Latest / Brian Thomas / Judge Napolitano

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Judge Napolitano · Brian Thomas

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  Speaker 1: KRC, the talk station. It's 830 at 55 KRC, the
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  Speaker 1: talk station. Appointment listening time with Judge Janet Apolitano. Judging
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  Speaker 1: Freedom is Judge Janet Apolitano's podcast. We usually end up
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  Speaker 1: the segment talking about what he's doing today. But in
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  Speaker 1: the meantime, I say all the time I get a
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  Speaker 1: copy of his column, which comes out tonight at midnight
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  Speaker 1: in advance. I am blessed in that regard today. It's
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  Speaker 1: a culture of death. Welcome back, Judge Ed Napolitano. It's
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  Speaker 1: always a pleasure to have you on the 55K RC
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  Speaker 1: Morning Show.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Brian. A pleasure to be with you, and
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  Speaker 2: welcome back to Joe.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it is nice having him back. No idea what
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  Speaker 1: peace of mind just having Joe in the production booth
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  Speaker 1: gives me, sir. Anyhow, you know, I read your column,
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  Speaker 1: and I agree with you. I have told my listening
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  Speaker 1: audience a multitude of times I don't believe in the
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  Speaker 1: death penalty. As a younger man, more of a kill-em-all-let-God-sort-it-out
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  Speaker 1: kind of guy, I no longer carry that because I
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  Speaker 1: no longer... really, and that guy ever should, trust the government,
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  Speaker 1: and a government who screws up in prosecuting criminals sometimes
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  Speaker 1: convicts the wrong person, and sometimes we find somebody who's
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  Speaker 1: been sitting on death row for like 30 years or
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  Speaker 1: something ends up DNA evidence, exonerates them. So if that
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  Speaker 1: can happen, the state shouldn't be able to take a life.
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  Speaker 1: And here's the parallel I want to draw. I am
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  Speaker 1: a Second Amendment fan. I am a firearms owner. I
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  Speaker 1: know that in using a firearm, deadly force requires imminent
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  Speaker 1: apprehension of grievous bodily harm or fear of death. And
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  Speaker 1: if you don't have that, you're not allowed to use
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  Speaker 1: deadly force. That's kind of a parallel you're drawing here
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  Speaker 1: with the government locking criminals up. They are no longer
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  Speaker 1: a threat to society. But then killing them.
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  Speaker 2: Well... You know, I went through the same ideological odyssey
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  Speaker 2: that you did as a young man, as a law student,
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  Speaker 2: as a young lawyer, even as a judge, though I
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  Speaker 2: never tried a capital case. And during my time on
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  Speaker 2: the bench in New Jersey, the legislature removed the death penalty,
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  Speaker 2: so it became irrelevant. But in my youth... I believed
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  Speaker 2: that it was appropriate. I now believe that the government
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  Speaker 2: doesn't have the moral and therefore doesn't have the legal
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  Speaker 2: authority to kill people. What prompted my piece, of course,
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  Speaker 2: was the statement by Secretary of Defense Hegseth that this
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  Speaker 2: execution will be by firing squad and will be live streamed.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, to me, this is pornographic. this just glorifies
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  Speaker 2: killing and makes it a television spectacle. I'm not using
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  Speaker 2: the television terms because I worked with Pete Hegseth and
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  Speaker 2: we both worked at Fox, but that's basically what this is.
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  Speaker 2: There's only three or four countries in the world that
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  Speaker 2: have public executions. So we really want to be in
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  Speaker 2: the same category as them, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Iran.
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  Speaker 2: And none of them televise them or live stream them
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  Speaker 2: as Hegseth wants to do. To me, this is part
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  Speaker 2: of the Washington Post calls Pete Hegseth Trump's minister of manliness.
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  Speaker 2: It is part of the minister of manliness's glorification of
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  Speaker 2: government and the power that government has to kill government
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  Speaker 2: killing people should be an absolute last resort and only
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  Speaker 2: in the case of defense, not in any other case,
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  Speaker 2: particularly not when the person being killed poses no threat
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  Speaker 2: whatsoever to American life, liberty, or property.
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  Speaker 1: Is it your belief, I don't know that it's ever
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  Speaker 1: been articulated by Hegseth or anybody else that wants this
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  Speaker 1: execution public or live streamed, is it your belief that
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  Speaker 1: that will serve as an illustration to deter others from
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  Speaker 1: similar conduct, which is what the criminal justice system in
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  Speaker 1: part is supposed to do, putting aside death. But the alternative, though,
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  Speaker 1: or the way I view this public education or execution is,
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  Speaker 1: you've just created a poster child martyr for the recruitment
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  Speaker 1: of additional people to join the forces with the ISIS folks.
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  Speaker 2: Correct. I mean, this video, if it happens, I think
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  Speaker 2: a federal judge... will probably interfere, although there is an
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  Speaker 2: issue of standing here because he doesn't have a lawyer,
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  Speaker 2: and he probably wants this live stream. But you will
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  Speaker 2: see it all over the Middle East, and you will
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  Speaker 2: see children reacting to it, and you'll see Americans repulsed
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  Speaker 2: by it. the Secretary of Homeland Security, who has nothing
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  Speaker 2: whatsoever to do with this, nevertheless said on Fox the
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  Speaker 2: other day, well, if you don't like it, you don't
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  Speaker 2: have to watch it. You're going to see it everywhere,
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  Speaker 2: whether you want to watch it or not, because it is,
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  Speaker 2: you know, it's unique. A plane lands, it's not news.
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  Speaker 2: A plane crashes, it's news. Somebody is executed, like they
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  Speaker 2: tried to execute Christoph Pike, um, It's news when it
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  Speaker 2: goes wrong or it's news when it's televised. You will
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  Speaker 2: see this monstrosity all over the place. Archbishop Timothy Brolio,
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  Speaker 2: who's the head Catholic chaplain for all the military, told
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  Speaker 2: any Catholic sharpshooters they must ask to be excused from
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  Speaker 2: this sharpshooting squad. These guys are going to have PTSD.
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  Speaker 2: for the rest of their lives over this kind of
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  Speaker 2: use of military force.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I would argue you're right. But then again, I
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  Speaker 1: can hear the sort of the chorus of voices who
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  Speaker 1: want this guy executed. They want him executed in public.
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  Speaker 1: They want to do that, that they would sign up
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  Speaker 1: for the job, Your Honor. There are people out there
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  Speaker 1: that wouldn't mind that. I have to observe.
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  Speaker 2: I'm sure there are. But this presumes... an extraordinary power
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  Speaker 2: to government, which we have never consented to it having.
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  Speaker 2: The government exists, I'm parroting the Declaration of Independence, I'm
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  Speaker 2: not making this up, by virtue of the consent of
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  Speaker 2: the governed. The governed have given individual power that each
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  Speaker 2: of us has, like self-defense, to the government to exercise
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  Speaker 2: it for us. The governed don't have the power to
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  Speaker 2: kill someone who presents no threat. So if they don't
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  Speaker 2: have that power, how can they give it to the government?
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  Speaker 2: I recognize this is a philosophical argument.
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  Speaker 1: It is.
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  Speaker 2: It's an extraordinarily libertarian argument. It is. But the opposite argument,
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  Speaker 2: the government can do whatever it can get away with,
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  Speaker 2: will lead to authoritarianism. And we're on the verge of
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  Speaker 2: it today.
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  Speaker 1: We are. and I keep the idea that government can kill.
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  Speaker 1: Are there that many countries in the world that have
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  Speaker 1: the death penalty? I'm trying to reflect on the Supreme
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  Speaker 1: Court at one point found it to be cruel and
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  Speaker 1: unusual punishment only to reverse itself subsequently, correct?
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  Speaker 2: Correct. There was a time when there was no death
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  Speaker 2: penalty in the United States, and then the Supreme Court
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  Speaker 2: reversed itself. There's not that many countries that do. It's
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  Speaker 2: illegal in the EU. Russia and China have it, and
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  Speaker 2: it's illegal in most of Latin America. So you have
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  Speaker 2: outliers like the US, China, Russia, Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran
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  Speaker 2: that use it. I don't even think Israel has the
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  Speaker 2: death penalty, though there is legislation in the Knesset to
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  Speaker 2: make it lawful. This is horrible, but this is the legislation.
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  Speaker 2: For Palestinians only, not for Israelis. Put that aside. I
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  Speaker 2: don't believe it is lawful in Israel. So most of
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  Speaker 2: the West, indeed most of the world, does not have
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  Speaker 2: this any longer.
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  Speaker 1: Well, walking through this philosophical analysis, and I'm sorry I
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  Speaker 1: didn't go back and look at the Supreme Court case
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  Speaker 1: allowing for the death penalty again, but what changed in
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  Speaker 1: terms of the court's rationale when outlawing it and then
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  Speaker 1: changing a position on cruel and unusual punishment?
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  Speaker 2: Well, first the court said it was cruel and unusual
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  Speaker 2: because it was applied with a racial animus. And then
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  Speaker 2: another generation later, so basically another court, because I had
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  Speaker 2: different members on it, but the same Supreme Court, if
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  Speaker 2: you follow me, said there's nothing in the federal constitution
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  Speaker 2: about this and the states have their own safeguards and
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  Speaker 2: the death penalty preexisted the country. So the first was
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  Speaker 2: sort of a modernist, we can't use it in a
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  Speaker 2: racially animated way, ruling. The second was sort of an originalist.
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  Speaker 2: It's been around for longer than the country has been around.
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  Speaker 2: It's up to the states to make sure it's applied fairly.
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  Speaker 1: That's like a Bruin decision insofar as the death penalty
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  Speaker 1: is concerned.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, the last public execution was during the
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  Speaker 2: FDR years. It was around 1920. it was the execution
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  Speaker 2: of a black man for raping a white woman. There
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  Speaker 2: was no television then, but 10,000 people showed up to
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  Speaker 2: watch this happen. That was the last public one.
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  Speaker 1: Kind of like gladiators in the Roman Empire, Judge Napolitano.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's kind of sickening to me, and I wasn't surprised,
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  Speaker 2: but I was disappointed to hear Hegseth glorying in it.
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  Speaker 2: He sounded unbalanced the way he was defending this decision.
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  Speaker 2: I understand it's legal. I get it. The law is
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  Speaker 2: not going to change because I think it's unconstitutional philosophically,
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  Speaker 2: but adding this public... viewing and live streaming is totally
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  Speaker 2: unnecessary and will be counterproductive.
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  Speaker 1: Counterproductive. I think you're putting it lightly when you call
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  Speaker 1: it counterproductive, Your Honor. The problems that are going to
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  Speaker 1: ensue from that, the recruiting that will most assuredly go on,
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  Speaker 1: the martyrdom that this man will become a martyr, it's
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  Speaker 1: just a dumb idea. We can just call it that.
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  Speaker 1: Judge Antonio Napolitano, Judging Freedom is the podcast. Find it
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  Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Same group of folks on
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  Speaker 1: a Wednesday, Judge Napolitano?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I have the great Phil Giraldi, Colonel Douglas McGregor,
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  Speaker 2: and my favorite international investigative journalist, Pepe Escobar, who has
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  Speaker 2: extraordinary sources in Saudi Arabia, in Yemen, and in Pakistan
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  Speaker 2: to explain to us what is going on there. Why
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  Speaker 2: is the government of one of the richest nations in
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  Speaker 2: the world Saudi Arabia about to collapse.
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  Speaker 1: That's a hell of a subject matter. You just got
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  Speaker 1: a lot of listeners going to be tuning into Judging
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  Speaker 1: Freedom today, Your Honor, and they will tune in next week.
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  Speaker 1: Appointment listening with you on the 55KRC Morning Show, Wednesdays
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  Speaker 1: at 830. God bless you, sir. I appreciate what you do.
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  Speaker 1: And thank you for sharing my obviously less than widely
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  Speaker 1: popular beliefs about the death penalty. I just... You know,
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  Speaker 1: and let's try to remind people, prison sucks. It's not
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  Speaker 1: like they're getting let free. They get no liberties, no freedoms.
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  Speaker 1: They can't have a cheeseburger whenever they want. They'll probably
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  Speaker 1: get raped by one of their fellow prisoners. It's a hellhole.
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  Speaker 1: So let them enjoy that for the rest of their life.
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  Speaker 1: Hell on earth, followed by hell in the afterlife. Can
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  Speaker 1: we live with that?
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  Speaker 2: I think we can live with that. Brian, it's a pleasure,
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  Speaker 2: my man. Thank you. See you next week.
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  Speaker 1: Have a great week, my friend. It's 842-55-CARS. The Talk Station.
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  Speaker 1: Don't go away. Josh Gerth.