Registry Matters

Listen to RM130: “I can’t breathe!” Will it matter this time?

Andy 0:00
Registry Matters is an independent production. The opinions and ideas here are that of the host and do not reflect the opinions of any other organization. If you have a problem with these thoughts, fyp.

Andy 0:12
Recording live from FYP Studios, east and west, transmitting across the internet. This is Episode 130 of Registry Matters. Larry it is yet another Saturday night and we’ve made it for a whole other week.

Larry 0:24
We did. I don’t know how but we’ve we’ve managed.

Andy 0:26
We did. It’s pretty amazing. anything exciting going on this week?

Larry 0:32
We are headed towards a partial additional reopening coming Monday so the governor made an announcement a couple days back that was exciting for the businesses that are gonna be able to open at some level.

Andy 0:43
And have you been effectively shut down still since then?

Larry 0:47
Well depends on what you mean by shut down the the law offices that do that do regular law work are listed in the exempt category they’ve been able to operate all along. the nonprofit’s on the other hand, it’s clear that most nonprofits that weren’t providing essential health related services were were closed down. So the Liberty and Justice Coalition and the NARSOL effectively shut down except for volunteer volunteer work that’s being done but we were not having our our part time staff are coming to the office because I read the order to include the my interpretation was that that we were not essential.

Andy 1:27
I gotcha. Um, how about like restaurants and so forth, because Georgia hasn’t been a month it’s at least been three weeks since they started opening things back up.

Larry 1:35
We have been on takeout drive thru and takeout service only. Monday, they’re going to be able to open at 50% of rated capacity with all the PPE that you can find which is hard to find, but but with paper menus, with people distancing and the hope is there won’t be a spike. We’ve actually had a really good trend with the exception of of McKinley in San Juan County, which is, encompasses a lot of reservation land and they they’re really struggling on Navajo land. But we’ve we’ve actually had a pretty good stabilization and actually decline in new cases in most of our other counties.

Andy 2:18
So speaking of restaurants and paper menus, you’ve heard of a restaurant changed called Waffle House?

Larry 2:23
I think so they’re pretty much nationwide. I’ve heard of them. Yes

Andy 2:26
They’re the only place that I’ve been to that they have a QR code. I’m hoping you know what a QR code is, and (Larry: I do) where it’s just like a whole bunch of little boxes inside of a square. Their menus are available on a QR code. So you can just use your phone to look at the menu, which I find to be very cool. And I haven’t seen any of the places do it.

Larry 2:42
Well, I haven’t gone to a waffle house in, I think since we were in Atlanta at the conference, but that’s not one of my normal dining establishments, but I’ll keep that in mind.

Andy 2:54
Yep, there you go. I want to announce that we had like a whole cornucopia of, a cacophony, I guess Maybe a better word, of patrons this week and I totally blanked on announcing, one from the week before was Ashley. But so we got Ashley Don Howe and a very generous contribution from Teresa. And then also Mr. Anonymous tripled his monthly contribution.

Larry 3:15
So that puts him at $1,500 a month right?

Andy 3:18
Pretty close to it. Yes, he he was doing gross before and now he’s triple gross.

Larry 3:24
Oh, well, no, it’s not quite that but the tripling is it’s all relative to what you’re giving but I think that regards to the base amount is an expression of appreciation and gratitude and and generally if you triple your contribution in general that would be an affirmation that you that you value it. I wouldn’t pay triple what I’m paying for the Albuquerque Journal. I struggle what I pay for it, much less tripling it.

Andy 3:52
Yes, and I can’t thank everybody enough. That a definitely gets us closer to our patron goal of 100 people gets us much closer And I can’t thank you all from the bottom of my heart enough for contributing to this little project that we do every week.

Larry 4:05
And we’re going to be at 100 by the end of August.

Andy 4:08
How about let’s see, let’s let’s fire off. Let’s go into a question that we received. It’s in relation to our content from last week. Will in Tennessee, he says, Will in Tennessee says, How many times will humans forced to register have to be slaughtered by vigilantes before the courts get an honest, excuse me get honest about the inhumane cruel and unusual punishment the registry exposes individuals listed there on to. Again, I bring up judge Mage a ruling thats still languishing in the 10th circuit. Judge Mage made such a true statement when he said the sex offender registry tells the public these people are dangerous. How is the public supposed to react to that? The cruel and unusual punishment of the registry comes not from the government, but from the public at large. This act of vigilante murder proves judge Mage exactly right. But I can’t wrap my mind around how the registry can be considered so punitive that it outstrips its stated purpose when applied retroactively in violation of the ex post facto prohibition, and thus be unconstitutional, but not be considered in the same light when applied prospectively. so neat question Larry.

Larry 5:16
I really, really liked the question and it gives us a chance to do a deeper dive. I’m sure this is inspired by the recent decision in Tennessee that we talked about last week. And the answer is kind of convoluted. When you when you bring challenges your intent is to win. And your focus is on the client that you’re representing, the client or the group of clients. And those clients have to have standing to make the challenges to assert the challenges that they’re asserting. If your crime predates the registry, you would be limited to making that challenge because if they pass a new law that for people that were convicted after the registry, that’s not your issue. Your issue is that the registry is unconstitutional as applied to you. When you when you when you look at what the plaintiffs were challenging what what was in issue before the court, that was the issue, they chose the Ex Post Facto Clause because they thought that they could win. The cruel and unusual punishment clause is a much more difficult one to win under because as listener, regular listeners have been around for a while, I’ve said and I’ve played we’ve played clips of of late Justice Scalia talking about cruel and unusual it’s a very high standard because it it looks at backwards at what punishments were in play at the time, as far as the conservative originalist interpretation and executing people was not viewed cruel and unusual. So if putting someone to death by very painful means, which we’ve done throughout the history of the Republic, it’s hard to imagine that when you force the someone to sign their name on a list, and have their picture made available on a medium that nobody could have ever even fathom back in the colonial times. But that would be cruel and unusual, if taking their very life away isn’t? Well, that’s that’s where the problem lies. It may be cruel and unusual punishment. If we have a different, a different group of interpreters on the Supreme Court, and the person with the requisite standing, makes that, asserts that and they build up an evidentiary record at trial. It may be that we can prove that the mere registering and and putting all the information which is not public public, does, in fact inflict cruel and unusual punishment. Most of the challenges have not been been that has not been raised as the issue. So the courts can’t, they don’t operate as roving tribunals looking for things that you could have asserted. They look at what you did assert, and therefore if we want to make that claim, we have to start building cases, saying that the registry is cruel and unusual punishment, we need to pony up a bunch of money to build the evidentiary record that it’s going to take to put on the experts to show how cruel and punishment it is. anecdotal evidence is not enough. And everybody struggles with that. Yes, we know it intuitively we know that that that there’s going to be harm that flows to registrants. But we don’t know. We can’t prove conclusively that that float is a result of the registry that they didn’t go down to the old fashioned criminal records repository and find out that you had this criminal record and they didn’t look you up through many of the massive publicly, think you did a background check on me one time you told me who my relatives were and stuff with just a click of a mouse or two and my most recent addresses, right, you remember that? (Andy: I do.) Yeah. Well, so we don’t we don’t know that. We have to prove that if we’re gonna if we’re gonna say the registry constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Remember, it’s proof it’s it’s presumed constitutional Until we prove that it isn’t. The presumption weighs heavily in favor of the lawmakers would never pass an unconstitutional law. Great Question.

Andy 9:01
But we do know that they don’t.

Larry 9:02
Well, we know that they pass unconstitutional laws, but sometimes you don’t know that they’re unconstitutional, give people the benefit of the doubt the people that are advising them, the people that have the pretty uniforms, and the people who have the clean cut cropped hair, the people who hold offices called state attorney general, the the the head of the Sheriffs Association, all these different people that you look to for advice, when they’re telling you it’s not unconstitutional. And you your your day job is something other than being a constitutional lawyer, which most citizen legislators, that’s their day job is not being a constitutional lawyer, their day job, maybe in any number that runs the gamut of what society represents society. They don’t know all this stuff. What are they supposed to do?

Andy 9:49
True that and then I guess you could if we’re going to hold the standards from when things were signed, whatever 240 years ago, and like you said, If cruel and unusual punishment was like you can’t make punishment worser then whatever was considered acceptable punishment, then you would have to think that having your name listed on a website, that’s not having poo thrown at you and rubbed in open wounds while they execute you like that would make punishment worser. So how is just having your name on a website so bad? And yes, I’m saying all that tongue in cheek, don’t take this out of context, all that, but I get the point. But if we do have an evolving set of standards, then having this little public scarlet letter would totally be punishment.

Larry 10:31
The second part component of Will’s question is that the cruel and unusual punishment, excuse me, I’m getting senility here, the The Ex Post Facto Clause, the Ex Post Facto clause is, is unequivocal that it intends to prohibit you from having punishment imposed upon you that that you wouldn’t have known about at the time or punishment increased from the time that post the when you commit the event you need to be on notice. The Ex Post Facto Clause does not prevent you from imposing prospective punishment, that’s very harsh punishment is left in the eye left to the discretion of the people that we elect to represent us. So your your, the fact that we impose these registration requirements that none of us support on anybody, if it’s done prospectively, at least you had notice prior to that happening, as opposed to the sheriff knocking at your door and say, by the way, you committed this crime in ‘86. we’ve tracked you down you have to register now for the rest of your life.

Andy 11:34
It is significantly harder to then go visit your local courthouse to find any sort of records on the person. You may I think maybe you even have to pay a fee to do it? Do you think if you’re trying to look up someone’s criminal background at the courthouse?

Larry 11:49
well you run into you run into some fees, but with digitization, it’s those fees are a lot less, less common. Now, in the old days, you would go down and you would actually have them pull old paper files. And depending on the age, how old or the age of the case, they may have to keep you waiting for days while they pull that out of some archival storage if it if it hadn’t been destroyed. And nowadays nowadays, it’s all been digitized. They’ve been scanning stuff for years and years and years of old files. And so the cost is not really such a barrier anymore. There’s these private businesses that have just been scarfing up records left and right, (Andy: certainly) and making making them available. I mean, that’s capitalist at its finest. I don’t know how anybody in our listening audience, which is, capitalism is the greatest system ever devised. Why would we have any opposition to people scarfing up records and being an entrepreneur and figuring out how to make money from from having those records?

Andy 12:43
Absolutely. All right.

Larry 12:46
Well, well, that also is that also is tongue in cheek because we are going to have to have a conversation at some point in this country about what records should become invisible and when, otherwise we’re gonna have a society of lepers.

Andy 12:59
Yeah, We definitely have a society of lepers. Well, I guess we should start moving on to some articles.

Larry 13:06
I think that’s a good, good thing. So the next article is about the Louisville police chief Steve Conrad announces his retirement.

Andy 13:13
Now why would, Why would a police chief go off and retire?

Larry 13:18
Well, I suspect that had to do with the public outcry over Brianna, the Taylor shooting that we talked about last week with the no knock warrant, and I guess one of the officers got shot in the leg and while the counselor said that the the person who did the shooting was the hero, which that’s one way of looking at it if you think your house is being raided by criminals and you shoot at one of the attackers that that’s a justifiable way to look at it.

Andy 13:45
My understanding is that the the male, boyfriend, husband Forgive me on that. There was a male in the house with the woman and he called 911, there’s a 911 call of Hey, look, there are people breaking into my house.

Larry 13:58
That’s what I say. That’s the danger of doing stuff in the middle of the night. You’re not expecting it. That’s why we’re so hot to trot at NARSOL with Cobb County going out in Georgia. Cobb County going out knocking on doors late at night because it’s a dangerous situation.

Andy 14:14
Larry maybe we should put in the in the correspondence with them about Hey, did you see this happening and in Kentucky, be careful this pin to you?

Larry 14:24
Well, they would probably get us for terroristic threats If we did that. We we did imply that strongly in the letter that that going to people’s houses that late at night is a risky proposition. That’s the one time when you’re expecting to have a little bit of privacy. You’re doing various things, including sleep and things you might do before you sleep, and you’re not expecting a loud pounding at the door nor you are you expecting for someone to start cracking their way through your property without announcing themselves. You’re just not expecting that and a rational reaction is to fire away.

Andy 14:56
Yes, and we do have second amendment privileges. Rights to own weapons and like the police would have to expect this coming through the door, but to to, you know, not to really get on their defensive side so much. But, you know, we the police would be justified in firing back I suppose?

Larry 15:15
I think it’d be a natural reaction but but but then the question is did the police create this situation to start with by not announcing themselves and by getting a no knock warrant And by serving it in the middle of the night? What capabilities is the police have for this?

Andy 15:32
And because of that, so now she is dead and I can’t imagine like you’re just doing your whatever you’re doing, like whether you’re just napping, sleeping, and there’s the pounding and Next, you know, like, Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow at work. And hey, overnight, your coworker got shot eight times I think this was by the police. (Larry: Mm hmm. Yep.) This is really tragic. It really infuriates me, but so the sheriff has stepped down.

Larry 15:57
The police chief of the city Yeah has stepped down. And so now they’re going to do a nationwide search to find a replacement.

Andy 16:05
Yeah. And I guess like the deputy is going to serve as the interim chief. All right. Well, that’s great news. Hopefully, somebody doesn’t suppose hopefully that police, the interim police chief will try to have some, like sensitivity training to try and keep them from from doing this. Like, what is the course of action that the next police chief, the police chief comes in and does?

Larry 16:28
the chief won’t be able to do it. I mean, the chief could do it. The chief possesses the power to do it. But it’s one of those things like what you can do versus what you will do with the police chief in order to have loyalty and the rank and file would turn their back if the police chief work to decry on its own initiative, her own initiative, if it happens to be a woman chief. They would they they would, they would undermine the chief. So the chief the chief has to have political cover to do anything. It really rests with us, the people. We’re going to get into up more when we get into the to the Minnesota case situation, but when are we going to take control of our police? That’s what we’re going to delve into later in the in the main event.

Andy 17:13
Sure. Then we have a couple articles that I’m not really sure I remember where they came from. But the website is called Frank report. And there are two articles about our people, PFRs. The first one is interviews with several people, including Sandy of NARSOL and Vicky of WAR, and so forth about just the tragedy and the misconception of what the registry is, who’s on it and what it means and the the impact that it has. And I didn’t necessarily want to go into it in a whole great level of detail, but I really just wanted to point out to it that that was the first article. And the second article was some interviews with some of our people that are PFRs.

Larry 17:52
Yeah, I did. I did a skim read of that. Now. I didn’t put it in here. So it must have fallen in from the heavens.

Andy 17:58
It could have but I know that I put it in, I just don’t remember where I picked it up. I could have picked it up off of Reddit, maybe but I don’t recall. But you know, I just always like to point out these articles when they end up out there in the, on the interwebs. The intertubes to, to, you know, this is someone that I don’t believe has a whole lot of relationship with us and he is listed like his own self bio says that he is some kind of investigative journalist independent just doing his own thing. Frank Parrlotto is the individuals name in the report.

Larry 18:29
Well, on the interviews of the five registered offenders I, I, I, I’m glad that the people are willing to be interviewed. What strikes me always is that there seems to be a tone of I don’t deserve this. And of course, no one deserves that, in my view, but they they point out the relative benign nature of their offenses, and not all five of them did that. But but they point out Well, I was 21 and she was 15 If she would have been two weeks older then it would have been Okay. well, yes, it would have been. (Andy: right) but but it wasn’t. And and and the person who says that is pronouncing the registry in this situation is okay if the right person is subjected to it, which I don’t believe anyone should be subjected to this, particularly after they’ve paid their debt to society. Now some of these are still on supervision and their paying their debt. But when you have finished paying your debt, there can be no justification for imposing any disability restraint upon you. Any accountability upon you, any tracking upon you, that is not justifiable, we are supposed to be restored When when you pay your debt, you’re done. And I don’t want this imposed on anyone, and particularly if they’ve paid their debt.

Andy 19:42
Certainly, it is pretty brutal. There are people that have it more brutal than others for sure. Some people live in states where they have, you know, for all practical purposes, no disabilities or restraints and then other people are just beat down and just constantly constantly, all the living restrictions and supervision and restrictions and work restrictions and internet restrictions, like there’s just a constant beating.

Larry 20:07
Well you should have thought about that in 1987 before you did it.

Andy 20:10
Of course. Of course, of course. Um, this one’s kind of funny to me. This one is from reason.com It says Justice Department asks Supreme Court to block a judge’s order to release inmates at Ohio federal prisons prison. So somebody’s asking for them to go and someone else is blocking them. Is that is that the way that I’m reading this?

Larry 20:28
That is correct. The the lawsuit has resulted in a district judge named James Quinn, who believes that that that the situation is so dire, that people need to be released. The judge has taken action and the the the appeal is by the Department of Justice, to try to get the Supreme Court to block what the judge is doing because they claim they claim that it’s disrupting their orderly process of of releasing people but the only problem is they haven’t released anybody. Very few.

Andy 21:02
like a 10th of a 10th of a 10th of a percent of people have been actually, somewhere down the line of these articles, the only people that have been released, I shouldn’t say only but the high profile people have been released the Paul Manaforts and those kinds of people have been released where Joe Schmoe, john doe, Jane Doe, they are having troubles getting released.

Larry 21:22
And and that’s what this federal judge has tried to do something about but but like I say the, the appeal was taken to the Supreme Court to try and I haven’t gone online trying to track this. This article was dated on the 21st. And it’s possible the Supreme Court has already said no, we’re not going to intervene. Or it’s possible they could have intervened, but I don’t know. Maybe the listeners can, can let us know. But this is your…

Andy 21:45
Maybe chat wants to do some research for us on the fly here real quick. Well get on it.

Larry 21:49
This is your this is your department of justice at work.

Andy 21:52
and who who appoints the Justice Department.

Larry 21:55
That would be the president of the United States.

Andy 21:58
So we get what we vote for, is that what we’re saying?

Larry 21:59
Well I’m saying that the attorney general appears to be saying things inconsistent with what the department of justice is doing. He publicly states that he wants the BOP to release people. But then his very department is standing in the way of the BOP releasing people. I’m suggesting there might be a little bit of duplicity here.

Andy 22:20
And is this a like Supreme Court of the US or Ohio supreme court? It’s gotta be. Yeah, yes, it’s Ohio federal prison. It’s not a state level prison. Just wanted to make sure. And then we have over at the AP Gov overruled Deputy Attorney General to deny prisoners unemployment, Larry this I don’t even see how this would work. Just like, I don’t necessarily think that having a job in prison is a privilege, per se. But if you then go on and get laid off because of COVID, I don’t, I don’t see the conditions that you would collect unemployment in that, like, you’re not paid standard wages. So your unemployment would be you know, here’s your $5 a week unemployment check.

Larry 23:00
I didn’t understand it that way. the way I interpret this. These were people working regular jobs. These were work release jobs where they weren’t working in prison industries. They were working in the community. It says Maine inmates whose work release jobs were suspended because of the pandemic were paid nearly 200,000 in unemployment benefits. And now, we just got through. I tried to discreetly bash the the Nationals administration with the Attorney General. Now this is a democrat governor. So I’m following the bashing of the of the Trump administration for being duplicitous with a very scathing bashing of a democrat administration at the state level. If if they were eligible for these benefits and their work release jobs in the community. And they’re not allowed to do these work release jobs. It seems like to me the governor the democrat governor is overstepping the democrat governor’s authority by by squashing these benefits

Andy 23:56
because they’re federal benefits.

Larry 23:58
Well, no unemployment benefits by and large are state. And we could spend a whole show on this. But But the basic benefits are paid by the employers into an insurance fund by contributions that are made based on the industry. different industries have different contribution rates. Some industries have high levels of seasonality and layoffs, and they’ll pay a higher rate of unemployment, compensation, insurance into the unemployment fund. And then you have the federal supplement, which has come about as a result of the pandemic, they have added the $600 a week to the basic state benefit, and then they’ve added a new eligibility group for for the gig workers because traditional unemployment, since it’s paid by employers, if you’re a gig worker, you’re not paying into that system. So we have a new group of covered people that the feds are picking up and then we have the $600 a week for each eligible person that the feds are picking up. But basically unemployment benefits are managed and funded at the state level.

Andy 24:50
Then why do you think she’s overstepping her bounds?

Larry 24:54
Because, I haven’t done great research into to Maine law but I’m sure that that that the the the employers have contributed into this system. They’re unemployed by no fault of their own. And that’s the basic qualifications for the state benefits. It’s not whether we like you or not, or whether we would prefer that you not have them. If your employer has contributed into the system, and you have a sufficient qualifying wages in the base period, which is usually four of the most five completed quarters, and you did not separate by fault of your own, you’re entitled to benefits. (Andy: Alright.) Now there’s one other component, one other component, usually you have to be able, available and actively seeking work. Theoretically, if you’re not if you’re in prison on work release, you might not be actively seeking work, but they’ve suspended the actively seeking work during this pandemic. So most states are not enforcing the seeking work requirement. So therefore, I think she’s overstepped her authority because the law provides for this. If she doesn’t like this, she should call her legislature in session and ask that they change the law.

Andy 25:54
And and also like we are paying people to stay home so that they don’t need jobs. For This period of time, so that they’re not out there, like infecting everybody. I mean, that’s like the whole point of the 600 bucks and the 30 million I don’t remember the latest numbers, the 30 million people that are unemployed. I mean, the point of that is to keep them home and infecting all of humanity with the crud.

Larry 26:15
Well, it’s it’s 40 million now, but who’s counting? Yeah. But but the the, we don’t, it’s like but Social Security benefits when you when you’re eligible based on one of the qualifying conditions. Social Security is not a means tested program. Unemployment is not a means tested program. It doesn’t matter whether you need the money or not. If you file a claim, and you’re eligible, yes, it’s one of those things where your employer has contributed to the system. And as long as you meet the requisite requirements of having a covered wages in the appropriate quarters, and you’re able available and actively seeking work, you’re entitled to the benefits for the for the duration. Now the southern states like yours, and in particular North Carolina, they’ve reduced the basic 26 week package down to like 12 to 18 weeks. Because their theory is the faster you cut people’s benefits off, the faster they’ll find work. But the basic unemployment package runs 26 weeks. So then, when we’re in high times of employment, the feds typically supplement that by extending in 13 week increments and like in the last recession, it was extended toward the basic package turned into 100 weeks of eligibility, which was just shy of two years.

Andy 27:24
I gotcha. Um, we’ll see how this plays out, then. Let’s move on.

Larry 27:29
I think i think i think i think someone’s gonna have to file a court challenge.

Andy 27:33
That could be the way to go. This next article comes from ajc.com. And the title is former Georgia governor leads push for federal criminal justice reform. I have to tell you, Larry, that I sat in on a couple sessions, where there was like a criminal justice reform Group here in Georgia. And someone sitting next to me goes, man, there’s something about Nathan Deal and he just really has he’s just very Determined to help people recover from prison and move on and do the right thing. And even though he was Team Red, he was very focused on some criminal justice things. And I only heard good things about him from that side of the equation. And so here he is trying to to push that that ball move the needle with a criminal justice reform Task Force.

Larry 28:21
And due credit to Governor former governor Diehl from Georgia. He was he was one of those rare pragmatic republicans that are harder and harder to find. And he he did, he did in spite of being in a very conservative state, he did lead the charge towards criminal justice reform. And he’d really showed an enormous amount of courage and when he vetoed the bathroom bill, the the after after, remember all the controversy that we had about bathrooms? (Andy: I totally totally remember.) and and the Georgia assembly falling dutifully in line past a bathroom that you will use the bathroom that’s assigned on your birth certificate. Now he vetoed that. And and he he, he did consider the adverse impact on business. But also if he, if he had wanted to succumb to the wishes of the Georgia, citizens of Georgia, he would have signed that because the citizens as spoken through their lawmakers, they wanted that bill passed. Not everybody. But of majority of Georgians were for that, and he vetoed it. So he he’s, he has been, he’s been an amazingly moderate person to serve in government, government. And I think he’s ideally suited to lead this charge because he won’t be accused of being a liberal do gooder who’s just hell bent on churning people out of prison and releasing a tidal wave of crime on society. They will never attack a republican for that. He has the credentials of credibility. And he’s just, he’s one of the best suited people for the job. And I’m glad he’s glad he’s in a position of that he is

Andy 29:58
perfect, and I wanted to Put that right up against the the courthouse news articles. It says Florida’s pay to vote law ruled unconstitutional. We’ve talked about the difference of when it says that you will, I forgot the way that it words it, that you will pay all fines and fees and restitution before you will get your voting rights back. And, and you worded it differently. But so what is included? Like if it says all of the things, then don’t you have to do all of the things but they ruled that as being some kind of poll tax, that you have poor people that can’t afford the lowest of fines, and you have rich people that can afford all of the fines and that sets up a discriminatory policy of who can vote and who cannot. So this judge said can’t do it, which I like.

Larry 30:45
Well, it has 125 pages. It’s the longest I can recall in the history of the podcast of a decision. So therefore I did a skim read in preparation today.

Andy 30:56
How dare you!? It’s double spaced, it only makes it look like 60 pages.

Larry 31:03
Is that all? So the the, the key points I think I briefly touched on and the judge makes it clear on page two the order holds that the state can condition voting on payment of fines and restitution that a person is able to pay but cannot condition voting and payment on amounts a person is unable to pay or on payment of taxes, even those those labeled as fees or costs. And I went throughout it marking in highlights things that that I thought were really interesting. And as I started getting closer to the podcast, I started skimming even more, so I’m sure I missed some very important stuff. But what we what we what I figured out when reading this was that it wasn’t so simple as as it’s the language actually looks like it favors the the republicans who this was, according to the decision was a straight party line vote that passed this in the legislature and was was was this way a straight, straight partisan thing. But it looks like that the the the amendment was the language supports their position because it says on page eight, except as provided in Subsection B any disqualification from voting arising from a felony conviction shall terminate and voting rights shall be restored upon completion of all terms of sentence, including parole probation. Now, that begs the question, if you only cared about probation or parole, why did you put in there all terms of sentence? What does all terms mean?

Andy 32:35
Could be like classes that’s another thing, sort of treatment kinds of classes or DUI classes, things of that nature.

Larry 32:41
Well couldn’t it be economic as well. Couldn’t it be restitution?

Andy 32:44
Totally, totally. But doesn’t that so I saw people in treatment that they couldn’t pay and the doctor would still see them. He just added it to their bill and they wouldn’t graduate. If you want to call it graduate, whatever, wouldn’t terminate the class until they had paid all the The fees owed, but some people got a pretty significant discount based on their economic standings.

Larry 33:07
So well, but But back to the the importance of drafting. This was a constitutional amendment something you were going to put in the Constitution of Florida. Why did you not make it clear what all obligations, all terms of sentence? Because clearly, you didn’t just care about parole or probation, because you would have just said upon completion of parole probation, what did you mean, by all terms of sentence?

Andy 33:34
And that’s worded that they just rolled the Fourth Amendment back. Like they just said, hey, let’s just take this out. Because I mean, the Fourth Amendment was like, Hey, if you’re a felon, no voting for you period, and two thirds of the voters in Florida, reversed that in 2018.

Larry 33:49
64.5% I think it was almost two thirds but but but but again, I’m struggling on the drafting. How is it, a constitution amendment is important stuff. You’re changing the Constitution of either the United States or the state of Florida. If it was that important to change the constitution, why is it not clear what you meant? Why did you leave so much ambiguity? But in the trial, which this wasn’t decided by summary judgment, they actually had an old fashioned trial on this. It came out in trial, that it was impossible to figure out what people owed, (Andy: Right) because of all the the the accounts being sold, the judgments not being available, depending on the age of the case, how they calculated the interest into it. Well, if if if part of the part of the lead had been collected, how much it had been properly recorded to the county, and did they get credit for the amount they paid or just the amount that the system retrieved because the collection agency got a cut, there were just all these problems and trying to figure out, even if you’re going to interpret it to include financial obligations, how do we know what you owe? How do we know what you’ve paid? And how do we deal with the fact if you can’t pay? And it was just so haphazardly done for a constitutional amendment, that that, and the state, of course, argued that, that if you strike the thing then the whole constitution amendment has to fall, and we go back to the status quo, and the judge said, Nope, doesn’t work like that.

Andy 35:21
and what do you think about the impact that this particular ordeal has against at least the surrounding states, if not all, 73? How many states do we have now? somewhere up there? Ah, I know that it’s supposed to impact the directly connecting states fairly significant because I think they have similar prohibitions from people, not necessarily like just prohibited from voting, but you have to pay your fines and fees and stuff before you can get voting rights back.

Larry 35:44
Well, this would directly affect the 11th circuit, which is Georgia, Florida and Alabama, that this case is going to be appealed. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind, I will unequivocally say that Governor Desantis will insist that this be appealed with all the vigor that the state of Florida can muster. Because we have got to get this liberal lifetime Clinton appointed judge overturned at the 11th circuit. And the 11th circuit is by all professional accounts much more conservative. In fact, I think there’s one or two justices formerly Desantis had appointed to the state court have now been appointed to the 11th circuit by President Trump. So he will want that he will want the opportunity to argue in front of his judges, so there’s no doubt in my mind this will be appealed.

Andy 36:33
I Do do do do understand, and I think that we have a companion article it says a game changer five takeaways from Sunday’s ruling on felon voting. And that yes, just expands out what we’ve just been talking about.

Larry 36:47
That’s that’s what it was in there. But another solution is to say, well, we don’t restore anyone. And that’s the risk of this is that it’s like, when you when you do good, remember Park versus the state of Georgia with a GPS monitoring? (Andy: Mm hmm.) Well, the legislature comes back and they’re going to pass a law that put it into the statute again. But the if if this if if the 11th circuit does not affirm the district judge, if they overturn the district judge, we’re back to square one. But if they don’t overturn the district judge, if they affirm and uphold the district judge, what the what the people in Florida that are so dead set against felon voters because they said in the trial, they read transcripts, that this appeared to be fear of democrat votes, because everybody knows, according to, this came out in trial, this is not Larry saying this. But what came out of trial was that these people, these African Americans, they all vote democratic. Everybody knows that. Maybe that they that they don’t want to take the chance of having democrat voters so they just may not enact a new statute. They may not. You might not be able to get get something like this enacted again. They may demagogue this so much. I mean, We don’t know how this is gonna play out. All we know is that a bad amendment was adopted. It was not clear what the intent was. We know that the Florida Legislature passed a bill to put it to what they thought was intended of what satisfied them but they got the governor signature. And we know that the district federal judge has said it’s unconstitutional what the legislature did. That’s what we know. But we don’t know where this is going.

Andy 38:24
Of course not. Well, I think we should let people vote. It’s just my opinion.

Larry 38:27
Not when they’re gonna vote Democrat.

Andy 38:29
Yes, because that would make them bad.

Larry 38:31
Of course it would.

Andy 38:33
Ready to be a part of Registry Matters, get links at registrymatters.co If you need to be discreet about it, contact them by email registrymatterscast@gmail.com you can call or text a ransom message (747)227-4477 want to support Registry Matters on a monthly basis? Head to Patreon.com/registry matters. Not ready to become a patron? Give a five star review at Apple podcasts or Stitcher or tell your buddies that 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. How about that article over at courthouse news. Four Minneapolis officers fired after death of a black man? Like, huh, what is this all about Larry?

Larry 39:32
Well, this is one of the saddest things we’ve that we’ll be talking about tonight. This is in Minneapolis. I suspect probably every listener knows what we’re talking about. I suspect that this may be a game changer in terms of what we do about police misconduct, but we have talked about police misconduct throughout the history of this of this program. And in fact, I think you have a little special For people, how much we’ve talked about, don’t you?

Andy 40:02
I do and I know for certain that things were missed because after I put all this together, I was thinking of the time where the cop like tased the kid in his head like smashed on the ground. I didn’t find that one. I did a I did some snazzy Google searches and put this together. So about two minutes long. Episode 69, recorded March 24, 2019. And another article from the appeal is Albany police shot a teen in the back and paralyzed him. The DEA said it was justified. Now so I think that if you run away from the police, they have the right to shoot you. (Larry: I don’t see a problem with it). Let’s go into this that article. Episode 106. Recorded December 15, 2019. A police officer shot a fleeing teen. It was a second on-duty killing in less than a year. This is from the Washington Post. Episode 39 recorded August 27, 2018. From the guardian and hundreds dead no one charged the uphill battle against the Los Angeles Police killing. Tell us about this one.

Larry 41:01
Well, I put it in here because it gives me a chance to pontificate about the citizens. But the real purpose of it was to draw attention to the huge number of citizens that are killed across this country at the hands of law enforcement and how nonchalant we are about it. It’s like I believe the count was 370 In the article.

Andy 41:18
Episode 113, recorded February 2, 2020. A police corporal in Maryland was charged with second degree murder on Tuesday in the fatal shooting of a suspect who had been handcuffed in the front passenger seat of his patrol car the previous night. Why do we let cops kill people when they’re handcuffed? I still am baffled by this whole thing all the time.

Larry 41:40
Well, I don’t think we’re letting them do it. I think you read the article he’s been charged,
the question is…

Andy 41:44
He has been charged but that would be the sort of like the weird part of this is that somebody is actually getting charged with something

Larry 41:49
well, that’s that was gonna be the point I was gonna make. whether it be convicted, convicting a police officer is very, very difficult.

Andy 41:55
Episode 108, recorded December 29, 2019. All right, this next article comes from the Washington Post. Police slammed a man’s head into a car that they thought he had stolen video shows. And then he died. Episode 74. Recorded April 28, 2019. Let’s head on over to Baltimore where I don’t know how this guy actually survived. How did the police shoot a guy 44 times and forgive me for the way I’ve just I’m gonna be blunt. How does this guy not die?

Larry 42:27
I think they hope he does or did.

Andy 42:30
So that’s the little montage of how many times like, I don’t know, half dozen eight times that we’ve talked about people being to some degree assaulted or died in the police in the hands of the police.

Larry 42:43
I remember we had one where where a student was body slammed by a police school resource officer was

Andy 42:49
That’s true. Oh man, I totally Yeah, you’re right. You’re right. You’re right.

Larry 42:52
Yes. And, and we’ve got we’ve got a problem, which we’re going to try to dissect a little bit but the problem is really us, when you look in your mirror each day, the problem is in that mirror, we have not been willing to impose control on our police, they have been able to do this without any accountability. And the police are not going to be able to impose that control on themselves. We are going to have to rise to the occasion, and tell the police what they’re allowed to do, and what they’re not allowed to do. And if they do what they’re not allowed to do, we’re going to have to impose discipline up to and including putting them in and in prisons. And that’s that’s what that’s what it’s going to take and this violence in Atlanta is really personal to me because it’s so close to my home. And I know we’ve got some clips I wanted to play from the mayor of Atlanta, because I want to make it clear, Registry Matters doesn’t condone violence. Neither does the mayor of Atlanta or any any players that I’m aware of. But I want to give some context of what what has brought us to this point. And so we can we can We roll the clip of Mayor Mayor Bottoms from Atlanta?

Andy 44:05
Absolutely. Here we go.

Bottoms (Audio Clip) 44:06
If you care about this city, then go home and pray that somebody like Reverend Beasley will come and talk to you and give you some instructions on what a protest should look like. And how you effectuate change. This police chief made a video on yesterday pull it up on YouTube, where she said she was appalled to watch the murder of George Floyd. This woman did that. You’re not honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. You’re not protesting anything running out with brown liquor in your hands breaking windows in this city. TI Killer Mike own half the west side. So when you burn down the city, you’re burning down our Community. If you want change in America go and register to vote show up at the polls on June 9 do it in November. That is the change We need in this country. You are disgracing our city. You are disgracing the life of George Floyd and every other person who has been killed in this country,

Andy 45:10
Go out and vote huh Larry?

Larry 45:12
That was the point of that. She was very eloquent She went on to, to this was not just talking down to calling people thugs, which we’re going to hear from, from a former Obama administration official in the next clip, and although we don’t condone violence, and we prefer that things be resolved through our processes, what do people do when the processes are not able to respond and to resolve or even address these issues? So let’s let’s listen to Van Jones now.

Van Jones (Audio Clip) 45:46
hurt people holler hurt people holler. And one of the things that we’re dealing with right now is it’s hard to speak up when you see injustice when things are going wrong and things department first starts to go sour. When you start seeing things that don’t make sense, but if you speak up and you’re not heard, then you might shout. if you shout and and then you’re still not heard, then you might scream. If you scream and you’re still not heard, then you might throw something. Look at your own children, and how they act when there’s something desperately wrong and no one will listen, people go to more and more extreme forms of expression and then of action, not to justify it. But that’s there. So if you are concerned about lawlessness, and by the way, I’m raising two black boys in Los Angeles, I’m not a part of any pro Riot lobby or any pro crime lobby. I want peaceful streets, but I know that if I want to end lawlessness in LA, I’ve got to make sure there is not lawlessness in the police precincts in LA.

Andy 46:51
So, there’s there’s Van Jones.

Larry 46:52
And there’s the frustration because as as I was doing research for this, we have we have an article from the New York Times. The last time this country was focusing on police abuse was back in 2014, when when Obama was president, and in the preceding year of 2013, this article from the TIMES talks about police killings now, folks, we’re just talking about the police who have killed citizens. We’re not talking about the tasings. We’re not talking about the pepper spray. We’re not talking about the smashings on the hood of the car. We’re not talking about the the the pretextual arrest that or we’re not talking about all the type. We’re just talking about people who have died at the hands of the police. There were 1111 in 2013, according to the TIMES. In 2019, which is the most recent data we have there was 1099. So we’ve had through the intervening years 1050 to 1100 people killed at the hands of the police. That means that all the screams, all the talking, all of the protests that were peaceful have yielded absolutely no discernible result. What do you expect people to do? After seven years of this being on the forefront of we’ve got to do something about what the police are doing in our cities. And then seven years later, there’s been no discernible change. It would be natural to expect people to exhibit some level of frustration. Again, don’t burn up buildings don’t break windows, but it would be rational to expect people to be frustrated.

Andy 48:33
2013 marks a significant event. I think that would be the the year prior to and I’m sure I’m sure there were wrongful-type deaths before this, but somehow Eric Garner became what we’ll call a case number one, maybe this was the dude in New York that was selling cigarettes on the street, and he got put in the the chokehold and he’s saying, I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, and there’s six officers surrounding him as he gets choked out and dies. So like, I I’m sure that’s not case number one, and I don’t want to be insensitive to that. But that seems to be like where this whole. This whole thing started is with that particular person, it was 2013 in the graph that I have up on the screen is showing 1111 deaths in 2013. And the number hasn’t appreciably changed in the following years after 2013.

Larry 49:21
And that was the era when we had Laquan McDonald in Chicago and Tamir Rice in Cleveland. We had these high-profile cases that made national news. And, and then the Ferguson case I forget the name of the one in Ferguson, Missouri, but there was quite an uproar. And we had President Obama who tried to bring the Department of Justice the powers of the federal government and all these all these local agencies that were violating people’s citizen civil rights and my city of Albuquerque, we ended up having our police department ended up we were having a lot large number of police shootings, I think we had something on the order of 30 within about a 13 month period of time here. And the DOJ came in here we, we have made dramatic reforms the police department here has has has changed a lot of their protocols in terms of how they deploy force. This, they’ve got a long way to go. But things are a lot better than they were. But this administration, the Trump administration, has called off the attack dogs. They say that we need to let the police police themselves.

Andy 50:23
I was just gonna ask that.

Larry 50:25
That is absolutely the wrong thing to do.

Andy 50:29
Can you expand on this? As I understand it during the previous administration, they had started to some degree like the federal level was investigating the city and the state level police units and and that all got shut down Jeff Sessions like, Hey, we’re gonna turn all that shit off and they shut all of those investigations down.

Larry 50:47
That is That is correct. Now the decrees that were already entered into, are still enforced like the one with the Albuquerque Police but but they are not seeking out any police misconduct at the federal level for civil rights investigations. This administration believes that it’s best left to the locals. And therefore, we’re going to probably have a continued level of maybe hopefully this will get their attention. I can’t speak for the administration, but I’m hoping that it does get their attention. But the reason why the Obama administration was in these communities doing these investigations is because the locals have not done what they need to do to oversee their police. It’s you in Louisville, it’s you that elect the city councilors, it’s you who elect the mayor, it’s those people who decide how the police department operates, and they have abdicated that responsibility all across the country. They believe that police operations are too complicated for civilian oversight. And therefore we let the police police the police and we see what we get from the from this result. The police are not capable of policing themselves.

Andy 51:54
Who should oversee it Larry, should it be Mother Teresa that oversees the police?

Larry 51:57
Well, I don’t have the I don’t have the exact model. But it should be civilian oversight. The police are accountable to the citizens they serve. And the citizens they serve, that they provide service to should be the ones who tell them what type of equipment they can use, what the rules of engagement are, whether you can choke a person out with a particular hold are not. Those should be things that we decide, we will not allow you to do this we will not allow you to handcuff anybody less than a certain age. These are our rules for society. And if you don’t like these rules, there’s a there’s a solution for you. Don’t put on the uniform don’t become a police officer for this city. It’s not that complicated. If you believe you should be able to handcuff a nine year old then go work for a department that allows that we don’t allow that here.

Andy 52:44
Yeah, good grief. We did have one of those too, didn’t we? I forgot about it. He was younger than nine, the girls like screaming for Mom and Dad Mom and Dad and like that Yeah, okay, that wasn’t even that long ago. Totally forgot about that one.

Larry 52:57
You know, we’ve we’ve had and the Citizens somehow believe that they should not take control of their police. And I don’t understand where that comes from. And I would like for a person on the other side to chime in with us and tell us why it is we’re not capable of overseeing the police. we oversee the United States military. President Trump gives the orders. The generals follow the orders. The Secretary of Defense is a civilian, but for some reason we’re not capable of overseeing our law enforcement, really?

Andy 53:28
I got to think that our military is is at least some tiny tiny little bit more complicated than the police forces. So let’s let me let me throw this at you. I’m thinking about this off the cuff though. Like we have a federal armed forces that is only under the most extreme circumstances they are not allowed to be on American soil to to deal with. That’s why we have National Guard’s because they are not trained. They are not equipped to handle our civilians. So that’s why We deploy them overseas to handle like, Big Boy stuff, I guess you could say. But the police force like they have the little slogans on the cars that’s supposed to say to serve and to protect. I think serve means like, Hey, you serve me as the citizen and then to protect you’re supposed to protect me. You’re not supposed to put your knee in my neck and choke me out. that’s not serving or protecting.

Larry 54:22
Well, Andy, I agree. And I see a glimmer of hope in this with a silver lining that is, you know, I listen to a lot of conservative points of view. I don’t just listen to one point of view. And I heard on the Rush Limbaugh program, which I believe is the most listened to radio program in America at least he purports to be with a weekly audience of 50 million.

Andy 54:43
I could see that. I can see that he is

Larry 54:46
he he has he has not justified that. And Rush is typically able to justify what the police do. He was not able to justify he had a guest host this last week because he’s got health issues. He’s got lung cancer, and the Poor guy is it is in a lot of struggle for for his life, but he had a guest host and the guest hosts usually are lockstep with with the law enforcement. The guest hosts, I forget his name, last Thursday, was not able to justify. We’ve got a former in New Mexico, former Sheriff of bernalillo County and the the secretary, the cabinet secretary for the department of public safety, which that would encompass the state police force here. He unequivocally on his talk show made it clear that this was not justified, and he’s disappointed. Darren White is who I’m talking about. Darren made it clear that that he didn’t understand why other officers did not intervene. And he feels like there’s criminal culpability. And to Darren’s credit, and I have not been a big fan but to Darren’s credit, he was very reasonable on this and he’s been very reasonable on his talk show in terms of the COVID-19 and being fair to to all the officials. He has not been partisan. He has been right down the middle and and he has he has a emerged as the moderate on a station that is notoriously conservative on KKOB. He’s basically he’s the moderate, picture that, the former sheriff, the former cabinet secretary for the department of public safety being the moderate on the largest list of two station in New Mexico KKOB.

Andy 56:24
tell me your thoughts on this. And we have a few more points to go over before we close out on this one. Why do you think it is that this event has have the cup runneth over, so to speak. I mean, we’ve been talking about this for years. And finally, this seems to be the one that gets all has brought everyone to the forefront. I saw a picture of, you know, a bunch of white women standing in front of a line of police officers like they were they built a human wall between the police and the protesters and which is kind of ridiculous on its own, but it just goes to show about some white privilege in the united states that the police are not going to go attack a bunch of white women. But the protesters behind there are now being protected by a bunch of white women, which is redonkulous.

Larry 57:09
I think it’s a combination of things that have come together. The first is this one is so blatant. There are a lot of apologists for the police that want to…the average citizen who who, who considers them self a law and order person. They see the police as the only difference between them and anarchy. And they do believe anarchy is just around the corner, they do not realize that the crime rate has been plummeting. And this is the safest time to be alive. The average middle-class white person doesn’t realize that and, and, but this, there’s no denying, denying this, you can’t watch a person suffocate and their life just evaporate in front of your eyes. It’s hard to continue to justify that now. I did talk to an acquaintance of mine who did want to justify it who said that he would like to see the rest of the video and I said, Well, there is no more Video unless the police has it. This was video captured by a bystander. This is all that they got when they got on the situation. But if the police followed their protocols, and used their body cams, they can release whatever video they have. But I think that that is the culmination of, of the political season. You do not want to be on the wrong side of this coming into an election cycle. And so this has struck at the chord. The media is all over it. It’s undeniable that this is wrong. And I think that the politicians are going to have a hard time ignoring this. And I think that’s what’s come together in this and even middle class America who wants to find a reason to justify the police. They’re having a hard time watching a person be deprived of their life when they’re in handcuffs, facedown, you what, what can you say?

Andy 58:50
I want to make sure to acknowledge one of our listeners, like a very loyal longtime listener here in the state with me and I’ll leave them anonymous that he saw someone I don’t know the circumstances but he saw someone murdered in prison. And he is likening this to something along those lines and he’s having like very severe issues and he’s very upset this has really like messed him up and I just want to make sure to acknowledge that this video if you I don’t want to watch it, frankly, Larry, I saw clips of it and I just I just I’m not trying to say that I don’t care. I certainly care. But I don’t I don’t want to have these images in my head either. But I certainly want to recognize that people are having this is some really tough stuff to try and digest.

Larry 59:33
It is and what’s really particularly sad for me is with the existing police oversight in Minneapolis apparently if the reports are accurate, he had been this officer the the primary actor what was his name, Shelvin, he had been reported to the for 18 internal affairs investigations. Now, I think we should conclude at some point, you’re going to get a complaint no matter how nice you are. There are gonna be people who are going to make complaints to try to gain an advantage. So therefore every complaint has to be start with the presumption that that the officer didn’t do anything wrong and the evidence is yours to bear is the accusing party. I stand with that. But after 18 of them, if that’s accurate, at some point police management ought be asking what is going on with this officer? Because 18 is representative of hundreds more that didn’t file complaints because you have no faith in this system that is going to do anything to remedy your complaint. only a few people would file complaints. So this would be indicative of a large amount of issues with this police officer. Why didn’t administration do anything?

Andy 1:00:43
Yeah, it there’s so many questions surrounding it. Even in like the little montage that I did where we cover the cop in in California that this was his second killing in a year. I think it was the way that it was worded. Which is insane that we Have a armed and shielded, like physically shielded. But then on the other side of that when they end up somehow being questioned and challenged in a in like, if their actions were justified, then either the police administration won’t do anything about it. And then if they are brought to court in some kind of way, they will not be indicted. And if they’re brought to court all the way through, the jury will not convict them. I mean, it’s like, all the way from the top to the bottom. There’s nothing being done to the officers, which kind of in a roundabout way would say, Go forth and do what you want to do because no one’s gonna hold your hand and put your feet to the fire.

Larry 1:01:37
That is true. Now this particular case, you know, I can’t help but reverting back to my defense orientation it’s going to be really hard for this officer get a fair trial. I mean, the the public opinion is so massive and he has every right to a fair trial. He doesn’t have to plead guilty and they’re not gonna even offer him a plea bargain The only way he could plead would be straight up down to the to the charge, but they’re not gonna offer him any inducement to plead. And this is one of those cases where you just can’t offer a plea of any type of favorable terms for a plea. But he’s entitled to robust representation. He’s entitled to the presumption of innocence. It’s supposed to follow him to the conclusion of the proceedings. And he’s entitled to cross examined vigorously anyone who’s coming in to testify against him. He’s entitled to all these things. And I will say that unequivocally and I always revert back to I wish the police would say the same thing about someone who’s outside the uniform, who’s accused of a crime. I wish they would be as adamant as I am about what this man is entitled to. He is an innocent person. Even though we saw what we saw in the eyes of the law, he is still innocent until that gavel comes down, and the jury verdict has read. And if it’s guilty, he has to be presumed innocent all the way till the conclusion of the proceeding. And that’s just the way our system is supposed to work. And he is not revictimizing anybody If he cross examines people who testify against him, that is not a victimization. That’s forcing the state to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt.

Andy 1:03:10
Will is adamant that I ask you this question. Do you think that the people that have released videos of it, do you think that there’s any sort of risk that they will be retaliated against by the by the police force?

Larry 1:03:21
Sure. There’s always that risk, I don’t know that they’d be able to determine how the video because I think it was, well, I guess you could figure out how If it was posted on Facebook Initially, I guess you could figure out who, but but it to the extent that the police can figure it out, they’re going to be hard pressed to do anything to these people officially, but what about the unofficial stuff? What about the What about the pretextual engagement? And just the harassment, you know, you’re going 36 in a 35.

Andy 1:03:49
Right, Exactly.

Larry 1:03:51
And I don’t know what you can do about that. Hopefully, hopefully that this case will resolve itself and justice is done and hopefully that this will be a beginning of a trend towards us asserting control over our police forces in this country. Folks, you can’t just sit and stand back and I’d like wait for it to fix itself. It is not going to fix itself. It cannot fix itself.

Andy 1:04:14
So some threads of the chat I mean, like chat is super lively tonight, Larry. I know you don’t watch it but holy crap, it’s very popular. Hey over on the discord server, if you want to engage in chat with us, then you can you can find links in the show notes to enjoy chatting with all of us and people peppering questions, but so I forget which quote it was from the mayor or the other gentleman that spoke about voting like voting has consequences, but Teresa is saying that this is so far beyond voting to get this stuff fixed. And while I don’t want to discount Teresa’s fury over this, I don’t know how else we do fix this. If we don’t have our elected people to trickle down what is acceptable so that our sheriffs trickle down what is acceptable and so forth? Like, to me this is the only thing to me is our voting is the avenue that we have to fix this.

Larry 1:05:08
I understand where she’s coming from. When it’s this bad and this systemic, you’re looking for a silver bullet, but there really isn’t one, there’s no silver bullet like there is in our issue. There’s no silver bullet for fixing this. This is going to involve, each each police agency is managed in a different way. You may have the chief of police may be solely hired by the mayor’s in our case, or it may be that they need city council or city aldermen or whatever they call them in your particular city approval. In the case of sheriff’s offices, they’re generally elected. So you have you have all these different different mechanisms to bring that that that that are going to require a different type of fix. If it’s if it’s the mayor that appoints the police chief and it’s his or her decision entirely. Well, then you’re gonna have to ask the mayor these candidates for Mayor these tough questions, but but it is the political process. It is the taxpayers who fund the police. And it’s the taxpayers who make the rules. The police only get to make the rules because we are allowing that to happen The police cannot bring any equipment on the streets of Albuquerque that we do not allow them to have. It’s not their decision, whether they have tanks operating on the streets of Albuquerque, that’s our decision. It’s not their decision, whether they have helicopters, it’s our decision. It’s not their decision about how they engage with citizens in terms of standard operating procedures. We’ve delegated the SOPs, the creation of SOPs to the police. But ultimately, we can control those processes. We can tell them these are the SOPs these are what you will do. And I understand you don’t need to send me emails, there will be some people who will resent that and they will not want to be a police officer. That is good, because you do not want people who do not want to be subject to civilian oversight being a police officer. So therefore, I say Knock yourself out and go to someplace else. Because we will be able to fund, we will be able to fill our police openings with qualified candidates as you are leaving, trust me, there are way more applicants far more people apply than get accepted. And they get turned down for a number of reasons, including minor criminality, physical fitness, mental fitness. And sometimes they’re just not fast enough on the draw. When they do this, when they do the simulation training when they do the testing to find out if you’d be alive or dead as a cop. The systems tend to weed out people who don’t fire quickly enough. Who’s to say that that wouldn’t have been a good police officer? (Andy: Right.) So we may need to start revamping how we allow people to go through the process, we might need to open it up to people who are a little bit older, might be a little bit chubbier. They might be more representative of the community. We might need to, and in fact, I’m gonna say this we might need more women on the police forces because you don’t hear of women officers doing this. I’m not saying they’ve pierced the winter land snow. But I have not we have anything we’ve covered. I don’t think we’ve shot we’ve covered a fatal shooting of a female or a female officer. I don’t think we’ve covered a body slamming or anything but this the we’re always covering men when we’re talking about this stuff. So maybe that’s part of the answer.

Andy 1:08:22
Maybe so we should Institute some sort of quota of some like something close to 50/50.

Larry 1:08:27
Well, I don’t know if I, you know, quotas drive people bananas. But I think that that that our police ought to be more representative of the community. And being that women make up 50 plus percent of the population, we should do our best to represent that population, we should do our best to represent all the community that’s being policed. If the community is half black, we shouldn’t have a 95% white police force that’s not representative of the community. And that’s what a lot of southern cities have, you’ll have a community that’s 40% black, and a police force will be 85% white.

Andy 1:08:56
But Larry, we can’t even let women go to combat and I know that that has changed, but Just bear with me and roll the clock back to the 90s. We can’t let women go to combat we can’t have them be police officers too Can we?

Larry 1:09:05
Sure we can.

Andy 1:09:08
Do you think there is a sinister a cynical motivation here of of the politicians getting on board with this? You know, like Senator Rand Paul. I mean, that’s probably more like just in his wheelhouse of the no knock warrant but all of the other politicians getting on board and and denouncing this particular action. Do you think it’s because of the November election, you know, being six months away from now being such a big deal that we’re going to court the black vote by saying that this is something that we shouldn’t do is kill run around to kill black people?

Larry 1:09:38
I think that there’s every risk of that happening, because I’ve mentioned that earlier that we are in an election cycle. And I think that that’s helped politicians now feel the need to go out and take a strong position because this has this has connected with the people. There’s certain cases that connect with the people and I can’t explain it some of the media gurus that we have, why does Jessica Lynch catch the attention of America like they did in the Gulf War. Why? her team was she wasn’t the entire team. There was a whole group of people in that team that was some kind of transport convoy, if I remember right,

Andy 1:10:12
yes, you’re right. And she was a cute white girl. That’s why she that’s the same thing with JonBenet Ramsey. That’s Jessica Lunsford, is that. Who the…?

Larry 1:10:23
The daughter? Yes. I forgot the first name.

Andy 1:10:26
Yeah, that’s I think we have a pretty identified bias towards cute blonde haired white girls in the country. And yes, send all your hate mail me I’m sorry. But that is typically like a gender race bias that we have in the United States.

Larry 1:10:43
Well, clearly, this is not a cute white, blond headed, boy, but Trump has connected with the people. And I think the egregiousness is like most Americans think that they’re fair and that they’re open minded. We all think that. we think and your life Experience precludes you from understanding a lot of things you would not experienced. You and I don’t experience much interference with the police in our daily lives. We don’t we don’t have to explain why we’re in a particular location. We don’t have to open our trunk and let our consent to an inspection. We don’t encounter all this. So in our mind, it’s okay. And most of the time, you’ll have to admit that all your encounters with the police have been reasonably professional. I know when I’ve been pulled over I look back started Decades ago, when I first started driving. Every time I’ve encountered a traffic officer, by and large, they’ve been very professional. So our relationship with the police is not the same as the people in these communities of color where they don’t get the same treatment that we get. So as far as the Americans that have not encountered any of these problems, they’re invisible. They don’t they don’t see it the same way. But what they saw that they can’t deny it they saw a compliant individual in handcuffs with his face in the pavement being suffocated and you can’t make excuses for that anymore.

Andy 1:12:02
Now it seems I really struggle with he was resisting, he was facedown with cuffs behind his back. I like you can’t get up quickly. I mean, unless you’re Jackie Chan, some sort of Ninja Warrior. Perhaps you can like skirmish your way out like I like no, that’s not typically nobody’s going to be able to resist effectively in that kind of condition.

Larry 1:12:23
Well, one of the police officers, according to the article I forget which one of the four we’ve got here but one of the police officers said we need to roll him over. We need to get him, so he can breathe the officer apparently didn’t think much of that advice. My question is Why didn’t you take it to the next level? Why didn’t you say back off? (Andy: Yeah, put that guy in the chokehold!) Yeah. So it’s like you have a duty to protect at the point where you see the The suspect is compliant and life is in jeopardy. I think you had a duty to intervene and a citizen called In an the Rush Limbaugh, not to Rush Limbaugh, but the Darrel White show and asked what would have happened if he had interviewed and Whites said that it would not have been good, it would not have been pretty what would have happened if you tried to intervene. Particularly if you were a male, you might have gotten a little bit of slack if you had been a woman. But if, if a man tried to pounce in there and pull the cop off, that would not have been a pretty sight.

Andy 1:13:19
The only other thing and you know, we’ve been talking about this a while we can, can put this to rest here shortly. We we talked briefly on the phone earlier today about like, why didn’t any of the people that were observing, I don’t know how many people were there, observing this whole thing go down. But we started talking briefly about the bystander effect that everyone’s standing, there’s like, well, maybe somebody else will do something about it. If you’re the only one that is witnessing something like this, then you have the inclination to go well, no one’s gonna do anything but me so I will go jump in there. But when there’s 50 other people standing there, you always sort of like nudging the person next to you like hey, step in there and do something. And so nobody steps in and does anything because everybody’s waiting for Someone else to go do it.

Larry 1:14:01
That is true. The same thing happens in reverse when someone does something then you have though, you have the mob mentality set in and that’s why the police would not have been receptive to the intervention. they would they would they would have escalated dramatically if the citizens had started interfering. (Andy: Yeah, yeah). It would not have been pretty you would have had to bet on an older person and probably an older woman and if you could have screamed and scratched enough you they might not would have tased an old women, but then again they might would have so

Andy 1:14:32
all right, well, we can we can move on. I just I’m so I’m like deeply infuriated by this again, because it’s just ridiculous that it continues to happen. Ah, all right. Well, a couple last articles. The from propublica Bill Barr promised to release prisoners threatened by Coronavirus even as the Fed secretly made it harder for them to get out. This is related, I believe, to the first step act. And did I catch that one Right, or did I confuse this with something else?

Larry 1:15:02
Nope, you got it. You got it. Right. It’s correct

Andy 1:15:04
Hurray. And so there are there are reasons that people should be able to get out for some compassionate release. And I think Bill Barr is trying to help that move along. But then other places are not. so nobody’s getting out.

Larry 1:15:16
Well, I wouldn’t say Nobody I think they might, I think was it .2% or something.

Andy 1:15:23
Yes, it’s some stupidly low number.

Larry 1:15:24
it says the fewer prisoners have been released than was expected when the attorney general made its announcement, about 3050 inmates had been moved to home confinement as of May 21. That’s about 1.8% of the people in the bureau supervision. That figure significantly smaller than roughly 20% who fall into the to the minimal risk category. Now, when we say minimum risk, we’re talking about your security classification. If you are if you’re convicted of a sexual offense, you can only get as low as medium in the federal system. You cannot be at a minimum cap because of the community safety factor that you might start going off the prison campus And perving in the community. So we can’t have that. So the people that would fit within the risk group of having potential complications from from the virus, that 20% they’re nowhere near that at 1.8%. So they got they got one 10th of what of the people who already excludes our people, they’re not eligible to even be considered.

Andy 1:16:26
Ah, so the bottom line is, you get put behind the walls, and there’s not much that could happen, including a global pandemic that will help you get released.

Larry 1:16:35
And the point that my my sneaky motivation was putting it in here is because a lot of our people are very fond of the Trump administration. And they think that the Trump administration is doing all it can because when you listen to the Attorney General’s pronouncements, but the Attorney General’s Department of Justice is the the Bureau of Prisons is a part of the Department of Justice and the Bureau is not doing what the Attorney General is saying. So either we have an attorney general who’s duplicitous, or we have an insubordinate, BOP director and BOP administration, but the BOP is doing very little in their fact making it harder according to some some analysis. I couldn’t quite follow exactly what they’re doing. But the the implementation of the first step act they apparently are making it harder, but certainly there’s no massive number of people being released 3000 is a paltry amount. It’s significant if you’re one of the 3000. It’s very significant.

Andy 1:17:36
Oh, certainly. Certainly. Certainly, just like you bring up your New Mexico Riot thing if you got out on the 28th I think of February versus the 29th. You had a much better day.

Larry 1:17:44
You had a much better day.

Andy 1:17:45
All right. Then to close things out. We have an article from the Indiana lawyer it says removal from sex offender registry makes man’s case moot. Larry, this one has some some flipping back and forth like a game of Othello and it confuses me and I really hope that you can clarify what’s going on here?

Larry 1:18:01
Well, it’s very simple, Andy. (Andy: So you say.) It is. He was convicted in Maine, and he moved to Indiana. And he he was required to register because the Indiana determined he was substantially similar to the to the main offense. But then he challenged that because of some litigation in Indiana that that dealt with ex post facto. And the the court disagreed with him and said you have to register not because of the out of state interpretation, you have to register because your crime is an arrestable offense here. Well, the state decided to go back and look at the substantial, substantial similarity and they decided that he didn’t no longer have to register. So therefore, his case was mooted, which is a very, very fond trick that the state does. If you start gaining traction with your litigation, they find a way to give you the relief which makes the case no longer relevant, there’s no longer what is called the justiciable controversy because the person, he’s no longer having to register. So the state of Indiana mooted his case, they they said, whoops, well, upon closer review, it’s not such an equivalent offense and you don’t have to register. So we’re going to remove you from the registry. So then there was joint motion filed by by both sides saying that the controversy has ended. So the court had no no prerogative, but to say, Yep, the controversy is over.

Andy 1:19:27
So does he or does he not still have to register?

Larry 1:19:30
He doesn’t have to register. He already gotten relief. He’d already he’d already gotten relief in Maine by litigation from some years ago. They had they had a series of decisions in Maine but since he wasn’t living there, Maine couldn’t really release them from a DNS registration requirement. And that’s the misconception A lot of people have Well, I got off the registry. Oh, well, it doesn’t do anything because you’re not in that state. If you want to be off the registry and the state did let you off. Stay in that state.

Andy 1:19:55
Right. Okay. I thought I the way that this was sort of worded To me, the way it looks is that they almost They pulled the rug out from underneath him. And then he still had to register. But they removed the conditions like, I don’t know, that’s very confusing.

Larry 1:20:06
Yeah, they removed him from the registry and the joint motion to dismiss the case because of mootness. And that that that happens, I think it’s a it’s a more common. I think it happened in Maryland on a class action that they tried to get certified and the state removed everybody and asked for the court to dismiss it, and the court obligingly did. And the same thing is similar has happened to our case on out of state translations here. We’ve lost all of our plaintiffs in our case, it’s going to be mooted out potentially very soon. And it’s it’s it’s part of the litigation, and you can argue exception to the mootness doctrine. But why would you want to? If you’re wanting to get your client off the registry, and the state capitulates and says he’s off the registry, why would you want to keep litigating? the case is over.

Andy 1:20:51
Absolutely. sure. Perfect, perfect. You know, Brian in Louisiana in chat said he’s on his way out to do offshore work again. And he said this before he departed. He said Registry Matters is the number one Live podcast in the Gulf of Mexico, Larry. how about that?

Larry 1:21:06
In the whole Gulf of Mexico?

Andy 1:21:08
the whole Gulf of Mexico, he like puts up a hotspot and pays like big bucks so that he can listen. Listen to us do the live stream out there on his way out offshore. I thought that was an amazing compliment there. Can you imagine how many other programs we’re competing with in the Gulf of Mexico?

Larry 1:21:27
Yeah, and we have thousands of listeners in the Gulf of Mexico, I’m sure.

Andy 1:21:31
Could be true. Could be true. What else do we have to cover before we get out? am I forgetting anything Larry? Oh, well, you know, we have to cover, Our special guests that we were going to have this week was Christian and…

Larry 1:21:41
I see he is here.

Andy 1:21:42
Yes, he is here. And oddly, he lives in Minnesota. And there’s some kind of craziness going on there and with his particular job that there was extra work. So anyway, he arrived an hour late. So we’re going to kick him back to next week. And try and do that over next week, then have him as a guest.

Larry 1:22:00
That sounds fantastic.

Andy 1:22:00
On the sixth or something like that, I think is next week. Yeah, the sixth.

Larry 1:22:07
So, Can we have Lloyd on with us?

Andy 1:22:09
Uh, sure. Your your Lloyd in New Mexico?

Larry 1:22:10
No, his his Lloyd.

Andy 1:22:11
I mean, like, Okay. Yeah, I guess I didn’t know that We were doing that. But yeah, that’s fine.

Larry 1:22:17
I was waiting for him, We’re not going to get Lloyd to come on. That Lloyd is not going to come on. he’s a he’s a federal house, I think he’s still in the house of representatives. Right, Christian?

Andy 1:22:26
Oh, is that right? So, Larry, where can people find show notes? They can find links to the articles they can find anything else? Where do people have to go to find those things?

Larry 1:22:41
They need to go online.

Andy 1:22:43
Online like AOL. Like you have mail?

Larry 1:22:47
That would be one place or you could go to registrymatters.co

Andy 1:22:53
perfect registrymatters.co And I know that you love it when people leave voicemail. How would people dial in and leave some voicemail?

Larry 1:22:57
Well you go to your grandmother’s closet And you find the old telephone that she’s got stored in a box. It’s black and it has a circular thingy on it. I guess I call that a rotary dial and you plug it into an outlet at grandma’s house, and you and you start dialing the numbers you dial 1(747)227-4477

Andy 1:23:24
now I have a quick little detour story for you about this. When I first started getting into computers, I had a modem, and you could configure how it would dial. So you know, your your rotary phone would be like, that’s about how fast it went to the little clicks to register the phone number, you could change that configuration. So you could make you could make it go faster than the phone company could pick up. So you would have to find some sort of specific range where it would still pick up the digits. So you would make it like really, really, really fast at dialing, even though it was dialing with a rotary signal. How about that?

Larry 1:23:58
I remember those days.

Andy 1:24:00
Oh, yeah. And

Larry 1:24:02
did you did you ever have a box?

Andy 1:24:05
No, I never did any blue, gray, black. I never did any of those boxes. Yeah, that’s that’s a whole other conversation. How about sending in some email Larry? Where do people send email?

Larry 1:24:20
They send it to registrymatterscast@gmail.com.

Andy 1:24:27
And we had a whole bunch of new patrons to announce tonight and I can’t thank you, you people. I can’t thank you people enough. And where do people do that?

Larry 1:24:32
Oh, that would be patreon.com/registrymatters And, again, we would we would be happy with just half of your stimulus check.

Andy 1:24:44
What about if they have like four children? Are we doing half of the total or just half of the individual?

Larry 1:24:51
I think it’d be fair if we got half of the total cuz we’re we’re trying to work on behalf of the children also.

Andy 1:24:54
Oh, definitely. It’s because it’s all about…That’s funny, Larry. Well, we record the show usually on Saturday nights at 7pm. Eastern you can join the discord server and listen live. But if you can’t listen live, you can always do so on demand, which is the whole point anyway to listen on demand. We want to make this available to you at your convenience. If you would do me a favor and subscribe, this is doing yourself a favor to subscribe in your favorite podcast application whether that’s Apple, Google Stitcher, Pocket Casts, Overcast, whatever, you know, even YouTube by subscribing, you do two things. One, you make sure that you get every episode, the minute we post it, it’ll come right to you on your device. So you can have plenty of time for your Tuesday morning commute. If you’re commuting yet, I guess there’s a caveat there. But you’re also sending a signal to those apps. Hey, people listen to the show, and it will help other people discover it as well. At registrymatters.co You can find show notes and even transcripts, it gets every um, and it’s all in there. It’s just like reading, but you’re listening. That’s all I got Larry and I hope you have a fantastic rest of your weekend and watch out. Don’t get in the sun for too long because you get nice and toasty and crispy like me. Do you want to talk about your little photo real quick? I found a I found like an elementary school photo of you online. And what do you think about that photo? You think that’s…?

Larry 1:26:11
I think that’s a great photo. I didn’t know they had photos back then, but apparently I forgotten about it.

Andy 1:26:18
You can find that over on the YouTube stream that I’ve been putting together lately. Larry, as always, you are a Master of Information and explaining and you are the best and I super-duper appreciate it. And I hope you have a fantastic night.

Larry 1:26:31
Thank you. Thank you. Good night, everybody.

Andy 1:26:33
Bye bye.