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Make Prosecutors Pay When They Lose Cases (Full) · Solving America's Problems

• 0:00
  Alex: Solving America’s Problems drops in with Jerremy and Dave grilling former
• 0:03
  prosecutor turned judge Alex Thomason — and here’s the bomb he just casually
• 0:08
  detonates: right now the ONLY crime in America where the state has to pay your
• 0:13
  attorney fees if they lose and you’re found not guilty… is when you shoot
• 0:18
  someone in self-defense with a gun.
• 0:22
  That’s it.
• 0:23
  Guns get the magic fee-shifting rule.
• 0:25
  Every other charge — rape, murder, DUI, robbery, child porn, whatever — the
• 0:30
  government can swing and miss, wreck your life, and walk away whistling while
• 0:34
  you eat six figures in legal bills.
• 0:36
  Alex says make the state pay every single time they bring a case and lose.
• 0:41
  One statute.
• 0:42
  One line of code per state.
• 0:44
  Suddenly prosecutors stop filing 50% of the garbage they currently stack
• 0:48
  on people just to force pleas... And the prison doors fly open.
• 0:53
  Jerremy and Dave stare into that abyss with him…
• 0:57
  Jerremy Newsome: Dave Conley, what are we addressing and solving today?
• 1:04
  Dave Conley: In this week's episode of Solving America's Problems, we're probing
• 1:07
  the justice system where prosecutors power, often overshadows truth,
• 1:10
  overcrowding, prisons, and fraying trust.
• 1:13
  Good one, simple rule, fix it.
• 1:15
  Our guest, Alex Thomason, a judge, former prosecutor and Valor Law Group
• 1:20
  founder, exposes law school failures, prosecutors', truth twisting game, and one
• 1:25
  simple rule already used in gun defense cases that could transform everything.
• 1:30
  And that's this week one rule to right justice with Alex Thomason.
• 1:35
  Jerremy Newsome: The justice system is meant to protect, but with 1.9
• 1:39
  million Americans incarcerated and $80 billion spent, are we safer?
• 1:46
  From prosecutors calling the shots to juries lost in details.
• 1:51
  It's a system that punishes families and does not reform lives.
• 1:56
  I'm Jeremy Alexander Newsom, joined by my co-host Dave Conley, and
• 2:01
  this is Solving America's Problems.
• 2:04
  Today we are digging in with my guy Alex Thomason, a lawyer who's lived it all.
• 2:13
  Literally apple farmer, world ranked skier, apprentice, finalist,
• 2:21
  and prosecutor who has fought corporate crooks, courtroom
• 2:26
  failures, and so much more.
• 2:28
  He is here to help us fix what's broken.
• 2:31
  Alex, welcome to the show.
• 2:34
  Alex Thomason Valor: Hey, thanks for having me, guys.
• 2:35
  I appreciate that.
• 2:37
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, it's gonna be awesome, man.
• 2:39
  Alex Thomason Valor: this is such an interesting topic, so I'm glad
• 2:40
  you guys were able to pat me on.
• 2:42
  I'm happy to be here.
• 2:43
  I also am the world's smallest and least influential judge, so you know.
• 2:51
  Dave Conley: It.
• 2:51
  Smallest towel.
• 2:52
  I, you gotta be, unpack that
• 2:54
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 2:54
  Dave Conley: What,
• 2:55
  Alex Thomason Valor: so the.
• 2:56
  Dave Conley: do they come in
• 2:56
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 2:57
  They come with different powers.
• 2:58
  If you imagine the Avengers, and each Avenger has their power.
• 3:00
  I'm thinking, I'm the guy that does the laundry there for their
• 3:03
  costumes, so they don't shrink.
• 3:05
  So a miss, a municipal judge, so I handle stuff for cities.
• 3:10
  So
• 3:11
  Jerremy Newsome: Love it, man.
• 3:12
  Thank you.
• 3:12
  Thank you for being here.
• 3:13
  Thank you for giving us your time.
• 3:14
  That's awesome.
• 3:16
  I'm gonna start at a random little spot.
• 3:18
  What did law school teach you about how justice is supposed to work
• 3:23
  and then what's the reality when you're actually practicing it?
• 3:26
  Alex Thomason Valor: not a thing.
• 3:29
  a thing.
• 3:30
  Law school teaches you how to be a great librarian.
• 3:34
  only thing law school teaches you is how do you issue spot.
• 3:39
  I. So somebody says, they tell you a story and, Hey, I was driving the car.
• 3:43
  I failed down here.
• 3:44
  This happened, I was arrested.
• 3:45
  That happened to issue spot and say, what are the potential legal,
• 3:49
  either civil causes of action you could have, or criminal causes of
• 3:54
  action that could come against you?
• 3:56
  So what you learn in law school is how to look at a set of facts and figure out
• 4:02
  what areas of law and what elements of law would apply to that particular case.
• 4:08
  But you learn nothing about being a lawyer.
• 4:12
  Nothing.
• 4:13
  Jerremy Newsome: That's so wild, man.
• 4:15
  The
• 4:15
  Dave Conley: God.
• 4:16
  Ugh.
• 4:16
  Jerremy Newsome: I start off with that question really is
• 4:18
  everyone in the show knows this.
• 4:20
  I know you know this as well, but like my whole goal in life.
• 4:23
  Is to not only run and win presidency of the United States of America, but also to
• 4:26
  reform the educational system of America.
• 4:29
  And this seems like a glaring problem, right?
• 4:32
  Another in incredible profession that we need, that's a must that's
• 4:38
  required, where the education system is like, ah, we're probably okay
• 4:43
  with like mediocre information.
• 4:45
  We should be fine.
• 4:46
  Alex Thomason Valor: What's curious about, so have these educational systems
• 4:48
  that have been in place for, let's say they're 150 years whereby you go
• 4:52
  through a gauntlet of tests and at the end you walk out with a piece of
• 4:56
  paper like Wizard of Oz, the Tin Man.
• 4:58
  Now all of a sudden he's got a heart and the other guy's got a brain.
• 5:00
  The whole thing that, that's what's happened with law school where you go and
• 5:07
  you learn certain things that are not, and have nothing to do with being a lawyer.
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  Being a lawyer is writing briefs.
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  It's dealing learning how do you sell to a judge?
• 5:20
  How do you sell to a jury?
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  How do you sell to a prosecutor?
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  That's what law school should be about.
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  It should be a class on marketing and acting, I would think.
• 5:30
  You are muted there.
• 5:31
  Jerremy Newsome: Weird.
• 5:32
  Sorry.
• 5:32
  Yes.
• 5:33
  Thank you, Alex.
• 5:34
  That's so you should take improv classes, is what you're saying.
• 5:38
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah, think about, so with law school, you start
• 5:40
  out with contracts 1 0 1, okay?
• 5:41
  What is an offer?
• 5:42
  What's acceptance?
• 5:43
  What's consideration?
• 5:44
  Now you have a binding contract.
• 5:45
  Okay how do you get outta that contract?
• 5:47
  Okay?
• 5:47
  Those are all helpful things.
• 5:48
  But now with the advent of Google ai, right?
• 5:52
  No one's gonna Google anymore.
• 5:53
  You're gonna just do chat, GBT or Grok four, right?
• 5:56
  And so you're gonna, you're gonna find out those elements of a contract anyway.
• 6:00
  once you know the facts well, how do you tell the story?
• 6:03
  That's what the practice of law is.
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  And that's why so many people go to jail.
• 6:09
  Why so many people win cases that they should lose and lose cases they should
• 6:13
  win is because they suck at storytelling.
• 6:18
  Jerremy Newsome: Dang, dude.
• 6:20
  So here's what resonated with when you said that.
• 6:23
  Like they should have won, but they lost.
• 6:26
  Like this is a winnable case.
• 6:27
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 6:28
  Jerremy Newsome: Should have been a slam dunk, but they just
• 6:30
  suck at what they're doing.
• 6:31
  Alex Thomason Valor: some, yeah.
• 6:31
  Something example, everyone knows about pop culture, case, the man
• 6:36
  should have been convicted of murder, but because the prosecutors were
• 6:41
  not as effective at answering the story of this ridiculous, that the
• 6:46
  glove doesn't fit, you must acquit.
• 6:47
  The civil lawyer, so the criminal side, they lost.
• 6:50
  The civil lawyers were good and they knew how to tell a story and
• 6:54
  so therefore he was found liable.
• 6:57
  I. He was found liable.
• 6:59
  That's similar to Trump being found liable for sexual assault charges,
• 7:02
  but not liable under criminal charges, even though they weren't pled.
• 7:05
  So basically there's two different tracks you could go under, but the effectiveness
• 7:09
  of the lawyers is what determined that case, not the veracity of the arguments.
• 7:14
  The arguments and the facts were the same.
• 7:18
  The outcome was the opposite.
• 7:19
  The question is why?
• 7:22
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, that, that's fascinating.
• 7:23
  So you mentioned like the you mentioned a few different words there.
• 7:25
  So I'm gonna ask you not explain it necessarily, but is there a difference
• 7:30
  between law school students that choose to go into public service or
• 7:35
  becoming district attorneys or into criminal defense or other specialties?
• 7:40
  You mentioned the word civil.
• 7:42
  Can you kinda walk us through all that?
• 7:43
  Alex Thomason Valor: yeah, sure.
• 7:44
  So there's this strange kind of cloud that comes over every first year law
• 7:49
  student, and it's all of a sudden it's the desire of, oh my God, I need money.
• 7:53
  And everyone wants to now become a corporate lawyer.
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  Nobody begins.
• 7:57
  Nobody begins that they want to grow and be a corporate lawyer, but the
• 8:02
  second you're a first year student, you realize, oh my God, I need this job.
• 8:04
  Now there are a few students that say, no, I'm gonna start out as a prosecutor.
• 8:07
  I'm gonna do defense, I'm gonna do that.
• 8:09
  And then they do that.
• 8:10
  But the most time everyone says they're not really sure what they're
• 8:13
  going to do, and the end of the first year, then they all begin to fight
• 8:16
  for the same type of corporate job.
• 8:17
  'cause they want the most amount of money.
• 8:19
  So by the time you graduate law school a lot of people are already in a, an
• 8:24
  early path to start out as a prosecutor, which is what I did, I worked for
• 8:27
  the King County Prosecutor's Office.
• 8:29
  And the benefit of that is, hey, you learn how to try cases.
• 8:32
  Is this something I wanted to do?
• 8:33
  I didn't even know, I didn't know what law was.
• 8:35
  I'd been through law school for three years.
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  I had no idea what it was, and it wasn't until you actually get in
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  the trenches that you understand what is the criminal code.
• 8:43
  the civil side of things are, you think of suits, right?
• 8:47
  The movies the docuseries suits, it's fighting over contracts and breaches
• 8:51
  and all that sort of stuff, right?
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  And defamation and sex cases.
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  Those are civil cases, arguing about money, criminal cases.
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  If you lose, you go to jail.
• 9:01
  If you win, you get out.
• 9:03
  Jerremy Newsome: Fascinating.
• 9:04
  Fascinating, man.
• 9:06
  That is wild.
• 9:07
  Talking about that then, you've been called a non-conventional lawyer.
• 9:10
  What does that mean in your practice and how does it show up in court?
• 9:15
  Alex Thomason Valor: Here's what a conventional lawyer will do.
• 9:16
  Let's talk about a criminal case, your average DUI case.
• 9:19
  Okay?
• 9:19
  So by the way, half a Congress has got DUI and as a side note, there's two kinds
• 9:23
  of people when they come into my office when they have a DUI the first kind
• 9:27
  are the ones that are, so embarrassed.
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  They like, they, the door slowly opens and they walk in the office for their meeting
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  and their head is bowed in shame and they are bereft of like their, of everything.
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  They thought that they should be like, oh my God, I can't believe I'm doing this.
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  Those people are the people that you say listen.
• 9:47
  This isn't a big deal, okay?
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  You gotta calm down.
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  Okay, half of Congress got a DUI.
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  What are you gonna run for Senate now?
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  Is that your next?
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  And you gotta kinda cheer them up to be like, look, this is not the in the world.
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  Thank you for recognizing this.
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  There.
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  And then there are a second group of people.
• 10:01
  That are like this stupid cop that and this and so that and in very rare
• 10:06
  circumstances are those people innocent.
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  And those are the people that I say, listen bro, you're
• 10:13
  driving out here in the road.
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  We got kids out here.
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  I don't care what you were doing.
• 10:16
  You were you blew a 0.12, you were not okay.
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  You're not just fine.
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  You gotta take some responsibility.
• 10:22
  And so I handle those cases different than I would than I would in each case.
• 10:25
  So an unconventional lawyer would, our conventional lawyer would be like,
• 10:29
  okay, we're here to, you're a hammer.
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  Or You're the nail.
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  I'm the hammer.
• 10:32
  I'm gonna go forward and hammer your case.
• 10:34
  I look at each case depends on who is the client, what does the client need?
• 10:38
  sometimes your client may have the same problem, DUI, contract,
• 10:44
  con construction dispute.
• 10:46
  They may have the same problem, but because of who they are,
• 10:48
  they need a different solution.
• 10:51
  Because what?
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  Say the guy who's upset about thinking that he gets pulled over for nothing.
• 10:55
  That person, thinks that they're there for that particular DUI, but
• 11:00
  they're really not there for that.
• 11:01
  They're there because they have a greater problem in the substrate of their life.
• 11:05
  They're just causing them to do this.
• 11:07
  And so part of my problem solving as their lawyer, even though they
• 11:10
  didn't ask for it, is to help them with those other areas of their life
• 11:15
  so they're not in my office again.
• 11:18
  So the goal is to get to the same goal, which is don't get arrested again for DUI.
• 11:24
  But the process that you walk someone down the path depends on why are
• 11:29
  they here and what's their attitude.
• 11:31
  Jerremy Newsome: Man, that's very informative for me.
• 11:33
  Thank you.
• 11:34
  And I love that you're using real life examples, especially as a DUI.
• 11:38
  So Dave and myself, one of the reasons that we're creating this exact topic is
• 11:44
  because we were in a women's correctional facility in California about a month ago.
• 11:48
  And we were in a prison and many women in that prison, I would say 10 to
• 11:54
  20% were in there for violent DUIs.
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  That or something that happened while they were under the influence
• 12:00
  that was extremely negligent.
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  And so we're talking about this prison reform and this incarceration nation
• 12:07
  that just seems to be happening so often.
• 12:10
  But it also sounds again, to your point, you are and have
• 12:15
  been in the past, a prosecutor
• 12:17
  You actually said in a text message voice memo that prosecutors can
• 12:23
  be oftentimes the biggest problem.
• 12:26
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 12:27
  Jerremy Newsome: let me ask you this question.
• 12:28
  What kind of power does a prosecutor hold and where is it going off track?
• 12:33
  Alex Thomason Valor: Okay, let's, so let's say what everyone knows.
• 12:36
  Jerremy Newsome: Okay.
• 12:36
  Alex Thomason Valor: knows that cops can pull out guns, come into
• 12:40
  your home and strip you from the bed in the middle of the night, right?
• 12:45
  You've heard all these horror stories, right?
• 12:46
  Likewise, cops are the ones that show up to save your child who's been
• 12:51
  stolen in somebody else's kidnapper's bed in the middle of the night, okay?
• 12:54
  The power of the police is to arrest, and then they write reports.
• 12:59
  That's the end of their story.
• 13:01
  The, they then take those documents.
• 13:03
  They physically either email or walk them over to the prosecutor's office to
• 13:08
  decide has there been a violation of law?
• 13:12
  cops don't charge.
• 13:14
  Prosecutors do.
• 13:15
  So there is, in most of these DA's office offices, there are
• 13:19
  departments that are filing deputies.
• 13:22
  Those are deputy prosecutors that get the story from the cop.
• 13:25
  Jeremy Newsom was running down drunk and he he shouted at a
• 13:29
  woman and called her profanities.
• 13:31
  And then the man across the street turned around and then shot Jeremy.
• 13:35
  Okay?
• 13:36
  So then I get the d Jeremy was alive, then Jeremy, when he is on the ground,
• 13:39
  pulled out a gun and shot the man back.
• 13:42
  Now the cops have arrested Jeremy.
• 13:45
  For aggravated assault, they've also charged Jeremy with disorderly conduct.
• 13:50
  And the basis, what the cop has said is, look, the initial ag the, in the
• 13:55
  initial aggressor was Jeremy, because Jeremy said there's disorderly conduct.
• 14:01
  He said words that were likely to cause of public disturbance, and so therefore
• 14:05
  it did, which caused the man to shoot him.
• 14:08
  And Jeremy therefore couldn't charge self-defense to shoot the other guy back.
• 14:12
  that's the story that the cop gives.
• 14:13
  They wanna choose that.
• 14:14
  They wanna shoot Jeremy, the filing deputy will say, hold on
• 14:17
  a second, let's make sure we got the who's and the what's right.
• 14:21
  So they'll look to see whether or not does the claim during the words you said,
• 14:26
  were those sufficient to warrant a charge against you for public disturbance.
• 14:32
  D disorderly conduct.
• 14:34
  in very rare circumstances the answer is no.
• 14:36
  Like just because you say something doesn't give somebody the right to
• 14:39
  shoot you, you could say a racial slur doesn't give them the right to shoot you.
• 14:44
  But oftentimes what happens is when these assault cases, is it
• 14:48
  what leads up to it that decides if you can argue self-defense or not.
• 14:51
  So the prosecutor would say, okay, step number one and say, okay, that's
• 14:54
  disorderly conduct for him to call her all these kind of, these names, but it
• 14:58
  doesn't give rise to level where the person across the street, the boyfriend,
• 15:02
  had a reasonable apprehension of immediate fear and bodily injury that
• 15:06
  the woman was about to be suffered.
• 15:07
  So the words I'm using are all elements of a particular crime to
• 15:12
  assert the claim of self-defense.
• 15:16
  The prosecutor is going through, okay, we've got Jeremy's words, number one.
• 15:19
  Okay that's disorderly conduct.
• 15:20
  Okay, fine.
• 15:21
  But number two, the guy across the street didn't have the ability to be able to to
• 15:25
  think that he was going to injure her.
• 15:26
  So therefore the other person could not use lawful force.
• 15:29
  Therefore he was not permitted to do that.
• 15:31
  So for sure, we're gonna choose, we're gonna charge the guy who shot Jeremy.
• 15:35
  The next question is, should we charge Jeremy for shooting the other guy?
• 15:39
  And then you go through that analysis.
• 15:40
  Okay.
• 15:41
  Did
• 15:41
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 15:41
  Alex Thomason Valor: have an actual reasonable apprehension
• 15:43
  for fear and bodily injury?
• 15:44
  The answer is yes, he did.
• 15:45
  He did.
• 15:46
  So could he assert a self de claim, defense claim?
• 15:48
  Yes, he can.
• 15:49
  So I'm the prosecutor.
• 15:50
  I'm like, okay, Jeremy certainly is being shot at.
• 15:53
  Jeremy has the right now, and then you have to go back to the beginning.
• 15:56
  You go by state.
• 15:57
  By state.
• 15:57
  Did Jeremy have the right to be where he was?
• 16:00
  Did he go into their living room and insult the woman?
• 16:02
  You?
• 16:02
  And so each state has this pack patchwork of when can you assert
• 16:07
  the claim of self-defense?
• 16:09
  And so the prosecutor then would straighten out what?
• 16:12
  And the cops usually they, they're really good at this 'cause this is their job.
• 16:15
  This to write the cases in a way and charge in a way.
• 16:17
  But the prosecutor's job is to make sure out of the gate that the laws
• 16:23
  are followed and they're match there.
• 16:25
  Dave Conley: Alex, we had the pleasure of talking to a senior police
• 16:28
  officer with, I don't know, I almost, what, 20 years worth of experience.
• 16:33
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 16:33
  Dave Conley: what I'm hearing is that there's, there what I got from him.
• 16:38
  Was garbage in, garbage out.
• 16:40
  was, we asked him, how much training did you get in on, on,
• 16:44
  on the law, when you were going through becoming a police officer?
• 16:48
  And he said not a whole lot.
• 16:49
  And then I asked him how do you find out about laws that change
• 16:53
  over the course of any given year?
• 16:55
  And he goes we don't, we have to do it on our own.
• 16:58
  And what I'm hearing is a police officer will gather a set of facts and
• 17:03
  whatever those facts may be, they're just going to bring it to a prosecutor.
• 17:08
  And then the prosecutor is going to fit that into some sort of okay, this is
• 17:13
  the problem and we can charge it here.
• 17:15
  So literally it's just a story comes in, it may or may not really have, it may have
• 17:19
  actually been quite serious and maybe not even recognized by the police officer.
• 17:23
  And then it gets filtered into this front end.
• 17:26
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah, it is.
• 17:27
  And I'll give you an example of that.
• 17:29
  I had a divorce case where in the divorce case, the husband filed a
• 17:36
  police report against the wife, my client, and he said, oh my God, all
• 17:41
  these bad things have happened to me.
• 17:42
  This has happened and that has happened, and she's done this and she's done that.
• 17:45
  And he gives the guy a binder, a huge binder these things that
• 17:49
  he claims that are going on.
• 17:51
  And interestingly he gave, he made a police report on the heels of him losing
• 17:56
  24 motions in a row in civil court to me.
• 18:00
  So 24 motions in a row where he raised this exact same garbage.
• 18:05
  and the trial judge is no.
• 18:07
  He then files a police report.
• 18:08
  So the cop takes this set, takes this report, and is this big thick
• 18:12
  binder and says, oh my God, you've been a victim of domestic violence.
• 18:14
  You've been tracked, you've been harassed, you've been followed.
• 18:16
  This is so scary.
• 18:18
  So he tries to contact my client.
• 18:19
  And what does a lawyer do when a cop says, I'd like to interview your client.
• 18:24
  Say, no, you're not talking to my client.
• 18:26
  You're not gonna talk to her.
• 18:27
  And so what did that guy do?
• 18:29
  What that guy did was he wrote, he sent it to the prosecutors for charges.
• 18:36
  Now, he had, he put in his police report, I recommend you charge this and this,
• 18:42
  and so I took the guy's deposition.
• 18:43
  This is a very unusual case.
• 18:45
  Think about this.
• 18:45
  So the cop has a criminal case and I have a civil case, and I realized
• 18:50
  that the guy in the civil case, the husband is bouncing over the criminal
• 18:54
  law, trying to get criminal charges to help him in his family law case.
• 18:57
  And so when I realized that this detective has, potentially my client
• 19:02
  could have felony charges against her, take the cops deposition.
• 19:06
  I was aggressive what are you talking about?
• 19:09
  You, you recommended these charges.
• 19:11
  These are like beyond the three years of statute limitations.
• 19:13
  Did you know that?
• 19:14
  Did you look at that?
• 19:15
  And he's I did.
• 19:15
  I didn't know that.
• 19:16
  Did, do you know what the elements are for stalking?
• 19:18
  What are the elements?
• 19:20
  I, I don't know.
• 19:21
  Okay what are the elements for?
• 19:22
  And I went through these different crimes and the guy didn't know any elements.
• 19:24
  And I made him look like what he was, which is he just, he was
• 19:27
  just a paper pusher at that point because he had no one to talk to.
• 19:32
  And I had pointed out to him that look, your job is to go investigate cases.
• 19:36
  It's not my job to do your job, which is to investigate cases.
• 19:40
  So in that particular case the cop made it clear, Hey, I'm just here to write
• 19:45
  stories and the prosecutor charges.
• 19:48
  But if you talk to lots of cops, they'll be like, no way.
• 19:50
  We filed charges.
• 19:51
  We do this, we do that.
• 19:52
  And so it depends.
• 19:53
  But the reality is they tell a story, they gather evidence, and it's up to
• 19:58
  the prosecutor to decide what to do.
• 20:00
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 20:01
  Wow.
• 20:02
  Okay.
• 20:03
  Thank you for walking through all of that.
• 20:05
  This is so informative and I've always respected the admired how
• 20:09
  intelligent and smart you are.
• 20:11
  Alex, what's a plea deal?
• 20:12
  Alex Thomason Valor: Okay.
• 20:14
  In every case, the when you so if you ever get arrested or anyone you've ever heard
• 20:18
  of on TV getting arrested they get what's called discovery from the government.
• 20:24
  So the government gives you all of their videos, their audios, they
• 20:30
  usually don't have, and they have their they give their written reports and
• 20:34
  they give those to the lawyer along with your defendant criminal sheet.
• 20:39
  So your criminal history along with an offer sheet.
• 20:42
  And that's a piece of paper that says, okay, exchange for you
• 20:46
  pleading guilty to the crime of blank, and blank, we will offer you.
• 20:52
  To, serve X amount of time or no amount of time.
• 20:55
  For example, somebody gets a DUI, and they'll say, okay, the mandatory state
• 21:01
  minimum is 24 hours consecutive in jail.
• 21:05
  So our offer is for you to spend 24 hours in jail to plead
• 21:09
  guilty to the charge of DUI.
• 21:11
  So let's just say it's an assault two case.
• 21:13
  So second degree assault.
• 21:15
  They'll say, our offer to you is if you plead guilty to the gr to the
• 21:18
  crime of second degree assault, we will only recommend 30 days in jail.
• 21:23
  Now, here's where, I guess this is where the cooks get in the kitchen is the
• 21:30
  prosecutors, oftentimes, in my experience, half the time to 75% of the time, they
• 21:38
  add on what are otherwise bullshit claims in order to stick the person
• 21:45
  with the real claim, the real crime.
• 21:48
  For example, anytime I see resisting a resisting charge it, you talk to any
• 21:54
  defense attorney in the country, they will say 100% of resisting charges are
• 22:00
  bullshit charges unless you actually have a actual true outside video.
• 22:06
  I have seen hundreds and hundreds of videos as a prosecutor, and I've been
• 22:11
  doing this for over 20 years, the cops will be laying on top of somebody ripping
• 22:16
  their arm, shouting, stop resisting.
• 22:18
  You've seen it before on YouTube.
• 22:20
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 22:20
  Alex Thomason Valor: Broke.
• 22:21
  Yes.
• 22:22
  The person is trying to wiggle because you're breaking their damn arm.
• 22:25
  And so resisting is different than trying to get into a
• 22:29
  position so you can be arrested.
• 22:30
  And it's not saying that you actually defense attorneys,
• 22:33
  we call it contempt of cop.
• 22:35
  You told the cop no.
• 22:36
  And so now you're gonna get a resisting charge.
• 22:38
  The prosecutors will add on additional charges, and the cops
• 22:42
  will recommend those things because they're like, Hey, that's not right.
• 22:44
  So they'll add a bunch of kind of throwaway charges in exchange for
• 22:48
  you to plead guilty to the big one.
• 22:50
  So instead of you having one charge that you're for sure gonna have a problem with,
• 22:54
  they'll add charges to three and four, and they'll say, in exchange for you pleading
• 22:59
  guilty to charge number one, we'll dismiss charges two, three, and four.
• 23:02
  But you gotta serve the full time on charge one as opposed
• 23:07
  to if it was just charge one.
• 23:09
  Let's say you're charged with assault two.
• 23:11
  I've done a lot of assault.
• 23:12
  Two cases those are felonies.
• 23:14
  Those are, you're 10 years in prisons, they're class B felonies.
• 23:16
  There's, they're serious.
• 23:17
  And I frequently will negotiate those down to a lesser charge of assault for where
• 23:24
  the person does say three days in jail.
• 23:27
  I. Or they'll do a bracelet for 30 days, right?
• 23:30
  Or they just basically go home and work.
• 23:32
  So that's how you would negotiate a case.
• 23:35
  And who you're dealing with at the prosecutor's office is exclusively gonna
• 23:39
  determine what kind of a deal you're able to get that you don't have to fight for.
• 23:43
  Jerremy Newsome: Yep.
• 23:44
  So you would say then that there are prosecutor tactics that you've seen
• 23:51
  consistently tip the scales unfairly.
• 23:54
  Alex Thomason Valor: You just drive across county lines.
• 23:56
  Anyone, you don't have to, you don't have to take my word for it.
• 23:59
  Ask.
• 24:00
  Ask what is ask Go.
• 24:02
  Go ask any defense attorney
• 24:04
  State.
• 24:05
  Hey.
• 24:06
  From this county to that county?
• 24:07
  Yeah.
• 24:07
  Ask any of them anywhere, any state and say do the prosecutors charge
• 24:13
  misdemeanor cases the same in every, in, in the two counties where DUIs
• 24:19
  are stuff everybody knows instead of the more, different crimes.
• 24:21
  But DUIs in one county like where I practice in Washington state, in
• 24:25
  one county, doesn't matter what your first DUI, they will never reduce
• 24:30
  the DUI down to a reckless driving in order to induce the person to plead
• 24:35
  guilty in the county next to it.
• 24:39
  They will always reduce it from A DUI to a reckless in order to
• 24:44
  make sure you do accept the deal.
• 24:47
  One office is trying to get rid of cases and one office is trying to keep cases.
• 24:51
  Why?
• 24:53
  That's becomes a tax question, becomes a prosecutor question,
• 24:55
  becomes a public question.
• 24:57
  But the problem is that you drive literally 10 feet on
• 24:59
  the wrong side of the county.
• 25:00
  You're for sure going to make sure the mandatory minimums of DUI apply
• 25:03
  to you versus the other county where hey, you get a reckless driving.
• 25:07
  Yes.
• 25:08
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 25:09
  Whoa.
• 25:11
  So all right on, on that topic, which is just still perplexing me.
• 25:18
  In a, in just a baffling way, have you seen or witnessed or experienced courts
• 25:25
  suppress evidence that could free someone
• 25:28
  Alex Thomason Valor: I have seen it in lots of cases.
• 25:30
  There's lots of national cases, like we know, for example.
• 25:33
  Here's how it works.
• 25:34
  This is, this happens in every day in every single courthouse.
• 25:37
  Somebody there's, that will suppress evidence.
• 25:39
  The question is it evidence that should be suppressed?
• 25:42
  Here's an example.
• 25:43
  Jerremy Newsome: valid point.
• 25:44
  Alex Thomason Valor: you have somebody let's say in a this makes it easy.
• 25:47
  In a child custody case, mom says to the judge, Hey, judge, my children
• 25:53
  told me that dad watches pornography.
• 25:56
  Objection, hearsay.
• 25:59
  Sustained.
• 26:00
  So the court will sustain the objection, which means that the
• 26:02
  objection's a good objection.
• 26:03
  And therefore she cannot bring that evidence in because it's
• 26:07
  her own testimony, right?
• 26:08
  She's the one saying what the kids said.
• 26:10
  If the kids were there, then they could testify to it.
• 26:12
  As a sidebar, kids can't come into court and testify, so therefore,
• 26:15
  the evidence never comes in.
• 26:16
  Okay?
• 26:17
  Now you're in a criminal setting.
• 26:19
  Someone's been arrested for a crime, and the person says, when they're
• 26:23
  arrested, they say, look, bitch, it wasn't my gun, it was my brother's gun.
• 26:29
  Okay?
• 26:30
  Now very, the prosecutor now want to suppress that statement.
• 26:36
  A statement that the defendant himself said, right?
• 26:40
  And the reason why they'd want to just suppress that statement is because that
• 26:44
  statement is helpful with the defendant.
• 26:46
  When he says, it's not my gun.
• 26:47
  What did he say?
• 26:48
  The cops pulled up.
• 26:49
  He says, it's not my gun.
• 26:50
  And so there's a rule, it's called self-serving hearsay.
• 26:53
  It was a statement that was made out of court that was self-serving, right?
• 26:58
  So therefore, that statement gets suppressed.
• 27:02
  Okay.
• 27:02
  And so in criminal cases, you'll have evidence that could suppress all the
• 27:05
  time that is relevant and material.
• 27:08
  But they decide that the prejudicial value, so for example,
• 27:10
  in 100% of rape cases, right?
• 27:14
  You're gonna hear, I know you're gonna hear that.
• 27:17
  The prosecutor will try to bring in all kinds of, let's say for example,
• 27:21
  you have Chad, the rapist, right?
• 27:22
  He's the campus rapist, he's being accused of raping these girls.
• 27:26
  And Chad's I'm completely innocent.
• 27:27
  This, nothing's ever happened.
• 27:28
  And so he wants what he wants to do, he wants to bring in all of
• 27:31
  his church friends, talk about what a good Christian Guy he is.
• 27:34
  He wants to bring in his mom and his dad.
• 27:36
  The court's no, you don't get, bring in character witnesses for that, but we are
• 27:40
  gonna bring in witnesses to show that you're a scumbag among the community.
• 27:44
  So we'll bring those in.
• 27:45
  And if Chad has been accused of rape before, will also get excluded.
• 27:51
  So think about this, if Chad's been the eight time campus rapist,
• 27:55
  and they're, they've all been different rapes, different types of
• 27:57
  rapes as opposed to the same type.
• 27:58
  We'll get that in a secondary.
• 27:59
  They're all different types of rapes.
• 28:01
  Chad's defense attorney goes, judge, you can't bring in all those other
• 28:04
  seven convictions for this one because the jury is just going to Yes.
• 28:07
  They're it's relevant because yes, it shows that Chad's a rapist.
• 28:10
  I just want him to be tried on these particular facts.
• 28:13
  And so therefore, for Chad's sake, it's actually helpful for him that you limit
• 28:17
  your case to whatever's in front of him.
• 28:20
  But yeah, but if there was a pattern, if there's a pattern of that happening,
• 28:24
  other rapes happening where it was all the same, then you could bring those in
• 28:27
  and say, this is a, this is not a mistake.
• 28:29
  This is a practice.
• 28:30
  So there's evidence that courts have to weigh every single day.
• 28:34
  And it's different in state court versus federal court federal courts.
• 28:38
  And you'll notice like, why are so many, you look at racial populations in
• 28:42
  federal courts versus in state courts.
• 28:45
  If you look at those, look at those, sometime you get a chance,
• 28:47
  look at the racial DI differences between who's in federal courts
• 28:52
  versus who's in state courts.
• 28:54
  Federal courts, different rules, harsher sentences, harder prisons.
• 29:00
  Literally, they're literally different rules.
• 29:03
  The rules of evidence are different.
• 29:05
  The court rules are different.
• 29:07
  How you talk to the judge is different.
• 29:09
  And so who are the people that are getting charged federally and
• 29:13
  who's getting charged in the state?
• 29:14
  I. And so for the longest time, it was well known that, if you
• 29:17
  were if you were smoking weed the majority of the population at the
• 29:21
  time was black who was doing that.
• 29:22
  And they were being charged in federal courts.
• 29:24
  And federal courts had higher prison sentence sentences for that crime.
• 29:27
  And then as opposed to you had white people generally were doing cocaine
• 29:31
  and they were being charged in state courts, which had lower rules of evidence
• 29:34
  and shorter shorter prison sentences.
• 29:36
  And so it's this weird, it's this weird thing between state
• 29:39
  courts and federal courts.
• 29:40
  So that's, that, that's a long, deep topic.
• 29:44
  But you will have been familiar with this from Donald Trump's case where
• 29:48
  Donald Trump would, was not charged for the same crime, was not charged
• 29:54
  federally, was charged in the state court.
• 29:59
  So in other words, state courts and federal courts can both charge
• 30:01
  the same crimes if they wanted to.
• 30:03
  Why are they sending people to prison federally versus states?
• 30:05
  That's an interesting rabbit hole to get down.
• 30:08
  Dave Conley: So how is that decided?
• 30:10
  Is it just independent?
• 30:11
  Does a, a district attorney at the federal level to say, oh, I'm
• 30:14
  gonna, I'm gonna pick that up?
• 30:16
  Or is there, I don't know, for lack of a better term, like collusion between
• 30:20
  like state and federal to figure
• 30:22
  I'm taking it and, or you're taking it.
• 30:24
  Alex Thomason Valor: it depends on who's telling the story.
• 30:27
  Who's the cop?
• 30:27
  A federal or state cop who wrote the story.
• 30:30
  If it goes across state lines, they're generally gonna say, Hey, we'll turn this
• 30:33
  over as a, for a federal prosecution.
• 30:35
  But there are lots of crimes that are simply state crimes
• 30:38
  that happen in your state.
• 30:38
  There is no federal anything, right?
• 30:40
  All we have are states.
• 30:41
  So we have states here, so why aren't we just charged in the states, right?
• 30:44
  And so the answer is because what do we do about interstate crimes?
• 30:47
  They don't wanna bring witnesses.
• 30:48
  That's why we have, witnesses from here to there.
• 30:49
  That's why they do it in federal court.
• 30:51
  So yeah, it's, it there's some horse trading.
• 30:54
  It's a weird patchwork of law if you get sucked into that little rabbit hole.
• 30:59
  Jerremy Newsome: That is wild ma'am.
• 31:00
  From a perspective of let's just go systemic for a second.
• 31:05
  Big picture.
• 31:05
  'cause you've taught lawyers, judges, what blind spots do even the
• 31:12
  professionals have about the system.
• 31:15
  Alex Thomason Valor: Oh, this is so basic.
• 31:18
  It's the human nature.
• 31:20
  I am right.
• 31:23
  I am might right.
• 31:28
  is.
• 31:28
  It is the human pride nobody stops and says, God, do I really have this right?
• 31:36
  That's where it starts and it starts right off the top with judges.
• 31:42
  Judges who are not humble about the fact that just because you wore a
• 31:48
  black costume, your little black cape costume doesn't make you an intellect.
• 31:53
  It doesn't make you a truth teller.
• 31:55
  You're not a wizard.
• 31:57
  Jerremy Newsome: Thing this as a judge.
• 31:58
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yes.
• 31:59
  You are simply a person who is asked, who should be in humility saying, by God, I
• 32:07
  hope I, what I'm doing is right, because this is the evidence I have before me.
• 32:11
  I don't know if this is true.
• 32:12
  We know that in every day, in every court, somebody is innocent and
• 32:17
  they're going to jail for this.
• 32:19
  We know this.
• 32:19
  We know this to be the case.
• 32:20
  We know people who are factually innocent.
• 32:22
  You had a judge.
• 32:23
  You had a prosecutor.
• 32:24
  You had 10 cops.
• 32:25
  You had 12 jurors.
• 32:26
  Guilty.
• 32:27
  They then win the court of appeals, no denied then.
• 32:30
  Then the Supreme Court denied then back up to an interlocutory appeal denied.
• 32:34
  You have all of these judges.
• 32:37
  were all there sitting in equity over this case, sticking
• 32:41
  in law who all got it wrong.
• 32:43
  And at no point do you hear those guys on a podcast saying,
• 32:48
  the hell did we blow this case?
• 32:50
  Like, how in the hell did we miss this?
• 32:54
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 32:54
  Alex Thomason Valor: Correct me if,
• 32:56
  Dave Conley: There's no punishment either, right?
• 32:57
  Like
• 32:57
  Jerremy Newsome: oh, good point, Dave.
• 32:59
  Dave Conley: and somebody can be on death row be exonerated saying,
• 33:05
  okay, actually we got this wrong.
• 33:07
  And that all of those people in that chain, from the arresting officer
• 33:10
  to the prosecutors, to the jury, to all the way through the appeals
• 33:14
  process down to the governor,
• 33:16
  Alex Thomason Valor: yes.
• 33:16
  Dave Conley: oh, got it wrong.
• 33:17
  And yet it's oh, And then a big shrub, so what I think, this goes to my
• 33:23
  question, which is like, would it take to actually reform the system if the
• 33:28
  people in it don't seem to give a shit?
• 33:31
  Alex Thomason Valor: Wow.
• 33:32
  I think the problem with finality appeal finality here's the problem.
• 33:37
  You have a trial judge, they have a, somebody gets convicted yep, you did it.
• 33:41
  They go to prison.
• 33:43
  It is very hard.
• 33:44
  The court of appeals are designed built to uphold whatever the lower court says.
• 33:51
  Every practicing lawyer knows that.
• 33:53
  The court of appeals judges say that's not true, but okay, all the other lawyers
• 33:57
  in the country think that's the case.
• 33:58
  So in other words, if there's a mistake that happens, and the problem is what
• 34:01
  you get is what's called finality.
• 34:03
  So when the courts make a final decision, that's it.
• 34:06
  It's over.
• 34:07
  And so I suspect from a systemic standpoint there are some cases that
• 34:12
  just your appeal shouldn't be final.
• 34:15
  I just think you should be able to continue to bring appeals.
• 34:18
  Because there's just these weird cases you hear about somebody being convicted for a
• 34:21
  drive-by shooting, and then later on they end up getting a video eight years later
• 34:26
  that it was actually a different person.
• 34:28
  And the judge will deny the video coming in for a new trial because they said the
• 34:32
  vi the evidence was available at the time of your original trial, and therefore
• 34:35
  it's not newly discovered evidence under CR 60 B four, and therefore it is passed.
• 34:40
  No, yeah.
• 34:41
  And therefore it's passed one year and therefore appeal denied.
• 34:44
  And you're like, but hold on a second.
• 34:46
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 34:46
  Alex Thomason Valor: You tralo die.
• 34:47
  You horrible goblin from hell, this man has a video that is not him.
• 34:52
  You
• 34:52
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 34:53
  Alex Thomason Valor: and you don't hear,
• 34:54
  Jerremy Newsome: I'm blown away over here, dude.
• 34:56
  Alex Thomason Valor: And you don't hear judges pulling their hair out
• 34:58
  saying, oh my God, we made a mistake.
• 35:00
  Oh my God.
• 35:00
  Oh my.
• 35:01
  That's
• 35:02
  Jerremy Newsome: heard that in my 37 years on this earth.
• 35:04
  Alex Thomason Valor: yeah.
• 35:05
  Jerremy Newsome: And to Dave's point, to Dave's point, that is Dave okay?
• 35:09
  In any other part of this country?
• 35:12
  I think for the, at least the majority that I'm thinking of right now if
• 35:16
  you do something that is literally incorrect and another person's life gets
• 35:22
  impacted, there's repercussions to that.
• 35:25
  To your point.
• 35:25
  Dave Conley: should be for every person who has been wrongfully.
• 35:31
  and sent to jail, or God forbid, put to death by the state.
• 35:35
  We should be lamenting those cases every day.
• 35:39
  This is not just a miscarriage of justice.
• 35:41
  It's is really screwing with other human beings.
• 35:44
  We can't allow other people to do this to other people.
• 35:47
  It just doesn't make any sense to me.
• 35:49
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, it's wild.
• 35:50
  Dave Conley: I just,
• 35:51
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 35:52
  Dave Conley: disappointing.
• 35:52
  I look, I get that we're human and we get, make mistakes.
• 35:55
  What I don't understand is that we're just going to shrug and be like, eh, whatever.
• 36:00
  That's just the
• 36:01
  Jerremy Newsome: They
• 36:01
  Dave Conley: 80, 80 20, 80 20 rule when people's lives are at stake.
• 36:04
  Come on.
• 36:06
  Jerremy Newsome: they do get some money when they come out Hey man,
• 36:08
  you've been in prison 20 years and you shouldn't have been my bad.
• 36:14
  They get, they get
• 36:14
  Dave Conley: alex, let me ask you this, because we've talked now to a lot of
• 36:18
  people who have been through the system.
• 36:22
  And 100% of them have said, the punishment didn't change me.
• 36:30
  The punishment
• 36:31
  Me to where I am today.
• 36:33
  What got me to where I am today was really hard work, was a pathway forward,
• 36:37
  was recognizing the problems that I, it was a lot of inner work, but the years
• 36:42
  behind jail was ir almost irrelevant.
• 36:46
  What is the view of prosecutors, juries, and judges when it comes,
• 36:52
  or even politicians when it comes to throw 'em, throw 'em in jail,
• 36:58
  lock 'em away, throw away the key.
• 37:01
  Alex Thomason Valor: I here's why you do that.
• 37:02
  Public safety, recidivism, risk, that's re-offense.
• 37:05
  Shorter sentences ensures that inmates who are going to be dangerous or who are going
• 37:10
  to continue to steal, do their behaviors.
• 37:12
  If they're out, they're gonna commit crimes.
• 37:14
  And we know this, for example, in your own experience, some
• 37:17
  people are just bad people.
• 37:21
  just gonna keep doing the same shit over and over again.
• 37:22
  That's gonna happen.
• 37:24
  And therefore, when you are a prosecutor dealing with supposed criminals all
• 37:29
  day long, every day, you're like, I don't wanna see this crime again.
• 37:32
  And so think about in terms of this is a child rapist, right?
• 37:35
  Somebody who, let's say, who legitimately commits child rape.
• 37:40
  We don't want that person to re-offend.
• 37:43
  In fact, nobody wants a person out there.
• 37:44
  Nobody wants that crime.
• 37:45
  Nobody wants that person around there.
• 37:47
  So what do you do with that?
• 37:48
  State by state, you're like we're going to increase the time of incarceration.
• 37:51
  So in Arizona, a picture of a single image of child
• 37:55
  pornography is 10 years in prison.
• 37:57
  Why?
• 37:58
  Is it because that's more dangerous than somebody shooting
• 38:00
  children as on a school ground?
• 38:02
  No, it's because that's really gross and we wanna see that happening.
• 38:06
  So you have recidivism, concerns, deterrence of crime.
• 38:09
  That's another reason why they'd say look, if you have high prison sentences,
• 38:13
  it's gonna make people say, oh my god.
• 38:15
  Of course that assumes that people are rational actors, which they're not.
• 38:17
  They're emotional actors.
• 38:19
  The reason most of these crimes are, and this is a fun little
• 38:23
  fact about the, you've heard there's I caught you red handed,
• 38:25
  There was a law that if you caught your wife, not your husband, if you caught
• 38:29
  your wife in bed you caught her in bed with another man, you could kill her
• 38:33
  and the man, and you had a red hand defense, which was a defense to murder.
• 38:37
  It was a reduced, it would still have been manslaughter, but it's still
• 38:40
  this idea that there's mitigating circumstances to your anger.
• 38:43
  Anger, so therefore you couldn't be charged with those elements due to the
• 38:46
  hyper emotional state that you're in.
• 38:48
  And everyone understood that at the time.
• 38:50
  Obviously that's not the case now, but what you see when people are
• 38:53
  committing crimes, the majority of the time, they're crimes of passion.
• 38:57
  They're, or pleasure.
• 38:59
  So yeah, so you have look, we don't want just a bunch of
• 39:01
  scumbags, looting our stores.
• 39:03
  Do we wanna have Kmart looted by 50,000 kids coming and stealing stuff?
• 39:07
  No.
• 39:08
  Do we wanna have, your do you wanna have citizens attacking cops and doing whatever
• 39:13
  they wanna do because they're juveniles?
• 39:14
  No.
• 39:16
  What do we do?
• 39:16
  I say I don't have to do with them.
• 39:17
  We'll throw 'em in jail.
• 39:18
  They go to prison as punishment, not for punishment.
• 39:21
  So prison shouldn't be like this horrible place, in my opinion.
• 39:25
  It's but you go for punishment.
• 39:26
  That is your punishment.
• 39:28
  Dave Conley: The flip side, we also heard from the police officers
• 39:30
  that are like, arrest these people and they're out that day.
• 39:34
  And that's, that was a, that was the other side of this.
• 39:37
  It's it doesn't seem like there is reform on the side of punishment and when
• 39:42
  there's punishment it's not being done.
• 39:46
  where.
• 39:47
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 39:47
  Let's talk about that for a second.
• 39:48
  The concern about the revolving door is a, that is a bond question.
• 39:53
  In this country, anytime that you are arrested for a crime, you go to jail.
• 39:59
  Or if you, yeah, you're arrested, you go to jail and they'll process
• 40:02
  you and release you on what is you called, your own pr, your own personal
• 40:06
  recognizance, saying, alright, this is the first time Dave's been arrested.
• 40:09
  He has a house, he's got a, he's upstanding manner of community based
• 40:12
  upon your own personal recognizance.
• 40:14
  Come on back.
• 40:15
  But if it's a serious crime, they will want you to post bail.
• 40:18
  So there's some type of a felony.
• 40:20
  And so the bail or bond may be something like, it's $10,000 or
• 40:24
  it's a hundred thousand dollars.
• 40:25
  So a drive-by shooting would be like a hundred thousand dollars bond.
• 40:29
  And so if you wanna get out on bail, you will post a bond.
• 40:34
  So then your parents go across the street, or your family goes across
• 40:36
  the street to a bonding agency.
• 40:37
  They get a hundred thousand dollars note, they pay $10,000 for that.
• 40:41
  And they walk across back to the court and they say, here's
• 40:43
  a hundred thousand dollars.
• 40:45
  If my guy doesn't show up for jail, then then you can
• 40:48
  take, you can keep this money.
• 40:49
  And so the incentive is we exchange money.
• 40:52
  For security, you'll appear back a court.
• 40:54
  So the people that they're talking about the revolving door are
• 40:57
  people who have no resources, no money, no incentive to return.
• 41:03
  But that's why they're just like, what does it matter?
• 41:05
  We don't wanna house them here.
• 41:06
  It's just a stupid little property crime.
• 41:07
  It was 500 bucks from Home Depot.
• 41:11
  But you add that up and you and I are paying for that.
• 41:13
  So that's how we get there.
• 41:15
  Dave Conley: Hey, so talk to me about jury trials.
• 41:17
  What's scary about jury trials?
• 41:19
  What's their role in the system and how are they crazy?
• 41:22
  Alex Thomason Valor: It really depends on what side you're on.
• 41:25
  Had jury trials as a prosecutor.
• 41:26
  I've had jury trials as a defense attorney.
• 41:28
  I've had civil jury trials.
• 41:30
  So let's talk about, as a prosecutor, I had a felony murder case that
• 41:34
  I was trying where the defendant.
• 41:37
  Was six foot three, 240 pounds of rock hard muscle.
• 41:43
  He was 21 years old and he was walking around seven 11
• 41:47
  Jerremy Newsome: Just describe me by the way, like I feel.
• 41:49
  Alex Thomason Valor: Rock hard muscle.
• 41:51
  Holy crap.
• 41:52
  This guy, he had slippers, like gangster slippers and he is walking around
• 41:57
  for 19 minutes and 28 seconds inside of a seven 11 at night, just walking
• 42:01
  around, pacing up and down the aisle.
• 42:03
  Okay.
• 42:03
  And what was he was doing while his girlfriend, I forget her name.
• 42:07
  It was a hilarious name.
• 42:09
  It was so gross as a pro side note, it was a prosecutor.
• 42:11
  I had to interview the girlfriend and she wore all this disgusting perfume and I had
• 42:15
  to meet her in the CD motel and then she started coming on to me and it was like,
• 42:19
  just this whole thing was so gross, ugh.
• 42:21
  Alright.
• 42:21
  So the guy, so the defendant's walking around and this five foot
• 42:25
  two 66-year-old Filipino man with heart disease is mopping the floor.
• 42:31
  And you can see inside of the camera, a scuffle happens, and then there's a shot.
• 42:35
  Boom, the guy runs out, gets into the car, and the girlfriend screams,
• 42:40
  oh my God, why did you shoot him?
• 42:42
  And he says, because I'm a gangster.
• 42:46
  So cops arrest him.
• 42:47
  They find him like an hour later.
• 42:49
  So through the whole jury process, I'm going through and explaining
• 42:51
  look here's the surveillance camera and here's the guy here.
• 42:54
  Here's what we saw.
• 42:55
  We're explaining like the, I've got gunshot residue experts showing
• 42:58
  the distance between the shot pattern and the blood spatter.
• 43:01
  We introduced the guy's jacket he was wearing, the defendant, his
• 43:04
  shirt, he was wearing his pants, his two shoes, and one sock.
• 43:10
  find the other sock.
• 43:10
  We don't have any other sock.
• 43:12
  so at the end of that trial we had the evidence, this guy,
• 43:15
  that the old man was shot in the back from about eight feet away.
• 43:19
  That based upon the blood spatter and the the pat, the pattern on his,
• 43:23
  the on his back, it in the back.
• 43:24
  By the way, we couldn't get a conviction.
• 43:28
  when I pulled the jurors afterwards, one of the jurors said I think you
• 43:30
  as a white prosecutor did something with his sock and you hid that and so
• 43:35
  therefore there was something exculpatory about that evidence about the sock.
• 43:39
  So we had to retry the whole case.
• 43:42
  It was another three week trial.
• 43:44
  And then that case was like, and detective, did you find the other sock?
• 43:47
  No.
• 43:48
  Where was it?
• 43:48
  We don't know.
• 43:49
  We just, he showed up.
• 43:50
  He had one sock and we arrested him.
• 43:51
  Are you sure?
• 43:52
  Was, and we went through a whole sock thing when people were
• 43:54
  at the, we got a conviction.
• 43:56
  And, that jury people were like, what's the deal with that stupid sock?
• 43:58
  We're like, trust me.
• 43:59
  It was important.
• 44:00
  Okay, so that's the criminal side.
• 44:02
  I had a a defense case where I was talking to the jury in voir dire or voir dire,
• 44:09
  that's where the jury sits in a room.
• 44:11
  There's a hundred people.
• 44:12
  So ever call the jury.
• 44:13
  Here's the secret that you need to know.
• 44:15
  If you're in the first three rows, you might get picked.
• 44:20
  you're in the back, it doesn't matter.
• 44:22
  You're not gonna get picked, but they still will call on you
• 44:25
  because what they're trying to do is elicit a response from you.
• 44:29
  So the first three rows you can figure out if they're crazy.
• 44:32
  Like process of elimination is just, are you crazy or not?
• 44:38
  And so I had this case where my guy was charged with Strang and his
• 44:41
  girlfriend interfering with the 9 1 1 call, assault two all this stuff.
• 44:45
  And so I started to the jury, and here's what's crazy.
• 44:49
  This is still, this is so insane.
• 44:50
  The cop, by the way, who was the arresting officer, happened to be a cop that I had
• 44:55
  on many other cases in my favor, right?
• 44:58
  So he and I were good buddies, like we're really good friends.
• 45:01
  And I, so I walk over to behind the cop, the prosecutors
• 45:04
  know this, judge know this.
• 45:05
  And I put my hand on the cop's shoulder as again, I'm defending my guy.
• 45:09
  I said, does anyone here love wife beaters?
• 45:12
  Nobody raises their hand.
• 45:14
  Does anyone think that it's okay to strangle your girlfriend?
• 45:17
  No.
• 45:17
  No takers.
• 45:18
  How about if someone's calling the do I said, thank God that
• 45:21
  didn't happen in this case.
• 45:22
  Does anyone know that?
• 45:23
  Does anyone believe the cops don't make mistakes?
• 45:26
  And this, I still have my hand on this guy's shoulder.
• 45:28
  And nobody, there's two or three people raised their hand.
• 45:30
  Oh, juror number 14, you don't think cops make a mistake?
• 45:32
  No, they have special training.
• 45:33
  I said gimme an example about what they would, so you walk through this whole
• 45:35
  process, you being eliminating jurors.
• 45:37
  And so in that case, I said to the jury, so when I'm opening statement, I said,
• 45:41
  when this case is over, you are not only going to find my client is not guilty
• 45:46
  of these crimes, you're going to demand the judge charge this victim, this sh
• 45:51
  shameless hussy, and you're gonna make the government pay all my attorney fees.
• 45:56
  The end of that trial, all five counts, were not guilty.
• 46:01
  All they, the jury actually wanted her, they actually said the
• 46:04
  judge, Hey, we wanna charge her.
• 46:05
  That lawyer, Alex said, you could do that.
• 46:07
  The judge is Alex just made that up.
• 46:09
  And and we, for winning the case, we actually got all
• 46:11
  of our defense fees costs.
• 46:12
  So we got $214,000 in attorney fees because it was a self-defense case.
• 46:18
  Yeah, I, yeah, you bet.
• 46:19
  I grabbed her arms.
• 46:20
  Yes, I did slam her arm.
• 46:21
  The door.
• 46:21
  Yes.
• 46:22
  'cause she was attacking me and the jury.
• 46:23
  And therefore, if you win on self-defense, you get your attorney fees,
• 46:27
  Jerremy Newsome: Alex, this is I love your memorization, which is why I'm really
• 46:31
  excited about this particular question.
• 46:33
  Tell us one case that really stands out in your entire illustrious career.
• 46:40
  Alex Thomason Valor: On a criminal or civil.
• 46:42
  Jerremy Newsome: Let's do criminal.
• 46:43
  Alex Thomason Valor: Okay.
• 46:45
  Here's a great and this is how, this is the case.
• 46:48
  That never was, but this could happen to you.
• 46:51
  This listen to me, could happen to you.
• 46:55
  You have a doctor, nerdy little Seventh Day Adventist.
• 46:59
  This little dork pleat wearing pants.
• 47:02
  Go into Sunday church or Saturday Church not working.
• 47:05
  On Fridays middle of the night.
• 47:08
  The doors of his home get broken into.
• 47:11
  Cops come in with warrants.
• 47:14
  They're feds, they possess his phone, his computer his printer, any
• 47:20
  electronic he has in his house, and they charge him with possession and
• 47:24
  trafficking and child pornography.
• 47:26
  This dorky doctor, just this glasses wearing guy, has no idea, doesn't even
• 47:32
  know how to, he's got a flip phone, right?
• 47:34
  And so front page news doctor, possession of child pornography,
• 47:39
  doctor this, doctor that.
• 47:40
  He is oh my God.
• 47:40
  So what does partners do,
• 47:42
  Dave Conley: Yeah.
• 47:43
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 47:43
  They, of course they cut ties immediately from the guy, right?
• 47:47
  What do his patients do?
• 47:49
  We're not having a kiddie porn doctor.
• 47:50
  You're out.
• 47:51
  Business goes under right?
• 47:54
  forward, you're like 16 months in.
• 47:57
  Come to find out that the feds had known for about three
• 48:00
  months after the initial rest.
• 48:02
  There was no child pornography in this guy's computer.
• 48:05
  And in fact, what was happening was that there was an outfit out of Southeast Asia
• 48:09
  that was using his and other people's computers to traffic through at night.
• 48:14
  Jerremy Newsome: Oh, shoot.
• 48:15
  Alex Thomason Valor: computers, right?
• 48:16
  They were turned on and they were storing images that way.
• 48:20
  And then they were then removing that way.
• 48:22
  So the feds knew that, and the prosecutors in that case, and the county prosecutors
• 48:26
  kept that man charged for another nine months until finally we were able to
• 48:32
  get the reports from the feds and were like, what the hell's wrong with you?
• 48:37
  so the next question is, okay, so then the prosecutor dismisses the charges, okay.
• 48:42
  But this man's life has been totally ruined.
• 48:45
  you have a remedy for this?
• 48:47
  The answer is no.
• 48:48
  And here's the reason why.
• 48:49
  There's actually a statute that's, that you're allowed to do.
• 48:52
  It's called malicious prosecution.
• 48:54
  You can sue, right?
• 48:56
  The government, but you have to show the following four elements.
• 48:58
  You have to show.
• 48:59
  Number one, was an initiation of criminal proceedings check.
• 49:04
  There was lack of probable cause, which is the absence of reasonable grounds
• 49:08
  to believe plaintiff was guilty.
• 49:10
  like we thought he was, you are like, okay, but then malice, the
• 49:15
  prosecution was initiated an improper motive initiated, not continued.
• 49:23
  It was in, it was like, no, it was initiated with a good motive.
• 49:26
  And therefore a favorable termination if the proceedings end in your favor
• 49:30
  through dismissal or acquittal.
• 49:32
  So that's the only way you can do it.
• 49:34
  So they can say the charges got dismissed, but now there was, there's no remedy
• 49:37
  because the proceedings weren't initiated.
• 49:39
  They just were maintained.
• 49:41
  And so this man's life is now ruined.
• 49:43
  You think there are any newspaper articles saying, gee whiz, we goofed.
• 49:46
  There was no no pronouncement from the courts saying, oh my God, run
• 49:50
  this on the front page of the paper.
• 49:51
  No.
• 49:52
  So that's insane,
• 49:54
  Dave Conley: Hey, this episode brought to you by Express VPN.
• 49:57
  Please use the code Jeremy at checkout.
• 50:00
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 50:00
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 50:01
  Jerremy Newsome: Norton, VPN.
• 50:03
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yes.
• 50:04
  Jerremy Newsome: The sponsor of today's episode.
• 50:07
  That is terrifying, man.
• 50:08
  That is really wild.
• 50:09
  Oh, Alex, this has been so intriguing to me because again, to your point,
• 50:15
  there's just so many sides and I know that there's so much That's right,
• 50:21
  and there's a lot that's wrong.
• 50:24
  If you had a magic wand, you got one portion of the justice system that you
• 50:32
  could change, what part would it be?
• 50:35
  Alex Thomason Valor: I think I actually, I sent this to Donald Trump as part of his
• 50:39
  I used to work for him back in the day.
• 50:40
  I sent this to one of his committee members.
• 50:43
  Thi this in my opinion, if you look at what is the judicial system, is it?
• 50:50
  It's not.
• 50:51
  So we have statutory codes.
• 50:53
  We have the two types of laws.
• 50:56
  We have Adic law and Istic law.
• 50:59
  Thou shalt not kill, right?
• 51:01
  Versus if you swing an ax and the don and the ax swings and hits a donkey's head.
• 51:05
  So istic law laws that are written by codes, we live
• 51:08
  by these codes and statutes.
• 51:09
  The Big 10, like those aren't written down.
• 51:11
  We codify them.
• 51:12
  So what we have are people trying to interpret these intangible laws that
• 51:18
  exist even if they're not written down.
• 51:21
  And are bad interpreters, right?
• 51:24
  For example, in some cultures they love their neighbors.
• 51:27
  In other cultures they eat them.
• 51:28
  Which would you prefer?
• 51:30
  So in other words, your preference isn't determinative of what is morally valid
• 51:33
  or what is right or what is equitable.
• 51:35
  And so what happens and there, and therefore the incentives of the players.
• 51:40
  Who are the players?
• 51:41
  I. The lawyers, the cops, the judges, the prosecutors.
• 51:45
  you change the incentives to where the incentives are, when you lose, you pay.
• 51:55
  It will change things.
• 51:56
  So here's how this would work.
• 51:58
  In Washington state, if a tree falls on your kid and kills your kid and you
• 52:04
  file a lawsuit, you get the value of one child because you lost one child.
• 52:08
  You don't lose two child, you lose three kids.
• 52:11
  But if that kid goes on your neighbor's property and cuts down a tree, you get
• 52:17
  the value of three trees, not one tree.
• 52:22
  Okay?
• 52:23
  The reason why that is, is because who wrote that law?
• 52:26
  Auer, which is one of the largest logging outfits in the country, so they have a
• 52:30
  law written special for them that says, if you take one of our trees, we get
• 52:33
  three of them as a deterrence, right?
• 52:36
  You also get your attorney fees.
• 52:38
  As a deterrence.
• 52:39
  So now so that does change people's behavior about timber trespass.
• 52:44
  Okay, let's talk about crimes ready?
• 52:47
  If you are charged with rape and found not guilty, huh?
• 52:50
  Sorry.
• 52:51
  You're charged with robbery.
• 52:52
  Found not guilty, huh?
• 52:54
  Sorry.
• 52:55
  incest.
• 52:56
  Tax evasion.
• 52:57
  Every, every single crime that's out there.
• 53:00
  Ah, sorry.
• 53:02
  There's no incentive, there's no disincentive.
• 53:04
  Here's how you change that.
• 53:05
  There's one crime and why is this so special?
• 53:09
  You wonder, there's one crime under the sun that if you're found
• 53:13
  not guilty, you get paid, bro.
• 53:16
  What do you think that crime is?
• 53:18
  Now think about this in terms of the lobbyists.
• 53:20
  Think of the lobbying industries in, in America, if you're the one crime,
• 53:25
  the a very highly powerful lobbying group where they want their members.
• 53:32
  To use this particular item, they have an item that they are pressing
• 53:38
  and they wanna make sure that if you are charged with using their item,
• 53:42
  that you get paid your attorney fees,
• 53:45
  Dave Conley: Opinion.
• 53:47
  Alex Thomason Valor: guns.
• 53:48
  Exactly right.
• 53:49
  Here's how self-defense, if you use a firearm in self-defense the jury
• 53:56
  deems it with self-defense, get paid.
• 54:01
  You don't just get acquitted, you get paid, your costs, your expert fees,
• 54:04
  and your attorney fees, you get paid.
• 54:07
  So go back down the list, right?
• 54:08
  All the crimes that are out there, crabby without a license, you don't
• 54:12
  get paid falsely accused, DUI, you don't get paid falsely accused,
• 54:15
  battery, strangulation, whatever it is.
• 54:18
  If arson.
• 54:20
  You don't get paid.
• 54:22
  But if you use self-defense, you get paid.
• 54:26
  And you know what that does to prosecutors?
• 54:29
  It makes them say does this defense, they have a, do they have a self-defense claim?
• 54:35
  I wanna have somebody else look at this.
• 54:36
  I've had lots of cases like this guys where I've had assault
• 54:39
  cases where I will be like, look, we're gonna assert self-defense.
• 54:45
  we have the right, and here's our notice that we're gonna get our attorney fees.
• 54:48
  What that does is it gets an immediate review from a se, a senior white-haired
• 54:55
  lawyer who will look at this case and say we do not wanna lose a case
• 54:59
  where our county's gonna pay 200, 300, $400,000 for an assault case.
• 55:05
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 55:05
  Alex Thomason Valor: if you take that standard and apply
• 55:08
  it to every case, every charge.
• 55:13
  If you were to make, every time the state loses, they pay your attorney fees,
• 55:17
  What is the state gonna do now?
• 55:20
  They're gonna charge less crimes.
• 55:22
  You think you got a prison problem?
• 55:23
  Oh my God, this's so expensive.
• 55:24
  Instead of figuring out how do we get people out of jail?
• 55:27
  How about we start out with not letting them get into jail?
• 55:30
  And here's how you do that.
• 55:31
  Not by saying the crimes aren't there, but saying if you can't win those cases, then
• 55:35
  you sure as shit better not bring them.
• 55:38
  You sure better not bring it.
• 55:40
  Jeremy.
• 55:40
  You sign a contract with a lawnmowing company to come and they and
• 55:43
  they breach their contract and there's an attorney fees clause.
• 55:46
  If you win, you get your fees right?
• 55:49
  You bill their, comes to your house you've got your building contract, you
• 55:52
  win, you get your attorney fees, right?
• 55:55
  And so the incentive for both sides is, oh my gosh, I better make sure that I'm in
• 55:59
  the right, 'cause I don't pay their fees.
• 56:00
  There is no incentive with the government.
• 56:04
  It is opposite.
• 56:06
  And I've talked about this with a couple judges.
• 56:08
  Like I, we, I went to a judges convention and we're all
• 56:10
  judges and we're sitting there.
• 56:11
  I said, Hey, tell me you have, tell me you have a problem with this.
• 56:14
  And they were all nervous.
• 56:15
  It was like I was talking to a bunch of nerdy bean counters,
• 56:17
  didn't know what to do.
• 56:17
  I said listen.
• 56:18
  You have people, what is so special about assault?
• 56:22
  Like, why is that so special?
• 56:24
  If I was accused of rape, right?
• 56:27
  why don't I get my fees for winning there?
• 56:30
  And these judges were just like 'cause the government should
• 56:32
  really not be, it shouldn't be treated as a privatized entity.
• 56:35
  I said, what?
• 56:35
  So it's accountable for its actions.
• 56:37
  What do you mean?
• 56:37
  And I would keep asking these questions and there
• 56:39
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 56:40
  Alex Thomason Valor: no response
• 56:41
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 56:41
  Alex Thomason Valor: say sometimes you have to have a case that you
• 56:43
  just prosecute because it's part of, it's good for public morale.
• 56:48
  So even if we don't think it's a good case, we just need to prosecute the
• 56:51
  case and say, okay, then you know what?
• 56:53
  Then you could tell the taxpayers we lost this case.
• 56:56
  But you know what, some cases are worth fighting even if we think
• 56:59
  we're not gonna necessarily win.
• 57:01
  And the citizens will be like, you're damn right.
• 57:04
  cases we're gonna fight because it's the morally right thing to do.
• 57:08
  And so instead you have prosecutors and judges and the whole system
• 57:13
  where there's no disincentive.
• 57:16
  So if you put a disincentive into the system by making every
• 57:20
  crime, if you're found not guilty, you get paid your fees, what?
• 57:25
  You're gonna see charges go down by 50%
• 57:29
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 57:30
  Wow.
• 57:32
  Yeah, that's a fantastically well thought out solution that also seems.
• 57:37
  Relatively easy and simple and pretty quick,
• 57:40
  Alex Thomason Valor: yes.
• 57:40
  Jerremy Newsome: and
• 57:40
  Alex Thomason Valor: It's a statutory, it's a, I'm in I
• 57:43
  Jerremy Newsome: Dave, you got a face?
• 57:46
  Am I wrong?
• 57:47
  Dave Conley: I doesn't Europe do this?
• 57:49
  At least on civil side, don't they?
• 57:51
  If you sue somebody and you're found nope.
• 57:54
  That it's like you have to pay the other person.
• 57:56
  I'm this sounds like super easy.
• 57:58
  And I think other worlds that have rule of law do this right.
• 58:02
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah, we, we have civil cases that are like that.
• 58:05
  So for example in Washington, if you are actually in every state, if you,
• 58:09
  the Consumer Protection Act, if somebody does something unfair or deceptive
• 58:12
  in business or trade or commerce, the person who shows that claim has
• 58:16
  a right for their attorney fees.
• 58:17
  It's an attorney fee award.
• 58:18
  If you're a contractor and you are in Washington R CW 60.04, you can
• 58:22
  file a contractor's lien and you can get paid your attorney fees.
• 58:26
  But why is that not true with the crimes?
• 58:28
  Like what the hell is the problem?
• 58:30
  Like we have an incentive to think smart in every area, but crime
• 58:34
  where it's with people's liberties.
• 58:36
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah, it's.
• 58:37
  Alex Thomason Valor: nuts is this?
• 58:38
  How nuts is this world we're living in where it makes sense that we
• 58:42
  have to disincentivize people from bringing false claims in
• 58:46
  every area except where they throw
• 58:48
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 58:49
  Alex Thomason Valor: jail?
• 58:49
  Oh my God,
• 58:51
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 58:52
  Wow.
• 58:53
  Alex, man, this is, this has been remarkable and incredible and I
• 58:56
  cannot wait to have you back on in a future episode for something
• 59:00
  else, just 'cause you're awesome.
• 59:01
  Yeah.
• 59:01
  Just 'cause you're amazing.
• 59:02
  I'm gonna hit you with some lightning round questions that are
• 59:04
  a little just fun and just exciting.
• 59:07
  So no law degree.
• 59:10
  What are you doing instead?
• 59:11
  'cause you have 412 things I've counted that you're really good at.
• 59:15
  What else?
• 59:15
  What else you doing?
• 59:16
  No degree.
• 59:17
  Alex Thomason Valor: If I didn't have a law degree at all.
• 59:18
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 59:19
  Yeah.
• 59:19
  Alex Thomason Valor: Oh, wow.
• 59:20
  I just, I would be an entrepreneur.
• 59:21
  I would be, I mean at one point I was doing internet internet marketing.
• 59:26
  I enjoyed that.
• 59:27
  I would just be a marketer.
• 59:27
  I think I'd be a sales guy where I'm not selling products, but I'm
• 59:30
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 59:31
  Alex Thomason Valor: to people.
• 59:32
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah.
• 59:33
  Alex Thomason Valor: upgrade, personal improvement.
• 59:34
  I think that's what I'd be doing.
• 59:36
  Jerremy Newsome: Love it.
• 59:37
  Awesome.
• 59:38
  I've heard lawyers love my cousin Vinny, for its legal accuracy.
• 59:42
  Do you have a favorite legal film?
• 59:45
  Alex Thomason Valor: I like the, first of all, I like the hot girl in the show, so
• 59:48
  that, that kind of moves the whole thing.
• 59:50
  That show,
• 59:51
  Jerremy Newsome: I.
• 59:52
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 59:52
  The series suits was, it was like watching my Nightmare Life roll before me.
• 59:58
  Like that movie, that whole series is so stressful because what it was like when
• 1:00:03
  I was at a downtown Seattle law firm.
• 1:00:05
  It was just like that.
• 1:00:07
  And it's funny, for six and a half years, I. I walked around that office every
• 1:00:13
  single month with a letter of resignation in my left breast pocket, in my suit coat.
• 1:00:18
  I printed out every single month a
• 1:00:21
  Jerremy Newsome: Wow.
• 1:00:22
  Alex Thomason Valor: of resignation because I hated it so much.
• 1:00:24
  I hated the smell and the way they talked and the way that they walked and the
• 1:00:28
  books and the creek of the floors and the way that the elevators would ding.
• 1:00:32
  And there's the marble everywhere, and the tall glass building and
• 1:00:34
  the big ships out in the water.
• 1:00:36
  All of that was just like this disgusting machine that just was
• 1:00:40
  grinding people and bones and teeth.
• 1:00:42
  And gnashing is like this giant, this e this legally evolutionary
• 1:00:46
  biological system that is working to recreate like wealth into
• 1:00:52
  something that it shouldn't be.
• 1:00:53
  Is I, that's what it was like to me.
• 1:00:55
  So when I walked around and finally I actually went, had my first kid, I
• 1:00:57
  stopped signing the letter 'cause I didn't want somebody to lose a letter.
• 1:00:59
  I just had a printed letter, but I kept that in my pocket.
• 1:01:02
  And so for me it would be suits because that is.
• 1:01:05
  Yeah, they've got a lot of drama, but it's big law firms are just like that.
• 1:01:09
  Jerremy Newsome: Love it.
• 1:01:10
  Very cool.
• 1:01:11
  All right, man.
• 1:01:12
  So what's one practical way everyday people, voters, neighbors, advocates,
• 1:01:18
  can push for a fair justice system.
• 1:01:21
  Let's call it either through voting or maybe grassroots
• 1:01:25
  action for the last question.
• 1:01:27
  Alex Thomason Valor: I think what they should do they should call their state
• 1:01:31
  representatives state by state in their county they're in and say, Hey, I heard
• 1:01:37
  on this podcast about there's assaults you can get like your attorney fees.
• 1:01:42
  If you're falsely accused, why don't we do that for everything
• 1:01:46
  That seems like a good idea,
• 1:01:47
  It will get them a con, make them a conversation about, oh my God, we're
• 1:01:50
  gonna be paying all of these budgets.
• 1:01:52
  Budgets for what?
• 1:01:53
  Think about this for a second.
• 1:01:55
  They're saying, oh my God, we have to pay an extra $5 million.
• 1:01:59
  charging people with crimes they didn't commit.
• 1:02:02
  Let's think about that.
• 1:02:03
  Think about that.
• 1:02:04
  They're gonna tell you God, that would just would tank our budgets.
• 1:02:08
  Why?
• 1:02:08
  Why is that?
• 1:02:09
  Because see, we're charging innocent people and we don't wanna pay for that.
• 1:02:13
  So have them go and have them have that conversation each state should
• 1:02:19
  amend its criminal code that says if you are charged with the crime and
• 1:02:25
  you are found not guilty by a jury, get paid your attorney fees and costs.
• 1:02:30
  If you do that, you're gonna see the jail doors flung wide open.
• 1:02:36
  private prisons probably go outta business because there
• 1:02:39
  just won't be the constituency.
• 1:02:42
  They just won't be there
• 1:02:43
  The prosecutors will be like, oh my God, we lost a million dollar case.
• 1:02:47
  And like they don't think in terms of money, they turn, think in terms of.
• 1:02:52
  Statutes, codes, regulations,
• 1:02:54
  Jerremy Newsome: Yeah,
• 1:02:55
  Alex Thomason Valor: else, wherever you go, whatever you do, you think just 'cause
• 1:02:58
  I can build a bridge to the moon doesn't mean I should build a bridge to the moon.
• 1:03:03
  Jerremy Newsome: sure.
• 1:03:03
  And to your point for anyone who reaches out and talks to the state
• 1:03:06
  representative, use some of that.
• 1:03:08
  Data that I mentioned earlier.
• 1:03:09
  There's somewhere between 60 and 80 billion a year that we spend on jailing
• 1:03:15
  people like, use some of that money,
• 1:03:17
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yeah.
• 1:03:18
  Jerremy Newsome: states like you're already spending it to your point,
• 1:03:21
  Alex Thomason Valor: Yes.
• 1:03:21
  Jerremy Newsome: private business, private prisons will start going outta business.
• 1:03:24
  Man that's a really hot take.
• 1:03:26
  I love that you shared it.
• 1:03:27
  It's really very valuable for us.
• 1:03:29
  Very valuable for our listeners.
• 1:03:31
  And I just wanna say, Alex, thank you for your time.
• 1:03:33
  Thank you, most importantly, for your energy, for your knowledge,
• 1:03:35
  for your enthusiasm, and for helping us solve America's problems.
• 1:03:41
  Alex Thomason Valor: Thank you for having me guys.
• 1:03:43
  Dave Conley: What did you learn on this one?
• 1:03:46
  Jerremy Newsome: I loved his veracity and his intelligent banter and wit.
• 1:03:53
  But most importantly, yeah, this seems like another giant
• 1:03:58
  system built on money, Dave.
• 1:04:00
  A lot of people are making it and they don't want to be accountable
• 1:04:03
  for what they are making, sending people to jail innocently like I have.
• 1:04:10
  I either heard that or felt that, or thought that through at least 30%
• 1:04:16
  of that conversation from a judge.
• 1:04:20
  And prosecutor,
• 1:04:22
  Dave Conley: Yeah.
• 1:04:23
  Jerremy Newsome: He's not hiding behind the fact that this happens.
• 1:04:25
  That's a really fascinating, and I think maybe something that I, I didn't think,
• 1:04:30
  because we heard that Dave, we heard this from all of the tranches of this system.
• 1:04:37
  We went to people who were in prison who got out, we're like, man, that sucked.
• 1:04:42
  And I think a lot of people in there were in there innocently.
• 1:04:45
  And then we get to the prosecutor's yep.
• 1:04:48
  A lot of people in there innocently and there's no repercussions.
• 1:04:51
  And when you brought that up, I never thought about that question.
• 1:04:55
  And so thank you.
• 1:04:57
  And I'm sure many of our listeners are blown away by the simple fact that there
• 1:05:03
  is no repercussions anywhere for anyone.
• 1:05:06
  The detective, the policeman, the prosecutor, the D, no one
• 1:05:12
  Dave Conley: What, so when in your life
• 1:05:15
  Jerremy Newsome: never.
• 1:05:16
  Dave Conley: anything?
• 1:05:17
  Anything, any job?
• 1:05:19
  Like literally anything.
• 1:05:21
  if you screwed it up,
• 1:05:23
  Jerremy Newsome: We're
• 1:05:23
  Dave Conley: was absolutely no consequences is
• 1:05:27
  Jerremy Newsome: done numerous times.
• 1:05:29
  Like it's not even oh, we convicted one guy.
• 1:05:33
  Sorry.
• 1:05:34
  My bad, like we see about this often and it's people in prison that have
• 1:05:39
  been in there for 20 years and it's not like we didn't have DNA testing
• 1:05:42
  20 years ago like we did like this.
• 1:05:44
  It is 20, 25, 20 years ago, it's 2005.
• 1:05:47
  Like we had plenty of, this is happening often and I really, I did learn that
• 1:05:57
  there's a very fast solution to this particular problem, believe it or not.
• 1:06:01
  And you and I were almost so dumbfounded because it was so elegant and fast
• 1:06:06
  and quick and feels like, seems like potentially could be extremely efficient.
• 1:06:10
  Man, I can't wait to get on stage and talk about this one.
• 1:06:13
  Dave Conley: This.
• 1:06:14
  Absolutely.
• 1:06:15
  We've done, I don't know, 50 of these so far.
• 1:06:18
  This is the first one where I've heard, oh no, there's actually
• 1:06:22
  a really simple solution.
• 1:06:23
  And I'm like, oh my God.
• 1:06:24
  There really is they're really legit is, and it's not in the sky.
• 1:06:29
  It's not crazy talk as soon as you start saying okay, if the state loses
• 1:06:35
  the state has to pay, then the state is going to be bringing like the real
• 1:06:39
  charges to the real people that we all want actually behind bars, right?
• 1:06:44
  The monsters behind bars.
• 1:06:45
  I.
• 1:06:46
  For everyone else, we're gonna be like diverting them into places where they
• 1:06:51
  need to be, like addiction specialists or treatment programs or whatever.
• 1:06:56
  Like those are the vast majority of cases that are either nonviolent or like they
• 1:07:02
  didn't have a lot of evidence or they were innocent or all of those things.
• 1:07:05
  I'm like, those people will be diverted out into places where
• 1:07:09
  actually might solve problems.
• 1:07:11
  And so that's what I heard today.
• 1:07:12
  I heard a simple solution.
• 1:07:13
  It could happen tomorrow.
• 1:07:15
  It's a, it's just a little bit of code at your state level
• 1:07:18
  and it would change everything.
• 1:07:21
  Jerremy Newsome: That is solving America's problems.
• 1:07:25
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• 1:07:28
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