This is Democracy 199

[00:00:00] This is democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States,

[00:00:11] a podcast about citizenship,

[00:00:13]  about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens

[00:00:22] next. Jeremi: Welcome to our new episode of this is democracy.

[00:00:29] This week, we’re going to discuss, uh, one of the most, uh, difficult and I think, um, disillusioning parts of our democratic system today, it’s the very large number of people, especially relative to other democracies. The very large number in the United States that we put on death row and subject to other, uh, very harsh criminal sentences.

[00:00:53] And the evidence, uh, of many wrongful convictions and most recently, and this is really our topic for today. Um, the ways in which many of the avenues for addressing wrongful convictions have been recently closed, or at least threatened to be closed, uh, most recently in may of 2022, the Supreme court ruled in a case called Shinn v. Ramirez.

[00:01:20] That federal courts should no longer have the right to necessarily oversee or step into a wrongful convictions in state courts where most criminal cases are tried. And we’re going to talk about that issue in particular and the larger question of wrongful convictions for those on death row, uh, and facing.

[00:01:42] Harsh penalties. We’re going to discuss those issues with one of the leading, uh, attorneys working in this space. Uh, this is Gail Johnson. She’s a partner at the law firm of Johnson and Klein in Colorado. Uh, for more than two decades, she has experience representing clients in criminal and civil cases in federal and state courts in California, Colorado, the district of Columbia, and I’m sure elsewhere.

[00:02:07] Um, Ms. Johnson has defended clients against many types of criminal charges and convictions. Demon mail and wire fraud, insider trading, drug, and firearm, arm offenses, sexual assault, and murder. She’s a law school graduate from the Yale law school and an undergraduate from, uh, Trinity university. Uh, Gail, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:02:29] Thank you

[00:02:30] Gail Johnson: for having me on the podcast.

[00:02:33] Jeremi: Before we turn to our discussion with Gail. We have a, as we do every week, we have Zachary’s poem to set the scene. What’s the title of your poem today? death row lullaby. Let’s hear it

[00:02:45] Zachary: when they decide it’s your time to die. Look out the window at night and cry.

[00:02:50] It is dark outside in the forest here. The bugs are loud. The heat is near. Look out, look out. They’re taking him away where bugles call and horses bay. Look out, look out. We’ve forgotten the words for foresaw. For hymns. We saying as children to birds, when they decide it’s your time to go, there won’t be rain or sunshine or snow.

[00:03:14] They will walk you to the gallows or chair. They’ll light a fire in your graying hair. Look out, look out there taking his life, therefore seeking his childhood, his children, his wife, look out, look out. We forgotten the words for hymns. We saying as children to birds, when they decide that it’s there as to know who is true, who is free and who must go, they will tell you remember the children, even as they abandoned your children.

[00:03:45] Even as they hold your neck with a knife, they will tell you as you die, they do it for

[00:03:51] Jeremi: life. That’s quite a crescendo there at the end. Zachary, is that the point of your poem, this contradiction between killing people and claiming it’s about. Certainly, and also

[00:04:03] Zachary: the sort of the psychological toll that a death row takes on a human being and the ways in which our justice system fails to understand that human beings can change, uh, can be redeemed in a sense and, and, and should have an opportunity.

[00:04:18] Uh, for, for that kind of redemption,

[00:04:22] Jeremi: uh, Gail, why do we have so many people on death row in our country? What, why, why do we stand out among all the democracies in the world, uh, for

[00:04:32] Gail Johnson: this well, Jeremy and I actually think that would be a podcast in and of itself. I would highly recommend for your listeners who haven’t already seen it.

[00:04:41] Um, the documentary film, the. Ava DuVernay and, uh, the director and, um, you know, I think it really places our criminal legal system in the context of, um, our history as a nation of enslaving, many people and Jim, you know, through dream Crow, through. Um, where we are today with mass incarceration and kind of drawing a through line through those problems.

[00:05:07] So there’s no question for those of us who are lawyers practicing in the criminal legal system, that race plays an outsize role in what happens in the courtroom, um, much to our country shame. And so I, you know, I’m not saying that other countries don’t also have their problems with, um, racial. Um, discrimination, but, um, certainly the United States has a particularly shameful history that it is not yet, um, fully atoned for and fully.

[00:05:38] Jeremi: And I guess that’s what I find most difficult to understand in this recent Supreme court, uh, decision, uh, that we referred to at the outset, Shannon versus Ramirez and recent efforts by those who are established legal figures to make it more. For people. Uh, I think in this case, the defendant’s last name was Jones, uh, to, to actually seek redress within a system that we all recognize has, has these flaws that you referred to?

[00:06:09] Why is there this movement? To make it harder for people who might be on death row and facing other ma major punishments to make it harder for them to seek redress, especially if there’s a possibility they’ve been wrongfully convicted.

[00:06:22] Gail Johnson: Um, so the, the history of that goes back a little ways to 1996, when Congress passed and then president bill Clinton signed the antiterrorism and effective death penalty act.

[00:06:35] Um, and that’s known to lawyers as ed AED, PA, and ed per really constrained and limited and reduced the availability of federal habeas relief. Um, and so if I can just maybe provide some context there, you know, mostly as you, I think alluded to in the introduction, the vast majority of criminal cases and our country.

[00:06:59] Prosecuted in state courts, not in federal court. Uh, it’s more than 95%, uh, in state court. Um, but individuals who are accused in state court still enjoy the benefits and the protections of the federal constitution. And here, particularly what we’re talking about is the sixth amendment, um, and the right to effective assistance of counsel.

[00:07:18] And the Supreme court has long recognized that, you know, the importance of that role of trial counsel, I mean, trial counsel investigates the case. They challenge the prosecution’s evidence. They cross examined witnesses, they subpoena, um, favorable witnesses. And if you have a bad, if you’re accused in a criminal case in NetSuite and you have a bad trial lawyer, um, you’re really.

[00:07:41] Up shit Creek without a paddle, I say. Um, so, um, but unfortunately what happened in 1996 with this new law is that, um, You know, Congress decided, um, that they wanted to speed up executions, that that penalty appeals were taking too long in their view. And they wanted to make things go faster. And so they imposed, um, very strict time limits for federal habeas relief and also put in place some legal standards that have made it nearly impossible.

[00:08:11] For, um, people in federal court to successfully win on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and, you know, fast forward to where we are today, more than 25 years later. Um, the fact of the matter is ed for failed at its mission, um, um, to speed up. Uh, death row executions. Um, they’ve actually that the amount of time people am spending on death row has instead doubled.

[00:08:37] Um, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. I think the whole system, of course, I’m opposed to, uh, at its core, it’s rotten, but, um, but you know, it didn’t even do what it set out to do. And instead, what it did do was make it very hard for people to vindicate federal rights, um, in federal court. And so, um, You know, that that’s kind of the, a little bit of the backdrop to the shin versus Ramirez decision.

[00:09:03] Jeremi: And, and, and why did bill Clinton and, and, and other Democrats and Republicans support this kind of legislation? What, what, what, what did they think it would make our society safer?

[00:09:15] Gail Johnson: Um, I won’t try and get in the hands of, of, uh, the politicians at the time. But what I will say is, you know, bad facts make bad law. Um, this, the statute came around in the wake of the Oklahoma city bombing, which was, you know, obviously a very, um, extreme crime that was traumatic for many people and particularly federal officials since it was the bombing of a federal facility.

[00:09:40] And, um, um, You know, at that time, I think the Democrats were very concerned about, um, looking soft on crime, based on the politics of our country. And I assume that that’s why bill Clinton signed it. Um, it was predictable at the time that it was going to be problematic. Some people did predict that including our current president, Joe Biden, who was done in the Senate, he ultimately voted for the law.

[00:10:04] Um, but he, he recognized at the time that there were some problems and we’ve really seen those problems come to fruition. And so the shin versus Ramirez decision, the majority here, which is, um, restricting relief to someone who had very credible claim of actual innocence, um, Barry Jones, um, you know, they, the majority is saying we have to do this based on the law.

[00:10:26] Zachary: And could you maybe give our listeners a sense of how common, uh, these kinds of errors, if you will, or, or, or failures to provide, uh, defendants with basic constitutional rights? How common are these, these, uh, shortcomings of justice, these failings of justice, uh, in death penalty.

[00:10:46] Gail Johnson: I think it’s extremely common in death penalty cases.

[00:10:49] Um, and you know, to be clear, there is definitely a problem of those who are actually innocent, being wrong and convicted and sentenced to death. That is a demonstrated phenomenon that happens. People have been exonerated off of death row, um, in multiple states on multiple occasions in our country.

[00:11:08] There’s also other types of ineffectiveness, for example, um, ineffectiveness that goes to the penalty. So even in this that’s one of the examples, there are actually two defendants at issue in the shin versus Ramirez Murray Ramirez case. Um, Mr. Ramirez, um, was someone who had. Not very good lawyer at his death penalty trial stage.

[00:11:31] And one of the things that lawyer did not do was to develop an investigate and present evidence that Mr. Ramirez suffered from an intellectual disability and had been severely abused as a child. That type of evidence is known in death penalty circles as medical. Uh, mitigation is any type of information or evidence that would give a juror a reason to grant mercy and vote for a life sentence instead of the death penalty.

[00:11:59] Um, recognizing of course that the death penalty is the most extreme sanction, um, that the law allows. And so the Supreme court has already made it clear that if one, uh, if an accused is intellectually disabled, they cannot constitutionally be sentenced to death and executed. Um, so it’s a very major error for trial counsel and Mr.

[00:12:21] Ramirez case to fail, to discover, investigate, and present that type of evidence because that type of evidence would have saved him from the death penalty. And what this court, uh, what this court decision does, the new Supreme court decision in chin versus Ramirez? It says. If you had a bad trial lawyer who didn’t develop the evidence and then the state gives him another bad lawyer later in state court where he should’ve had developed the evidence, um, too bad.

[00:12:47] So sad. That is Mr. Ramirez fault. Again, we’re talking about an intellectually disabled prisoner, um, sentenced to death sitting on death row. That is his fault that the state appointed him a bad lawyer, and therefore we are not going to allow him to present evidence of his intellectual disability and childhood abuse in federal court.

[00:13:05] Well, if he can’t present that evidence, then he can’t vindicate his sixth amendment, right. To effective assistance of counsel. He can’t vindicate his right not to be executed. Um, based on his intellectual disability, the federal door, you know, the federal courthouse doors are essentially slammed shut in a case that’s very troubling.

[00:13:22] Um, the other case, um, at issue in shin vs Ramirez, uh, we mentioned Mr. Barry Jones. Um, there’s an actual evidence of his innocence evidence that he did not commit the crime. And, um, again, he was also sentenced to death. Um, the facts of the crime are troubling. It’s, um, physical assault, a murder of a young girl.

[00:13:42] Um, but the entire prosecution’s case, um, at the trial level was based on some forensic evidence involving a timeline that essentially said the little girl’s injuries, the victim’s injuries must have happened during a particular time period. When she was with Mr. Jones. Well, you know, when he finally gets good lawyers later on in federal court, they develop a lot of expert testimony to show that that was complete book.

[00:14:08] It just was not true. And the federal court held a week long evidentiary hearing with expert witnesses and the lawyers and the federal court agreed and said that there had been ineffective assistance of counsel and that he should get a neutral. And that’s all where you’re, you know what, so we’re usually talking about here, right?

[00:14:25] Is that a jury should be allowed to hear, um, the full and complete evidence. And we shouldn’t just rest on the bad record that exists because trial counsel didn’t do their job in the first instance.

[00:14:39] Jeremi: I guess as I try to make sense as a non-lawyer, as a historian reading justice Thomas’ majority opinion.

[00:14:47] In this case, he seemed to be making, at least to my reading as a historian, a kind of state’s rights argument, right. That, that this is the state’s jurisdiction and the federal government was intervening, uh, where, where it shouldn’t have been. Why from your point of view, So imperative that the federal government has the right and that federal courts have the jurisdiction to step in.

[00:15:11] Well, it’s

[00:15:12] Gail Johnson: important for the federal courts to be able to vindicate federal rights because federal constitutes. Because sometimes the states simply get it wrong, mistakes happen, and it’s clear that serious mistakes happened in these two individuals cases. Um, and you know, when you have an, a constitutional right on paper that says the sixth amendment guarantees you the effective assistance of counsel.

[00:15:35] But in fact, you have no ability to prove that claim, you know, that right’s not worth the paper it’s written on and that’s kind of what justice Sotomayor’s dissent, um, says this, you know, this is a perverse and illogical ruling. Um, so, you know, I think anytime of course, that we’re talking about quote unquote state’s rights again, I think we need to think about that critically in the context of the racial history of our country.

[00:16:01] Um, There’s all kinds of reasons. When you look at American history, why, um, uh, federal officials review of what’s going on in the states, these are the, um, civil rights and, and the rights that are afforded to people in the criminal legal system, um, are important. And.

[00:16:19] Jeremi: Right right now it did seem to me as a historian.

[00:16:21] And I think this is what you were implying, Gail, that it was a step backwards to almost a pre-war in court, understanding of a post civil war writes their amendments, uh, posts, uh, the 13th amendment on. And of course you’re referring to the sixth amendment because it goes back to the bill of rights. But, but basically it seemed to me, it was, uh, a way of trying to return us to a almost pre-World war II moment when these were.

[00:16:48] Though in the constitution, we’re not enforced by the federal government, which seems a very tenuous argument to make. When so many of our rights in the last 50 to 70 years have been rights that we’ve assumed have federal protection.

[00:17:02] Gail Johnson: Yes. And I think, you know, as we all sort of absorb the impact of this decision and reflect on where to go next, you know, I would say.

[00:17:10] Um, ed putt is ripe for reform and is right for repeal. I mean, this is, uh, this law has been a serious problem for decades. Um, the Supreme court has just made it worse. Um, and I think it’s a good time to sort of take stock of where we are. You know, I, I would also just offer the observation that the notion that sort of finality and this deference to the state rights is more important than that.

[00:17:34] Actual innocence or the fact that someone may be wrongly convicted or wrongly, um, received the death penalty. You know, it’s really, I think if you’re a non lawyer, just, it, it doesn’t make sense. It is, um, just contrary to so many common sense principles. I mean, I think about it as a mother. You know, if you have a child who comes to you with a homework paper on world war II and the homework paper says, um, you know, France fought on the side of Nazi Germany, Had on the back, you’ve finished the paper you say, go back and get it right.

[00:18:05] I mean, you know, accuracy is important. Um, the truth is important, innocence matters. Um, and one of the things we see, you know, as a result of. The advent of technology and DNA testing over the last quarter century is, you know, there’ve been a tremendous number of exonerations. We were talking about that before, but, um, I’ve looked this morning at the national registry of exonerations, which is a website that collects information and data and descriptions of individual cases.

[00:18:33] And as of today in here in June, 2022, there have been 3,149 exonerations since 1989. 1989 being kind of the advent of DNA. Um, you know, that adds up to 20,000 years of per time in prison that people spent for crimes. They did not commit, you know? And so of course, um, we want to give people process. We want to give people evidentiary hearings and resources and good lawyers to make sure that that doesn’t happen.

[00:19:06] I mean, who doesn’t want that? And to, to suggest that it’s more important to just. Uh, be done instead of be right, is very troubling.

[00:19:15] Jeremi: And maybe this is a way of coming back to the initial question I asked you about. Who benefits from this? I mean, it, it strikes me that there’s, uh, having read much of the same evidence.

[00:19:25] You’re just citing. There’s no evidence that those who have not been convicted in these cases, that they are a source of crime in our society. Right. There’s much more evidence that the wrongful conviction is the injustice in our society, especially. Uh, death row cases of minorities in our society. So who benefits from continuing to push for an avoidance of this issue and a continual prosecution and punishment of those who are wrongfully convicted?

[00:19:55] W w w what’s the constituency arguing for that? And what do they.

[00:20:01] Gail Johnson: Well, I think the constituency, unfortunately in many instances are, are prosecutors who may be appointed in some states they may be elected and others. Um, and our state’s attorney generals, um, you know, there was a political choice made here by the Arizona state attorney general to appeal these cases to the U S Supreme court.

[00:20:22] Um, the lower courts had granted relief, um, and. You know, again, with respect to Barry Jones’s case for federal lower court, federal judges had looked at the evidence, heard evidence and looked at the record of that and decided, um, you know, there’s clear ineffectiveness here. There’s evidence that he did not cause the injuries and therefore was not the perpetrator of the crime.

[00:20:45] The jury should hear it. Adrian should hear it. Um, and so who benefits from that? You know, prosecutors who want to. Get a conviction and then slam the lid on it and never looked back, uh, and move on. Um, but there’s a real societal cost and you know, of course we focus primarily on. Um, the, the tragedy and frankly, the horror, um, to the wrongly convicted person and their family.

[00:21:12] Um, but there are other costs here that society bears as well. Right? I mean, in many of these instances where there is a crime that occurred a horrible, violent crime that occurred, uh, and if a person is wrongly arrested, wrongly convicted, the true perpetrator remains. To continue to commit somewhere crimes.

[00:21:29] Um, and, and that is a societal cost that you would think the prosecutors and attorney generals would care about. Um, but we do not see that enough. Unfortunately, what we see is a desire to pretend that everything is okay. Um, if they were convicted a jury. They were guilty and we’re not going to look at it again.

[00:21:47] Um, and unfortunately in my career, that’s what I have seen all too often, um, is an unwillingness to take the blinders off and to recognize that, um, mistakes happen. And when they do happen, they must be rectified.

[00:22:00] Jeremi: So as part of the problem that prosecutors, whether elected or appointed or, or to incentivize to convict rather than to pursue the truth, I think

[00:22:09] Gail Johnson: that’s right.

[00:22:10] Unfortunately, um, you know, we are starting to see some cultural change around the country and a couple of different areas. Um, one is just politically with the election, um, in certain jurisdictions of. Truly progressive reform minded prosecutors on the two that come to mind or Chesa boudin and San Francisco and Larry Krasner in Philadelphia.

[00:22:35] Um, uh, there are others and I don’t mean to overlook them, but, um, so that’s one phenomenon that, that I would say is very new in the last five years and is welcome, but is, um, sort of a drop in the bucket, um, in terms of the volume of what’s going on in our country. The other thing I think we’re seeing that I, I applaud and I welcome.

[00:22:55] I think it needs to be more robust and more widespread is that. District attorney’s offices, prosecutors and state courts are increasingly, uh, um, establishing conviction, integrity units, or conviction review unit. And those are specialized departments within a prosecutor’s office, whose mission it is, is to, um, you know, take a second look at some of these claims of wrongful conviction and potentially exonerate people.

[00:23:23] Um, in Colorado right now we have, um, two of those and a third one, I’m sorry. We have three of those. And a fourth, one has just been announced is about to be announced in Denver. Um, you know, my hope is that they will all seem to be exonerating people from our prisons. And that would be a wonderful thing.

[00:23:42] Um, you know, again, there are a few around the country in different places, but, you know, it’s, it’s, we’re really at the, um, at the bank it’s, it’s just starting.

[00:23:54] Jeremi: Well, but I think this is super helpful. I mean, one of our goals every week, Gail is to use our deep dive into an issue in our historical perspective, to come up with positive pathways forward, to overcome the disillusionment and despair that I think allows.

[00:24:10] Bad behavior to continue when people think they can’t change things. And you’ve pointed to two really important pathways, even if they’re still narrow pathways, a conviction, integrity units, and electing or appointing, um, district attorneys and prosecutors with a, with a different perspective, who aren’t only concerned with getting convictions of people who.

[00:24:29] Look like criminals to those who are on the outside. Looking, looking in. I wonder Gail, uh, at the risk of, of forcing you to be a modest, if you would say a little bit about the role that attorneys like yourself play. Because as I understand it, this is a really important part of our system. And I don’t think enough of our listeners understand the role of, of attorneys like yourself.

[00:24:52] Gail Johnson: I’m sure. You know, one of my other sort of suggestions for paths forward when people read this decision and feel frustrated by it is that we need to adequately fund good criminal defense trial lawyers in the first instance, um, that is, you know, if we care about finality and deference to state court, everything that is where the main action is happening, that initial trial, um, Uh, it is essential that public defender systems, um, that other indigent defense systems are adequately funded.

[00:25:23] And, you know, I do want to be clear, um, the kinds of problems we’ve been talking about. They can happen with private counsel, but they’re less likely to, and the vast majority of people who go through the system facing these serious charges are represented by court appointed counsel, whether through the public defender system or otherwise.

[00:25:42] Um, you know, I’m a former public defender. My law partners, a former public defender, our friends are public defenders. I think the world of public defender. Um, it is not the case in every state that they’re adequately funded. It is often typical all to typicals that their case loads are too large. Um, and so I think pressing to make sure that.

[00:26:04] Those who are on the front lines of trying to dig up this evidence in the first place, trying to hire the investigators, trying to find the experts, um, that needed to develop a claim of intellectual disability and the death penalty case, or to develop, um, a challenge to prosecution, expert evidence, um, that.

[00:26:22] It’s law and junk science. Um, it’s essential that we’re adequately funding those functions. So I think that’s another thing we can all think about politically and how to move forward, because if the Supreme court is saying, you’re not going to be able to make these claims later on in federal court, we really need to try harder, um, and redouble our efforts to get everyone excellent high quality defense in the first instance at.

[00:26:46] Jeremi: I think that’s so well said and so important. Um, unfortunately I think Gail, when people see public defenders or hear about a public defender, you know, it’s an, a case like, um, the alleged shooter in Buffalo, uh, who has a public defender obviously, uh, after, after allegedly shooting a large number of people in a supermarket.

[00:27:07] Um, and, and unfortunately people see the public defender is someone. Hindering justice. How, how do you respond to that? How do you explain to people why it’s important for even someone who appears to be so guilty as this alleged shooter is to have high quality public defense?

[00:27:30] Gail Johnson: Well, look, there’s a lot of philosophical responses to give to that question, but I’m going to give you a really practical response instead, and it’s this.

[00:27:40] The fact of the matter is the vast majority of criminal cases prosecuted in this country do not proceed to trial. Most of them result in a negotiated plea bargain. And so a lot of time what that public defender is doing is arguing for a fair level of charge and arguing for a fair sentence. The cases that tend to go to trial are the ones where there’s a good reason to go to trial.

[00:28:06] Uh, that may be because of actual innocence that may be because the death penalty or some other extremely harsh sentences on the table. And there is no reasonable plea bargain offer, you know, reasons, ferry. Um, but we have. You know, we were having this conversation in this country in the context of massive over-incarceration.

[00:28:24] Um, you compare the incarceration rates in the United States to any other Western civilized country it’s appalling and shocking. And. You know, public defenders again, are the essential frontline to try and reduce that problem of excessive sentences and over-incarceration. And so again, I applaud them. Um, they’re my sister and my brother and, and, um, we need to adequately fund them and by doing so, you know, I mean, again, we talk about, go back to the.

[00:28:54] Thousands of years of time in prison for wrongful convictions. You know, that’s not just a moral horror, which it absolutely is. It’s a huge waste of money, right? I mean, taxpayer dollars, incarcerating someone who didn’t even commit the crime. Um, so I think it’s the money that is spent adequately funding, trial level defense, um, for indigent people is efficient, um, in that it is going to help reduce over incarceration, which clearly is the problem.

[00:29:22] And th the path we have gone on with.

[00:29:25] Jeremi: That makes, that makes so much sense. Zachary, what do you think? I know, uh, that you, you and your generation look at these issues and on the one hand, uh, there’s overwhelming evidence for what Gail has said, right? That we were a society that over incarcerates and a society where the justice system is not fair to all individuals who come into it.

[00:29:48] And race is a huge factor. These are just undeniable facts. We can disagree over the degree to which they’re true or not, but there are. Facts by looking at our system. So on the one hand, that’s evident on the other hand, there’s, there’s a desire to, um, find criminals, uh, and prevent them from, uh, hurting people.

[00:30:07] So how do, how does your generation approach this issue maybe differently from an older generation? I think that

[00:30:13] Zachary: my generation is able at least to take a step back in the sense that the information that we are being given nowadays is not solely the sort of. Cop show, uh, machismo that, that, that, that, that previous generation saw on television.

[00:30:30] We are, we are provided, I think at least with, with a substantial amount of better, more accurate information, but at the same time, I think we need to keep in mind that that our justice system is not solely about punishment. It’s not even solely about safety. It’s about fairness and following, following, and guaranteed.

[00:30:50] The rights of our constitution. And I think that, uh, we need to do a better job of educating, not just young people, but the public at large about the responsibility of institutions and institutional leaders to carry through

[00:31:04] Jeremi: on those promises. Right. Right. That makes a lot of sense. Uh, Gail, as, as we close, uh, what are the best sources?

[00:31:10] For our listeners who want to learn more and follow these issues and avoid the cop shows Sacary is putting them in quite frankly, the deceptive rhetoric that they often hear from elected officials about these issues.

[00:31:25] Gail Johnson: Um sure. In terms of journalism, I would strongly recommend. To your listeners, um, that they check out the Marshall project, which is online, um, that was founded a few years ago, um, by some folks from the New York times.

[00:31:40] And they’ve done a really fantastic job of, um, expanding and deepening journalistic treatment of the criminal legal system, United States, and with, you know, uh, uh, piercing and often critical eye. Um, so that’s an excellent source. Um, we mentioned Ava DuVernay’s documentary 13th. Um, I think that is extremely helpful.

[00:32:04] The sentencing project is a nonprofit in DC, um, that looks at excessive sentences and again provides a lot of data. Um, I would also recommend people check out the Vera Institute of justice, um, which tries to take a creative approach towards what we can do to reform the. Problematic system that we’ve developed.

[00:32:26] So those are just a few there again. There’s um, there’s a lot of people working in this area now, which again is most welcome, but I think those are a few that I would strongly recommend.

[00:32:38] Jeremi: Those are fantastic suggestions. I just, while you were speaking, went to the Marshall project site and it’s, I mean, it’s already, I see three articles I want to read as soon as we’re done here on this.

[00:32:48] So, uh, there’s so much information out there. And as Zachary said, so, so accurately, uh, those who are interested now, I think can learn about this and follow these issues and, and, and activate for them and go out and call for attention to these issues. And perhaps support these organizations, which I hope all of our listeners will do.

[00:33:07] Uh, Gail, thank you so much for joining us today. I just want to remind everyone, Gail Johnson is, uh, an attorney, uh, she’s with, um, the firm of Johnson and Klein, and very active around all of these, uh, issues. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your expertise with us.

[00:33:26] Gail Johnson: Thank you so much, both of you for addressing these important issues.

[00:33:31] Jeremi: Our pleasure. Uh, it’s it’s uh, what we try to do each week. Uh, Zachary, thank you for your, uh, moving poem as always. And thank you most of all, to our loyal listeners for joining us for this episode of this is democracy.

[00:33:52] This podcast is produced by the liberal arts, its development studio and the college of liberal arts at the university of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris Codini. stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find this is democracy on apple podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

[00:34:11] See you next time.