say something like, well screw them. We’re not going to bail them out. We’ll let them go bankrupt. I’m not mentioning any names.
Larry 17:41
well, We have a senator from Kentucky saying that right now in terms of workarounds in state governments, he’s saying that. we will find out if he pays a price at the polls. He’s up for reelection this year. Kentucky from what I understand like most states is going to be in terrible financial condition and we’ll find out if the citizens of Kentucky are happy to see their state go bankrupt. We’ll find out if that’s a sustainable public position.
Andy 18:06
What happens in that regard Larry?
Larry 18:09
I don’t think we have a roadmap for that. We don’t know.
Andy 18:11
Okay, because I think in ’08 and whatnot. We had cities that were on the verge of, I think, like Chicago kind of places. Do you remember those events Brendan?
Brendan 18:21
I don’t, no.
Larry 18:22
Yes, we’ve had, well, we’ve had it further back than that. We had it in 1975. We had to bail out New York City, and president Ford swore it down that he would never agree to a bail out. He eventually did. And he said New York, I think something to the effect, could drop dead. We’d have to do a Google search. But we’ve had financial crises in the past, but nothing that approaches this. This is going to impact every state.
Andy 18:46
Yeah, of course.
Larry 18:48
since every state is under emergency orders of some type or another. They’ve had economic slowdowns because they’ve shut down businesses. And states rely on sales tax. They rely on income taxes, and if you don’t have People working, they’re probably not doing a whole lot of withholding out of their, their income, this is going to have a dramatic impact on fees because they’re forgiving a lot of fees for stuff right now. I mean, it’s gonna, it’s gonna blow gaping holes in state budgets, it’s gonna blow a gaping hole in New Mexico’s budget because we’re about one third energy. And when oil hit negative $37 a barrel earlier this week. the state doesn’t get a whole lot of revenue on negative prices.
Andy 19:28
I went out today because I needed to pick up some stuff at Lowe’s. And first of all, as soon as you turn onto a main road, you wouldn’t know that there’s any sort of quote unquote, emergency going on. And the parking lot of Lowe’s is smack full of people and maybe half of them are wearing masks. I don’t know what your experiences up your way, Brandan. But good grief.
Brendan 19:51
Same.
Andy 19:53
Are half of the people wearing masks or more than half?
Brendan 19:56
I would probably say half but they’re not adhering because it’s a six-foot designation. you go into a grocery store and the grocery stores by me all had the one way aisles. I think Walmart is even instituted that. I mean, you’re going down the wrong way. You’ll see you almost have collisions with people, because they are not adhering to those. You can put all the rules in place and we’re still human. We’re going to say, No, I don’t care about your rules.
Andy 20:21
I’m just wondering if this is not going to have a massive, massive massive backfire on Georgia come two months, three months from now. And you know, we have New York City numbers.
Brendan 20:32
And I’ve got to get my tattoo. I’ve been waiting all this time to get my tattoo and I finally I’m gonna get the Coronavirus of all the little spokes on it and everything that’s gonna be on my forearm you know, I can’t wait.
Andy 20:44
that’s funny.
Larry 20:45
Well, I’m getting a lot of hate mail for my position. So keep it coming. I’m going to take a position, it won’t be very popular with some. I would have to assume I like to give some benefit of the doubt being that I’ve been exposed to public service for a great number of years. I just can’t imagine that the governor of Georgia would be so callous that he would convene his experts and then say, well to hell that I’m going to disregard everything. And I’m just gonna put everyone at risk and we’re just gonna flip a coin and hope for the best.
Andy 21:25
The numbers are not abating in any way. like the numbers are still moving in a positive direction and positive as in increasing not, It’s not slowing down. And I understand that he didn’t he didn’t consult the mayors and did not consult the Department of Public Safety, whatever that organization is there.
Brendan 21:42
He’s got a task force. Brian Kemp has a Coronavirus Task Force and they’ve come out this week to say we weren’t even informed that he’s gonna do this.
Larry 21:50
Well, the President said that he disagreed with it, but I mean, if he is just fly by the seat of his pants and making decisions without consulting anybody, then you guys might have pretty poor choice for your governor is all I can tell you
Andy 22:11
Well there were a lot of people that didn’t have the opportunity to vote, and it was about 18,000 shy of having somebody else.
Brendan 22:18
He was the Secretary of State when he ran.
Larry 22:20
Yes, he was the one who ran the election that elected him. But I’m saying, I just have a hard time stooping to the level of believing that someone would want to sabotage. What does he gain by killing off a bunch of Georgians?
Andy 22:32
I do not know other than to be popular that oh, this Corona hoax whatever. that frame of mind thinkers are now going to be all like super-duper Kemp supporters.
Brendan 22:43
We were really late to close the economy here in Georgia. He stood by and did not shut Georgia down for the longest even though there was a lot of pressure. So I think what’s motivating him is the economy here. Of course, he doesn’t want to the economic impact, and so he wants to open it as quickly as possible.
Andy 22:58
Yep. I agree with that.
Larry 23:00
well But then again, how much, since I’m in public service and I get these emails and phone calls. How much suffering can you inflict on people who you cannot make whole when you destroy everything? I would equate it to the fallout shelters in the 60s when we finally abandoned, in the 50s and 60s that we couldn’t build them, because we realized we wouldn’t have to come back to, what would be the point? If you totally decimate and destroy everything that people built their lives around. You destroy every business there is to come back to have we not done more damage than the disease itself? I mean, we don’t know I’m posing it as a question. So don’t say that that’s my position. But if we wreck everything, what is there going to be to reopen?
Andy 23:41
I agree with you. I mean, I can at least toe that line. I don’t know what the right answer is certainly above my paygrade I do not know that one’s very complicated to balance between letting people catch a virus that ultimately could kill them or at least cause massive Well harm to them.
Larry 24:02
Maybe there’s something in between maybe, maybe you could open things without just letting it be business as usual. They’re metering the big box stores here. They’re letting people they’ve the big box stores themselves have put the six foot stand in line outside, and they have heat sensors in the store, the computer tells them how many bodies are in there. When three bodies come out, they let three bodies go in and the fire marshal says this store can have 115 people in it, and they keep it to 115 people and they keep them six feet aside apart outside. And it seems like that that would be something rather than it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Why do you have to be, Well, let’s just go back to normal? Why not do some precautionary stuff and try to come down between the two extremes?
Andy 24:43
What do you think, Brendan?
Brendan 24:45
I just think we’re opening the wrong businesses down here in Georgia and hopefully we’ll see this across the country they’ll be looking at Georgia there’s no reason that nail salons massage parlors and tattoo parlors should be opened at this point. We’re opening the wrong businesses right now
Larry 25:00
So well, I could go along with that. But here’s, here’s the thing that that’s a tad bit troubling, although those are not as essential. But what about those people that have those businesses and that’s their livelihood? What do we do for them? Do we just say, well, you should have had more money saved up?
Andy 25:16
Right.
Brendan 25:18
That’s where these small business loans should come in, that aren’t getting to, that are going to Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse and some of these other larger companies and aren’t going to your small barbers and your nail salons.
Andy 25:27
or wait, and I know we’re going to have an article about it. How about why don’t we include people with felony records to get some of these small business loans? We should jump over to that since I just spoiled the segue to it. But I mean, we’ve covered it before that had we talked about that the small business loans, people with felonies, specifically sexual offenses don’t qualify for the, Was it 400 billion that was included on that side of it, I forgot how much it was exactly.
Brendan 25:56
Not exactly true. The only people that don’t qualify for the loans are people that are currently on probation or parole or have had a felony conviction within the last five years. So it doesn’t specifically say sexual conviction. If you’re on probation, there’s one outstanding case where a guy has, I believe it’s one year left of probation to serve. And he’s got a company with five employees and he’s not eligible for the payment protection plan because he has got that one year left to serve on probation. So as long as you are off of probation and parole and you haven’t committed a crime in five years, you’re eligible.
Larry 26:35
That’s the way I read it as well. And that was a directive that they put out on April 3, there was nothing in the Cares Act itself prohibiting felons but because someone raises the question you mean to tell these hard earned taxpayer money course they always I get so sick when I hear that cuz it’s not hard earned taxpayer money. It’s easily borrowed, indebtedness. so let’s call it what it is. Don’t call it hard earned taxpayers’ money. We haven’t paid the taxes to balance our budget for so long. Since Bill Clinton was in the Oval Office, we haven’t paid enough taxes. So don’t call it a taxpayer money, call it easily borrowed money that’s going to be possibly paid back, repudiated at some point in the future. But the public pressure was brought to bear because, Can you believe that we’re out paying taxes, we’re lending this money, these people are gonna get free money. And we play by the rules and look at them. Can you believe that? That’s what happened.
Andy 27:37
You and your little voices that you make Larry.
Brendan 27:40
you’re not just impacting the people that are on probation or parole, this gentleman who has five employees, he’s not getting the money. It’s his five employees that are going to get the money the payment protection and now you’re going to impact the five people, but it does say an owner with 20% or more of the equity that’s incarcerated on probation or parole or presently subject to an indictment or criminal charges within the last five years is ineligible, that’s really the only guidance from the Cares Act. And this is actually an SBA questionnaire on their application and you click yes or no. Do you meet these criteria are not? I would guess if you lie on that you’re subject to not getting the loan forgiven.
Andy 28:18
Why is that there to begin with?
Larry 28:20
Because it was a regulation that they decided to adopt after the outcry about, why wasn’t this put in… the Cares Act, this this was not put in the original language of the 900 pages. But, but all it takes is an enterprising reporter, calling say, Do you know that felons are… what are you gonna do about felons? Oh, well, we didn’t think about that. Okay. We’ll fix that. And that’s what they did.
Andy 28:48
And you said you’d fill out paperwork Larry.
Larry 28:50
I was just confirming what Brendan said that the application asks, does the person who owns more than 20% of the equity have the felony or been indicted, it’s on the questionnaire.
Andy 29:04
since so many of our people and all include all felons in that there’s so much of a problem of getting a job that many of them are, quote unquote forced to pursue something of an entrepreneurship so they don’t have to worry about background checks and can try and you know, go at it their own. And then this obviously like, you know, we turned the light switch off on the economy. So now your barber shop, your auto repair shop, some sort of job that you that the taxpayers paid for it, the taxpayers borrowed to get you the vocational training while you were in prison. And now we’ve turned off the economy and you’re sitting there with a thumb, somewhere the sun doesn’t shine, and you don’t have any customers coming in, and you’re hoping that you can get this money and Oops, sorry, eff you because you made a mistake some years ago.
Brendan 29:49
thinking the biggest piece of irony what I heard this week was you know, that President Trump declared April a second chance month and someone in Washington, “Well, how can you have second chance month and you’re not going to give people second chances to get their SBA paycheck Protection Program loan?”
Andy 30:05
I’m sure there wasn’t a reply.
Brendan 30:07
not really, he darted out of the room.
Andy 30:10
Anything else before we move on?
Larry 30:12
Well, it’s a dangerous path that we started going down. Large number of years back of holding up people, I don’t believe in disqualifying people, for things because of mistakes they’ve made. To me that defies what this nation stands for it, it goes against the grain of what, who we claim we are as a people. But it sounds good when these things are proposed.
Andy 30:33
Perhaps some of these companies that have taken the money that didn’t necessarily deserve it, maybe they should be put on a banned list for the next time. If there is a next time that we send out some sort of relief funds so that other people may be able to get it. You know, I mean, some big big franchises that have locally owned stores have received some of that cash.
Larry 30:55
Well, they’ve added another question to the application now and I don’t know if the people who have applications pending with their money run out are gonna have time to reapply. But they’ve added in the application you have to certify that these funds are essential that you won’t be able to operate without them. And that wasn’t on the application that I had filled out.
Andy 31:14
And it’s just a personal testimony that you’re being asked that?
Larry 31:17
Well, I don’t think any person would lie on a federal application.
Andy 31:21
Ah, no, of course not. No, no, no, no, no, never.
Larry 31:25
Well, I think so.
Andy 31:27
Alright, from WBAL TV, thousands of inmates to be released to stem coronavirus outbreaks in Maryland prisons. This I think if I remember, ah, I keep getting audio from these videos they’re auto-playing. I’m gonna mute this tab real quick so it stops. Um, it looks like they’re releasing a whole bunch of people in this article. But when you actually like break it down. It looks like it’s a shell game that they’re saying they’re going to release them but they actually aren’t. And I think it might just be something where they’re trying to make the justice system look like They’re doing something where they’re not really doing anything
Brendan 32:03
It could be they’re releasing people that they would have already released anyway. And they’re kind of including those numbers in there, like you said, the shell game. I know here in Georgia, the parole board is looking at people who were six months out from their release their maximum release date or their parole date, looking to get them out of there. But they’re saying that number is going to be about 200. In addition, they say they release 800 people a month, and it would be, you know, 200. We’re seeing they’re very slow in doing that. And again, it may be victim notification, but what I’m thinking is that most of these are coming from people that they would have released anyway.
Andy 32:39
Larry?
Larry 32:41
Yeah, I was gonna say that all of it is very timid in terms of the releases that are being done, whether it be in the States, various states or in the federal system, there’s a very, very small number of people in the totality of the incarcerated population being released. Brenda said, two or three weeks ago, it was probably too little too late. And I think we’re seeing that in some of the numbers as they’re escalating around the country. We’re going to get to an article here in Ohio about how many prisoners are infected at one particular institution. So it’s just woefully inadequate, what’s being done.
Andy 33:21
It’s really, really tragic. And but I have to think that the way the way the prison is designed is everyone is squished in there, kind of like the whole thing with the Navy ship. I mean, it is just designed spaces maximize like you have an RV, like every inch of space is highly coveted. And so to, they don’t have the resources, they don’t have the facility or anything to try and treat people, separate them. so to accommodate that, we could send them home, but we’re not even really doing that. Like, this is just this is just horrible, like all the way around. I can’t figure out how many anybody doesn’t see that, um, that we should let just droves and droves of people get out. I ran into… go ahead, Brendan.
Brendan 34:09
I don’t know how bad it is. We know the people that are showing symptoms and are actually getting sick and dying. That’s the cases that we’ve seen. Here in Georgia, you’ve got to go to the medical facility to get tested for this. And you’ve got normally a $5 copay to go in there. And that that makes people not want to go in. Georgia is waiving the $5 copay only if you test positive for the Coronavirus. If you don’t test positive, you owe that $5 to go down there and sit with a bunch of other sick people for a day waiting on your test results. So a lot of people are not going to take that risk. Therefore we’re not going to know if you really have it or not. Those numbers could be a lot larger than we even know.
Andy 34:55
That’s very true. I ran into a woman I used to work with a long time ago when I was coming back from lunch. And I was speaking about this issue with her. She was a nurse. She’s a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. And I mentioned something to her about it. And she goes, Well, I mean, I read something about that they were going to release murderers from prison. I’m like, they probably would, but maybe the person has done 30 years, and maybe not the same person that they were at the time. It’s not like, I can’t imagine that you would see somebody convicted today that has spent life in prison, Oh, tomorrow we’re going to release them because of this pandemic. I don’t think that would happen. Even in the most generous of letting people go situations.
Brendan 35:35
Most states are going for the nonviolent and they still have to do the victim notification, and that is taking time. So everybody’s got to be in agreement. You know, you still got to notify the victim. The victims got to agree that this person if they follow the same parole route, they’re just getting paroled early. They’re still under the care of the Department of Corrections in most states, but they’re being paroled. Same rules apply. We’re not just opening the gates and letting them walk free. We’re still monitoring them on parole, assigning them a parole officer, the same regimen.
Larry 36:06
Well, no one is advocating that people just open the gates and let them out, although that’s what they did in Iran. But any type of release here is going with conditions. It would be anything from home confinement, monitoring by electronic, to intensive supervision, where you would be on a screen and be tested by I think they have alcohol monitors they can put on you through the skin. I’m not an expert on that. But I think they have such thing. But we’re not talking about just letting people go out and wander the countryside and it’s just so misunderstood. We’re talking about letting people serve their time in an environment that’s a little bit safer than the prison facility. That’s all we’re talking about. If they’re pretrial, we’re talking about letting people that are presumed innocent, be out in the community during this pandemic so that they won’t die and never get to go to trial. I mean, you would like him to come to trial alive, wouldn’t you?
Andy 37:02
It seems to be hard to try somebody that’s dead.
Larry 37:05
But the spin that’s being put on it is that these people are just being told to go away and said no more. That’s not what anybody’s asking for, that’s not what’s being requested, it’s being requested to find alternatives to being behind the walls and nobody that just got convicted of a heinous offense that’s even going to be considered. We’re going to be talking about people who have served a significant amount of time who have good institutional behavior. And it’s not going to be just an open door policy. It’s really ridiculous.
Andy 37:36
Over at WB TV on your side, this is out of Charlotte, North Carolina, the Mecklenburg County Jail received a shipment of 50,000 protective surgical masks, which it began distributing to jail personnel. 50,000 seems like a lot even for some massive 20,000-person prison. I’m gonna bet that this jail isn’t that big and I’m just guessing that they have more than adequate to cover the staff that they could probably pass some of those out to different people that are housed there. But that doesn’t seem to be what they’re doing.
Larry 38:10
Well, let’s just dissect this. I don’t know, the population of Mecklenburg. I was trying to do a quick Google search to find out what population of the jail typically runs.
Andy 38:21
1392 on Monday.
Larry 38:23
How many?
Andy 38:24
1392. So 1400 people.
Larry 38:26
So that’s, that’s pretty good sized detention facility.
Andy 38:28
Agreed it is.
Larry 38:31
Well, would you agree that the people who are lodged in the facility are having less exposure to the outside world than the people who were working at the facility? Could we agree on that?
Andy 38:42
Oh, yeah sure.
Larry 38:44
Okay, well, then, it would seem to reason if you do have a shortage that you would want to keep from contaminating the people who are not going outside. So the question I would have since I’m not a medical expert by any means, would you be able to protect the inmates better by having them all have a mask or would you be able to protect the inmates better by having the staff who are out in the world who would, where would the mask be most beneficial if you had a finite quantity of them?
Andy 39:09
Well, but I mean that there’s 1300 inmates, so let’s call it I don’t know 2- or 300 staff maybe I don’t know what the staff number is. You have weeks and weeks and weeks of giving somebody a mask daily to do it that way. Yeah, you would certainly want to protect the, I think that it seems like you would prioritize the staff over the inmates provided that the inmates are still clean, but it’s not like you’re given 1500 masks and you have to ration them out. You have a month or two months worth of daily masks that you could give out to people.
Brendan 39:44
Especially those that have details that interact with staff. I know that you’ve got some that wash the county vehicles and that’s still going on. you have barbers I know for a fact that’s still going on. Even though you can’t get a haircut in the free world. Staff are going into the jails and Getting haircuts by the barbers in the jails. So if you have interaction with the staff in the kitchen or whatever, you should be allowed that mask.
Larry 40:08
Well, I can’t argue that. the population of that county is 1.1 million. So it’s not an isolated place. It’s an urban area.
Andy 40:20
So that is a place holding up a huge geographic area of detainees.
Larry 40:26
Well, I’m just saying the population of Mecklenburg County is 1.1 million. So it’s not a fly by night place. This is not Mayberry, North Carolina.
Andy 40:38
Mayberry, huh?
Larry 40:40
It’s not Mayberry. Well, I think the lesson we’re learning in this is that having insufficient amount of stuff for pandemics, if we’ve learned anything, we should have learned that the United States and I don’t want just put this off on the federal government, but governmental units in the United States need to be better prepared and equipped with masks, protective equipment, all variety of things that we seem to be in terribly short supply right now. it just seems like a no brainer going forward that, masks, do masks go bad? if we had a supply masks that were made in 1989, Assuming they were stored properly good temperature and the roof wasn’t leaking. with those masks, they might not be up to the modern day high tech. But wouldn’t they be preferable, had they been stored properly since 1989 to what we would have today, which is nothing?
Andy 41:36
I think I agree with that.
Larry 41:38
So I would say that if we stockpile stuff that’s not perishable, then it may not be the most modern stuff the masker making in 2020 may be a little bit more of a filter, able to filter more, but if you give someone a mask made in ‘99 and tell them you have this or your choice of your undershirt, I think most people would take the mask made in ’99, as long as it wasn’t destroyed by a leaky roof or rodents or whatever. Like if it was in sound condition, I think most people would prefer one that was designed to do some filtration. Your t shirt really wasn’t.
Brendan 42:14
As a counterpoint to Larry’s earlier comment about not giving the masks out to the population because they’re not interacting with staff all the time. The article, it shocks me, it says wearing the masks is optional. And jail staffers are being strongly encouraged to use them. But the staffers aren’t using them. I would want a mask if I were in there, I would want one.
Larry 42:39
I would agree with that. Now, if you’re going to hog the masks, then all the staffers ought to be required to wear them because otherwise it kind of defeats the point you won’t let the inmate protect themselves. And you don’t require the staffer to protect the inmates from themselves. that’s a catch 22 there.
Andy 42:54
That’s like some states around the country have mandated that if you’re out in public that you were going to put on a mask
Brendan 43:00
California has, yeah.
Andy 43:02
Okay. And you know, I’m making that in contrast to Georgia like just willy nilly do what you want to do. Uh, and so here you are, again with a with a prison or jail doing the same thing. Someone in chat says Pennsylvania too.
Larry 43:15
You need to kick that person out of chat from Pennsylvania.
Andy 43:20
Well, let’s move over to the New York Post Larry, I like articles like this. The judge orders release of ex NYPD cop convicted in disability scam. I find this to be just, I think you would use the term funny that this person’s…
Brendan 43:35
do cops commit crimes?
Andy 43:37
I know and you know and I had a conversation with Larry yesterday and this just befuddles me and frustrates me that I walked my way to get a haircut yesterday and as I was walking back, a cop came up to the corner and he has a phone stuck up to his face. He’s holding his telephone and Georgia just what a year or so, two years ago put in a hands free law. I’m pretty sure that he’s gonna then like go through some intersection and see somebody’s using their phone up on their face, he’s gonna go pull them over, just as he’s laying his phone down on the seat beside him. It just infuriates me.
Larry 44:09
but there’s one little problem with that that often gets overlooked. It’s like the person who buys the six packages of something, when you think that they’re being selfish. You don’t know whether or not they’re going to go out and feed a Boy Scout troop or a baseball team or something. What you don’t know about that cop, And I do know cops break rules. And I’m not saying that that we don’t know. But what if the cop was in route to a domestic violence, and he was talking to the victim. And the only way he could communicate would be by telephone, see we, that’s the missing part that we don’t know about that situation. We make the assumption that the cop is talking to his girlfriend about who he’s going to go out with tonight. Or he’s talking to his kid that’s on his way home from school or whatever. We assume the worst and we truly don’t know what the circumstances were talking on the telephone, do we?
Andy 45:01
We do not but they’re going to assume the worst of us when we are using it
Larry 45:06
Well, I wouldn’t say so I’ve been cut some breaks in my life by cops when I’ve been pulled over. So I think if you told the cop that you were talking to your doctor that you’re having chest pains or something, and the cop could call the thing back and it was a doctor, I think you’d probably get fine most cops and would probably give you a little bit of slack.
Andy 45:27
And they would after they’ve pulled you over and you died from cardiac arrest because they pulled you over.
Larry 45:32
But they wouldn’t know what the circumstances were until they inquired would they?
Andy 45:36
I completely agree with you.
Larry 45:39
I’m starting to sound like a right winger, aren’t I?
Andy 45:42
You’re totally in the camp with the police, man. We’re gonna exonerate all of them for police brutality left and right. Let’s start Stop and Frisk all over the country, Larry.
Larry 45:53
Well, but there’s a fundamental fairness about stuff that that I try to humanly, we’re only human so we all have our biases but I try to be fair with the cops. I don’t presumptively hate anyone. And I think, I wish the cops would feel the same way. I wish the cops would say the same thing. I wish when these few people that are going to abuse these early releases and these furloughs and stuff. I wish the cops who say, Don’t judge us all by one bad apple, I wish the same cops would say, and we released 27,000 inmates and 114 of ‘em messed up. Let’s deal with those 114 and let’s not throw out the whole 27,000 who’s possibly their lives were saved by this. I wish the cops would do that because I will do that for them. I will stick up for them. But I’ve never heard them stick, they never stick up for anybody on our side. Do they?
Andy 46:47
Never, not one.
Larry 46:49
I don’t hear it very often. You know what? When one of them gets accused of something they always say, well, you just haven’t heard the other side. You haven’t heard the other side. Wait till there’s two sides to Every story, and I agree there, there would be two sides to every story, but I wish when they arrest someone to their purple, I wish they would say, and you haven’t heard this person’s side of the story yet, but they never do that.
Brendan 47:12
They never Larry, they don’t it’s always, you know, tell it to the judge and guilty until proven innocent. Hopefully that will change with the public opinion. But I don’t know. I still remember my father telling me he was the foreman on a jury and one of the jurors said to him, the police don’t arrest innocent people.
Larry 47:31
Of course they do. I mean, that’s the silliest. Anybody make a statement like that isn’t fit for, of course they’ve arrested innocent people
Andy 47:39
not fit for jury duty?
Larry 47:41
They’re not fit for anything. We cannot devise, humankind cannot devise an error free system of course we arrest innocent people. Now that’s not our desire. No one should go to bed at night saying Gee, I arrested an innocent person, but in the course of all the people that handle a criminal prosecution from investigation to indictment, to prosecution, to conviction. Of course, innocent people get caught up in it. I mean, it would be to think. Like, we got checks and balances, but they don’t always catch it. But back to this article, what is your consternation with him being released? Because he’s a cop? Or because is it special treatment? Where are you consternated?
Andy 48:19
That is sort of my idea. Like I, I expect that when we put someone in the uniform with a badge that they are to, to act with, with a higher level of integrity, and so forth. So here is somebody in that position that went and stole 1.4 million bucks from our population. And he’s only going to get 18 months in prison where you have someone that commits a significantly lower offense and they go to prison for a much longer time than that. I don’t find it to be…
Brendan 48:50
I don’t have a problem with him being released. he’s 18. He’s less than six months away from his release data, it’s a nonviolent crime. He’s eligible, just like we’re arguing a lot of people should be eligible. The fact that he’s a police officer, I don’t really think that comes into play here that he should be, be forced to stick with it for the other six months, a cop.
Larry 49:11
I don’t have any real disagreement with that, to be intellectually honest, if we claim that we incarcerate too many people in this country, and we only want people who pose a danger to the community, now I know, depending on whose money you steal, it can be a dramatic impact on their lives. But we’ve got a person who I’m guessing this was the first-time offense. Usually they catch you on the police force before too long. I’m guessing this was a first time offense. To be cleared, to be on the police force he had to have no record right? Most of the time, unless it’s a very minor offense. So he had no criminal history. Now, when I say no criminal history. That doesn’t mean that you’ve never committed a crime. It means you have not been caught, apprehended, prosecuted and convicted.
Brendan 49:58
But Larry, they ask you that question on the application to be a police officer, please list all the crimes you’ve ever committed in your life. They really do. I have seen the application.
Larry 50:09
But he received under the federal guidelines he received, I’m guessing a sentence within the guidelines unless there was a downward departure, which you can do. And we’re saying get these people out of custody. If we can do it safely. And I don’t know why we would exclude him. I’m just, I’m just lost in why he would be excluded because he’s a cop.
Andy 50:33
No, that that’s not really my point. My point is mostly that we are expecting that the person to act with a higher level of standard and morals because we’ve given him this extra level of authority in the world. And I don’t know 1.4 million, That’s, that’s a good chunk of change. And that’s money That is, I’m assuming not in the tax coffers, for you know, roads and schools and whatnot to be spent on and I’m not saying he shouldn’t get early. I’m saying that If we’re going to give that person, not special treatment, but we’re going to consider them, let’s make sure that we consider other people. do it, do it consistently on both sides either. Don’t let him go, because we’re not letting other people go. But at the same time, if we’re going to let them go, Well, they’re probably other people that should be considered to go and let them go.
Larry 51:18
But we are letting other people go. He’s not the only one who’s going.
Andy 51:20
We keep covering articles where they, hey, they released 10 people from a 400-person jet. Like that’s not going to change any numbers of any sort of density. So
Brendan 51:30
well, there is a sentence disparity when it comes to white collar versus criminal crime. I just see that we’re seeing a lot of white collar crime get, you know, get slaps on the wrist and I think this is what we’re seeing. He got 18 months for 1.4 million. That’s pretty typical, isn’t it?
Larry 51:46
Well, but on the other hand, let me ask you this when you’re walking down the road wanting to be safe, would you rather encounter a person who siphoned off 1.4 million from the federal government or would you rather encounter someone who’s been beating up folks and busting their head open with crowbars. I mean, which, which would you feel like you would be more comfortable passing on the street? If you do not have limitless resources to put everybody in prison, Who would you want to spend those precious resources on? Tell me.
Andy 52:14
Uh, you know, that’s an extreme example that makes it very difficult to make a fair choice, but bring, bring it down into scale of somebody, a different kind of crime that scales more evenly. And maybe those people aren’t getting released. That’s, that’s all I’m really getting at is just…
Larry 52:31
okay, well, let’s scale it down. Let’s scale it down to the convenience store. Okay, when you’re going to pass someone on the street? Would you rather pass a person who siphoned off $1.4 million from the federal government and still have them on the street because there are things we can do to try to get some of that money back. And we have a better chance of getting it back if you’re on the street. I mean, would you agree with that?
Andy 52:55
Sure. I mean, if you’re not earning income, then you’re probably not being able to pay it back.
Larry 52:58
Right and at 15 or 80 cents an hour, whatever the federal prison is, it’s gonna take you a while to pay back 1.4 million. But if you’re going to have to pass a person, would you rather pass that person on the street? Or the person who sticks up to 711 on the graveyard shift? And gets $40, $80, or $110 or whatever, and hold a gun trembling, and they could fire it at any moment. But I mean, which would you rather pass on the street?
Andy 53:19
Well, I would just if that person just doing it for the joy ride, or do they need like the 40 bucks because their kid needs diapers?
Larry 53:28
But would you rather pass that person on the street or this person on the street?
Andy 53:32
that’s why I’m bringing up that detail. If it’s the person that is just going over to the convenience store because they need some food because they’re hungry. That’s a different scenario. That’s a crime of necessity, not a crime of just because they want to
Larry 53:42
well, but even if it’s the person who needs to have diapers for their kids, when you pull a weapon, there’s always a chance and how many times have you heard in your life of a gun, it went off? \you hear that phrase all the time.
Andy 53:43
Of course. Of course.
Larry 53:45
I don’t know how guns just go off. It seems like to me that they have to have pressure on one of the firing mechanisms. But I hear that all my life. I’ve heard that all my life. Guns, you know, they were holding the gun and it went off. Well, if you’re sticking up convenience stores, isn’t there a chance that gun might go off?
Andy 54:09
Of course.
Larry 54:11
well then I would rather have that person behind bars if I had my choice.
Andy 54:15
Ready to be a part of registry matters, get links at registrymatters.co If you need to be all discreet about it, contact them by email registrymatterscast@gmail.com you can call or text a ransom message to (747)227-4477. Wanna support registry matters on a monthly basis? Head to Patreon.com/registrymatters. Not ready to become a patron? Give a five-star review at Apple podcasts or Stitcher or tell your buddies at your treatment class about the podcast. We want to send out a big heartfelt support for those on the registry. Keep fighting without you, we can’t succeed. You make it possible. Let us move on to this one that has the little expression, the little phrase in there. This is from the appeal, the Supreme Court just struck down the last state law allowing split jury verdicts. It would seem to me, Larry, that it is kind of engrained in my head that when you go to court and you have a trial by jury that it has to be a unanimous jury. That is like just something in my head. And then First of all, this concept of not having a full jury, you know, it’s a hung jury. It’s not all 12 or whatever the number is. And then also in this one, there’s something about this word, it looks like stare decisis. Please help me understand this.
Larry 55:45
decisis is just a legal term for respect for precedent. And it comes up a lot in Supreme Court confirmation. Because the Roe v. Wade decision from 1973 people want to know are you going to respect that or what’s your feeling, before we confirm you. And that’s when they ask about stare decisis, They’re trying to figure out, what are you gonna do with Roe vs. Wade? And they don’t want to ask how are you going to vote? How are you going to rule on this? Because anybody’s sitting in the confirmation chair is gonna say, well I don’t think I can tell you what I might do on a case that I might hear. But, but that doesn’t mean that you can never reverse. It means that, that to have the stability, predictability of the law. The law itself is evolving, has evolved and has stability. You grant deference to the people who’ve made the decision before you. So these nine wise people and it was largely men until 1981, I believe, ‘81, ‘82 somewhere in the early 80s, when Reagan appointed Sandra Day O’Connor, you’d give deference to these nine wise souls that have put their heart and energy into figuring out the right decision on a case And you defer to it unless they clearly were wrong. Not that you disagree. That’s not the standard that they were clearly wrong. And in rare instances, they go back and they overturn existing precedent, which is what they did here. They, they, they had it in 1972 on the divided court with, uh, with justice, I believe it Lewis Powell. I read this 87, I did a really quick read of this 87 pages, but I believe it was a judge justice Powell who had said we can make an exception for a non-unanimous verdict in the state courts, even though they’re not permitted in the federal courts. And but now, yeah, it was justice Powell. But now they have decided that that they were wrong, and they’re overturning themselves, but they said 13 previous times before, before the ‘72 case, they had said that unanimity was required, so they’re just going back to where we were.
Andy 57:56
And doesn’t that bring up the idea that the law like evolves, it moves like we have a, an evolving standards of decency to use that term.
Larry 58:06
I don’t think so in this particular case, I think that this is just correcting what they see is an error that they made in ‘72. would be like Plessy versus Ferguson, with the 1896 saying that separate but equal was equal. And then, I believe it was 1954, in Brown versus Board of Education, they said they were overturning Plessy and we were wrong. The previous court was wrong. And they’re saying the ‘72 court was wrong and I think people want to know exactly how the, starting on page 35 for where justice Kavanaugh explains stare decisis he goes into great detail to explain the relevance of it in his concurring opinion where he could . And that way you’ll have a professional opinion versus mine. A legal professional who’s sitting on the US Supreme Court.
Andy 58:57
I think I would trust you more to be honest with you. I don’t know who it is, but I think I would
Larry 59:01
but this is Kavanaugh you would trust Kavanaugh, right?
Andy 59:05
I would trust him on his beer opinions, perhaps.
Larry 59:09
Actually, he did a nice job explaining it.
Andy 59:12
I’ve heard he’s an incredibly good writer, a super duper smart dude, but he apparently likes beer. Um, well, this is Louisiana, allowing, and Oregon just recently stopped doing it. But this is where you could be convicted in 10 out of 12 jurors of things like murder, like the high end crimes.
Larry59:32
And Oregon has not stopped doing it. Louisiana had a constitutional amendment. But this is effectively going to stop Oregon. But where the three dissenting judges have problems is because this like Roe vs. Wade. You know, this has been decided law for a long time, and Roe came out in ‘73. And the case, Apodaca versus Oregon came out in ‘72. So we’ve got a precedent of equal age and the dissent, or those three justices are saying that this is going to upset and cause extreme hardship because it basically opens anyone’s conviction that got convicted by non-unanimous verdict, it opens those cases up again. And they’re saying the floodgates, the proverbial floodgates, are going to open and it’s going to cost us a fortune to deal with all these post. So if you’ve exhausted all of your appeals in your state conviction, and you were convicted on a 10 to two or level one decision, then you go back into federal court, and you go and file a habeas and say my imprisonment is illegal because now based on this decision, your conviction was unconstitutional. And so the dissent was concerned about the floodgates on the cost of and inconvenience and anytime, anytime you have due process that costs money, so yes, there’s going to be some disruption. There’s gonna be some petitions and there’s gonna be, the courts are gonna have some work to do.
Brendan 1:01:00
My view is the job of the prosecutor is to prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt. And if you don’t have a unanimous verdict by the jury that leaves doubt. there is some doubt that this is not a just case to get on. So I think that if you have the unanimous jury it protects prosecution from appeal and from habeas and everything else. Sounds like a great idea to have a unanimous verdict. And I can’t believe that some states are still holding out.
Larry 1:01:27
Well, they won’t be holding out any longer.
Brendan 1:01:31
But for all this time, they’ve I mean, this was ‘73 that they took a look at it because I think before that it was nine out of 12. In ’73, the Constitution was amended to require 10. Why at that time, didn’t they say, you know, what, we probably need to defend ourselves should have it 12 out of 12?
Larry 1:01:49
Which constitution was amended to require, I didn’t catch that. What, what, where, where does that come from?
Brendan 1:01:55
That was in the article the state constitution of Louisiana in 1973 was amended to require 10 of the jurors to agree.
Larry 1:02:01
Okay. I didn’t catch that.
Brendan 1:02:06
there was a convention that replaced a unanimous requirement that was said that of the votes of nine jurors out of 12 are enough Vic defendants of non-capital felonies. So before ‘73, it was 9, in ‘73 they met and decided it needed 10. And why can’t you say unaminous? Because if you have unanimous then like I said before your appeals are less your habeases are less because look, the entire jury thought you were guilty.
Larry 1:02:34
Well, well, like said. I encourage the people that are legal Googlers to read, in particular if you’re not gonna read the 87 pages, read starting at page 35 with what Kavanaugh explains the legal doctrine. And I know I hate people reading on the podcast, and I don’t want to do it here but it’s there and it’s very, very eloquently written. And I guess if I could just read one sentence, the doctrine of stare decisis does not mean of course that the court should never overrule erroneous precedents, all justice is now discordant read it’s sometimes appropriate for the court to overrule erroneous decisions. So, so it’s not an absolute.
Andy 1:03:13
right. There was a passage in the article and I guess it comes from the decision says whether that slice turns out to be large or small, it cannot outweigh the interest we all share in the preservation of our constitutionally promised liberties. To me tthat resonated with the fight that we are all in that we have a certain level of diminished constitutional liberties with the registry and presence restrictions, living restrictions, etc. that uh, I just found that one kind of struck a chord with me.
Larry 1:03:42
Well, where do we have a diminished Liberty expectation? Because you’ve been convicted of a sex offense? I don’t subscribe or agree with that that once you pay your debt to society, your liberty is not diminished?
Andy 1:03:54
No, That’s my point. That’s my point. That’s my point. That’s exactly my point that in the state of Georgia while you were still on the registry, You have, depending on when you were convicted, you have the thousand foot kind of blah, blah, blah bullshit that goes with it. Well, after you’ve paid your debt to society, all that should go away. And in other states you don’t get your voting rights back. All that. That’s those are that’s what I’m focusing on with that particular sentence.
Larry 1:04:17
Well, I think I think that over time, we’re gonna have to have hope that we’re going to win those liberties back because the courts can’t continue to turn a blind eye and they’re not turning a blind eye to the ever escalating and encroaching restrictions. If they were, we wouldn’t have these decisions out of Pennsylvania, out of Michigan, out of so many states, where, where the courts are not turning a blind eye. There, there are limits to what you can do and call it a regulatory scheme. And unfortunately, the boys and girls in the legislatures around the country don’t recognize that.
Andy 1:04:49
right. Over in an article from above the law, how to bail out an inmate. this profiles an interesting case and as I the way it read to me was that A gun shootout happened. But it was in a self-defense kind of posture and the one that was defending, ended up getting arrested. And he is going to get remanded to Rikers and they call it a petri dish for Coronavirus. And that this person should be able to get awarded bail, but he is having a very hard time getting any sort of bond and possibly then going to go into a very nasty place because his little problem, used a weapon.
Larry 1:05:31
And therein lies the problem of all this bail reform. And I’m not saying i’m i’m not in favor of money alone getting you out of out of jail, but we end up when we do these reforms we end up putting in provisions where a person can be detained, much like the federal system had in the bail Reform Act of 1984 the US Congress passed, signed by President Reagan the pretrial detention was authorized. And it was challenged all the way up to the United States Supreme Court. In Salerno, the Supreme Court ruled in US versus Salerno, that pretrial detention, holding a person without bail is constitutional. And they did that because they said the due process is afforded to the person if a judge in the federal system orders you held, held without bail, there’s an immediate appeal available to you an expedited appeal to the Circuit Court of Appeals. And therefore, it’s a civil remedy since you’re not convicted, and you have an immediate appeal available to you. But my consternation is this very thing like this article we’re covering right now. If you have a constitutional right to bail, now I’m with the conservatives on this. We have to interpret bail to be in what it meant back when those words were written, right? Bail did not mean a GPS monitor and going through some type of grid sheet and then going through some type of an assessment for danger. Bail meant that a person who was accused of a crime was entitled to release by posting some assurance that they would come to court. We’re all but obliterating that with all these fancy reforms that we’re doing to make it more fair. So here’s a person who may have very good defenses against the charges, maybe even self-defense, they can’t have a bond because that grid sheet in that fancy computer that you’re so fond of that’s done the analysis has decided that on the dangerousness assessment he poses a threat to the community. So therefore, we throw the presumption of innocence out the window, and we hold him without bail. It’s a great system.
Andy 1:07:41
I think so. Brendan?
Brendan 1:07:43
bail should not be used as a punishment. It wasn’t designed to be a punishment. It’s to guarantee your appearance in court. I mean, some people that are staples of the community have lived there forever have great ties are released on signature bonds, they can just sign their way out and know that they’re going to be back because a lot of the news media’s on them and they’re going to be tracked. Other people, high profile celebrities and things that have access to private jets, we put them in the million dollar range, but everybody should be awarded bail and if guarantee we could put ankle monitors on them. I mean, the level of dangerousness should, in my opinion, levels of other hacking devices on them, but I think everyone should be awarded bail.
Larry 1:08:27
So well, Brendan, you’re just not sensitive to people who don’t have money. It’s just not fair for a person to be able to post money. This man should sit in Rikers and he should die because he’s got money. And that is not that is not fair. And I don’t know why you don’t understand that Brendan, I’m disappointed you
Brendan 1:08:48
the money goes into how much can they afford, like you’ve got the celebrity with a private jet. It’s kind of equal out to they’ve got the money and this would hurt them. You know, this would compel you so If I give RKelly a $1,000 bond, he’s gonna he’s gonna, you know, pull it out of his wallet and give you the thousand dollars. But if I give RKelly a $10 million bond, he’s gonna want that $10 million back so he’s gonna show up to court. So it’s kind of in, the way it was designed, I feel is what’s going to compel you. So the gentleman or gentlewoman that’s making maybe 20,000 a year, a $2,000 bond may be significant enough for them to come back to court.
Larry 1:09:30
But Brendan, you’re missing the point the reformers believe and I agree with him partially that it’s not a fair system where those who can come up with, many jurisdictions operate on a bail schedule. That particular offense has a particular preset bond. And sometimes you can wait and see the judge and get a lower bond. Sometimes you’re waiting see the judge, you’ll get a higher bond because they realize you’ve got resources and you’re more of a flight risk. And more information has come in on you and they’ll set the bond higher. And you’d have been better to post the preset bond and hope that if you showed up at your preliminary hearing, at your arraignment, not your preliminary hearing, but your arraignment, when you’re formally advised to the charges if you bond out in jail generally you’re not arraigned until later, you hope they don’t raise the bond. But Brendan, you don’t understand. It’s not fair for that person who may also have viable defenses if they can’t post any money. How do we fix that? That’s what is trying to be addressed is the person who doesn’t have resources to post a monetary bond. But we throw out the constitution that says you have the right to bail in the process of doing this. And that’s what troubles me. What do we do to solve that problem?
Brendan 1:10:38
It’s tricky one, because you’ve got to compel them to come back. And if they don’t have any skin in the game, so to speak, then what’s to say that they’re going to come back if you give someone who’s indigent a signature bond and say, hope to see you next month. There’s really no guarantee that you will.
Larry 1:10:54
Well, the statistics are showing that the appearance rates are pretty doggone good on these unsecured bonds. I can’t quote you any exact study, but I know here we’ve had that debate because we ammended our constitution to allow pre trial detention, our state constituion. And the statistics that they touted around and have touted around since our Administrative Office of the Courts, Pepin, he’s just recently said in the last few months that this is doing exactly what we intended it to do, and it’s working fabulously. That the appearance rates or the no show rates have not gone up but I have a real problem with this. This illuminates what my consternation is about is a person who cannot have a bond set because the rubric has decided that well I went down this little cheat sheet and a weapon was involved. Yep, there was a gun. Well, that might be self-defense- Oh, we don’t have a formula for that that, we decide that later when you go to trial had a gun okay. the gun was fired. Okay, that’s another point for that. Okay. You end up at the bottom of it, it says not releasable, danger to community. And that’s very troubling to me.
Andy 1:11:58
Interesting. Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know how you fix that one, but it does it does seem to me that most people don’t have the resources to, like, just disappear. Like I mean that takes a significant amount of resources and connections especially in the modern era where everything is tracked. I mean, as soon as you touch a credit card, they’re going to know where you are. If you did abscond like I don’t know just doesn’t seem like it would be that hard to give someone depending on what scale they can afford. If you know if it’s a very very low economic status person, you know, $5 bond, let them go and you will probably know where they are. And RKelly, Larry, do you know who RKelly is?
Larry 1:12:35
I’ve heard the name but I wouldn’t be able to pick the person out.
Brendan 1:12:41
we tried to end cash bail here in Georgia and the biggest lobby to cash bail is the bail companies. They are fighting tooth and nail to keep bail as an existence because every time you get arrested and you go to post bail. They’re involved they take 10% or more And they’re going to fight this every step of the way. The sheriff’s departments that are getting the pot. It’s all about the money.
Larry 1:13:12
Well, Brendan, would you want to eliminate your job? If you’ve invested in a bail bond business and you’ve This is all you know, would you say Attaboy? Well, let’s let’s close down. Why didn’t I think of that? Of course, they went to court filed a constitutional challenge here against our constitutional amendment. They lost they didn’t get any traction, but they challenged. they took the citizens of the state to task and went to court and said that the constitution amendment violated the Constitution, in parts I agree with them. But their challenge was not successful.
Brendan 1:13:45
At least they did it overtly. In Georgia. They did it covertly. They would go and testify before the Senate and say I’m a concerned citizen. I’m very concerned and someone would cross examine him and say Who do you work for? Oh, that’s beside the point.
Larry 1:13:57
They did that here too. They did everything to reckon the legislative process, but then when they failed they went to court. But I, I expressed my misgivings about this when it was going through. This is not some epiphany that came about, I expressed my misgivings. While I’m very sympathetic to the argument about the people lacking means and try to get them out of custody. I’m also sensitive to what happens to people who don’t get out of custody. This is an example of this.
Andy 1:14:24
Let’s jump to an article from the hill the importance of ongoing contact for prisoners, obviously, due to all of the global pandemic that is going on, that they have shut down visitation. Is this the article where they had the deal from… Yes, yes, yes, this is, Hey, Brendan, you work in a technology kind of capacity, don’t you?
Brendan 1:14:51
Yes.
Andy 1:14:53
What is the cost of sending an email message from Person A to Person B?
Brendan 1:14:53
This always gets me because you know the prison system charges, in Georgia, it’s 35 cents an email. To Send one of these emails out.
Andy 1:15:01
right. And so they’re offering in this I’m pretty sure it’s this article. they’re offering, yes, there it is. It’s very close to the bottom. It says, For example, at the time of this writing in the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, with Securas has instituted five, free 15 minute phone calls a week and five free emails. The cost of sending an email is just slightly above zero. I mean, it’s, it’s effectively free, but they’re gonna give you five!? I think they could give you 100 and they wouldn’t notice it. And this deeply troubles me.
Brendan 1:15:34
What’s really crazy though is that these companies, they have a monopoly on it, you know, GlobalTel and Securas and CenturyLink all had the monopoly on the phone systems and it’s by state. So here in Georgia, it’s Securas. They have the phone system here. And I’ve actually done some research for the National Incarceration Association. And what we found is that the same company Securas is offering different deals to different states. That five calls and every thing in Pennsylvania it could be it’s different here in Georgia, Georgia is only getting I think it’s two calls and one email a week, but vary state to state, same company, different state, but it’s really up in the air. They could be doing more.
Andy 1:16:13
Can you tell me what’s going on in the background Larry, of why they’re able to like, I mean, what, is it a different political structure? Is that the different political climate? Why would they be able to negotiate those things so radically different among different states for the same thing?
Larry 1:16:28
Well, here we had our public regulation commission, which does regulate the cost of intrastate calls those originating and terminating within the state. That regulatory body has taken a more aggressive posture and kept those phone calls very inexpensive. They’re less than $2 a phone call. I think they’re actually less than $1. I don’t receive many of them, but I know they put some very tight controls. The Obama FCC, the Federal Communications Commission had done the same thing, but those were rolled back by both challenges and the administration’s in power now is more Laissez fair but let the company dictate it. But this is the correctional system man, I hate to break it to our listeners. But when you’re trying to fund all the competing things that governments at the state levels do. Its prisons are just not high on the constituents’ wish list. When you’re trying to figure out how to divvy up the state revenue base and who gets it, prisons just don’t rank very high among the constituents. They want people in prison. I’m not saying people don’t want folks in prison, but they don’t want to contribute tax dollars to that they want prisons to be money generating to the extent they can. So that puts an enormous amount of pressure on corrections departments to figure out revenue streams, well, the $5, copay, $10 copay. Those things have the dual effect of bringing in a small amount of revenue but more importantly, it discourages the needless use of medical resources. The Prisons oftentimes will argue that people will go to medical college just to get out to get out of the cell, and that they’re trying to scam some pharmaceuticals, they can trade on the black market in prison. But these phone calls and these emails, these are revenue streams for the for the facilities. And in some of the more progressive states, they still do this, but they put it into an inmate welfare fund, but oftentimes this money just goes directly into the correctional budget. But I challenge any of you go to a community function, and when they ask for public comments, say I’ll tell you what I want to speak up for. I want to see how we can get more money for inmate programming. And we can stop hitting these inmates up and their families for these phone calls. How many of you agree with me and tell me how many hands go up? I want either one of you to do that. Tell me what happens.
Andy 1:18:46
And I know I’m preaching to the choir in saying this. It’s so short sighted that if we don’t want to keep spending money, the next go around, that we have to invest in something now. I mean, this isn’t anything different than putting someone through the whole education system, it is not something that we reap the benefits of now, that’s a 30-, 40-, 50-year investment to get that money back. This is not it’s certainly different, but it’s not different.
Larry 1:19:11
Well, I was reading the article here. I think it’s funny when you get down to Kentucky below the paragraph you’re reading it says that an incarcerated individual in Davis County, Kentucky, for instance, frantic to hear the voices of family members might end up paying an additional $5 and 61 cents for any portion of the next 15 minutes. Now that’s funny.
Andy 1:19:29
So they don’t they don’t kick you out at the end of the 15 minutes. If you go over they hit you with the next charge just because you went over. That’s shitty. Evil, that is What’s the word, exploiting? It’s not the right word extorting, sorry.
Larry 1:19:42
but let’s give let’s give credit for where the institutions are giving the free phone calls. I mean, that is a step in the right direction. Now, I haven’t been behind the walls before. But if they opened it up to unlimited free calls, would there be enough capacity to handle it? In terms of, I mean I’m looking at the guy sitting there looks like there’s three phone devices.
Andy 1:20:04
And they’re like on top of each other, I was gonna bring that up.
Larry 1:20:07
And it looks like most of these housing units have 60 to 80 to 100, sometimes 150. If you had unlimited phone calls, wouldn’t those things have a constant line all the way around snaking around the housing unit?
Andy 1:20:18
They would.
Brendan 1:20:20
but I wouldn’t have a chance of getting on there. Larry, I’ve seen that in cases where there are free calls when you go to like a county jail and you get local phone calls. You can never get on those phones because people are talking to their girlfriends and staying on there all hours of the night like a party line.
Larry 1:20:37
So but yeah, the communication side since the beginning of this crisis they need to if you’re going to keep inmate discipline and prevent uprisings, the very minimum you can do is make some free calls and some free video visits and some free, make some free things available. I suspect that the money can be appropriated for that. If it’s not in the federal package, you’re not talking about a huge amount of money to make these things happen. It’s like, it’s like more soap and stuff. These are not terribly expensive things to do. And you have a whole lot quieter institutional life, if you make phone calls and visitation by video, it makes sure that people can keep those cells as clean as they can and make sure that they have basic laundry more often. These things are not terribly expensive.
Brendan 1:21:25
I think that we’re missing the point here with this article is I know at least in Georgia, they’re on lockdown. If you are in a cell and not in an open dorm, you’re not getting out to use the phone anyway and a lot of these free calls are use it or lose it. If you’re not able to get out of your cell because you’re on 24-hour lockdown, you’re gonna lose it.
Andy 1:21:45
That’s a very happy point to point that out, Brendan.
Brendan 1:21:48
I mean, that kind of right now does prevent the spread of COVID-19. I mean, this was probably a good idea in the beginning when we still, people had free range of their prison but there’s no movement. They’re feeding people in their cells. And what I understand most prisons are on lockdown. So you’re not getting out to even use that phone.
Larry 1:22:08
my understanding that Georgia prisons though, you know, you, you have an awful lot of open dormitories in your system in Georgia because of the overcrowding. Georgia is a very high incarceration state. There are they’re not the top three, but they’re in the top 10. And so they’ve got a lot of open dorms in prisons in Georgia, don’t they?
Andy 1:22:27
Yes.
Larry 1:22:29
that’s what I was thinking. Because I used to have a friend that worked at the corrections department, and there’s a lot of open dormitory in the Georgia State Prison system.
Andy 1:22:35
The last number that I had heard and this was a pretty long time ago, 105% capacity of somewhere in the low 50 range. And I don’t know how that’s changed in the last five ish or so years.
Larry 1:22:46
Mm hmm.
Andy 1:22:48
You have a different number, Brendan?
Brendan 1:22:50
I think they keep them full. And then you’ve got the private prisons who are contractually obligated to keep it full. So it’s a revolving door. Full.
Andy 1:22:59
Over at The Advocate, Coronavirus hits Louisiana prisons, medical director, head Warden and first aid inmate die. this is I think we should probably put this under the category of irony that even like the medical director and the head Warden have passed due to COVID-19. And just, again, just all-around shitty. People are denouncing that this thing exists, they’re calling it a Corona scam, open everything back up. And it seems obvious that people around them are dying that here we are in the prison system where they are not treating inmates with the level of attention that probably needs to be done. And then the top two people get succumbed to the disease.
Larry 1:23:44
Well, it’s tragic. I hope it has awakened those decision and policymakers in Louisiana that it’s not a hoax. I would assume that if you’re a warden and medical director that you’re in reasonably good health. Again, I haven’t been in prison, but I’m assuming that they don’t make 70, 80, 90 year old, decrepit people Warden. they’re probably at the midpoint of their life right to have that responsibility. But I’m assuming these are very healthy people that were in these positions.
Andy 1:24:12
Probably not healthy but not ancient either. Probably not ancient, but I wouldn’t say that they’re healthy. There’s a pretty good obesity problem in the state of Georgia Larry.
Brendan 1:24:21
to be a head Warden, you’d have to serve a lot of time in the prison system, you’d have to probably be graduated up from, you know, Lieutenant on up and pay your dues. So I would say the wardens are probably in their 50s and 60s.
Larry 1:24:34
Well, well, if these people were doing all they could to try to provide an improved safety margin for the inmates. I equate it to Captain Crozier of the Theodore Roosevelt. He had no hesitation to go public when he wasn’t getting any reception from the Navy’s chain of command. If these people were doing everything that they could then it’s a terrible tragedy. But if they were keeping their mouth shut because they wanted to protect their job, that puts a slightly different light on it. Hopefully they were doing as much as they could and just weren’t allowed to do more.
Brendan 1:25:08
You read an article like we read before where it said the use of masks is only encouraged. I’m sure the same thing happened in this Louisiana prison, they told their staff, well, we would like you to wear a mask, but don’t worry about it if you don’t want to. It should be more than just strongly encouraged when you’re going into a vulnerable population. I’m sure nursing homes requiring their staff and some of these other, you know, jewel organizations that have vulnerable populations, if you’re working with a vulnerable population, and I would argue that a prison is full of vulnerable people. You should be wearing that mask mandatory.
Larry 1:25:42
I can’t disagree with that. Brendan. I think if we’re not going to provide the equipment, any gear for the inmates, we have to at least do what we can for those who are coming in from the outside
Brendan 1:25:55
Again in Georgia. It hasn’t been reported on but I keep track of, They are self-reporting the number of people that have contracted it both incarcerated and staff. And I saw last week a case at the special management unit here in Georgia at the GDCP. Special management is solitary confinement. It’s the quote unquote worst of the worst. It’s where the bad people go to, you know, go in a hole in the ground, and there’s no real movement and you don’t see other people you’re stuck in your cell all day. There was one case of someone getting it in there. How does someone get it in there unless someone’s not following the proper safety procedures.
Andy 1:26:34
this next article comes from cleveland.com federal judge orders Elkton prison officials to clear out vulnerable inmates because of Coronavirus. Wait a minute, this is somebody that’s doing the right thing and releasing a pretty decent number of folks as opposed to the other one where it just seems like token ones and twosies in here and whatnot.
Larry 1:26:53
This is I’ll put the judge’s opinion in for the show notes. I didn’t make any highlights. I didn’t make any highlights in there, but I would recommend people read it because he explains, in the opinion about the standards for getting a restraining order, injunctive relief in other words, and about certification of classes of individuals, and about presumptive certification. And this is just a great thing this judge this judge knows, at least judge but possibly the judge knows exactly what he’s doing. And I expect this to stand up on if Ohio, if they appeal this. This is good stuff.
Andy 1:27:35
He is a Clinton appointee.
Brendan 1:27:39
This is what the justice reform advocates all across the country are calling for just a kind of almost a blanket relief for home confinement or compassionate release of people with preexisting conditions. Really, we’re paying a lot of money for them inside the prison system anyway. oversee the age of 65 with preexisting conditions. You know, they need to be released anyway to compassionate release to home healthcare. And now if the Coronavirus got into that prison system, they’re probably susceptible to it. But this is what we’ve been calling for for a while. It’s great to see a district judge is actually listening to the advocates.
Larry 1:28:19
Well, I’m gonna highlight right now while we’re talking about this part about enlargement because he makes it clear. It says in other words, petitioners seek an enlargement. An enlargement is not released, although some courts refer to using the terms release or bail. When a court exercises its power to enlarge the custody of a defendant pending the outcome of a habeas action, the BOP maintains custody over the defendant, but the place of custody is altered by the court. So the court is saying, Yes, you’re right BOP, these people are still in custody, but I’ve enlarged the definition of custody to include something other than Elkton. Fantastic.
Andy 1:28:56
So we have one example of somebody doing what would appear to be the right thing and a bajillion examples of people not doing the right thing.
Larry 1:29:03
Well, you might as well,
Brendan 1:29:05
Just a good proof of you can do the right thing and the world will not collapse in on itself. It is going to take someone like this gentleman to do the right thing. We can say See, nothing bad happened.
Larry 1:29:18
Yeah. But also, Brendan, you gotta realize he’s a federal judge who does not have the… a Georgia superior court judge has the wrath of the voters. They have considerations, this this constitutionally guaranteed for life position in the United States District Court. There’s a little bit more latitude there. So in fairness, it’s not a fair comparison, when we when we look at what a federal district judge can do versus what a state elected judge can do.
Andy 1:29:48
Do we want to move over to this Mother Jones article or skip this one?
Larry 1:29:51
What kind of Mother Jones article do we have?
Andy 1:29:54
Well, the title of a woman asked ICE for soap. They got pepper sprayed instead.
Larry 1:29:59
I don’t see a problem with that.
Brendan 1:30:02
Misunderstanding?
Andy 1:30:06
I can see how you would make that distinction. That would be a problem. Like I want soap and then schhhhh ahh my eyes are burning up. I don’t really want to make like light of something that is really terrible. I had a phone call that the person says that they just sprayed pepper spray in here and everyone is practically dying from coughing we can’t breathe. So that’ll teach you to ask for soap right?
Larry 1:30:27
Well, I bet they won’t ask again.
Andy 1:30:27
They probably will not ask again and be happy about it. Right?
Brendan 1:30:33
That’s a collateral consequence. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a room where pepper spray has been used, but that stuff carries.
Andy 1:30:39
It does and it sticks around for a very, very, very long time. Very long time.
Larry 1:30:44
I’m sure it was a misunderstanding that I think the duty officer thought they said I want some spray.
Andy 1:30:58
Can I get some spray-on soap? sure I got some for ya.
Larry 1:31:05
We’re gonna get some hate mail for this.
Andy 1:31:07
I did basic training twice. And I’ve gone to the gas chamber and basic training two times. And they don’t use real pepper spray they use an offshoot like a reduce kind of capacity kind of thing. I don’t think the prisons are using reduced capacity stuff. When you get hit with that stuff. You start like drooling and every ounce of mucus comes out of your face. This is not a happy experience.
Larry 1:31:34
What about this prosecutor, charged with child porn?
Andy 1:31:38
That one is amazing to me, California state prosecutor charged with child porn from NBC San Diego. Yeah, so tell us about this a little Larry.
Larry 1:31:48
Well, what would you like to know that? I know what the reaction will be because the person was released with very minimal oversight and quickly and That wouldn’t happen in most of these types of cases. So it’s just not fair. That’s where this is headed, restituted, pleaded not guilty to release on $100,000 bond. According to the complaint, the Attorney General’s Office said they are aware of the matter, the 53 year old was placed on administrative leave. That’s just not right. He shouldn’t be out of jail.
Andy 1:32:20
Right, I would hearken back to the other article that we covered. If we’re going to treat this guy in your expression as kid gloves, then maybe we could find a way to treat other people with the same kid gloves. Or since we’re throwing the book at the other people. Maybe this person should have the book thrown at him. Just for consistency.
Larry 1:32:36
But he’s still innocent, though. That’s the part you guys are missing. He has been arrested and accused of a crime. The presumption of innocence follows him through the duration of this process until a jury or until he decides to say I’m guilty of this. his plea right now is not guilty.
Andy 1:32:58
I’ll agree with you there. But I don’t know that that is always afforded for normal people for the mere mortals that have normal day jobs that get these accusations.
Larry 1:33:07
Well, I agree it isn’t. He works with the Attorney General’s office and I don’t know what division what he did for the AG’s office. But it would be interesting for future podcasts if somebody wanted to do a little research on this Deputy Attorney General and find out if he fought everybody who brought any type of complaint, tooth and nail, if he was in criminal prosecutions, if he was in child pornography, what he did, and find out what type of character he had. Because, interestingly, he wants the system to work for him, which he deserves. He deserves everything that every American deserves. But I would be interested to know if he actually afforded anybody else the presumption that he would like to have for himself now. I would be curious about that.
Brendan 1:33:53
I’m wondering what kind of job places you on administrative leave whenever you get arrested for a crime, I mean, Normal jobs, you’d be, you know, you wouldn’t be allowed back in the door and he’s just on administrative leave in the attorney general’s office. So I, I just I don’t see how this is fair. You know, it should be everyone should be treated equally under the law and he’s on home detention wearing an ankle device doesn’t say how long he spent in jail waiting on that, but I’m guessing not very long.
Larry 1:34:23
Not very long.
Brendan 1:34:25
They’re allowing him to keep his job, kind of furloughed. I don’t know any other job that would say, Well, you know what, we understand that you’ve been accused of this, but let’s just see how this plays out.
Larry 1:34:35
Well, there’s actually quite a few jobs that do that, Brendan, I wish more did but it’s not that uncommon that now what it’s not clear if he’s on administrative leave with or without pay. That’s not reported in the article.
Brendan 1:34:50
It does say a $100,000 bond. So it does say the amount of bond which that that I don’t know how to read that either.
Larry 1:34:58
Well, the average person would not be able to post $100,000 bond. It’d be a challenge for the average person. Because assuming you have the $10,000 on a 10%, the collateralization most bonds people are looking for collateral, they don’t want to have to go turn over 100 K to the court if you flee the country, and then they have to put a bounty hunter out to look for you, even if you don’t flee the country. So they prefer that they have some collateral, in case the bond should be subject to forfeiture. But clearly he got he got he would have been expedited through the system in terms of release for his own personal safety they would have they would have moved him through the system very quickly. And that consternates a lot of people.
Andy 1:35:40
Definitely. We have an email question, and I put it in the show notes. And I will do a quick read here. It says good day. There’s a law on the Georgia books. That’s the Georgia code says in part, a person is guilty of a misdemeanor when he wears a mask, hood or device by which any portion of the face is so hidden, concealed or covered as to conceal the identity of the wearer and is upon any public way or public property or upon the private property of another without the written permission of the owner or occupier of the property to do so. Can a person wear a mask in public or not amidst this pandemic. It is an interesting question. Well, if there’s something there that says you can’t then what are you supposed to do?
Larry 1:36:25
Of course. Of course. Well, if you read…
Brendan 1:36:26
this one’s pretty easy. Brian Kemp, our governor signed an executive order on the 13th of April that suspends that 1951 law. So there is an executive order now saying that you can wear a mask in public.
Larry 1:36:40
Well, I didn’t. I didn’t know the date of that. But as I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, if you are in a medical emergency, where we’re in a global pandemic, and you’re being told by your state, governmental, local, governmental, county governmental officials that we strongly urge you to wear a mask. Of course, you can wear a mask. Nobody is going to prosecute this in the state of Georgia, nobody would convict a person for this. This is not going to happen. Yes, this is on the books. This is not, it wasn’t put on the books for this reason. It was put on the books because criminals you don’t want them running out in public hiding their identity. You don’t want people doing Klan rallies and hiding their identity. This has nothing to do with it. I’m not trying to be dismissive. I’m glad the person found it, but it has no relevance to the situation at hand.
Brendan 1:37:40
Also goes to enforcement. There’s a city in Georgia, Kennesaw, where every resident is required to have a gun. I don’t think law enforcement is going door to door saying, Hey, where’s your gun? I’m going to arrest you if you don’t have it. It’s all goes back to enforcement. No one’s going to enforce that law amid a pandemic.
Andy 1:37:58
still seems kind of sketchy that you’re leaving it to some, you know, loose cannon cop to be like, you’re wearing your mask. Let’s come haul you in. Remember the thing we covered was I got my rights. I’m a police officer, I do what I want.
Larry 1:38:13
Well, I tend to want to actually deal with real problems. If someone can cite me a case in Georgia where there’s a prosecution under official code of Georgia 16-11-38, if someone can send me a prosecution that occurred where the facts arose during the pandemic, please do it.
Andy 1:38:36
Brendan, if people wanted to find you on the interwebs How would they do so? We’re gonna shut this whole thing down.
Brendan 1:38:42
Yeah, to find me, yur best bet is to go to restoregeorgia.org and you can also email me at brendan@restoregeorgia.org
Andy 1:38:53
Outstanding. You’re not on any sort of social media, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, anything like that?
Brendan 1:38:59
I am prohibited by law from being on social media. So how about that?
Andy 1:39:04
How about that, Larry? Uh, let’s, let’s close this thing out. And we’re going to go back to the old ways and how can people find the website?
Larry 1:39:10
They look for it very carefully.
Andy 1:39:13
Okay, so they’re going to be, magnifying glass? Are they going to use Morse code?
Larry 1:39:21
They’re gonna search for anything to do with registry matters. And that’ll find us
Andy 1:39:27
I probably should do it. registrymatters.co if you want to be all fancy and type it in. And Brendan, I’ve gone over this. I still don’t remember why I registered a .co and not a .com. I have no idea because you owe me two dollars.
Larry 1:39:40
Yeah, you were temporarily deranged and call us 747-227-4477 or send an email to registrymatterscast@gmail.com that’s registrymatterscast@gmail.com
Andy 1:39:55
How about some Patreon support?
Larry 1:39:58
That would be the bestest of all and then I’m going to mess up our transcriber. that’s going to be the best of all to go to patreon.com/registrymatters or just search for registry matters when you go to patreon.com. And you’ll find us
Andy 1:40:13
outstanding. And I was encouraged in chat to recommend that people find us find the links to go to the discord server so they could participate in the live stream so you can have conversations back and forth and yak, yak yak and pick at me and make me laugh and possibly make people spit up water while they’re drinking it and somebody says something funny.
Larry 1:40:32
And by the way, did that did that fabulous transcript that we had done for us did it make its way out to publication this week?
Andy 1:40:40
It did. It did. It did.
Larry 1:40:43
I’m hoping that people that use the transcript can notice an improvement because we spent a fortune having that done.
Andy 1:40:48
Yes, we use a computer and then we have an actual human edit it and make it more gooder.
Larry 1:40:53
Yep and when I use colloquialisms like I’m afeared [afraid] he had to try to figure out what I meant.
Andy 1:41:02
Brendan, thank you very much for joining us and you are certainly welcome to come back at some point in time in the future if you’re so willing.
Brendan 1:41:09
You’re welcome longtime listener first time caller.
Andy 1:41:12
Wow, look at that. How about that Larry? That sounds just like a typical am radio Colin shows.
Larry 1:41:17
Now that sounds like it. Next thing you know he’s gonna say ditto.
Andy 1:41:22
my god we got mega ditto heads. Let’s not go there. Thank you everybody for joining. Have a great night and I will talk to you soon. Good night Larry.
Larry 1:41:30
Good night.